The Embroidered Shoes

ANONYMITIES

She never arrived when he expected. To put this another way, she always appeared in his apartment just at the moment he thought she would. Every time she arrived he saw in his mind’s eye a clear image — a triangle with a grayish white fog along its edges. Now she had arrived once more. Sitting lightly on the table, she was jabbering something to him. When she sat down, the table did not move the least bit, though her glance was as blazing hot as it had been on other occasions, enough to make him feel a pressure he was very familiar with. She took his cup to get herself a drink of water. After she finished, she tilted the mug toward the sunlight and examined it for a long time. Then she waved it in the air as if she were ladling something. “Gudong-gudong-gudong,” she gurgled, and his Adam’s apple bobbed twice accordingly. Usually every gesture of hers would lead directly to some physical response from him.

Perhaps because she had walked very fast when she came, he could smell the faint sweat on her body. This displeased him a little bit. Oddly, she had seemed never to perspire when she was young, and he had gotten used to her without perspiration. As soon as he sat down, he sank deep into memory. Yet this memory was constantly interrupted by the sound she was making. That sound came from her riffling through sheets of paper. She had picked up a stack of white paper from his drawer and was shuffling the leaves over and over as if she had found a way to entertain herself. Her pointed nails were pressing into those sheets, her shoulders were trembling, and her nostrils emitted a faint whistling full of satisfaction. So he stopped his reminiscing and stared at her playing her game as if he were somewhat fascinated.

The fact is he had never considered her age seriously. Somehow he felt he had known her for a relatively long time. Therefore, she could not be very young. But from the very beginning, he could not figure out her age. When he asked her, she replied that she didn’t know, and she added that it was because there was no way she could know. As for him, at the time he was in his prime. Generally speaking, it had never occurred to him that another person’s age could become a problem. However, the relationship between them grew in phases. Under careful analysis, it was very similar to the growth process of a plant from the time of its sprout breaking through the earth until the time of its withering away. But he could barely distinguish which period in their relationship corresponded to which stages of the plant’s growth. He always felt that the whole matter was very vague and wouldn’t be clarified until the last minute.

At present, her calmly turning over the pages gave him a feeling of perfect peace. In the distant past, she used to be impatient. Sometimes she could even be rude. He still remembered that she had thrown his favorite blue-flowered porcelain mug out the window. She had also thrown away some other things. That day, when outside the window the sky was filled with galloping clouds, the two of them had lain on the bed side by side for a long, long time. Their bodies had turned bloody red. Suddenly she had crawled over him and thrown out that porcelain mug. They both heard the cup shatter. After she had gone, he went downstairs looking for the broken mug. He saw that the thick grass in the garden had become blackish green and as tall as a human figure.

She had also criticized his residence. According to her description, he was jammed amongst crowded skyscrapers and everywhere surrounded by irritating noise. He was not very clear about his own environment. He was born in this apartment and had been living here ever since. There was a period when she sealed all the windows and doors with thick craft paper, turning the room into a dungeon filled with body odor. After doing this she disappeared for a fairly long time. When she arrived again, it appeared that she did not even notice that he had torn away all the craft paper. It was then that he knew she had a problem with forgetfulness.

The moment he thought of this, her hands stopped flipping the paper. With her shining glance she stared at his forehead. Stretching out her hand, she picked up the empty mug and made another gesture of ladling water.

“You are reminiscing about something.” She said these words clearly. Then she jumped down from the table and walked toward the corner of the room. She stood there silently. He heard the clock at the station chime three P.M. Outside the window the air was a bright white.

“You have come and gone, gone and then come, numerous times. Now I don’t even care whether you are coming or going. Sometimes I don’t even know whether you are going or coming.” This he said while facing the window. He didn’t want her to hear too clearly. When he turned around she had disappeared, leaving her faint sweaty odor in the air.

That was the longest night. He paced up and down in the dimly lit morgue of the hospital, uncovering every corpse for identification, once, twice, three times, four times.… At four o’clock in the morning he returned to his apartment, cold sweat covering his body, feeling dizzy. She was already waiting in the shadow at the turn of the staircase.

