Bae Suah - Nowhere to Be Found

The next morning I got up early and headed for Cheolsu’s house. The sky was overcast and the forecast said the weather would be even worse by the afternoon. It was as cold as it was hazy, and the damp, frigid air seeped all the way down to my bones. My sister and I had only one winter coat between the two of us. She was younger and frailer than I was, so on winter mornings I usually told her to go ahead and wear it since I wasn’t that cold. That morning, as well, I left the house with only my pink sweater for warmth. Cheolsu’s mother handed me the chicken in a disposable aluminum container tucked inside a paper bag. The chicken was warm, but it would soon cool and turn hard as a rock. I couldn’t stop myself from frowning. Cheolsu’s whole family was sitting around the kitchen table. I turned down their offers of breakfast and told them I’d already eaten. His father said grace. The praying family looked pious and cultured. When I thought about the fact that Cheolsu had had these kinds of mornings the whole time he’d known me, my body twisted with awkwardness.

“This is Cheolsu’s girlfriend. She’s on her way to visit him today.”

They all stopped eating and stared hard at me.

“Girlfriend? He never said anything about a girlfriend,” Cheolsu’s younger sister said, staring openly at my old, pilly sweater. “You know he tells me everything .”

“Why would he tell you about his love life?” their mother said sternly. “Anyway, this is your brother’s girlfriend, so be nice.”

The family probably went on talking about me after I left. Cheolsu’s sister would have said, “Why are her clothes so out of style? What school did she say she went to?” Cheolsu’s father would have asked, “What does her father do? Do they go to church? Where did she graduate from?” Cheolsu’s mother would have solemnly lectured her daughter that dressing neatly is all that matters, and she would’ve said that belittling someone for wearing old clothes is not the mark of a true human being. Then, when the daughter wasn’t around, she would have told her husband what Cheolsu and I were doing when no one else was home. “We need to give him a good talking to, but we have to remain objective and not get emotional when we do. He’s already an adult. He has to manage his own life. Could you talk to him? In the meantime, I’ll keep pretending I didn’t see anything.” Cheolsu’s father would momentarily experience the classic worry that that girl would be a ball and chain, an obstacle to Cheolsu’s future.

It was a long way to the army base. I took a bus to the subway, then the subway to Uijeongbu, and then an intercity bus for miles and miles. The streets of Uijeongbu, where winter was just taking hold, were dull and deserted. The cold had come on quickly and frozen the streets lined with lonely restaurants and shady-looking bars. Near the army base lurked women in blue eye shadow and tight clothes that clung oddly to their bodies. A restaurant with faded roof tiles, called The Rose Garden, stood bleakly at the end of the road. A perfectly gray street. An old and dirty street. The Rose Garden didn’t look anything like a rose. I sat on the intercity bus with no coat, as frozen as a scarecrow in an unsown rice paddy in the middle of winter, until the bus reached the stop where an old woman with chipped and worn nail polish told me I should get off. By the time I stepped off the bus in front of the army base in the middle of an empty field, Cheolsu’s chicken in its paper bag was completely cold. The bus left. At least I was not the only woman there — it was the weekend, after all.

“Who are you here to see?”

Women — all there to visit soldiers — filled the PX. A guard wrote down my name and ID number with a black ballpoint pen.

“Kim Cheolsu.”

The guard looked up at me. “Kim Cheolsu isn’t here today. He’s out on a training exercise.”

“That can’t be. He told me to come today.”

“The exercise was announced at the last minute. But he’s not far. I can tell you where to find him. Do you want to go visit him in the field?”

“Sure.”

“It’s about four kilometers from here. The bus will get you there right away, or you can walk. Just take any bus that stops out front, then get off in front of the fishing hole. There are signs pointing the way to the base HQ. Follow those signs and they’ll lead you right to the drill field. It’s easy. Just head there and you’ll find him.”

