Border Market

Cho was getting ready to leave when the call came into the consulate. A man who had illegally entered the country had been arrested near the border and was speaking Korean in a half-crazed state, so Cho was asked to come immediately. Cho crushed the cigarette he had been smoking and made his way down to the parking lot. The inside of the car was like a greenhouse, hot and humid.

Two hours later, Cho arrived at the border control and met the man in question. Cho could immediately tell that there was something peculiar about him. His muddied and bloodstained shirt was ripped, exposing black and blue bruises. Foam gathered on his mumbling lips. Cho was told that at the time of his apprehension, his only possession was a packet of yellow powder in his pants pocket, the contents of which were still under analysis.

Cho purposefully sat across the table. A patrolman was present, but the man in question, in his deranged state, could still strike him with his handcuffed hands. The unidentified man looked like a drug offender. He must have taken a serious amount of drugs to be high enough to attempt to cross the river. The Neuneka River, which bordered countries N and P, was a famous boating channel for drug dealers.

“Could I have a cigarette, please . . . ?”

Cho was relieved to hear the man speak a coherent sentence. Despite his outward appearance, he looked to be in a reasonable state of mind. Cho proceeded to ask him about his name, age, address in Korea, how he ended up in P, and how he got himself detained. The man’s answers were slow and deliberate but filled with inconsistencies. Cho hinted subtly at this fact, but the man was preoccupied with other thoughts. “We’re in P, you said?” He tilted his head quizzically. “I was sure I was in N . . . .” After that, the man fell into a state of confusion and stared vacantly out the window without another word. Even more absurd was his reason why he could not answer the questions properly: he had sold away his memories. This man, who spoke a Seoul dialect, was not right in the head, Cho concluded. When Cho asked the man what the last place in his memory was, a look of certainty appeared on his face for the first time.

“I was at the Border Market.”

Naturally, such a place did not exist around here. Cho capped his pen and closed his notepad. Nothing was going to come out of this investigation until the man was fed, rested, and his state of mind had improved.

Cho reassured the man that he would submit a report to the consulate right away, and urged him to rest and to write down anything he remembered. As soon as Cho signaled that the interview was over, the patrolman standing behind him took the man away. When a fellow countryman is put on trial a lawyer must be appointed for the defendant. For Cho, this meant more work.

Two weeks later Cho received the report that no drugs had been found in the man’s system. At Cho’s request, the police faxed over the man’s written statement. The fax read as follows:

Where should I begin? First thing that comes to mind is Rona. Rona and Zuko. They’re not here anymore. No, they might be somewhere nearby. The moon is playing tricks on us. I will go meet Rona on the next full moon.

The man from the consulate told me to write down anything I remembered. This was a wise and appropriate advice. Having a piece of paper in front of me allowed me to gauge just how much I still remembered. I'm not sure how many fish scales I’ll be able to buy with the memory I have left.

It all started in the overwater bungalows at Mekadé.

Mekadé is near the border of N. It’s a country village with no tourist attractions to speak of—nothing to see...