Where No One Had Ever Been

• Published Nov 17, 2016 5:58 PM KST
• Updated Nov 17, 2016 5:58 PM KST

Written by Hwang Jung-eun

Translated by Kim You-jeong and Amy Russ

No one… said it would take this long. He twisted himself around once again in his cramped seat. The seat belt buckle that he had unfastened poked his left buttock. He fumbled for the buckle under his bottom and put it aside. The flat, hard metallic part felt warm because of his body temperature. How could I not notice that I was sitting on this for so long? Feeling that his ears popped, he swallowed. Higher air pressure seemed to dull his hearing, and thus his other senses. His wife, wrapped in a blanket, was watching a movie on the screen that was attached to the back of the seat in front of her. They were off to Europe. The flight would take eleven hours, even without the layover time. I thought I was prepared for this, but it feels like forever. The plane was flying across the border between Mongolia and Russia. While he was watching a movie to pass the time, he repeatedly glanced at the play time at the bottom of the screen and calculated how much longer the flight would last. Assuming that nearly thirty minutes have passed, he checked the time, but learned that only five or six minutes had passed. The perception of the way time flew or how time was spent was different from that on the ground. Maybe in midair, he thought, time might pass a little bit strangely at this high altitude… Furthermore, aren’t we going back in time? Every minute towards the past… What’s more, it is night.

From time to time he got up, walked to the partitioned area between lavatories and seats, stretched himself, took a deep breath, and then came back to his seat. To him, his wife seemed to deal with the flight better than him. She watched a movie, her small body snuggled in the seat, and slept well wrapping a pillow around her neck. She even asked a flight attendant for wine. He chose one more movie and leaned back. Then he watched the movie, still numbed by the engine noise and air pressure. There were many children in the movie. Yet, there was not even one adult, which also confused the children in the movie. When he turned his head to the left, he saw his wife crying. Wearing her earphones, she gazed fixedly at the screen, her cheeks glossy with tears. He could not see her screen from his seat because of the narrow angle. He left her alone. She would sometimes cry, but soon become all right. Eventually she stopped crying and asked a passing flight attendant for another small bag of pretzels. He heard his wife tear the bag, dig inside of the bag with her thumb and forefinger, and crunch the salty snack in her mouth. He stretched his neck so that he could adjust the position of the neck pillow, but no matter what he tried, his posture remained uncomfortable. Again, he felt his chest was becoming tight. The children in the movie were going into a maze that opened in the morning and closed at night.

They would have to get off in Helsinki to transfer planes. They planned to enter Europe through Warsaw and, by way of Krakow and Prague, travel down to Berlin and return to home from there. When he planned the trip, he put a world map on the wall of the living room and traced their itineraries by drawing lines connecting each city with a marker. When he finished drawing the line up to Berlin, the shape of a bowl appeared. His wife said it looked like a smiling mouth. This was their first overseas trip. They decided on this trip this past summer suddenly: he and his wife, as if they had mulled over it for a long time, made up their minds at a single stroke. She was probably the one who pulled the trigger. Smog or heat could have affected her decision. After they closed their store, walking back home, she disappeared. He stood waiting for her in the evening street, but soon he retraced his steps. He found her inside a travel agency that he had passed by indifferently. Sitting on a folding chair, she was listening to the explanation about travel programs. Her left leg was apathetically extended out from her chair, and her face looked absentminded. He sat next to her for a while and then took her outside. When he asked her why she went in there, as if he had asked her, “What’s up?” she answered, “It’s hot.” The sweltering and humid nights that had lasted for the past few days generated a stifling air. The night mist seemed to be mixed with orange, green, and yellow particles. She would call them people’s breaths and hated them, though she gave no sign of such emotion. He closely looked at her face: forty six. When he asked her if she wanted to go on a trip, she said yes.