Soldiers who’d been called to the PX were checking in before meeting with their girlfriends, mothers, and younger sisters. I would rather have died than leave the warm PX and go back out into the cold, windy streets, but I had no choice. I picked up the bag of chicken and headed to the bus stop. I stamped my numb feet while waiting for the bus. Luckily, it didn’t take long. I sat near the front. I was supposed to get off at a fishing hole? I tried to remember what the guard had said. In front of the fishing hole. The scenery outside the bus window looked completely different than before. Paddies and fields (I never could tell the difference between the two) and sheds and vacant houses whirled past. I couldn’t tell anything apart, as though I was looking at a piece of film that kept replaying the same scene. A little kid in dirty clothes was sitting in the street in front of a house, crying with his mouth wide open. After the bus had taken several turns and gone over a hill, I saw the same little boy in front of the same house, still crying. Was it really the same kid? I looked around and tried to jog my memory. Identical vacant houses, fields, paddies, sheds, and bus stops slid past. How long had I been on the bus? It could have been hours, and it could have been only five minutes. Was this bus going in circles through the same village? The sky was as overcast as it had been early that morning, and it hung down dark and heavy, as if snow would come spilling down any minute. Then there was the static electricity of this ominous winter coldly dominating the whole world. I waited and waited, but the announcement for the bus stop in front of the fishing hole never came.

“Excuse me. I need to get off at the fishing hole. Is it still far away?” I asked the driver.

“Fishing hole? This bus doesn’t go there,” the driver said.

“Then where should I get off?”

“You’ll have to get off at the next stop, cross the street, and catch another bus. It’s quite far.”

I knew the guard had said I could take any bus, but what could I do? I got off, sat on the bench at the desolate, abandoned bus stop, and waited for the next bus. I already regretted making this visit. A dog the size of a calf walked past me, carrying a dark red lump of flesh in its mouth. A dead rat, perhaps. Snow began to fall. It settled into a thin layer on my hair and my old sweater. The dog with the rat in its mouth turned to me with empty eyes, huffing and panting. I thought that maybe it was studying the bag of chicken in my hand. It looked like it had something to say to me.

Give me some chicken and I won’t eat you.

A bulletin board beside the bus stop displayed a “Wanted” flier. There were none of the usual movie posters or nightclub ads. I read the flier out loud to try to stave off the cold.

Wanted by police: One female, last seen with dyed hair and wearing baggy pants; and two males, both wearing basketball sneakers. Suspects are believed to be drifters from the city. On September 4, Kim (alias), a thirty-nine-year-old male resident of Seoul, and Jeong (alias), a twenty-seven-year-old female resident of Uijeongbu, were found murdered. Reports indicate that Kim was escorting Jeong home after they had dinner together at The Rose Garden. Kim was killed by repeated blunt force trauma to the back of the head, and his body was found on the side of the road leading up to Jaein Waterfall in Yeoncheon. Time of death is estimated at 8:00 a.m. on September 4. Around 9:00 a.m. of the same day, Yi Sun-im, Jeong’s sixty-year-old landlady, heard groans coming from Jeong’s room and found her with multiple stab wounds to the head and chest. Jeong was transferred to the hospital but passed away at 2:00 p.m. The car that Kim and Jeong left The Rose Garden in has yet to be found. According to anonymous witnesses, after eating dinner Kim stated that he would drive Jeong home, and they left the restaurant together. In the parking lot, some unidentified youngsters who appeared to be hippies from the city tried to hitch a ride and became angry when Kim refused them. Witnesses say they cursed at him and then disappeared into the dark. Police found no leads to suggest that anyone had a grudge against Kim, or that he had been in any financial disputes, and there were no indications that he was involved in any sexual affairs. Therefore the police are investigating this group of youngsters as the prime suspects in this case. The suspects are believed to be in their early to midtwenties. They are described as vulgar of speech and poorly dressed, and the woman’s hair is dyed wine red. They’ve been spotted frequently in red light districts and up in the hills near Daegwang-ri, Uijeongbu, and other nearby cities. Kim was driving a black Sable. Anyone with any information on these suspects or who may have spotted these individuals is asked to contact the Yeoncheon Police Department.