The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 59

Her helpers had managed to get a four-wheel drive up the muddy tracks to a small courtyard behind the grotto on the top of the hill. From the side of the road you could almost see the sea, a line of greyer grey where the sky stopped. The forest swayed below, the clouds rushed above, heading east in a hurry, trailing loose hairs as they ran.

The inside of the car smelt of chemicals and hire companies. On the back of every seat was my photo, pinned up large, and a note in the same stiff hand which read: She is _why.

The driver, a man in a baseball cap and owl sunglasses, was waiting, a cigarette burning between two yellow-stained fingers, a Manchester United T-shirt billowing around his skinny chest. He threw the butt away as we approached, nodded wordlessly and swung into his seat. I huddled in the back, between Byron and the woman, and said nothing.

We drove in silence, until the driver’s phone rang and he answered irritably, holding it in place under his chin. His mother, checking that he was all right. Yes he was, of course he was, he was always all right. Well, she’d heard… Mother, I’m working… Oh well yes dear but I just wanted to tell you…

The driver hung up. We drove in silence, Byron never taking her eyes from me.

At one point, the man in the front turned away, and grew enthralled by the passing of the forest around us, and when he looked back, he gasped to see me, and his colleague’s eyes flashed to his face and he mumbled in Korean, something about truth and memory — I couldn’t decipher more.

Then the woman’s eyes narrowed, and she looked away, and perhaps intended only to look away for a minute at most, but forgot that she was deliberately diverting her attention, so looked back five minutes later, and caught her breath, and held onto the handle above the door as she stared at me, in case she might bounce out of her seat.

Then she crossed herself.

Census, 2005, South Korea: Buddhism 22 per cent. Protestantism and Roman Catholicism combined: 28 per cent. Flaws in the survey, however: no one was asked if they practised Confucianism, or honoured their ancestors, or sought the guidance of shamans. In this corner of the world, it was perfectly normal to pray to both Jesus and Kuanyin, manifestations, perhaps, of the same entity, expressed in different manners.

I glanced over at Byron, unsmiling, who said nothing. She would not take her eyes from me, not permit herself to break awareness of my presence.

At a motorway service station, we stopped for burgers. There weren’t sandwiches to be found, and the burgers were hot halfway-houses between McDonald’s and bibimbap, but it was food. Byron ate in silence as we pulled away, and only when she’d finished every corner and I was licking the last of the pickle sauce from my fingers did she say, “How do you live?”

“I steal,” I replied. “I am a very good thief.”

That seemed to be all the questions she had.

Some fifteen miles short of Daegu we stopped in a small town of 1960s concrete blocks, clinging to the terraced side of a mountain. A small building of beige-washed walls and pink-tiled roof overlooked a tumbling mountain stream that rushed over shallow smooth stones. A black and white cat regarded us from on top of the wall, while beneath it, a lethargic dog, grey with no collar, opened one watery eye to consider first us, then the cat, then us again, and finding nothing interesting, went back to sleep.

The driver was the first out of the car, and embarked instantly on a cigarette, hauling in long breaths as he leant back against his bonnet. The man and woman emerged slowly, neither willing to take their eyes off me for more than a few moments. I followed, the cold air pushing out some of the sickness in my stomach. Calm. I am the cold; I am my empty face.

Byron gestured me inside; I followed.

A corridor lined with reed mats where we could leave our shoes. A collection of slippers of various sizes, decorated in bright plastic beads. A staircase going upwards to unknown rooms; a picture of the Dalai Lama on one wall, smiling as he signed a book with a felt-tip pen. A door to a living room which was also a kitchen; cushions on the floor, a flat-screen TV against one wall, a gas fire, a collection of books in Korean and English. A travel guide to the local area.

A traveller’s house, furnished for brief stays.

Byron gestured me to a cushion, sat opposite, folding her legs awkwardly, a bone clicking in a joint at her hip. The woman gave her a phone, which was switched to record and put between us. The man set up a digital camera on a tripod.

“Here is our situation, Why,” she said at last. “One of us will remain with you at all times. Every conversation will be filmed. May we offer you tea?”

“That’d be nice.”

“I don’t want you to feel in any way uncomfortable.”

“Might be a losing battle, that one.”

“I need to understand what you are.”

“I’m a thief.”

“I need to understand how you are.”

I shrugged. “Good luck.”

A kettle put on a stove. Three matching cups pulled from a cupboard; a question, green tea or red?

Green tea for Byron; red for me, thank you. Make it strong, milk if you have it.

The woman’s nose wrinkled at the idea, but she found some UHU, sniffed it, dribbled in the barest slap, didn’t stir.

We drank in silence, Byron and I, her eyes never leaving me.

I said, “You know that if I walk away, you’ll never find me.”

“You’re here, aren’t you? Have you ever been… forgive the word, but it’s the only one which will do… studied?”

“Doctors don’t remember who I am.”

“I have connections.”

“I’m not a lab rat.”

“Then you are not serious in your ambition to be remembered,” she replied simply. “If that is the case then you are correct — you can leave and we will almost certainly never find you. But you will never find me either, that I can promise.”

So saying, she stood, still watching.

“You’ll need to sleep,” I said. “You’ll forget when you do.”

“I know what I want from this,” was her answer. “Do you?”

She left, and I remained.

A moment in the night.

I sat, cross-legged, in front of the camera.

The man watched me, and I watched him watching.

Byron, asleep upstairs.

The woman, asleep on the other side of the room.

Taking turns, shifts to remember.

Each time they woke, they were surprised to see me, but always they left themselves notes — she is _why, you are set to guard her, do not forget.

Every three hours they swapped to a different video camera, just pointed at me, recording.

At two in the morning, the man dozed off.

I watched his head roll gently down, the lights still on, the camera still running, and waited for a little line of spit to gather in the lower corner of his mouth, ready to drop. In the darkness outside, I could hear the far-off sound of the motorway, and the nearer rushing of the river. I stood up, turned the camera off, poured myself another cup of tea, took the mug outside and went to consider the starlight.