They skimmed through the pamphlets that they received from the travel agency and chose the entrance and exit cities. Then, they paid a second visit to the agency. “How do we go from one city to another?” “How do we reserve the train tickets?” “Where do we find accommodations in a suitable spot?” They frequently stopped by the travel agency, paid the service fee, listened to more explanation, and revised their routes little by little. Four months later, they took solidly packed suitcases out of their house. Both of them were wearing wool coats. It was November. While he was double checking the front door, she stood blowing her breath, no scarf around her neck. “All set?” “Lock, plugs, windows… All set.” More or less dazed, they started to walk. Her suitcase had front wheels which rolled only straight and back wheels which spun freely. She had trouble with her suitcase tipping over and over again, and each time, he stopped moving and stood to wait for her. Soon she got the hang of it. There were some documents in his suitcase, including the flight tickets, the confirmation sheet of the ticket purchase for the night train, and the hotel voucher. He made multiple photocopies of those documents and put them in her suitcase, and wherever there were zippers.

They had one more in-flight meal before their arrival in Helsinki. It was announced that the passengers should open the window shades. It was evening in Helsinki. He caught a glimpse of a plain right before their landing and looked down at the golden river snaking its way through it. The conifers in the northern hemisphere were submerged in a sunset glow. The airplane swayed from side to side and descended towards the runway.

It was already night when they arrived at Warsaw Airport. They took the subway to the station near the hotel where they had a reservation. They lifted their suitcases onto the old stairs in Central Station going to the street level. There, feeling disoriented, they stood still for a while. The place reminded them of the unlit Seoul Station Square: the buildings awkwardly rose out of the wide roads and flat areas, the stores were closed, and the street lamps were dim. A group of young men who were standing with their backs towards a graffiti wall were staring at them. He grabbed her suitcase in his hand and let her walk right next to him. They were the only people that walked with suitcases, and the only Asians at that place at that time. He kept that in mind. Their hotel was on the main road. In the lobby, they received the keys and went up to their room. It was a shabby room, smelling of tourists who may have looked for cheap deals. The furniture was stripped of varnish, the wallpaper was worn down and faded, and there was an LG TV set. There must have been some better rooms on other floors in that hotel, but they were so exhausted that they just decided to sleep there. They took off their shoes at the front door. They took a shower while both standing and bumping into each other in the empty bathtub. He held some water in his mouth to rinse, but he spat it immediately. The water tasted salty and fishy. She did not mind it and rinsed her mouth vigorously several times. She finished taking a shower first and left. When he stepped out, he found her lying down on the bed in a bathrobe. A red rug with black patterns was placed around the bed, and as soon as he stepped on it barefoot, hard and tiny objects stuck fast onto his soles. Grimacing, he lifted one of his feet to examine his sole. She was snoring, and he laid himself on the bed, too. He put his cheek onto the pillowcase, which smelled of soup, and closed his eyes.

They seldom traveled together, only five or six times at the most. The first trip was their honeymoon on Jeju Island. The second trip was an outing to a valley rather than a trip that his company arranged for team building. He had worked for that company until he retired. Back then, they had a child. Sixteen years ago, their child was six years old. His wife dressed her in a sleeveless shirt and shorts. On the shirt, there was a giraffe applique on the left side of the chest, and there was a double fold hem at the bottom edge of the shorts. The child was wearing blue sandals without her socks on, and since she walked in her sandals against the current, they were ruined even before the summer was over. It was scorching in the sun. Adults and their children had lunch and hung out under the parasol. When someone, whom neither he nor his wife could recall correctly (possibly someone from the sales team), made a microphone prop using a spoon wrapped with aluminum foil, their child snatched it and intently gazed at it. On the way back home in the car, her mom reprimanded her. She sharply scolded her for embarrassing her parents with her impolite manners. His wife habitually dredged up that memory: she regretted it.

At that picnic, people feasted on an abundance of food that they had brought with them. Children’s arms and legs were tanned darker even before half the day passed. The children, all between three and twelve years old, were hesitant, daring, shy, ungainly, healthy, yelling, whimpering, and downright stubborn in their own ways. When people were about to wrap up the picnic, they gathered the children in one place and counted them. One, two, three, four, five, six… Among them, one child graduated from college, another became a mom, and yet another became a father. Among the twenty five children, only their child could not become an adult. It might not be exactly true, but he and his wife believed that: only our child could not become an adult.