She threw herself into his bosom, trembling. As soon as they entered the room, she closed all the curtains and refused to turn on the light. Her hair gave off the heavy odor of the morgue as well as the odor of the frosty wind of early morning. She made him smell those corpses again.

“There were altogether fifty-three,” he whispered into her ear.

After she warmed up, she groaned faintly. Then she said confidently: “It’s all in vain. You! Why didn’t you recognize me? You searched again and again without ever finding me. I know in your mind there is another person, yet it’s all in vain!”

That morning both of them were so ardent. In the dim light he noticed that her eyebrows had turned a deep red and her pointed nails were glittering.

“I have looked and looked, looked and looked, oh!” he groaned falling into that bottomless cave, his whole body entangled by tentacles. His thumb had started bleeding. “Now my whole body is covered with that odor. I never expected to be like this. Maybe it has been this way from the very beginning. Is it true that my sense of smell is developing day by day?”

“Let’s analyze it together,” she said, flipping on the light. He dared not look at her in the dazzling light, so closing his eyes he turned around to face the wall.

“So you haven’t recognized me even once?” Stroking his back tenderly she continued, “Do you feel that’s difficult? It’s not really! You know that there’s a tiny mole under my left ear. Why did you forget to check their ears? Altogether there were only fifty-three people, yet you wasted a whole night. Ever since we parted last time I just knew you would go to a place like that. It can be said that you have been looking for that person ever since you were born. But you didn’t know it when you were young. That’s all. Next time make sure you don’t forget to check those ears.”

He woke up when the big clock at the station was striking nine. He could hear the rustling sound she was making in the room. Forcing his eyes open, he saw that she was pasting up the craft paper again. One of her long legs was planted on the table, the other on the windowsill. Her shoulders rose and fell. She was completely focused and meticulous. Without turning her head, she knew he had awakened. With one forceful jump, she sprang to the bed, then rolled over his body to the floor. She crawled to the door quietly, opened it, and disappeared into the darkness.

Waiting is unbearable, especially that kind of waiting for which there is no clear termination. In those protracted days he realized the full benefits of the craft paper. Sometimes he would not leave the apartment for a long time. In the darkness he completely forgot how many days had passed. In addition, once he closed the door and breathed only the air of the two of them, this made him calm down. With the craft paper on the window and the door, he imagined himself as a mole. Occasionally he would be lured by his fantasy, then he would open a tear in the craft paper to look at the bright whiteness outside the window. Every time he would be startled and his heart would thump.

He only went outside deep in the night when the station clock struck twelve and when there were scarcely any pedestrians on the street. As a result, it was almost natural that he should participate in the murder. This he did with a fruit knife in collaboration with a tall masked man. It was on the ground floor of his apartment building that this person struck an old man with a stick. As the victim was falling slowly, he dashed over and stabbed at the position of the old man’s heart in his chest. He couldn’t pull his knife out. With the knife in his chest, the old man mumbled something. Hurriedly, he turned back the old man’s ear. Without a doubt, under his left ear there was a mole. From it spurted a drop of blood. The big masked man shouted, pushed him aside, lifted the corpse, and walked toward the riverbank at a quick pace, leaving him standing there alone in a daze.

“This is your first time to do such a thing,” the masked man sneered at his back. “You are looking for some kind of proof. Somebody told you a certain method, yet it cannot bear any result. I’ve seen this kind of thing often. Don’t believe anybody’s method. You’ll get used to it if you do it more often.”

The whole matter drove him to distraction for a long time.

Whenever he returned to his apartment early in the morning and passed that long, pitch-dark corridor, he would hold his breath to listen closely, hoping she would jump out from her hiding place, yet every time he was disappointed. She hadn’t been to his apartment for three months. He knew she had very casual habits; therefore, this time maybe she had forgotten. He opened and closed the door, more and more carefully, attempting to keep her odor in the room for the longest time, although amidst that odor was the sweaty smell which had once aroused his unhappiness.

