Chang-Rae Lee - On Such A Full Sea

It was a short drive, but out past one of the village gates. After heading about five kilometers on the secured, fenced tollway, Vik took an exit ramp and got onto a free road. He drove faster now, despite the poor condition of the road surface, for technically they were in the counties and should not dawdle. The coupe was powerful and nimble, and had a tracker that could steer him through the most damaging bumps and potholes but he wasn’t using it. He seemed to know the road, disregarding the all but faded center line as he swerved back and forth, racing in the clearer stretches and then braking hard at the rashes of ruts. Fan had begun to feel sick when he finally slowed and turned into a former rest area, paying what seemed to Fan a great deal of money as an entrance fee. Armed men gestured with their weapons as to where they should park. Vik didn’t seem in the least concerned. There were at least twenty other vehicles, most all Charter-level, though there was room for twice as many. Once they parked, they walked up a path through a brief stand of scrub. The path opened onto a grassy field dotted with two concentric circles of tents, or what looked like tents, but which were, in fact, semipermanent structures made of steel poling and covered with plastic tarps, blue and brown and orange, wisps of steam and smoke filtering out from the flaps. And then Fan could smell it: the cooking.

It was the weekly Saturday market, Vik told her, unofficially known as Seneca Circus. Of course, there was no actual circus of animals and acrobats, just these many tents set in the round, where one could buy food and trinkets from late morning to well past dusk, when they turned on the floodlights. It was midafternoon now, so the trade was a bit slower, but there were still all kinds of Charters and a few better-to-do counties people milling about after their meals, mostly younger couples and families, poking into the merchandise tents, where counties people sold handmade crafts of a typically high level, nothing like the junk the counties peddlers would hawk back in B-Mor, items such as paper fans and placemats mass-produced in a rustic style, which soon proved cheap and flimsy. Here, however, there were finely turned wooden bowls and handblown wineglasses, and custom jewelry, not all of it equally attractive but clearly produced painstakingly, and with pride. Of course, most Charters would not deign to leave the comfort and safety of the village for such peculiar stuff, the notion of handmade to them suggesting a thing slightly fouled, probably dirty, and in comparison with the time-honed, market-engineered perfection of their beloved brands, as special as the doodlings of an idiot. Vik was evidently not that kind of Charter, at least as far as this place was concerned, Fan recognizing the style and shape of a vase like one back at his apartment, as well as a set of inlaid cutting boards. There were wall hangings and wind chimes and soapstone sculptures for the garden; handwoven slippers and embroidered belts and vests; all kinds of old-fashioned table games for children, often involving the guiding of a small steel ball; and every variety of handcrafted natural lotions and soap, which one would assume no Charter would ever buy but did by the kilo, if more for ornamental rather than actual use.

As much as there was to purchase and take home, the primary draw was the food, especially for Vik. Each food tent was pretty much the same, the space approximately a four-by-five-meter rectangle with a cooking station centered against one long side and a counter and seats running along on the other three, the backs of the patrons sometimes brushed by a flap of the tarp. Again here was something one would never expect Charters (or even us B-Mors) to tolerate, food made and served practically outside, without the usual hygienic safeguards and standards. But this is precisely what drew this venturing lot, the chance to eat dishes prepared by an authentically ordinary person, one standing directly before you, dressed in unremarkable clothing, whose bare hands touched everything, from the raw ingredients to the plate. Whom you could speak to if you pleased. For a certain person, this was thrilling dining, an experience further heightened by the fact that the food itself was old-fashioned and indifferent to the Charter prerequisite of having to be healthful; you could get Belgian street frites, or a Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki , or a gravy-sopped plate of chicken and dumplings. They went to Vik’s favorite, the Chinese-Korean tent, where he ordered them bowls of chive jajang noodles and a small platter of braised sea cucumber, which Fan could not stop eating. Vik asked the proprietor where she had sourced the sea cucumber, as it was especially firm and sweet.

Where you think, the busy woman murmured, and not in the most friendly way. She was thick of waist, with a sturdy neck, and had prominent uplifted dark eyebrows that made one feel that she was already dubious. Ocean.

Pacific or Atlantic?

Which you want?

I don’t have a preference.

Okay. All of them.

Vik grinned, and the proprietor appeared to grin for a millisecond, too, before she went back to dipping strips of beef in batter and then into a pot of fry oil for the two men around the corner. The other four stools were unoccupied.

You like hae-sam , huh?

Fan nodded, assuming she was referring to the sea cucumber. She had just taken the last bite of it.

I like her, she said to Vik. Good appetite.

Vik smiled and asked Fan if she wanted to try the deep-fried beef with sweet-and-sour sauce. It’s excellent here. Fan said she did but that she was too full.

Better than other one, the proprietor said, which Fan took to mean the beef. But Vik didn’t respond, instead absently rooting with his chopsticks at the remaining noodles in his bowl. The woman made a deal of wiping her fingers of the batter before stepping over to the pair of men to refill their beer glasses, lingering to banter with them.

Vik took a sip of his tea. Fan now pictured what might have happened; he had left the apartment to pick up his girlfriend, who must have been back in town, and maybe come right here, but something had clearly gone wrong, a sharp disagreement or even a fight. That he had hidden his chagrin this well was something she found both sad and endearing. He was not at all like Reg, who if anything was too quick to express himself, leaping up with exuberance when a performance review went well or tugging at his hair in frustration when he couldn’t get the scooter started, though the acting out seemed to temper him, too, serve to settle him back more easily into his naturally clement rhythms. Vik, on the other hand, appeared in constant control, and when he shouldn’t be, such as right now, he invisibly exerted himself even more to master the chaos.

Do you like pies? There’s an old man here who makes ones with wild berries.

Fan was not particularly enamored of such pies but said she did, clear that Vik was restless. He paid the bill and the proprietor thanked him, murmuring, See you again. Vik crisply told her, Sure, giving a thumbs-up as they pushed the tarp out of the way to exit. Where the pies were sold it was busier, people always ready to have dessert, and they had to wait on a line that trailed outside the tent, people holding their shade umbrellas. There were no seats free inside so Vik bought two blackberry-pie slices to go plus a whole apple pie (just now in season) and they sat at one of the picnic tables, which were completely empty, despite the ideally temperate and dry day. Beyond the footprint of the villages and their scrim of projected sky domes, Charters stayed out of the sun whenever possible. Vik had had them apply sunscreen in the car but otherwise seemed unconcerned; in fact, he was craning up his face, his dark sunglasses sparkling with the uncut plash of the sun. The pie was indeed excellent, as Vik said they were, much more tart and not half as sweet as the gloopy B-Mor versions Fan had tasted, the berries mostly whole and still with their seeds, the crust crumbly and light. Vik said it was made with lard. Fan observed to him that unlike most other Charters he didn’t appear worried about toxins in his food or, for that matter, the effects of the sun, even though he was a doctor.