Han Kang - The Vegetarian

Now and then, all of this struck me as being not so much ridiculous as faintly ominous. What if, by chance, these early-stage symptoms didn’t pass? If the hints at hysteria, delusion, weak nerves and so on, that I thought I could detect in what she said, ended up leading to something more?

All the same, I found it difficult to believe that she might genuinely be going soft in the head. Ordinarily she was as taciturn as she’d ever been, and continued to keep the home in good order. On weekends she prepared seasoned vegetable side dishes for us to eat during the week, and even made stir-fried glass noodles with mushrooms instead of the usual meat. It wasn’t actually all that strange once you took into account that going vegetarian was apparently in vogue. It was only when she hadn’t been able to sleep, when the hollows in her face were even more pronounced than usual, as though she’d deflated from within, and in the morning I would ask what the matter was only to hear “I had a dream.” I never inquired as to the nature of this dream. I’d already had to listen once to that crazy spiel about the barn in the dark woods, the face reflected in the pool of blood and all the rest of it, and once had been more than enough.

All because of this agonizing dream, from which I was shut out, had no way of knowing and moreover didn’t want to know, she continued to waste away. At first she’d slimmed down to the clean, sharp lines of a dancer’s physique, and I’d hoped things might stop there, but by now her body resembled nothing so much as the skeletal frame of an invalid. Whenever I found myself troubled by such thoughts, I tried to reassure myself by running through what I knew of her family. Her father worked at a sawmill in a small town, way out in the sticks, where her mother ran a hole-in-the-wall shop, while my sister-in-law and her husband were both regular people, and decent enough — so, at the very least, there didn’t seem to be any strain of mental abnormality lurking in my wife’s bloodline.

I couldn’t think of her family without also recalling the smell of sizzling meat and burning garlic, the sound of shot glasses clinking and the women’s noisy conversation emanating from the kitchen. All of them — especially my father-in-law — enjoyed yuk hwe, a kind of beef tartar. I’d seen my mother-in-law gut a live fish, and my wife and her sister were both perfectly competent when it came to hacking a chicken into pieces with a butcher’s cleaver. I’d always liked my wife’s earthy vitality, the way she would catch cockroaches by smacking them with the palm of her hand. She really had been the most ordinary woman in the world.

Even given the extreme unpredictability of her condition, I wasn’t prepared to consider taking her for an urgent medical consultation, much less a course of treatment. There’s nothing wrong with her, I told myself, this kind of thing isn’t even a real illness. I resisted the temptation to indulge in introspection. This strange situation had nothing to do with me.

—

The morning before I had the dream, I was mincing frozen meat — remember? You got angry.

“Damn it, what the hell are you doing squirming like that? You’ve never been squeamish before.”

If you knew how hard I’ve always worked to keep my nerves in check. Other people just get a bit flustered, but for me everything gets confused, speeds up. Quick, quicker. The hand holding the knife was working so quickly, I felt heat prickle the back of my neck. My hand, the chopping board, the meat, and then the knife, slicing cold into my finger.

A drop of red blood already blossoming out of the cut. Rounder than round. Sticking the finger in my mouth calmed me. The scarlet color, and now the taste, sweetness masking something else, left me strangely pacified.

Later that day, when you sat down to a meal of bulgogi, you spat out the second mouthful and picked out something glittering.

“What the hell is this?” you yelled. “A chip off the knife?”

I gazed vacantly at your distorted face as you raged.

“Just think what would have happened if I’d swallowed it! I was this close to dying!”

Why didn’t this agitate me like it should have done? Instead, I became even calmer. A cool hand on my forehead. Suddenly, everything around me began to slide away, as though pulled back on an ebbing tide. The dining table, you, all the kitchen furniture. I was alone, the only thing remaining in all of infinite space.

Dawn of the next day. The pool of blood in the barn…I first saw the face reflected there.

—

“What’s wrong with your lips? Haven’t you done your makeup?”

I took my shoes off again and dragged my flustered wife, who’d already put on her coat, into the front room.

“Were you really going to go out looking like this?” The two of us were reflected in the dressing table mirror. “Do your makeup again.”

She gently shrugged off my hand, opened her compact and patted the powder puff over her face. The powder made her face somewhat blurry, covering it in motes. The rich coral lipstick she always used to wear, and without which her lips were ashen, went some way to alleviating her sickly pallor. I was reassured.

“We’re late. Come on, hurry up.”

I opened the front door and hurried her out, staring impatiently as she fumbled with her dark blue sneakers. They didn’t go with her black trench coat, but it couldn’t be helped. She had no smart shoes left, having thrown out anything made from leather.

As soon as the car engine started I switched on the radio to listen to the traffic bulletin, paying particular attention to any mention of issues near the Korean-Chinese restaurant that the boss had reserved. Once I’d made sure it wouldn’t be quicker to go by another route, I fastened my seat belt and released the handbrake. My wife spent a minute fussing with her coat, and finally managed to fasten her seat belt after a couple of failed attempts.

“I need this evening to go well. You know it’s the first time the boss has invited me to one of these dinners.”

We only just managed to get to the restaurant in time, and even then only because I’d gone flat out on the main road. The two-story building, fronted by a spacious car park, was clearly a sophisticated establishment.

The cold of late winter was stubbornly lingering, and my wife looked chilly as she stood in the car park dressed in only a thin spring coat. She hadn’t said a single word on the way here, but I convinced myself that this wouldn’t be a problem. There’s nothing wrong with keeping quiet; after all, hadn’t women traditionally been expected to be demure and restrained?

My boss, the managing director and the executive director had already arrived, along with their wives. The section chief and his wife turned up a few minutes after us, completing the party. There were nods and smiles all around as we exchanged greetings, took off our coats and hung them up. My boss’s wife, an imposing woman with finely plucked eyebrows and a large jade necklace clacking at her throat, escorted my wife and me over to the dining table, already laid for what promised to be a lavish meal, and sat down at the head of the table. The others all seemed quite at ease, like regulars. I took my seat, careful not to be seen to gawp at the ornate ceiling, which was as elaborately decorated as the eaves of a traditional building. My gaze was arrested by the sight of goldfish swimming lazily in a glass bowl, and I turned to address my wife, but what I saw there brought me up short.

She was wearing a slightly clinging black blouse, and to my utter mortification I saw that the outline of her nipples was clearly visible through the fabric. Without a doubt, she’d come out without a bra. When the other guests surreptitiously craned their necks, no doubt wanting to be sure that they really were seeing what they thought they were, the eyes of the executive director’s wife met mine. Feigning composure, I registered the curiosity, astonishment, and contempt that were revealed in turn in her eyes.