One night as soon as he lay down, someone knocked three times clearly on his windowpane. Jumping up he opened the window, yet there was only the wind blowing outside. He remembered that he was living on the tenth floor and a person couldn’t possibly hang outside the window. At that instant there flashed in his mind’s eye that triangle, now with red light along its edges. It was humming. Unexpectedly, she did not appear.

The last few days of waiting, he was full of hatred. He tore away all the craft paper, smashed the window glass, crumpled up the paper that bore her fingernail marks, and disassembled the bed in which he had slept with her. Then he left the apartment and wandered aimlessly along the river early in the morning.

All of a sudden he saw her standing in a boat filled with passengers, one long leg on top of the rail along the deck. Her torn clothing was streaming in the wind, and she was staring at the water. Afterward she saw him and smiled blankly. She pointed at her temple and then at the river. He didn’t understand her meaning, and he became extraordinarily annoyed by this lack of understanding, but all he could do was wave madly and fruitlessly at her while running breathlessly along the riverbank adjacent to the boat. He must have appeared to be overrating his physical abilities ridiculously. The boat was pulling away gradually. She had left the deck for the cabin. The whistle blew twice wickedly.

He stopped. Was this boat going back to the city or leaving it? Clutching his head, he pondered and pondered. Finally he felt he should clarify the matter at the dock. He had been to the dock several times, yet at this instant he couldn’t remember which direction he should go. Then he recalled that he had discussed this problem with her late at night. She had insisted that this was a permanently unsolvable puzzle. As she was saying that, she made a boat with her palms sailing back and forth in front of him and blowing the whistle with her mouth, a sound not unlike the two he had just heard. It seemed that he should not go to the dock but rather to any other place of his own choosing. Right. He should go to that park in which they had first met. It was by a fence on the lawn that he had discovered her sitting in the open air. At the moment he had been overjoyed by the discovery, but now when he thought about it he found there were some doubtful elements within the emotions of the time.

He walked all day except for stopping by the roadside to eat two pieces of bread and some ice cream. It was not until dusk fell that he entered the park. There were great changes in the park. He couldn’t recognize that section of lawn. Perhaps there had never been a lawn. Nor flowerbeds and gardeners. Everywhere there were low wooden houses resembling each other with their doors shut tight and people rattling the same thing inside each house. Between houses there were only very narrow walkways. Without care one might brush against the dirty, damp brick walls. He wandered back and forth among the houses, hearing those monotonous rattling voices rising up into the silent night sky forming a gigantic wave of voices rumbling over him.

Finally one door opened and there appeared a dark shadow. Quickly, he walked over and recognized the figure as the man who patrolled the park. He appeared much older now. He asked the old man the direction of the original lawn and how he could exit from this group of houses.

“You can never find it, nor can you exit because it is night now.” He guessed that the old man was laughing at him with a bit of contempt. “At night everything looks exactly the same, and you might feel that if you came more often. There haven’t been any tourists for quite a few years because it’s too monotonous. Perhaps you’re the only tourist who’s been here for many years. Yet that’s no use. You can’t stay on. I’m going in. I can’t stay outside for too long.” He closed the door sharply and snapped off the light inside. In one instant all the lights in all the wooden houses were turned off and the chattering stopped. It was dark all around except for the vague silhouettes of the houses. He felt his way along the brick walls. “It’s too monotonous here. It’s easy for your attention to drift. Please watch out,” the old patrolman said, although where he was standing could not be made out. Yet his words were reassuring. Standing for a while gazing over those vague, dark mushrooms in front of him, he realized it was time for him to return to his apartment.

This time she was waiting for him at the front gate of his building. In the glow of dawn her smile was as fresh as a new leaf.

“I went to the place where we met for the first time. It’s so strange that it turned out to be a stone pit, because what I remembered is so much richer,” he said, feeling bubbles rise in his lungs. “I hadn’t realized until now that this whole thing has had a decisive influence on me.”

