Your Republic Is Calling You (3 page)

H
ER VOLKSWAGEN ROLLS
gently into the company's parking garage. The security guard, his uniform wrinkled, comes running out when he sees her. He stands in front of the car, blocking her way. She brakes. The guard moves over to the driver's side and opens the door.

"What are you trying to do with that broken wrist? Here, get out."

She gets out, feigning reluctance. The guard gets in and
slides the car into the lift in one fluid move. She thanks him, smoothes her clothes, and enters the showroom. Inside, sparkling new automobiles are displayed like dinosaur skeletons in a natural history museum. She walks through the showroom to the office, bows with a bright smile to the branch manager, and sits at her desk. She revels in this moment, when she glances across her neat and tidy desk, opens the large drawer to the right, and places her purse inside. She also loves the hard marble under her heels when she walks into the showroom. Compared to work, home is an uncontrollable monster. There are always odd things in her kitchen cabinets—sauces she doesn't remember buying and mysterious herbal teas taking up space indefinitely because they never expire. The fridge is in such disorder that she can't get herself to clean it out. Her daughter's room is always a mess. She has a husband she still can't read and a daughter who becomes more adept at avoiding her as she grows up. Nothing at home has a clear-cut solution. Her head hurts just thinking about it all.

Her computer finishes booting up. An IM springs open. It's the manager. He often IM's her even though he sits directly behind her.

—Please report your morning schedule.

She types back:

—A customer's coming for a test drive this morning. In the afternoon I'm working on the mail merge for the motor show invitation list.

She looks behind her. The manager is studying his screen. He starts typing. Soon his message pops up on her screen.

—Ms. Jang, didn't you say you quit smoking?

She sneaks a sniff of her sleeve. She smells like mint and stale cigarettes. She takes out a fabric deodorizer spray from a drawer and heads to the bathroom. The manager, curly-haired and sporting horn-rimmed glasses, never looks up from his screen but knows everything that goes on in the showroom.
Nagging me for smoking when he used to be a druggie!
Ma-ri knows that's why he is so sensitive to the smell of smoke. He used to sell Gucci, Ferragamo, and marijuana at the imported clothing boutique he set up with money from his nouveau riche father. He waited impatiently for the arrival of the inventory not only because he was concerned about the success of his boutique but also to satisfy his own consumption. When actors, singers, and the young moneyed set heard he was a source for weed, his shop became a destination. He spent his twenties smoking marijuana and snorting coke, partying at various hotels. He never got caught, even when the singers and actors were arrested, one after the other. He avoided jail time by providing the police with the names of his well-known customers.

What Ma-ri can't understand is that the singers, actors, and other customers continued their relationships with him after serving their sentences. Is addiction that powerful? Or does he have a special charm that attracts people to him? To Ma-ri, he looks like an average middle-aged man. He is fairly short and not all that handsome. Sure, he knows how to select the right shoes to go with his nice clothes, befitting his former occupation as a clothier, but that isn't enough to overcome the limitation of his plain looks. It's been five years that Ma-ri has worked with him but she hasn't yet detected an ounce of masculine charm. Perhaps he possesses some hidden charisma that is invisible to her. After all, his second wife is a former model and he enjoys a continuous supply of women.

The network he created as a dealer is still intact. Sometimes, hoarse, has-been rockers come to the showroom and take test drives with him. They all swear publicly that they
have given up drugs, but it isn't clear if they really have. It does seem that the manager has truly quit. He says he was able to quit by turning to Christianity. When he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms, he bumped into a friend from middle school. The friend mentioned church, something he had neglected for a long time. He remembered the glorious state of transcendence he'd achieved as a teenager by speaking in tongues. Returning to church, he realized that he could transcend his current existence and achieve ecstasy without getting high. He goes to church every Wednesday and Sunday and has even stopped smoking cigarettes. He says he believes in Jesus Christ as his savior but it isn't clear to Ma-ri whether his faith stems from his belief in God or his addiction to that feeling of ecstasy.

