Beauty Looks Down on Me Read online

  The one change in M is that he no longer fits into the Enneagram classification system. Looking at him now, he’s too careless in many aspects of his life, and a little too relaxed as well, to be an accurate and diligent Type 9. Did his personality change after seeing so many stars in the Rockies? Man, I too am beginning to think that the zodiac is a more reliable system of classification. For stars really are humanity’s oldest coordinates. You all remember the definition of coordinates, don’t you? “A number or pair of numbers describing the location of a point, P, relative to the point of origin, O, on an axis.” We learned that in math class. In other words, “P’s coordinates originate from O.” Since M is the type to always have a need for coordinates, I wonder if he’s been driven by difficulty with bears in the Rockies to plot coordinates for them. But don’t place too much confidence in coordinates. The coordinates of the human race have been shifting continuously since the beginning of recorded history.

  Humanity is now at the apex of an evolutionary period extending over three billion years. Since the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era, when the bodies of our ancestors surpassed a weight of ten kilograms, we’ve been rapidly evolving to the point where we now have very large brains. And in the natural world, different species don’t encroach on each other’s territory, so their probabilities of survival are higher. Take birds, for example. Certain birds are predators, while others are teeth cleaners. Some have beaks to catch insects, some have beaks to eat seeds, and some, like hummingbirds, have beaks to drink nectar from flowers. Penguins, living alternately on land and in the sea, and ducks, moving extensively between land, water and air, rarely encounter one another. That’s because they want different things. Diversification reduces competition, which is nature’s way of allowing many species to coexist.

  But you know what? Army ants eat different groups of ants, and king cobras prey on other snakes. Bull sharks eat small sharks, and tiger sharks and hammerheads will brutally devour their own kind as well. What does this mean, you ask? It means that the condition under which members of the same species or group don’t view each other as their own kind and are able to eat each other is a stage in the accomplishment of diversification. In the natural world, if you want to become one of the surviving strong, you have to see your own species or even your friends as outsiders, even so far as you are able to prey upon them. A tad spine-chilling, isn’t it? It must sound cruel, even tragic, but it doesn’t go beyond the individual’s strategic instinct to survive one way or another. Anyway, I wonder what M would do if I told him to eat me. His eyes would light up and he’d chew me out, exclaiming, “How could I eat a friend?” He can’t. I think we have to find different coordinates for M. Though it’s a tad cliché, life finds a way somehow. Having friends that are always hanging around you makes it difficult for other friends to get close. And when would we accomplish our historical directive to evolve if we stuck only to our current course?

  Was I a little too talkative today? Actually, I don’t think I’ll be able to post very often from now on. I’ve been enjoying myself for a while now, spending almost all my money, so it’s time for me to crawl back to work. Another reason is that the hot summer has passed, and fall has come to cool off my head. The brutal, sweltering nights went on for several days in a row, and then early one morning, I felt an unexpected chill in the air and, pulling up my blanket, realized that fall had suddenly come. At that moment, didn’t you mutter something like this? “Ah, fall comes suddenly, just like the age of thirty.” Until now, this has been B, a pro-social and optimistic Type 4.

  9

  THERE’S A STORY that I didn’t even tell to B.

  It was the day Y wanted to stay at the campsite because he wasn’t feeling well. I’d have preferred not to go hiking with P alone, but it was unavoidable because I had to drive the car. P invariably led the way with map in hand. Passing by at least three frozen lakes, we arrived at our destination just after noon. It was a beautiful forest, exceptionally serene in the absence of visitors, with streams of clear ice water running through the dense grouping of coniferous trees. The sunlight pouring down through the branches extending straight out from the trees reflected on the spider webs contained in the empty spaces between, making it look as if there was a sparkling silver bicycle wheel rolling on each branch. I felt like my whole body was gradually being saturated with cool green water.

  Following silently behind P, I eventually realized that he was no longer looking at the map. It meant that the trail we were following was already off the map. Then I noticed that I was treading on natural soil and not a path created by Parks Canada.

  “This isn’t the hiking trail. It’s not even on the map. Let’s go back.”

  “I enjoy the pleasure of following roads not taken by others.”

  P even broke into a smile. With a sudden feeling of anxiety at the idea that I’d been seduced by the scenery into venturing in too deeply, I turned and looked behind me. Though it was broad daylight, the shadowy darkness of the forest was everywhere; we could see nothing if we strayed even a little from the path. Just like Y had done on the first day of the trip, I had no choice but to follow close behind P.

  “There aren’t any bears, are there?”

  “You shouldn’t feed wild animals. They stop trying to find food on their own and start taking it from others. Or they beg for it. Try releasing a trained bear into the wild. Unable to adapt, it will inevitably tag along behind hikers in search of food. People and bears are the same. You mustn’t try to befriend them. Standing in opposition to others is the way to survive.”