He, his wife, and their child, the three of them once went on a picnic. They went into a mountain valley with their lunchbox and towels ready. They managed to find a low waterfall. There were wide, flat rocks and shady areas. The basin of the waterfall was turquoise blue. First, he went into the water and then their child followed. His wife got into the water too, but not so deep as to immerse her head. The water was freezing. After spending a while standing in the water, she got out. Feeling chilly, she sat under the sun. Their child came out of the water, well-groomed as if the current had combed her. She climbed to a wide, flat rock and jumped back into the water. She was pretty good at swimming and she liked the water. Her body would sink and then float to the surface of the water again. Her thin arms swayed as if flapping the water. Standing in the water, he glanced at the waterfall. His wife was watching both her husband and daughter, sitting on the sunny side of the rock. Their child’s wet footprints dried up and disappeared on the heated rocks in a second. She was eight years old, and that was fourteen years ago.

In the stillness, he opened his eyes. The gap between the blackout drapes clued him in that it was dawn. The windows and the door were firmly closed, and the room was covered in dust. The red part of the carpet looked even more obsolete and dirty in the sunshine. Sitting at the edge of the bed, he looked at his own feet that were placed on the carpet, and then made an international call with the hotel phone. Following the directions that he had written on the note, he pressed the numbers and waited for the ringtone. He told his brother-in-law, who was taking care of their store, that they arrived well and asked after him. His brother-in-law replied, “Brother-in-law, our country went broke.”

The Korean Government lost its economic sovereignty. Last night when he and his wife were flying in midair at thirty thousand feet, because of the Korean Government’s decision to owe massive debt, its economic sovereignty was passed into the hands of the International Monetary Fund. Large-scale corporate restructuring was imminent. Struck dumb, all he did was to continue listening to his brother-in-law. “What’s wrong?” His wife asked. He told her the news that he heard from her brother. She raised her upper body and leaned against the head board. Her bathrobe gaped open in front, revealing her flat chest. She asked what would happen next. Stunned, he shook his head. He answered in all honesty, “I don’t know. The International… Monetary Fund… I don’t even know what that is.”

They had breakfast at the hotel on the ground floor. Besides them, there were other Asians. Sitting among those who were speaking Japanese, Chinese, and English, they drank juice and spread butter on their bread in silence. They were the only Koreans. Should we spend less money? We should keep traveling, right? They went back to their room, apprehensively sat down, and left the hotel around lunch time. They walked in the opposite direction from where they were pulling their suitcases last night. The street was broad, orderly, and spotless, but somewhat radiated a waning impression. Old buildings with seared walls still survived beside their modern counterparts. It occurred to him that they were still restoring the ruined city after the World War. On the way to a square in the old city district, they stopped by a toy store run by a Jewish merchant. Bending over, his wife turned a handle attached to a small music box. More than one hundred music boxes had pins protruding on each cylinder, which created different musical notes. Observing that his wife was attempting to touch the tenth music box even after she had already tried every single handle of the previous nine, he grabbed her arm. The old city square was located right in the neighborhood. The buildings in the square were painted with many different vivid colors, and tourists were having their pictures taken with those iconic buildings in the background. In the square, they found horse carriages and a train run by tires and wheels instead of on a railway. He and his wife purchased their tickets on time and got on the train. The train passed by the ghetto boundary and the Mari Currie Museum. Made of iron, the train seats completely lacked any cushioning, roughly and harshly bouncing the passengers’ bottom. When the train stopped at the crossroad for a moment because of a wrangle with a milk delivery truck, she suggested getting off. They walked on the road covered with smooth gravel, passed by the terrace of a coffee shop, and went into a china store. She looked at some china whose vines and fruits were painted blue and fiddled with little cups on the shelf. He followed her, but in the end waited for her outside. She came out of the store empty-handed. Only then did they look around to see where they were. In order to go back to the square where the train departed, they seemed to have no choice but to retrace their steps, so they began to walk.

