A Distant and Beautiful Place

The Tearoom Woman

151 The Tearoom Woman The taxi let them off in the middle of the plaza in front of the train station. As always at year’s end, there was barely room to move. Cars swung into the turnaround, oblivious to the crowds, and pedestrians precariously wove their way through the vehicles. The new department store to the left of the plaza meant even worse crowds. Before the store’s construction, the plaza was already overflowing with passengers who streamed from an endless succession of trains arriving and departing on the Seoul–Inch’ôn line, and with people trying to catch taxis. “It’s packed,” Ôm muttered to himself as he headed purposefully for the waiting room, as if they had already agreed to take a train somewhere. The woman followed, one step behind. The waiting room was as crowded as the plaza outside. Long lines of passengers leaving Puch’ôn looped back and forth in front of the ticket booths. Everywhere he looked, people were laughing boisterously and jostling each other. They all were infected with the year-end mood, rushing about as if they had important business to attend to, but all the while keeping one eye open for a little fun. “Where should we go?” He glanced at the names—Chemulp’o, Songnae, Kuro, Chonggak—but at the same time tried to think of somewhere else. The trains ran constantly, shaking the waiting room, and people began running as soon as they had pushed through the turnstile. Like all well-prepared travelers, they were dressed in so many layers that they could have rolled in the snow and still kept warm. He looked at the woman beside him. Her hands were thrust deep in the pockets of her worn trenchcoat, and the toes of her frayed shoes, which should have been replaced long ago, 152 Yang Kwija tapped the cement floor. “Let’s not go too far.” She reasoned that they had to come back anyway, so there was no point going far by train. He listened to the jingle of coins at the ticket window and looked up at the train map again. Go to the left, and there was the sea; to the right, the glittering city. Suddenly the ticket inspector seated by the turnstile exploded in anger. “Hey, you! Get over here!” he shouted. He was straddling a small electric heater and couldn’t move quickly; all he could do was wave his hands. A boy dressed in a nylon windbreaker took a few steps backward, then turned and ran from the waiting room. The inspector didn’t pursue him, sensing perhaps that there was no catching the boy. What a letdown, after the way he had shouted. He might as well have been just testing his vocal chords. When Ôm was the fugitive boy’s age, he had pulled up the backs of his tattered sneakers and buttoned his shirt whenever he heard the faraway whistle of a train. He had spent whole days hanging on the iron gate of the local train station, waiting to catch a glimpse of the trains that passed through his remote mountain village. As soon as quiet returned to the turnstile, a minor scuffle broke out at the ticket window. Ôm watched the argument between a fellow who insisted he had been shortchanged and the clerk who swore he had handed back the right amount. Then he turned in the direction of the woman. “We could go to Inch’ôn for some raw fish . . .” Actually, he didn’t want to take her to the sea. It seemed like things would just get out of hand there. He had brought her downtown because he wanted to make her feel better, but he didn’t want to make things any more complicated. “Let’s just eat dinner and head back,” she said, but her face indicated that she wouldn’t be able to work up an appetite. “All right. Let’s see if we can find some place decent.” He tried to smile. She looked at him, and he could see from her eyes that she would be more cooperative now. Again they were swept up in the crowd of the plaza. To the left was the department store, to the right the taxi stand. Vendors were encamped in both directions, their wares illuminated by bulbs hanging from a long electric cord. A cassette-tape vendor was selling pirated tapes from a pushcart, his speakers blasting as if they, at...