“No individual thing has decisive significance for you,” she said.

The door had been blown open. Wind blew in through the broken window glass. She tittered. Picking up a fairly big piece of broken glass, she stared at it, facing the sunshine. The edge of the glass cut her finger. Blood dripped onto the other glass. The sun shone on them. They appeared gaily colored.

“It’s not necessary to go to that park or stone pit often. We only met there incidentally. You only need to think of one place in your mind, and that place becomes your destiny.” Putting her cut finger into her mouth, she sucked with force. She said vaguely, “That’s all it is.” After she finished the sentence, she spat out a big mouthful of blood, making the whole room smell of blood. Her finger was still dripping. Suddenly she said, “I’m leaving.” Turning around, she walked out. Like a gust of wind, she ran down the staircase, leaving a trail of blood in the corridor.

Returning to his apartment, he covered the window again with craft paper and assembled the bed that had been dismantled. Then he lay down deep in thought amidst the thick smell of blood.

He remembered the time when they had gotten to know each other. She had been full of vigor, indulging in fantasies. Every day she never tired of looking for something new. Once they had even climbed to the top of the commercial building in the city and thrown a bag of garbage onto the crowds below. When they descended the building she was giggling endlessly. Now when he reminisced about it, the memory seemed unimportant. But at the time he had been full of joy. Often there had been partings, but every time he had been full of hope and imagination, not the impatience and hatred that now possessed him. Since when had she turned so gloomy and rigid toward him, become so indifferent toward the things he cared for? Once he had thought her to be a warmhearted woman. At the beginning he thought she was just worn out and would not come again. Yet after a while she had come back. Maybe the time between two visits grew a little bit longer, but she had never left without looking back. This morning was the first time in a long time that he had seen her laugh. He had doubted if she could even smile.

Before he fell into sleep he struggled to the window and looked down by raising the craft paper. He saw her standing on the street in front of the grocery store raising her injured hand. She also saw him, so using the other hand she pointed at her feet and nodded her head. He didn’t understand the meaning of her gesture, not even once. Whenever he thought of that he felt very disheartened. He fell into sleep dejected and slept very deeply.

When he awoke he noticed many bloody finger marks on the wall put there by her the day before. At the time, he hadn’t noticed, but after one day the blood marks had turned a bit black. They looked like leeches crawling on the wall, making him uneasy. Watching those leeches — her masterpiece — he remembered she had always been against him, and she was always mysterious in her ways. Nobody could predict what she was going to do in the next minute. With her back toward him and her face toward the wall, she said in a harsh voice, “People like me had better hide themselves in order not to upset people.” He turned her face back and saw an expression similar to that of a little deer being chased. He was so touched that he almost cried out. That time they stayed together for three days without leaving each other for one minute. At dusk, they would open the window and watch the sunset. Standing at the window hugging tightly against each other, they exchanged breath. She even leapt into the air naughtily. Every time she did so, he would be so frightened that his face turned pale and he would pull her down tightly. In the short three days, she forgot about things like the craft paper. She was jumping up and down and saying crazy things. Perhaps it was because both of them were young at the time, and also they were confused by the emotion caused by pity. That was the longest time she stayed. It was so long that he even had some illusion that she would stay forever. But, of course, this result was not to be.

Later on they could no longer share such intimate talk. Instead, they would talk vaguely and exchange evasive glances. When they met on the street, they would greet each other with some obscure gesture the same way she did in front of the grocery store. This method was decided on by her, and he went along with it. It appeared that they had a tacit understanding, but in reality they were very distant. Even at the climax of making love, the feeling was vague and ambiguous as if they were thousands of mountains and thousands of rivers apart. It was totally different from lovemaking with other women when he was young. Every time when it was finished he would be overwhelmed by an infinite confusion, his head feeling as if a bird’s nest had grown there. At those moments he meant to dash out and chase her, yet he had no confidence whatsoever. Finally he would drop the idea. It was not because of his self-esteem, but just because he felt it would be in vain.

