A Plagued Sea

Prologue

In the early hours of the morning, the waiting room at Cheongnyangni Station doesn’t belong to passengers. It’s pretty much a bunkhouse for the homeless. The lined-up rows of benches facing the ticket gates are packed tight with them.

All bundled up in layers and layers of clothing, they lie, not even their breath making a sound.

One, unidentifiable as male or female, is sitting like a roly-poly doll, their face wrapped up in a scarf and woolly hat, cocooned in a quilt with a layer of plastic on top of it that they have somehow fixed in place with tape.

It’s clear that they are determined not to expose a single inch of their skin to this harsh world.

They may look as though they have their gaze on the TV, but nothing is registering in those eyes.

As the eastern sky starts to show dusky light, passengers arrive, one by one, and form a throng, and the homeless people hide themselves, as though scrubbed away by an eraser.

Older-middle-aged women gather together laughing, wearing bright red and pink padded jackets and hats with floral patterns, dragging colorful striped travel cases.

I’d had my attention on the woman sitting on the bench opposite for a while, even though it’s rude to stare at a stranger.

She had a richness to her skin, so I wondered whether one of her parents might have been Vietnamese, or from somewhere else in Southeast Asia.

She looked to be in her midthirties, and had a beautiful face.

But all the hairs on her body were standing on end, and she was shrunk into herself, as though a passing ant might attack her.

The man beside her—who looked to be twenty years her senior and wore his unmistakable ill temper on his face—took up three seats, his thighs spread out as far as they would reach. The contrast made me bristle.

“Auntie! Auntie! Look at this fish, it’s so funny looking,” Hyun said, standing between my legs and shaking my smartphone in my face.

For a while after we got here, sleepy in the early morning, she had been throwing herself on the waiting room floor and rolling around, stretching out and shuffling like a snail. She only calmed down when I gave her my phone to watch YouTube.

It must have been some kind of documentary on the deep sea.

An anglerfish was swimming through black water where white organic matter was falling like snow.

The anglerfish’s eyes bulged, and needle-sharp teeth stuck out in all directions from its mouth.

Its body looked squishy like a balloon, and there were nubby protruding bumps all over its skin.

And there was a tiny male anglerfish, dangling from its tummy, sucking nutrients from its mate.

About half of the male’s head was already melted, absorbed into her.

“Why are they so ugly like that?” Hyun asked, tapping the screen with a glitter-painted fingernail.

“The deep sea is veeery deep, so they can’t see anything down there. And because no one can see anything down there, they can’t see what anyone looks like … so there’s no need to be pretty.”

It was nothing to laugh at, but my tone of voice and my gestures made Hyun burst into a bubbling giggle.

“That sounds great,” Hyun said, sighing as I took back my phone.

“What’s great about that?”

Hyun didn’t reply and lay down again, rubbing her pink dress covered in lace and dangling ribbons into the floor.

She wore a red headband with a big bow on it, and her shoulder-length hair had been permed straight and dip-dyed pink at the ends.

She’d been at the hairdresser for hours the day before, because she had to look pretty in the pictures of our trip.

I crouched down and nuzzled Hyun’s cheek. “Your mom and dad will come back from their business trip and join us tomorrow by train.”

“Tell them not to come. I want to play, just you and me.”

“So you expect me to shell out for all the accommodation and meals?”

“What does shell out mean?”

A high-pitched ka-tok sounded from my pocket. When I opened Kakao Talk on my phone there was a whole string of messages from my older sister.

Put on an English-language YouTube video for her at 10am. Remind her she’ll get one smack for every question she gets wrong on the test.

Don’t feed her anything from a street stall. Our baby has a sensitive enough stomach as it is, she can’t go catching parasites.

And don’t forget to register with Sarang Hospital as soon as you get there. You know my husband’s friend from high school is the director. You’ll have to contact them when the kid gets an upset stomach or something from the water.

Oh, and at two o’clock …

Ka-tok! The sound made me jump, and I rushed to turn off notifications.

“What did Mom say? I bet she’s talking crazy again.”

“… you shouldn’t say that kind of thing about your mom.”

“I wish she wouldn’t come,” Hyun whined.

She put her arms around my waist from the side and hugged tight. I patted her back.

“It might not be easy, but do your best to put up with her until you’re grown up.”

“And then what?”

“Um … you can tell your parents you’re going to start a business, take their money, and then squander all of it! Or you could get your inheritance early and run off to a foreign country, take your auntie along as a bodyguard and pay me a salary—”

“What does squander mean?”

Just then the woman who had been on the bench opposite hurried back to her seat, plastic bags hanging from each arm.

She carefully unpacked a bundle from one of the food stands, odeng and gimbap.

It seemed her husband didn’t approve of the food she had brought for him.

It was written all over his face: he’s exhausted, in a bad mood today, and truly believes it’s all because his wife is shaping the entire world to spite him.