  “Is it true that you come to the mountains quite often?”

  “I like the wild. You never know what’s out there. A world of only people is too plain. Humans are uninteresting because they adapt too well. That which only adapts can’t evolve.”

  “Do you mean to say that rebels are more well-disposed to evolution?”

  “In a tropical rainforest, there are millions of arthropods we know nothing about, and millions of invertebrates in the depths of the ocean. Like us, they too are evolving.”

  I got the impression that P was not very accustomed to conversation. He seemed only concerned with what he himself was saying, even if he didn’t completely ignore the speech of others. It was quite cold, though the forest was still shrouded in the stillness of midday. I saw a phantom sweep by like a dark shadow deep in the forest, and when I’d finally forgotten about it, it passed before my eyes once again. I tried to keep the conversation going.

  “What evolution are you thinking about?”

  “Everything becoming something different, that’s evolution. Humans are supposed to feel uneasy about differences and should reject those who aren’t the same. But in the wild, those who are different are respected. Out there, being different is the way to survive. With different habitats, different prey, and different enemies, only such different beings can coexist peacefully.”

  “Why are you so obsessed with maps?”

  P snickered.

  “The easiest quadratic equation for me to solve is from reading coordinates. When the origin O is certain, you can use it to find the location of P.”

  “When you find P, does it show you the direction you should take?”

  “No.”

  The smile was suddenly gone from P’s face. His focus moved to a point somewhere beyond my back.

  “There is no such thing as a correct direction. Humans simply have to continue searching for it.”

  With his eyes still fixed behind me, P slowly lifted his finger to point at something, and only then did I turn around and look.

  The needles on the pine trees were a glistening green, and the dark shadows of their densely-growing trunks stretched out lengthily on the carpet-like grass beneath. In the midst of them, a patch of long, beautiful brown fur was moving slowly. A face with dark eyes and a long muzzle was pointing toward us. The bear stopped and focused its gaze as if it had discovered something. I could hardly breathe, but I co
uldn’t take my eyes off the animal. Stopping at a yellow dandelion, it quietly extended its neck as if to smell the flower and, with an bored look, broke it off. I felt a shiver. Life in its natural state, its beauty and spontaneity and majesty, overwhelmed me.

  10

  THE PEOPLE RETURNED to the city, their holidays at an end. It began to bustle once again, and the neon signs of bars remained lit late into the night. I was kept very busy for a while after I came back from the Rockies. Vacation was the peak season for private institutes. Also, the institute I taught at in the new area of the city, unlike those in Gangnam, focused on comprehensive classes. Everyone knows that it’s much more effective to move from institute to institute, taking only those classes needed for college, rather than to suffer the restriction of a single comprehensive curriculum. But to do that, mothers have to drive their children all over the place, and such a thing is possible only for the wealthy of Gangnam. It’s a distressing situation, but nothing can be done about it. People are inevitably raised in different environments.

  One day after classes, the girl who had run away last semester was waiting for me.

  “Are you troubled that your grades haven’t improved?” I asked.

  “No, it’s not that,” she said, looking intently up at me. “Teacher, I don’t know where to go today. Instead of ddeokbokki, would you mind buying me some alcohol?”

  After some hesitation, I gave her the web address to B’s blog.

  “If you go there, you might be able to find the direction you should take. You could say that my friend’s posts are a map, in a sense.”

  “I can’t use the computer at home. My mom cut the Internet connection.”

  “Then ask your mom to buy you some alcohol.”

  The girl grimaced.

  “I really don’t know how I should live my life.”

  Without responding to her, I started to walk away. It was a good day for a walk. The girl glared fiercely at me, but she didn’t follow. In the empty late-night streets of the city, autumn was just beginning. You don’t know how to live your life? I’m over thirty, and I still don’t know. The wind was cool, and stars were showing here and there in the night sky.

  Not long ago, something happened at the Baker Lake Resort campground in Canada. An enormous bear with beautiful brown fur was discovered dead drunk. Thirty-six empty beer cans were scattered in the vicinity. Park supervisors presumed that the bear broke into the campers’ food storage locker and opened the beer cans with its claws and teeth. All of the empty cans were the “Wild Rose” brand, a local beer. The supervisors woke the bear and drove it away, but the sober bear returned that night in search of more beer. Efforts to lure the bear with donuts and honey were of no use. In the end, they were able to trap it using two cans of “Wild Rose.” The bear, driven deep into the forest, was given the nickname “Refined Drinker.” It didn’t drink any of the other brands of beer found in the storage locker. The bear’s drinking capacity couldn’t be determined, however, because there had been only thirty-six cans of “Wild Rose” stored there.