They went inside a restaurant near the old castle wall. They ordered beef steak that was served with soup and potatoes. The table was covered with a seemingly hand-made crochet lace cloth, and the scarlet-painted wall was decorated with the framed pictures and posters. There were also frames of newspaper clippings. He recognized one of those news articles. He read English letters printed in bold font: Pathfinder. That was the name of the spaceship which landed on Mars several months ago. The picture dispatched by the spaceship, which had traveled across outer space for seven months, was hung right at his eye level. He could not read the rest of the news that was written in Polish, but was able to guess the story because Korean newspapers had also covered it. Being stationed on the planet, the probe will explore the possibility of life. To him, that planet seemed like a place where something used to live, but had already left. It looked nothing like an untapped mysterious planet where life hadn’t arrived yet. When he turned his head, he saw his wife looking at the same thing. He looked around the restaurant. A vase, where a bunch of huge lilies was placed, had dazzling patterns painted on the surface, and so did the old girder on the ceiling. Even after he finished appreciating those patterns, tilting his head back, she was still looking at the news article framed on the wall.

He asked, “Why are you looking at it for so long?

“You know, it’s Mars.”

“Nothing special about that.”

“It’s right over there, but I’ll never go and see it in my lifetime.”

“We can’t go to Mars.”

“Right, we can’t.”

“Neither can other people.”

“America made it. They even took pictures, just like that.”

“The American Government made it. Nobody is there. It was an unmanned spaceship. No one can go there even now.”

The chef, who had a stock stain on the front of his clothes, personally served the plates. The back of his hand was thick-skinned and covered with dark hair, the same as his head, and his fingernails were bluntly cut. The chef said to his wife, looking into her eyes, “Kiotsukete, plate is hot. Very very hot.” The plates, glasses, and forks smelled fishy. The food was delicious. They ate the food, while drinking beer instead of water.

As her face glowed red, she started to talk about the bike:

One day our child… much embarrassed, called home… Her story just didn’t add up… She kept saying… Mom, I don’t know… I don’t know what happened but… When I demanded that she should speak more clearly, she confessed that someone had stolen her bicycle seat… It just disappeared… When I asked her where she was, she named somewhere… My poor little one rode quite far… So I told her to meet me at such and such a place and I went there…

It was when their child was eight years old. As the child pulled her seat-missing bike, walking from one bus stop to another, her face was all tear-smudged. His wife didn’t realize that she was crying until her child was very close to her, all because of the child’s muffled weeping. The child, having recognized her mom standing at the crosswalk, rushed toward her, yanking her bike. Looking down at her child, who explained, as if justifying herself, that somebody had taken her seat away but she had no idea who would possibly do that, his wife held her child’s head tightly to the side of her belly. Her head was hot. His wife brushed off the male flowers of ginkgo trees that were stuck to the top of her black head. Where a seat should have been, there was only an upright pipe. His wife said that the seat-missing bike represented a totally confusing world. What son of a bitch stole it? Where did the seat go? What the world has completely stripped from my child… What it has torn off in its own way and completely tucked away… This would be only the beginning, I thought… Starting from this, my child will undergo yet more devastation from now on. She’ll have cuts and bruises all over her body. The more she gets hurt, the more of an indifferent and unflustered person she’ll gradually become. That’s what I was thinking…

He listened in a half-absent way.

It was the story that he had heard over and over again.

The next day, pulling their suitcases again, they headed to Central Station. The train departed on schedule. After appreciating the hills brushing against the outside window in low and soft curves, they arrived in Krakow. They walked up to the hotel. There was a gorgeous park, whose surrounding buildings kept the city’s rich history intact. He liked this city more than the capital, because the image of ruins was absent here, yet she didn’t agree with him. “Look closely,” she said when they were taking a stroll at night. She pointed out that people ran their business on the first floor - the shops for things like souvenirs, cosmetics, jewelry, soaps and other bath products, kebobs, and sandwiches, yet no light was seen upstairs. “No one seems to live upstairs. Don’t they all go somewhere else when they call it a day? As the night wears on… I think all of the buildings will be vacant. All of these buildings.”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said.

“You see, there’s no light upstairs.”

“They might all be sleeping.”