K
I-YONG ARRIVES AT
work earlier than usual. 8:30
A.M.
His sole employee, Wi Song-gon, is already there. He's in his early thirties but almost completely bald, having begun to lose his hair in his early twenties. After college he went to work at a steel company in Pohang, then quit and attended several film schools. He dreamed of directing but ended up in Ki-yong's office, after trying his hand at different projects. Song-gon had acted as a guarantor for his father, who dabbled in inventions and had terrible credit, and ended up ruining his credit, too. To avoid having the bank garnish his salary, Ki-yong pays him in cash.

"Hello, sir, you're here early," Song-gon greets him.

"Yeah, I am. Hey, Song-gon, do you eat breakfast?" Ki-yong asks.

"Well, I know I should."

"I heard on the radio that eating breakfast makes your brain work better."

"That's what they always say. Do you eat breakfast?"

"No."

Song-gon checks his computer screen and reports loudly, "Oh, they say it's going to be difficult for
The Green Shade.
"

"Yeah? Then we shouldn't go ahead with it. It was expensive anyway. What about Bergman's film?"

"I think we'll be able to get our hands on a print, but there aren't that many places that'll show it."

"Well, find out where we can," Ki-yong directs.

"Sure."

"How's the other stuff?"

"Everything else is going well. Do you have anything important scheduled today?"

"No, I don't think so." Ki-yong sits at his desk in the corner and turns on his computer. Song-gon turns back to his computer and starts typing.

When he first started working for Ki-yong, Song-gon's screen was positioned so that Ki-yong could see it, but at some point, Song-gon turned it away. Now all Ki-yong can see is the back of the monitor. Anyone spending a few days with Song-gon will quickly realize that he has an incurable porn addiction. Ki-yong hired female employees a couple of times, but when they found out that Song-gon was surfing the Net for porn, they quit. Song-gon was never lewd with the women, but they made their decisions quickly, almost harshly. A bald porn addict with lousy credit, Song-gon possesses all the qualities a modern young woman abhors.

"People collect knives or watch bizarre movies, so what's wrong with my liking porn?" he protested once to Ki-yong, who could only agree.

But Ki-yong really wanted to say something more: "Your problem is your lack of charisma. If you were overflowing with charm, watching porn wouldn't be an issue. People will overlook anything if someone's got charm. Even if he's immoral, lies, does evil things—all of that is fine. But they can't forgive a bald loser with a lame job who watches porn."

Ki-yong tears his eyes away from Song-gon and carefully opens a drawer. Three empty 35-mm film canisters are rolling around inside. Someone's gone through his desk. Placing empty film canisters upright in his drawer is his preferred method of booby-trapping. He glances at Song-gon. It's possible, but he doesn't think he could be the culprit. Ki-yong absentmindedly plays with the film canisters. This is already the second time. The CIA, working out of the American embassy in Moscow, once created a set of protocols called the Moscow Rules. There is one rule in particular that he recalls: "Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action." That means there is one more break-in to go.

Ki-yong presses his temple with his fingers. His headache is starting up again. Who rummaged through his drawer overnight? He doesn't keep anything important in there. Only files and pens and pieces of paper that would be in any movie importer's desk. Should he install a surveillance camera? He might be able to prevent a random infiltration but he wouldn't be able to detect the traces of someone targeting him. A professional wouldn't enter a room equipped with a surveillance camera, and there is no need to go to such lengths to apprehend a novice. He could also install a hidden camera but they would be able to figure out its existence with an electromagnetic detector. He senses something ominous brewing.

The phone rings. Song-gon picks up. "It's for you."

Ki-yong takes the phone.

"Is this Mr. Kim Ki-yong?"

"Yes?"

"I sent you an e-mail but you haven't opened it."

"Who's this?"

The man pauses for a moment. "I'm a friend of Ansong Uncle. I started a new loan company. If you ever need quick money for your business please give me a call."

"I'm sorry? Who?"

The caller hangs up.

"Hello? Hello?" Ki-yong returns the receiver to its cradle, his brow furrowed.

He bites his fingernail, unsettled. He swivels his head, taps his desk lightly with his fist. Hesitating, he places his mouse over the Outlook Express icon. He doesn't know what will leap out of the tiny icon. He pauses once more before double clicking. With a whir of the hard drive, the e-mail program pops up. He selects his inbox and enlarges the window. One e-mail announces the imminent arrival at customs of a print of an Iranian movie he licensed last fall at the Pusan International Film Festival. There are messages about his college class holding a charity event and an agent telling him about a few movies with affordable licensing fees. The rest are spam. But he reads each title carefully and deletes them one by one, rather than selecting and deleting them all at once. His cursor pauses at a subject line that reads: "(Ad) Instant Loan Without Collateral for Office Workers and Civil Servants."