  As I walked alone, passing a convenience store with a group of people sitting around a table out front, I muttered to myself: “Ah, on a night like this, a night when all my friends are sleeping and I’m walking the deserted streets by myself, an autumn night with stars in the sky and a cool breeze blowing, I wish I could have a drink with the bear.”

  PRAISING DOUBT

  1

  ON A TRAIN, a group seat was an area where four passengers had to sit facing another. Because of the size of the discount offered on buying those four seats, it was common for traveling strangers to pool their money and buy tickets as a group, usually over the Internet. Yoojin had been standing in front of the ticket gate for fifteen minutes, waiting for the other three. The tickets were issued in one sheet, so passengers with group tickets had to get on and off the train together. They were disposable travel companions, never having seen each other before, never to see each other again.

  A man in an olive green baseball cap approached Yoojin and asked, “Did you buy a group ticket to P?” Soon after that, two painstakingly dolled-up, rather vociferous high school girls came over to where Yoojin and the man were standing side by side and asked the same question. “Are you the people who bought the group tickets?” The four of them stepped in through the ticket gate together like a nicely wrapped gift set.

  The man offered a window seat to Yoojin. The high school girls sat down in the seats opposite. From the way they carried on the moment they were seated, it was obvious that their destination in P was a concert by a Japanese singer. Across the aisle in the other group seats was a young couple with their two young girls. They were twin sisters wearing the exact same pink sweaters and pleated wool skirts. The mother, having warned the twins not to swing their legs, pulled from their feet shoes identically adorned with ribbons.

  “Are you on a business trip?” The man eyed Yoojin’s formal attire.

  “No, it’s for my friend’s wedding.” Wanting to take a book out of her bag, she answered tersely, not turning toward him. He made no further attempt to strike up a conversation. When he reached into his own bag, pulled out a book and set it on the table, a perplexed look flashed across Yoojin’s face. It was the exact same book that she had been planning to take out and read. Leaving it in her bag, she leaned back in her seat and for the first time took a sidelong glance at the man’s face in profile. For some reason, she was very curious about where he’d bought that book.

  “Every time I see twins, I have good luck”, said one of the high school girls.

  “Have you ever seen an egg with two yolks? Sometimes there are even two chestnuts in one chestnut shell. I heard that’s a sign of good things to come. Is it?”

  “When I cross at a crosswalk, I only step on the white lines. I heard that’s really good luck.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “You know when you get stopped at a railroad crossing, when that red light is flashing? I heard that if you see the passing train, you’ll be lucky.”

  “I think somebody just made that up because it’s a pain to wait for the whole train to pass by.”

  The two high school girls chattered on about different signs of good luck until well after the train had departed from the station.

  Yoojin, having briefly dozed off, opened her eyes at the sound of an announcement over the loudspeaker. On the opposite side of the aisle, the twins were causing a commotion, trying to find their shoes so they could get off. When the train started moving again, the four seats opposite were empty. Yoojin inclined her seat and leaned her head back, though she didn’t think she’d be able to fall back to sleep. S’s wedding ceremony was tomorrow. She’d received a call from S to come and spend the last night of her single life together, and the first thing that came to her mind was the big bookstore where they used to meet. It was there she’d purchased the book the man in the seat next to her was reading. She was living in a high-rise apartment building then, in a new area crowded with them.

  2

  YOOJIN STEPPED INTO the café a little early for her appointment. The man had arrived first and was waiting for her. He attracted her attention immediately, even sitting off in a corner. When she’d seen him a few days ago, he’d seemed like a pretty boy, wearing a brown, wool-lined leather jacket with a big wool collar, and inside it a hooded sweatshirt displaying the logo of an American university. Now, in a neat black jacket and an olive green shirt, he looked a bit like a different man. He somehow, though clean-cut, gave off a dark and cynical impression. His face remained abnormally still even after Yoojin had approached and was standing right in front of him. His eyes were focused on something else, as if he didn’t recognize her.

  “Am I not the one you came here to meet?” she demanded, stubbornly refusing to hide her displeasure.

  The man lifted his head and looked up vacantly at her. He glanced at his wristwatch. “You’re ten minutes early.”

  “So there’s someth
ing wrong with being early, it seems.”

  “No. I meant I didn’t recognize you because you didn’t come at the right time.”

  “Then I’ll go sit somewhere else for ten minutes until you can recognize me. There’s no reason for two strangers to sit together.”

  Maintaining his composure, the man nodded his head slightly. “Miss Yoojin Lee, you’re right. We are strangers.”

  “If we’re strangers, then how do you know my name? And that I have an appointment here in ten minutes?”

  “My brother told me.”

  “What are you talking about you brother for? We won’t even know each other for another ten minutes.”