His reply was immediate and brusque. He sensed that she registered his emotion and closed her mouth. There was no need for an excuse or explanation. Even with a split-second tone, silence, or a word, they perceived how the other was feeling. He felt that she cowered like a tiny pebble. Looking down at freshly fallen leaves, he spun around out of the blue. With his hands in his coat pockets, he kept walking, but then spun around again. She burst out laughing and put her hand in his coat pocket, and inside his pocket, he held her hand.

During their entire stay in Krakow, it was foggy in the morning and in the evening. His throat was swollen. Each time he swallowed his saliva, he felt an angry lump inside of his throat. It also hurt when he breathed in. When they left Krakow and arrived in Prague, they tried to find a pharmacy. He managed to receive Strepsils after attempting to describe his symptoms to a pharmacist who was looking at him with a cold gaze. His symptoms calmed down in the evening, but flared up again in the morning. The air was freezing and terribly dry. Once a day he stopped by a café to sooth his sore throat with hot wine which was mixed with honey and pieces of cinnamon bark. She bought a scarf and wrapped it around her neck. She wore the same outfit two days in a row. She explained that she did not need to change her clothes because she did not sweat at all, and anyway she would put on a coat; yet he still detected her vague, but clear body odor when he was standing next to her.

His nerves were frayed most of the time. Because he spoke English a little bit better than her, he was the one who always spoke. The people in Prague spoke better English than those in Warsaw or Krakow, but still he couldn’t understand them due to their unique accents. They talked with such confidence and swiftness, but upon realizing that he was not following, they cast down their glance. He felt more and more intimidated, started to stutter, and wanted to stop talking. Inquiring about ingredients, giving an order, asking if they charged an extra fee, if there was a smaller size, why it was taking forever until their order came out, whether this was the right direction, and which way was that – it was completely exhausting, and later even terrifying. She focused her mind on sightseeing, thrusting everything upon him. Her appetite was vigorous, just the same as her curiosity. Whenever she spotted something that attracted her interest at any street corner, she headed toward it without any hesitance. On the spur of the moment, she would cross the street, push a store door open, and mess around with things inside. They left the hotel early in the morning and came back only after sunset. In the morning they went down to the dining room and ate eggs, bacon, and bread, sitting among old couples who moved slowly. Most of the guests were old people. They noticed that quite a few old couples were sitting side by side facing the same direction - instead of facing each other. Even though they did not sit side by side, they dined in silence as the other couples did. There was no need to have a conversation. He thought she was gobbling up the food, but didn’t give utterance to his thought.

Once, he lost her. Actually, she left him alone. It was on the bridge heading towards the old city district. He thought she was walking beside him but that was someone else. He looked around in all directions. Feeling some sort of déjà vu, he was exasperated. He was standing in the middle of the way, blocking people. Sellers of accessories, little toys, and pictures, and tourists… Those who wanted to cross the river over the bridge were flooding towards him in incessant waves. Then, she appeared. She was holding a small drawing. There were lilies drawn with charcoal on the paper. “What for…” he said. Staring at him, she said. “I’m going to write a postcard. To our child.” “I know, but what for…” Instead of explaining to her that it wasn’t actually a question, he turned his back and started to stride.

Another time, he left her alone in a gigantic store that sold chocolate and candies. They watched how the candy dough was mixed, hardened, and cut through the glass window in the workshop. She showed an interest in the realistic-looking chocolate penis and keys and tasted a caramel sample. Finally, after watching her savor star-shaped candies on a coconut plate, he strolled around, and went outside. He waited, sitting on the “no-through traffic” bump in front of the store. Square-shaped stones, which were embedded in the ground, appeared glossy under the sunshine. Girls wearing sneakers stepped on them and walked away. For a good while, she didn’t come out. Determined to look for her, he returned to the store, only to find that a long line formed at the check-out counter and, to his surprise, that she was standing in front of that line. A middle-aged cashier, her thin lips firmly closed, was glaring at his wife, the same way a teacher would reprimand a student. He hurried over to them and asked what happened. “Do you want a receipt or not?” The middle-aged woman was humiliating her for being unable to understand the question. His heart sank at his wife’s pale face. He declined the receipt, swept up the caramel bag and change, and said to the cashier, “You better be kind… Be kind…”

