Kyung-ran Jo - Tongue

It looked as if he was poking at the middle of the steak with his knife. I tensed. A satisfied smile bloomed on his lips. The meat was perfectly cooked, offering just the right amount of resistance before giving way to the knife. Go ahead, take a bite, I said quietly from behind the pass. He cut off a piece and put it into his mouth and chewed. He nodded once, as if to say, Not bad at all, and cut another piece. I stood there until he was done, not missing a single moment, even seeing his lips plump with pleasure. When you eat, all the blood rushes to your lips, which become red and puffy. Like the penis when making love. Lips and penises and tongues are all special erogenous zones, crowded with nerve endings. The most sensitive moment for the tongue is the exact instant it’s touched by food.

He drank some water, then took a sip of wine. He cut into his steak and chewed, savoring it. He had a good appetite. As Uncle had told me bitterly, you can’t continue a relationship with people who don’t want to eat anything, no matter how much you love them. If someone has a good appetite, there will be room for you to be included. He cut another piece and ate it with gusto. I didn’t miss a single second of it. I stared at him so intently that I was eating that steak myself. He was cutting into me, putting me into his mouth, chewing me. I felt my lips swell like well-ripened plum tomatoes, red and taut. Next time I’ll make you a dish with truffles, I said, gently wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Truffles and asparagus are some of my favorites, both sprouting from the depths of the earth. I believed that’s how love grew as well.

“It’s too late to eat.” His voice is no longer conciliatory or contrite. I nod lightly. Eating and loving—impossible for us right now, as they require us to have warmth in our bodies.

He’s gripping the handle of the front door. “See you,” he says, his eyes on Paulie. Paulie comes up behind me slowly and pushes his head lightly against the back of my knees. Just smile at me once, even if it’s awkward, just like the first time you saw me . I watch him take a step outside and turn my back on him. If we had been a single line before, one line neatly on top of the other, now we are two separate lines going different ways. Two slanting lines are bound to meet somewhere. This feels like an obvious truth, like the way liquid always flows downward. That’s why I can send him off like this. It will just take time for us.

I’ll feel better if I eat something sweet, Paulie, I say. If there’s no cake, alcohol isn’t a bad substitute. I’m going to pour liquor to the rim of the glass, until it overflows, aggressively lick the edge of the glass, then down it. I’ll gulp it in a split second, practically leaving an imprint of my teeth on the glass. Paulie barks. I hear the door close. Don’t bark, Paulie! I throw open the refrigerator doors as if I am yanking drapes apart. Chilly air assaults me.

IF LONELINESS OR SADNESS or happiness could be expressed through food, loneliness would be basil. It’s not good for your stomach, dims your eyes, and turns your mind murky. If you pound basil and place a stone over it, scorpions swarm toward it. Happiness is saffron, from the crocus that blooms in the spring. Even if you add just a pinch to a dish, it adds an intense taste and a lingering scent. You can find it anywhere but you can’t get it at any time of the year. It’s good for your heart, and if you drop a little bit in your wine, you instantly become drunk from its heady perfume. The best saffron crumbles at the touch and instantaneously emits its fragrance. Sadness is a knobby cucumber, whose aroma you can detect from far away. It’s tough and hard to digest and makes you fall ill with a high fever. It’s porous, excellent at absorption, and sponges up spices, guaranteeing a lengthy period of preservation. Pickles are the best food you can make from cucumbers. You boil vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers, then season with salt and pepper. You enclose them in a sterilized glass jar, seal it, and store it in a dark and dry place.

WON’S KITCHEN. I take off the sign hanging by the first-floor entryway. He designed it by hand and silk-screened it onto a metal plate. Early in the morning on the day of the opening party for the cooking school, he had me hang the sign myself. I was meaning to give it a really special name, he said, grinning, flashing his white teeth, but I thought Jeong Ji-won was the most special name in the world. He called my name again: Hey, Ji-won.

He walked around the house calling my name over and over, mischievously—as if he were an Eskimo who believed that the soul became imprinted in the name when it was called—while I fried an egg, cautiously sprinkling grated Emmentaler, salt, pepper, taking care not to pop the yolk. I spread the white sun-dried tablecloth on the coffee table and set it with the fried egg, un-salted butter, blueberry jam, and a baguette I’d toasted in the oven. It was our favorite breakfast: simple, warm, sweet. As was his habit, he spread a thick layer of butter and jam on his baguette and dunked it into his coffee, and I plunked into my cup the teaspoon laced with jam, waiting for the sticky sweetness to melt into the hot, dark coffee.

I still remember the sugary jam infusing the last drop of coffee and the moist crumbs of the baguette lingering at the roof of my mouth. And also his words, informing me that he wanted to design a new house that would contain the cooking school, his office, and our bedroom. Instead of replying, I picked up a firm red radish, sparkling with droplets of water, dabbed a little butter on it, dipped it in salt, and stuck it into my mouth. A crunch resonated from my mouth. Hoping the crunch sounded like, Yes, someday, I continued to eat it. Was that the reason I equated a fresh red radish with sprouting green tops, as small as a miniature apple, with the taste of love? But if I cut into it crosswise like an apple, I wouldn’t find the constellation of seeds.

Once I take down the sign I’m unmoored, as though I have nothing else to do, as if my name were forever erased from the world.

After he’s gone I curl up on the couch in the living room, immobile. I lie there quietly, sensing the wind blowing outside, the setting sun, the arrival of morning, the descent of cold, my throat starting to hurt. I don’t fry an egg or toast bread. I heave myself from the couch once in a while to take a sip of water, and when it feels like the long, sharp end of a dried-up, hard-as-rock baguette is jabbing into my forehead, I make a face and manage to pour hot water into the coffee press for a cup. Right now, in this house, the only things I can keep down seem to be water, coffee, air. I quit counting the days after the third day. I’m gradually being split into pieces—my shoulders and arms, my head and neck. When I realize it’s night again, I feel faint, as if my tired body is laid in a large, hot copper pan. Am I slowly disappearing without attracting any attention, like a small dot? I want to stir, to move and feel my fingers and toes that seem to be evaporating, but I can’t. Help, help me up, I whisper into the deep, dark green of night. You have to snap out of this, Uncle says. You can’t allow yourself to wallow in a pool of sorrow. Get up!

Something large and hot and wet sweeps across my cheek.

I open my eyes.

Paulie is licking my face. His wide, black pupils are staring at me quietly.

Did… someone come by? I ask, raising my upper body.

Paulie barks once, in a low tone. He lies down quietly, twice shaking his head so that his ears, drooping and folded backward, swing to the front of his head. It’s his way of saying he’s hungry. I slide my hand under Paulie’s belly and pet his soft, silky coat. English setters—famous for being an elegant, powerful, expressive breed, lying quietly at their owners’ feet, pointing at prey without barking—are no longer valued for their hunting prowess. Instead they are prized for the long, silky, beautiful light-brown fur draping their bodies and their aristocratic beauty, which reveals itself when they prance around slowly, shaking their hair, taking a viewer’s breath away. Paulie nudges my knee with his nose. He seems to be saying, You’ll take care of me, right? Instead of agreeing, I rub his head with my palms—Paulie, such a loving, independent dog, with a weak homing instinct. He emits another low bark. Do you want to leave too? I ask him. Paulie flattens his stomach on the ground and puts his head on his front paws as if to say, I have to rest here a little.