Han Kang - The Vegetarian

—

“It’ll only take a minute,” he said, slipping his feet into his shoes. “You’ll come with me?”

“Where to?”

“We could just walk around, talk for a bit.”

“I’ll try and think of something that might interest you.”

“No, no, there’s no need…the thing is, I have a favor to ask.”

She looked unsure, but he’d already made up his mind. If he was to escape from this agonizing situation, the inexplicable compulsions that were gradually taking him over, he needed to get outside, out of this room. It was too dangerous for him to stay there a moment longer.

“We can talk here.”

“No, I want to walk for a bit. Besides, isn’t it stifling for you to be cooped up inside all day?”

Eventually, as though resigned to having lost this argument, she put on her slippers and followed him out. They walked down the alley without speaking to each other, and continued along the main road. When he spotted a sign for a chain café he asked her, “Do you like shaved ice?” She gave a half smile, looking for all the world like a girl on a date who doesn’t want to seem too easily pleased.

The two of them took a seat by the window. He looked across at her in silence as she mixed red bean into the shaved ice slush and licked it from the tip of her wooden spoon. As if there were a wire linking her tongue with his body, every time that little pink tip darted out he found himself flinching as though from an electric shock.

And he thought to himself that perhaps there was only one way out. That perhaps the only way out of this hell of desire would be to make those images into a reality.

“So, the favor…”

She fixed him with her glance, a dot of red bean on the tip of her tongue. In her single-lidded eyes, the simple line of which made her look almost Mongolian, her pupils, which were neither large nor small, shone with a faint light.

“I’d like you to model for me.”

She neither laughed nor became flustered. She kept her calm gaze fixed on him, as if intending to bore inside.

“You’ve been to some of my exhibitions, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be a video work, similar to my other ones. And it won’t take long. You just have to…take your clothes off.” Now that he’d finally come out and said it he felt suddenly bold, and was sure that his hands, which had already stopped sweating, would also become steadier. His forehead felt cooler too. “You’ll take your clothes off, and I’ll paint your body.” Her eyes, calm as ever, still gazed across at his.

“You’ll paint on me?”

“That’s right. You’ll keep the paint on until the filming is over.”

“Paint…on my body?”

“I’m going to paint flowers.” Her eyes seemed to flicker. Perhaps he’d made a mistake. “It won’t be difficult. An hour, maybe two — that’s all I’ll need. Whenever’s convenient for you.”

Having said all that there was to say, he lowered his head with an air of resignation and examined his ice cream. Topped with crushed peanuts and flaked almonds, it was slowly melting, the liquid pooling around the sides.

“Where?”

His mind was on the melting ice cream, which was beginning to turn to froth, when this question finally came. He looked up to find her spooning the last of her shaved ice into her mouth, its redness smeared over her bloodless lips.

“I’m planning on renting a friend’s studio.” Her face was so utterly devoid of expression, it was impossible for him to guess what was going on inside her mind. “Ah…your sister…” He wished he didn’t have to bring this up, but there seemed to be no way around it; his stammering words seemed to betray him, showing him the situation for what it really was in a flash of painful clarity. “You see…it’s a secret.”

She gave no sign of assent, but none of refusal either. He held his breath and greedily scanned her impassive features, desperate to fathom the answer that she meant this silence to signify.

—

M’s studio was pleasantly warm, thanks to the wide window that allowed the sunlight to stream in. The space was around a hundred p’yong, more like the size of an art gallery than a studio. M’s paintings were hung up in carefully chosen spots, and his painting materials were all arranged in a surprisingly ordered fashion, so much so that he found himself tempted to try them out even though he’d already put together sufficient paints and brushes of his own.

“I was quite surprised when you called me up,” M had said, when he was handing him the keys after making him a cup of tea. M had managed to secure a full-time post at a Seoul university at only thirty-two, the first from their graduating class to do so, and now his face, clothes and attitude all combined to endow him with the dignity of a professor. “If you ever want to borrow the studio again, please just ask. I spend most mornings and afternoons at the school, so it’s usually free then.”

He took down a few of M’s paintings, the ones that were slightly overlapping the edges of the window, thinking as he did so that they were far more conventional than anything he would put his name to. He spread a white sheet over the large rectangle of wooden floor upon which the light fell most strongly, and lay down upon it for a while, checking what she would have in her field of vision and whether the position would feel comfortable enough. The wooden beams spanning the high ceiling, the sky outside the window, the sheet, a layer of softness between his back and the hard floor, which was a little chilly but not unbearably so. He turned over onto his front, where different things caught his eye: M’s pictures, the patch of sunlight carved into the shade of the wooden floor, the soot caked onto the unused brick stove.

He spread out his painting materials, checked the batteries in his PD100 camcorder, set up the studio lighting for a long session of filming, opened his sketchbook, closed it again, put it back in his bag, took off his sweater, rolled up his sleeves, and waited. When it was getting on for three p.m., which was when they’d arranged to meet, he pulled his sweater back on and put on his shoes. He walked briskly to the underground station, breathing in the clean air of the suburbs.

His mobile rang, and he kept walking while he answered the call.

“It’s me.” His wife. “It looks like I’m going to be late finishing today. And the babysitter’s got a flat tire. You’ll have to pick Ji-woo up from the nursery at seven.”

“I can’t,” he answered shortly. “I can do nine at the earliest.” He heard his wife sigh.

“All right. I’ll ask the woman in 709 to look after him until nine.”

They hung up without any unnecessary small talk. That was the kind of relationship they had these days — that of business partners who were careful to excise any superfluity from their dealings, and whose only shared business was their child.

That night a few days ago after he’d gone to see his sister-in-law, he’d reached out in the darkness and pulled his wife to him, without giving himself time to think about what he was doing. Surprised and confused by this apparent show of desire, his wife still had no reason to question that this was what it was. If she’d looked, she would have seen something closer to fear in her husband’s eyes. But it was dark.

“What’s got into you?” He’d put his hand over her mouth then, so he wouldn’t have to hear that nasal voice. He pushed himself toward the image of her , finding it there in his wife’s nose and lips, the child-like curve of her neck, all outlined vaguely in the darkness. With her nipple standing straight and hard in his mouth, he reached down and pulled off her knickers. Every time he wanted to get the image of the small blue petal to open and close, he shut his eyes and tried to block out his wife’s face.