Holding hands, they walked fast in the alley. A window opened upstairs in a building and a young woman came out to the balcony. She walked like a slim cat. Her luxuriant, black hair cascaded down her smooth back. The woman blew an air kiss to someone in the room and took her shirt off over her head. Her naked upper body was revealed. People passing in the alley gathered under the window and cheered. He and his wife pushed their way through, shoving the spectators in their backs. “Where were you?” she asked, but instead of answering, he squeezed her hand tightly once. He found the vitality of this city uneasy. How can they be this festive throughout the year? He wanted to leave there as soon as possible.

They turned around a corner and came out to the square. In the square, there was a famous clock tower and people flocked together to see it. He and his wife had already been to the square and learned how the clock tower worked. Above the clock, its complex structure visible, there was a window which opened every hour and displayed The Twelve Apostles of Jesus in turn. Below the window, the figures of a young man and a skeleton hung. While the glum-looking Twelve Apostles took turns in coming forward and retreating into the darkness in the clock tower, the young man nodded and the skeleton shook: life nodded and death shook. He and his wife could not move further, trapped by the crowd who wanted to see the scene. The first bell rang. “It starts.” Simultaneously, people raised their heads.

Let’s go further.

She was the one who had made such a suggestion.

The reeds were very dense there. They – he, his wife, and their child - went deeper into the valley searching for a more secluded, spacious, and comfortable spot. Their child, who was following her dad, stopped and looked down at her arm. She grimaced at her mom, who was walking a little behind her, saying that she scratched herself on some branches. As her mom used her forefinger to rub saliva on the wound, the child romped after her dad again. The child was excited. She saw thistle for the first time in her life. “Can we really eat this?” She also stared in wonder at her mom, who was able to tell cinnamon trees from white oaks. She stood for quite a while, listening to the birds squabbling on a branch that lay too high for her to spot. And she would stretch her arms and legs to imitate some oddly-shaped trees. The child was short with willowy wrists and ankles. The skin of her hands was thin and her feet were a little bit wide and flat. Her smiling face evoked her dad’s but her grimacing face mirrored her mom’s. She inherited the mass of luxuriant hair from her mom and its curliness from her dad. Wading across a thigh-high stream, they reached a flat area where young white birches were growing. “What about here?” he asked. His wife looked up, standing under a tree. Then, she said that the shade didn’t seem to be sufficient. “Right now, we have some shade on this side, but in a moment, lots of sunlight will flood through those branches. A lot.” They moved again. The rocks, which had rolled down due to heavy rain, were lodged on the ground, split into chunky and sharp pieces, and water was flowing between them. While walking upstream and glancing at the water, they managed to find a waterfall. There were rocks on the sunny side and sufficient shade. She spread a mat on the soft carpet of fallen leaves. He put damp stones on every corner of the mat so that it would not flip over. The cartoon characters on the mat stuck out in their shapes and colors, something disparate from the deep valley. His wife placed their child’s shoes on the mat to prevent ants from invading them. Then, she pulled the lunchbox closer. Even with the lid on, she could smell the food. He stacked a pile of stones in the water and placed melons and plums inside it.

The child was good at swimming, and she liked the water. Whenever they took her to the indoor pool, she gently slapped the water and swam as smoothly as a creature born and raised in the water. Committed to buoyancy, she enjoyed floating in the water and often lay face down with her limbs fully relaxed, as if she was looking into the water.

The child jumped off a rock into the water. She popped her head out of the water, swam a few breaststrokes, and floated on her stomach buoyantly. He turned his head to see her. The child’s back and head were sticking out of the water. The waves, radiating from the basin of the falls, jiggled her body. He laughed as her back twitched while she was floating. He thought she looked like a frog. Not until later did he realize how long it was. It could have been a flash of time or a little bit longer than that. The moment when she was suffering from a heart attack… How long did I leave her alone, blankly gazing at her? In his reminiscing, that moment would be a split-second and then, become longer; it would shrink back to the split-second and then, expand like an eternity. All of a sudden, his hand jerked as if electrified. Their child had not lifted her head yet: way too long. He plunged into the water and started to run.