Smiling all the while, the woman picked up a piece of gimbap with chopsticks and was about to put it in the man’s mouth when, with a pok, his fist struck her temple.

I bolted to my feet. The holiday-makers in colorful outfits turned around in shock.

As if to say, “Oops, must’ve forgotten that we’re out in public,” the man spat on the ground and feigned indifference.

It was as though he believed that if he erased his own thought, it would be wiped out of everyone else’s minds too.

Clutching at the side of her head as it began to swell and redden, the woman looked around to gauge the reactions of the spectators, and gave an awkward laugh.

From what I could see, the embarrassment of people watching him hit her was more troubling to her than the fact of getting hit.

And she gave the man a reproachful look that said, “Darling, you mustn’t do such private things when everyone can see.

” If what had taken place wasn’t fresh in my memory, I could have mistakenly assumed they’d just kissed.

Perhaps because the eyes all around made her uncomfortable, the woman bowed her head low and headed to the bathrooms. I left Hyun where she was and followed her.

I thought to myself, What am I doing? The woman is doing her best. She will have tried everything.

There’s nothing a random stranger could think of that she hasn’t already considered.

I caught up with the woman at the end of the line that stretched out like a lizard’s tail from the door to the women’s bathroom. The woman turned back to look at me startled, like someone who has just been caught committing a crime.

“Uh, hi.”

I’m done for, done for, I thought. All that’s left is for me to be cursed out. Who are you? Who do you think you are to interfere? Don’t get involved in other people’s business. What a joke you are!

“Well, uh, you see, I work for a security company.” I took a business card out of my wallet and put it in the woman’s hand.

“If you need our services, just get in touch. Our company has lawyers and counselors, and connections with lots of other companies and experts. You could even just call for a chat, if you want.”

The woman stood there looking down at the business card. She didn’t lash out or start hurling insults. Instead, she inspected me from head to toe. “You’re a bodyguard?”

Her accent was flawless. Perhaps she was second generation, because she didn’t seem foreign at all.

“I competed in the National Sports Festival when I was young. And I was an amateur athlete for a while…”

“My husband is a fisherman,” the woman said, perhaps thinking we were exchanging introductions.

I just about managed to stop myself from going on, “Oh, I studied for a while to get a small-boat sailing license when I was a kid…” and letting the conversation descend into triviality.

I hurried to leave before the woman found reason to chastise me.

Well, you never know. This could be an opportunity.

She might decide to contact someone, even if it’s not our company.

Maybe the local police. You can never predict what a person might do.

When I got back to the benches and was about to sit down, for some reason something felt off.

Even more people than usual seemed to be making phone calls.

Their faces were icy, and they spoke with urgency.

Station employees came out of the office and walked around.

They looked rushed, and their expressions were grave.

“Auntie, you keep getting calls.”

Hyun rooted around in my jacket and took out my phone. When I looked at it, it wasn’t a call but a disaster alert.

That was when the TV screen changed. The slapping waves of the East Sea replaced the morning talk show, and news flash subtitles raced across the bottom of the screen.

6.2 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE 10KM FROM EAST COAST AT HAEWON PORT … UNPRECEDENTED—RESIDENTS URGED TO EVACUATE—AFTERSHOCKS EXPECTED—WATER TEMPERATURE RAPIDLY RISING—POSSIBLE UNDERWATER VOLCANIC ERUPTION—ALL BOATS RETURN TO PORT.

“That’s where we’re going today!” Hyun shouted, pointing at the screen.

And at the very same time the boarding announcement for the train to Gangneung flashed up on the departures board.

Although they were murmuring to each other, people headed toward the ticket barriers as if by inertia.

There were no specific warnings, and no one tried to stop them.

It was probably just that there hadn’t been time yet to work out what action to take.

“Hurry, Auntie, let’s hurry.” Hyun tugged at my leg. “If we don’t, and they shut down the line, we’ll be stuck here. Let’s hurry.”

It’s inevitable that thoughts move slowly when we’re confronted with unforeseen events. As though being pulled by a magnet, I chased after Hyun, who was skipping along.

Hey, you’ve got to wait, I thought, following behind her with short quick steps, carrying the two massive suitcases that my sister and her husband had crammed with all sorts of stuff.

Later on, I would often recall that moment.

I’d tell myself that if I’d caught up with Hyun, I could have persuaded her.

“Listen Hyun … it seems like something’s happened.

Let’s wait for a bit and take the next train.

” But as though Hyun knew I’d try to stop her, she slipped ahead every time I got near.

The platform was peaceful. The train was waiting obediently in its place, and the stewards greeted passengers by the doors as though nothing was wrong.

“I hope there’s another earthquake. So there’s no way to get back.”

Climbing up into the train, Hyun waved at me to hurry on.

“Then I’d never have to go home. I could just live with you, Auntie! Just the two of us.”