As she got older, her tone and glances became colder, and their distance and grievances grew deeper until they began holding grudges against each other. Once she revealed to him that their present situation was the best, exactly what she wanted, because it reflected the truth of their relationship. If they were, instead, to do nothing but stand at the window enjoying the setting sun, she would have to jump down and never return. However, such a relationship was horrifying to him. He couldn’t remember how many times he had sneaked into the morgues of those hospitals to check the corpses, feeling exhausted from anxiety and fear. And he never dared to doze off in the morgues because there was always a red-eyed cat glaring at him fiercely. The days of waiting were endless spiritual torture because there were no lines or color there, just complete emptiness. It was during that period that his mouthful of strong teeth started to loosen.

Then an odd thing happened — she bit a small piece of flesh from his arm. According to her, she did it unintentionally, and she promised that nothing similar would happen in the future. The wound was not deep and healed quickly, leaving only a tiny scar. But whenever he thought of it he shivered with fear. When he inquired as to where the flesh that she bit off went, she replied that she had swallowed it. When she said that, she appeared furious, sending a chill up his spine. Yet he missed her every minute, every second, even missed the long bench by the fence on the lawn. It was there that she sat in the open air and gave him that magnificent talk. Besides there was that warm, sliding sun, the rising warmth from the earth, making him mistake her for a fine young maiden. She had forgotten all that long ago. Whenever he raised the issue later on, she appeared bored. Using her strong index finger, she would make a decisive gesture to stop his story. “I was only waiting for a boat there,” she would say shortly and drily. He couldn’t help feeling very indignant.

It was fairly recently that she had gone to extremes in her appearance. In the past, she had never paid much attention to her appearance. Yet she always dressed simply and comfortably. Her clean underwear gave off a fine fragrance. But recently she had put on a set of extremely ugly men’s clothes and refused to change. They had become dirtier and dirtier, shabbier and shabbier. She even boasted about them, saying they were so convenient. In the past, time spent washing clothes was nothing but trouble for her, and so on. Then she would say that since she could no longer smell the odor of the dirty clothes, why should she spend time pursuing formalities? It was even acceptable that she would not take a bath from now on. The only reason she kept taking baths and washing her hair was as a compromise with his strange habits, despite the fact that she felt they were vulgar. This took place in the third month after she cut her finger. They saw each other at the dock. Both appeared a little bit wan and sallow, a little bit melancholy. He told her he had heard someone knocking at the window of his apartment late at night. Could it have been her?

“That’s impossible. When I’m outside I never think of you. You’ve known for a long time that I don’t have a memory.” She wrinkled her nose slightly. “Can you guess if I have just returned or am planning to leave? An eternal puzzle.” She pointed at the passing boats and asked him to look. The river appeared vast and endless with boats floating as if in outer space.

He did not answer her question because he knew it had no answer. It was she who had told him that. Lowering his head, he saw that her bare feet wearing the sandals had turned a bit rough.

“Shall we return to the apartment?” he asked.

“No,” she said harshly. “From now on let’s see each other here. It’s very convenient for both of us. Of course, there’s no way for me to arrange the date ahead of time. You’ll just have to come often and see if I’m here. That shouldn’t be too difficult.” Arrogantly she threw back her short hair, putting her hands into her wide pockets.

“I turned over a person’s ear, and I saw that mole,” he said. “At the moment I was in a unique situation.”

“There are such cheap marks everywhere,” she sneered in contempt. “Now you’d better go. Let me see you disappear among the crowd.”

“It’s you who has raised the issue.”

“It’s possible that I have said so. Don’t always remember. You should forget along the way. Why don’t you go?”

At that moment a gray boat was anchoring. She raised her long legs and boarded the ship. This time she did not look back. The boat gradually sailed away as if it were departing into the vast universe.

But he knew there was a thread linking him with that boat. He turned around and walked away. At every step he felt his chest being pulled at painfully by that thread. At the same time, that triangle in his mind’s eye was shooting out gold sparks.