Fourteen years ago, they descended the mountain. He carried their child on his back; he would recollect the feeling of her tiny body, repeatedly sliding from his back like a leather sack full of cold water. Water kept dripping from her body. His wife ran, clasping their child’s shoes. The things that they carried when they went into the valley - the lunchbox and mat - remained behind. The things would stay there, in the same manner as she spread the mat and he pressed it under stones. By now, rain might sweep them away in the summer, fallen leaves might cover them in the fall, and snow might veil them in the winter, making it impossible to trace them, but the things do exist under the annually laid-down beds in the valley. He dashed through the slippery, narrow, bumpy, steep path as if it were a flatland, clutching their child so as not to drop her. His hands were chilled by the water trickling from her body. His wife was following them, panting and weeping. He never turned around, even though he felt like slipping and falling. He kept running, but it was too far. However long he ran, he seemed unable to reach the roadside. The child’s heart stopped deep, deep inside, and they were too late. No one could save her.

They went to the station to take a train. It was their last train that they would ride on in Europe. Lightly lifting up their suitcases, they climbed the stairs. Around her neck, she had the scarf that she had bought in Prague. Prague Station was run-down and filthy. The walls were seared, and there were puddles formed by oil and rain. The ceiling glass was broken here and there, and birds flew in. They stood on the platform, which was covered with dried bird droppings, and got on a Berlin-bound train.

They went to the seats in the compartment that the travel agency had helped them to reserve. A middle-aged woman in thick tights, leather shoes, and a knee-high skirt was sitting alone in the window seat. His wife sat next to that woman and he sat across from his wife. The train started to move, passing through the city at high speed and then traveling across the field. The woman unfolded some paper, making rustling sounds, and started to eat a scone. He checked the train ticket again, pointed to their destination on the map, and calculated the time. His wife, uncomfortable in the rear-facing seat, moved next to him and leaned her head on the window. They watched the landscape swiftly flooding in and flowing away. They would arrive in Berlin in the afternoon and leave Europe the following day, going back home.

It was only when a ticket inspector came up and requested their passports that they realized a small bag was missing: a flat pouch where they put their passports, their flight receipt, and some cash. It had a thin strap so that one could sling it over their shoulder and put an outer garment over. He last saw it in the hotel - on the table where her cosmetics were placed. They opened a suitcase, took out everything from inside, and laid it out on the chair, but the bag was still missing. The middle-aged woman stared at them and their stuff with a curious look. At last, he said, “No… We have not… We lost our passport…” “Stolen?” The inspector asked, looking at them in turn with his grey eyes. “I don’t know.” He swept his hands across his face. He looked back at her. “Were you robbed? Or did you lose it?” Reflecting his rage and embarrassment, his voice was trembling. Blushing, she shook her head. She said she seemed to have left it in the hotel. He kept his mouth closed. As his eyes met the middle-aged woman’s, she shrugged her shoulders. She looked out the window, eating almonds in her hand.

“You guys need to go to the embassy,” the ticket inspector said. Or he thought perhaps that was what the inspector said. The inspector punched their tickets with a placid face, wrote something on a scrap of paper, gave it to him, and left. He was sitting, clasping the sloppily ripped-off paper. He had no energy to read what was written on it. She closed the suitcase and sat it upright. She tied her disheveled hair back, sat across from him, but eventually moved next to him. The train took a slow curve. “It’s okay,” she said in a monotone voice. “We can go to the embassy. Everything will be all right. Don’t worry.”

“Didn’t I tell you to pack it?” he asked.

“What else did I ask you? I said, pack it… Didn’t I tell you that you should put it in the suitcase? I said, don’t forget about it… That was the only thing I asked you… You have everything in your suitcase – your toothbrush, cosmetics, candies… Everything’s there, but what about that pouch? We need to take a flight tomorrow… But we have neither our passports nor the flight receipt… I’m the one who has to explain this to people… Then you’re simply saying it’s okay? You must be okay… You have no worries, because I’m taking care of everything… You eat well, sleep well anywhere… at the hotel or in the airplane… How can you be like that? Why do you have such a strong stomach? It’s okay? How can you think that everything is so easy?”

