declining luck of my poor father. I envy her. I live on a tight budget. Buying ordinary clothes to wear at work is hard enough let alone getting a trousseau ready! What am I to do?
Miae was very happy. She told me that she had started learning to play the kayakŭm. I asked why out of all instruments she had chosen that.
‘It’s Han’s favourite apparently,’ she said. ‘He says he can’t take to noisy Western stuff, and would like to see me plucking the strings of a zither in a traditional full skirt of pastel-coloured gauze. Funny, isn’t he?’
‘It sounds a very refined taste,’ I said as I turned to face her. ‘Miae, don’t laugh, but I may even beat you to it.’ I needed courage to bring this up.
‘What? With Mr Kwŏn?’ She was surprised.
‘Umn.’ My mood of melancholy of a few moments ago had completely cleared. I told her about everything except what had happened in the hotel – a day in the mountains, a day by the sea and the night stroll by the River Han. As I did so my heart ached with love for him.
‘You sneaky minx! So you’ve gone through it all.’ She clapped her hands and rolled in laughter. We chattered on like this for sometime.
‘So what is going to happen now to our beloved study?’ Miae said. It’s true, our studies have been our lovers. Books and dreams have set us apart from our friends and contemporaries. There had been little room for men in our hearts.
‘Of course, we are not going to abandon it altogether, are we? Let’s carry on,’ I said. ‘We have to be different from the others. Probably, I shall go to post-graduate school next year. I fancy a transfer to English literature. Then in a couple of years’ time, I would like to go to America preferably with him...’ I said this with confidence then but now I feel less certain. The thought of his mother bothers me.
10 April. I have been counting the ticking of the clock virtually all day. Counting down for our reunion had started forty hours too early. Forty hours, thirty-nine... After work I went to Chongro 4th Street and roamed around the district for nearly two hours hoping to find his house. I looked into every alley, but could not find one that fitted what, from his casual remarks, I had imagined it to be like. It’s foolish of me, of course, to set out in search of a house without knowing the number or the name of the head of the family. But then I didn’t mean it seriously. Even if I had found it I would have had no courage to knock on the gate or anything like that. I just missed him so much. I would have been happy just to be around the house that he goes in and out everyday. Finally I knocked on the door of the District Office, which keeps open late.
‘I am looking for the house of a man with the name of Kwŏn. He lives around here, I am certain about that. He’s a lecturer at S University, his father is a businessman, his mother owns a number of buses, and by the way, he has a sister who is a student of E University...Would you happen to know such a family?’ The clerk gave me a pitying look. ‘You might ask for Mr Kim of Seoul City. You won’t find a house in that way.’
I don’t blame him. I turned round with giggles. What an idiot I am! I shall tell him when I see him. It will make him laugh.
11 April. Overnight the world has changed. It’s wrapped in layers of suspicion. My head is filled with cotton-wool-like substance and I can’t think clearly. ‘Social evil’ is a familiar term I hear almost every day of my life, but I have little experience of it myself. Probably my world so far has been too secluded. I have no immunization to it. Still, how can you doubt such a good and sincere man and place him in the context of social evil.
Miae’s advice was from the bottom of her heart, I know, but sadly I see that a chasm has opened up between us. She had called me in a cheerful voice just to say hello but when I told her what I did last night her tone changed.
‘When you decided to go and look for his house you must have had some idea of its whereabouts, near some landmark like a big building or a shop or a large chimney. As you know I had lodgings around there once, and as far as I can remember I can’t imagine a big private house tucked away anywhere among all those shops and shop-keepers’ houses in that area.’ Once again I appreciated her rational mind in contrast to my woolly and emotional temperament.
I hesitated for a few seconds but had to tell her about the phone calls too.
With longing and peculiar curiosity I had dialled the number he had given me. If anyone answered I would just hang up. If someone sounded nice and said hello before I put it down, I could simply say that I was a student of his and could I speak to him. It rang. I was all nerves. No one answered it. It was a relief. I tried again and again through most of the morning. I was beginning to be irritated. In the end, I phoned the enquiries and was told that the number was not registered. My heart missed a beat.
The bell in the Director’s Room rang. I was unable to stand up. So Suyŏn went in on my behalf. I gritted my teeth, got the number for S University and dialled it. The operator’s kind voice said, ‘I am afraid most teachers are away because it is still the vacation.’ Like a drowning man holding onto a straw I interpreted it as a positive admission that he belonged there. I asked to be put through to the Registration Office and confirmed that he was not on the teachers’ register. I wanted to die. I crawled into the conference room and collapsed onto the sofa. Suyŏn came in bringing in a cup of coffee.
‘Good heavens, ŏnni! What is the matter? Should I call the doctor?’ She was in a flutter. It was then that the office-boy put his face round the door and told me that Miae was on the phone.
‘I think you should stop seeing him before your affection for him grows any deeper,’ her voice was now decisive yet solicitous. ‘What is the use of loving a man who lies to you whatever reasons he may have.’
She does not know the thing that I need to hide from the world. How disillusioned she will be when she knows it. Something like a lump of lead in my throat was choking me. I could not speak.
‘Han has some friends working with the newspapers and in the Police as well, the Criminal Investigation Section in fact. I have a good mind to let them investigate the case and teach him a lesson.’ Her voice was now cool. But such words as newspapers and criminal investigation made me cringe. I could see before my eyes such headlines as ‘Professional Fraud – Fake College Lecturer Seduces Female Graduate.’
‘Please don’t tell Han, Miae. I will make another investigation and sort it out myself.’ My voice sounded cowardly, as if appealing for her mercy.
‘Alright then, I won’t. I will trust in your good sense,’ she spoke curtly and rang off. I still can’t believe he’s a fraud. He must have had his reasons. Until I know them I can’t just dismiss him like that.
It is late but I can’t sleep. Unable to bear it alone I told my sister the whole truth. I thought she might slap me in the face but she took it with unexpected calm. ‘I am going to be ill,’ she said before she went to bed, pulled the cover over her head and sobbed. She’s now asleep. I have a feeling that he will never appear before me again. My love – has he gone forever leaving sorrow in my heart? Leaving the saplings of magnolia and the buds of the lily of the valley as the only proof that he was there? The rapture of yesterday turned into sorrow today. Why did he do that? Why did he have to deceive me? He didn’t have to lie. I would have given him my all without all these lies. I am thinking of taking my life.
12 April. Sŏnhi is ill. Every time she has a shock she seems to go down with sickness. She needs several days’ quiet. Whether he will come back or not I have a duty to my work. I thought I ought to clear up all my drawers and files