He glances around him surreptitiously. Song-gon, about to get up from his seat, catches his eye.

"Oh, do you need something?" Song-gon asks.

"No, I'm fine."

"Do you want some coffee?"

"Do we have any made?"

"No, but I can make some."

"Thanks. I'd love a cup."

As Song-gon makes coffee, humming, Ki-yong clicks on the e-mail. The words in the body of the e-mail disappear
in a series of flashy effects. He reads the e-mail carefully. He clicks on the red "here" in "Please click here if you want an estimate of a loan." A new window pops up. When he clicks on another word, another window pops up. He goes through a couple more of these. When he reaches the end of the process, he pauses again and looks around. The coffeemaker is hissing steam. Song-gon brings over the carafe and a mug. Ki-yong quickly changes the open window to Google.

"Here you go," Song-gon says, pouring the coffee.

"Thanks. That Iranian movie is going to go through customs soon."

"Oh, good. I guess we'll get busy again when it gets here."

"Yeah."

Ki-yong opens Outlook again only after Song-gon is settled in his seat. He closes all the pop-ups and opens the last window. Finally the last message appears.

The jars of octopus—
brief dreams
under the summer moon

Ki-yong swallows, his mouth is dry. It feels as though he's swallowing the sentence, syllable by syllable. He gulps down the coffee cooling next to his mouse. If memory serves him right, this haiku signals Order 4. He turns and selects from the bookcase volume 53 of the
World Poetry Collection
published by Minumsa. That haiku, written by Matsuo Basho, is printed on page 67. Ki-yong feels his hands get clammy. He tries to relax by balling his fists and opening them repeatedly. He subtracts 63, the last two digits of his birth year, from 67. Four. The order he's never received. He can't deny that it has arrived.

This haiku has a prelude, "One night in Akashi." Akashi is a Japanese town famous for its octopus. The fishermen, taking advantage of the octopus's tendency to hide in small
spaces, toss clay jars into the sea at night. In the morning they pull up the jars and capture the octopi. The octopi dream their last dreams in hiding.

Ki-yong flips through the book. In the 1980s, Lee Sang-hyok of Office No. 35 rediscovered the benefit of transmitting codes through poetry and books. You didn't have to fumble with a table of random numbers or shortwave radios. All you needed were a few books and a good memory. Order 4 could be given through several different poems. Pablo Neruda's sonnets and Khalil Gibran's aphorisms and maxims. The seventeenth-century monk's haiku that has planted itself in Ki-yong's lap is starved of its literary significance, much like a camel that loses weight after passing through a vast desert. Ripe nuances disappear and only one meaning remains: "Liquidate everything and return immediately. This order will not be revoked." Basho's haiku, like the order itself, hints at the end of dreams.

He believed the order would never come. No—he believed that all orders, not only this one, were forever on hold. But here it is, resting in his inbox. He can't tell who sent it, or why it was sent now. Drumming his fingers on his desk, he tries to gather his thoughts. Since the purge of Lee Sang-hyok, ten years has passed without a single order. The agents sent south by Lee Sang-hyok were cut off from the north and from one another, and they focused on their own survival, unaware of—no, turning a blind eye to—one another's existence.

Is this a cruel joke? Or a mistake, delivered to him but meant for someone else? Or maybe it was supposed to be sent later but was accidentally transmitted now. No. The person on the phone definitely said his name. Did Lee Sang-hyok return to Liaison Office 130? Is he restoring the lines of communication he established years ago? Ki-yong sinks into
the murky depths of confusion. It's as if he's awoken from a dream only to discover that it has become reality, all the while refusing to admit to himself that he had the dream. He has to go through several more steps in the e-mail to learn the details of where, when, and how to return, but he stands up. On his way out, he trips over a plastic wastepaper basket, toppling it with a crash. It has been rooted to the same spot for several years and he's never bumped into it. Paper cups and Kleenex are strewn all over.