All at once, he closed his mouth, turned his head around, and looked at her. She was staring at him with a sorrowful look. He felt a surge of resentment again and shook his head. That face… Instead of saying that he was sick of it, he told her not to look at him like that. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t stare at me in the face. Not in that way as if I beat you when you didn’t do anything wrong.”

As the train crossed the border, they showed the documents and the punched tickets to a German ticket inspector. He explained the situation to him again, and in the meantime, she looked out the window. As the day drew to its close, their train entered Berlin Central Station. Through the window, he glanced at a cruise ship smoothly go upstream in the river. The buildings, their windows uniformly facing the riverside, had vivid red and yellow roofs. He walked down the aisle, pulling his suitcase. She was following him, but stopped frequently. When he turned around, she was kneeling down, checking the wheels. She got up, pushed the suitcase, but it stopped again, stuck in the flooring joint. He went back and gripped her suitcase. He snatched the handle, lifted the suitcase, and put it down in front. The suitcase violently flipped over, and then stood upright. She looked at it with dazed expression. He left her and her suitcase behind and walked down the rest of the aisle. He went down the steep stairs, placed his suitcase on the platform, and got off. Realizing that the belt, fastened around the suitcase to prevent it from opening, was loose, he unfastened and tied it again. Then, he turned around and noticed that she was still on the train. Her suitcase was still on the second step of the stairs, and she was standing behind it, blankly staring at him. He grabbed her suitcase and moved it onto the platform. The suitcase flipped over again. He looked back at her. Her freckles prominent, she stood on the stairs, simply gazing at him. He was looking up at her and she was looking down at him. Without any particular noise, the automatic door closed. She disappeared behind the windowless, ponderous door. He vacantly gazed at the metal body that had “Express” written on it. The train started to move gently and eventually disappeared far away.

He was standing still. The train’s wind ruffled his hair. The sweat on his forehead dried, somehow refreshing him. Berlin Central Station was submerged in a sunset glow. The platform was vacant now. Cold and dry winds blew towards the river. Oh… He trembled in panic.

He started to run towards where the train had disappeared, dragging the two suitcases. Where is the train’s next destination? Munich… Where is it? How long does it take? What does she have? Does she have… cash or her credit cards in the pocket? How can this happen? The train just left. There was a person who couldn’t get off yet. How can the train just leave? Running frantically, he found some people who were chatting, leaning against a ticket machine. They were not wearing caps, but wearing navy blue uniforms. Almost instinctively, he knew that they were train station attendants. “Excuse me, I, I…” He opened his mouth, trying to say something. I lost my wife. My wife was on the train which just departed. Before she could get off, the train just left… I lost… no, no, missed… lost…

The train station employees had badges on their chests. One was a woman. The other was a man.

They gazed indifferently at the panting Asian man.

Amy Russ

Amy Russ currently works in the United States and is studying Korean. This is her first time winning an award for translating Korean literature. Even though she is not fluent in Korean, Amy was able to use the time as a translator to better understand Korean grammar, vocabulary, and culture.

"I apologize for being unable to attend the ceremony, but I am deeply humbled and grateful to be receiving this award. I enjoyed working with my friend and feel that through translating this work, we gained a better understanding and respect of each other and our culture."

Kim You-jeong

Kim You-jeong majored in English language and literature at Ewha Womans University. She currently works as a freelance translator. Kim and Amy Russ met each other when they attended a graduate school in the United States. They decided to translate a Korean literary work together, since they share the love of the Korean culture. This is their first official teamwork and first award as well.

"I am very pleased and honored to receive this award. It is especially meaningful since I worked with my friend, Amy Russ. While translating together, we enjoyed intently discussing every detail and nuance of the original text. I loved every moment of it. I am also very grateful for judges' upcoming comments, which will help me become a better translator."