The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea

The Red Room

123 The Red Room Im ChÕo ùr-u One “So, what’s new? Anything different . . . ? Don’t hold your breath.” I’m flipping through the newspaper. The world is the same today as it ever was. You take the most commonplace occurrences and report them in commonplace, reassuringly soporific language, and there you have it—nothing different from yesterday, the day before, or the day before that. You can feel it in the front-page articles with their big headlines, in the photos wedged haphazardly among them like bits of dinner stuck between your teeth, the feeling you get from stuff that’s stale and worn out. Here, tucked away in the lower-right-hand corner , a few lines about a university demonstration, there a scrunchedup paragraph about factory workers in Inch’ŏn, Masan, or some such place getting tear-gassed—and not a word of commentary about any of it. The newspapers don’t have a face you can see; the articles don’t have a voice you can hear. It’s all a facade. Everybody wears that facade ; everybody’s jockeying to be part of it. Someone was ranting last night at the bar—was it Yu? Why do you suppose he wears that very same facade himself when he says those things? Beats me. But then weren’t the rest of us just sitting there behind our own dead masks, our 124 Im Ch’ŏr-u own heavy, leaden expressions? Struck by these thoughts, I pore over the tonic ads and movie ads at the bottom of the page. Nothing new there either. I call out from where I sit on the pot: “Honey, what’s the exact time?” I raise my voice because of the water dripping from the leaky faucet. Still, I have to repeat myself more loudly before an answer arrives from beyond the bathroom door. “Thirteen minutes—oops, twelve now—before the hour. Will you be much longer?” “Got it.” Have to move fast. What a day for my innards to let me down! Damn bowels—why can’t they cooperate? It’s a miserable performance , and I realize it’s because of the booze I put away late last night. I was afraid this would happen, and that’s why at the bar I made a point of slacking off and not slugging down shots like the other guys. But it didn’t help. At my age these things shouldn’t be happening. Actually it’s not just my pathetic bowels that are to blame—there’s more to the story: Why can’t I find someplace else to work, where I can take my time on the pot instead of my wife having to report the passage of the minute hand on the wall clock while I try to squeeze something out of my wretched intestines? A job where I can arrive at work half an hour later. The way it is now is too much. Up at dawn and off to school, and after school the supplementary classes, and I’m not home till nine—what kind of a life is that? All right, enough harping on my stupid grievances—when did I start whining like this anyway? I heave a pointless sigh. “Honey, you’re going to be late. It’s six-fifteen. If you miss the bus, it’s all the harder to catch a taxi.” “Don’t you think I know that!” And so, business unfinished, I flush the toilet and splash a few drops of water on my face. From here on in, everything has a fixed order: on with the dress shirt, tie, socks, and suit, watch around the wrist, maybe plop down at the meal tray for a few hurried spoonfuls of breakfast, and then up and out. The same damn routine, the same rush, day in and day out except for the occasional holiday and—damn those supplementary classes—the all-too-short winter and summer vacations. “See, if you’d just get up twenty minutes earlier—you’re always . . .” I’m so sick of her tone of voice, have been for a long time; wish I could fast-forward it, wish she wasn’t there watching her sorry, worrisome excuse for a husband. My part in the routine is to throw on my trench coat while I’m still chewing breakfast and head for the door. My...