최인호 타인의 방 Ch’oi In-ho Another’s Room

Translated by members of the KLTI Translation Academy

1. Vivian Lee

He had just come in from outside. He was ready to drop dead from exhaustion. Climbing the apartment building stairs slowly, he made his way to the apartment. Luck was on his side. All the way to his apartment, he didn’t run into anyone, and there was no one else in the corridor. The smell of boiling spinach drifted up from somewhere. He around at the door and then proceeded to ring the doorbell, located on the inside of the letterbox which had the words ‘Press’ on it, twice. He threw the cigarette butt, which was making his dry tongue sore, into the well-scrubbed and shiny corridor. He waited with extreme patience. For his wife to open the door. For her to open the door with her wide eyes on him and make a fuss. However, while he kept his ears pricked and lit up his last cigarette, no sounds were to be heard from inside the apartment. Once again, he inserted his hand into the steel slot and started to ring the doorbell, which had a springy feeling, manically. He felt a light tingle at the tip of his hand. And again he waited. At first, he had suspected the doorbell of being broken. But because every time he pressed the doorbell he could hear it faintly echo inside the depths of the apartment, he was convinced his wife was at this very instant lying there dead drunk and stark naked. As she used to say, When I’m asleep I’m dead to the world.

2. Nanhee Kim

She boasted as if it was one of her strong qualities. He felt rage rising within him and hence, for the next five minutes he glued his finger on the doorbell anxiously listening to the muted sound of the doorbell diffusing inside the room. Of course, there are two sets of keys, one for his wife and the other, which he keeps on a key holder with his other keys. If he wanted to, he could have opened the door immediately. But there is an austere side of him that dictates a persistent belief that it is a wife’s duty to open the door for her husband and it is a husband’s natural right to enter after his wife opens the door for him. For that reason he started to pound on the door with his fist. At first, he started slowly but later the pounding sound roared as though he was about to smash the door. The corridor filled with the reverberating sounds of heavy blows, and somewhere the sound of cries from an awakening baby can be heard. Then, a door opened on the other side of the corridor and a man wearing pajamas looked to see what was going on. The pajama-clad man was not the only one to look out into the corridor. Since he was not concerned with what others thought of him, pounding on the door, he did not notice others carefully opening their doors to glare at him with stone-faced looks. “Hey, there!” 3. 곽지원(Jiwon Kwak)

It was a woman who stared at him attentively. She finally asked him in a scolding tone, “Are you looking for someone?” “No, Nothing.” He was able to put on a gentle smile even though he was weary. He couldn’t help but keep banging. “Mister, I don’t think anybody is home now. Are you here to collect a bill?” He picked up the suitcase that had made her mistake him for a bill collector. He forced a smile and answered. “I’m not what you think I am.” “Hey, you there!” The guy in pajamas cracked his knuckles and approached with his slippers scuffling. “You’ve been banging for a while but nobody is home. Why don’t you just leave? Because of you, my baby woke up.” “I’m sorry to hear that.” He apologized sincerely. But he was sick and tired of everything and he could almost spit. 4 Oh Jun Seok

"To tell the truth," He pulled his keys out of his pocket, feeling so ashamed as if he had been caught farting. And he applied one to the door with his sense of touch only, among about five or six keys jingling so familiarly to him. "This is my house." "What?" The woman made a high-pitched sound while staring at him in doubt. "Are you telling me this is your house?" "Yes." He answered bluntly. Then she tilted her head to one side. "What? Is there anything you doubt?" "Hey. Look." The man in pajamas came closer as if he would not feel comfortable unless he should check for himself. As he was tall like a giant, he had to raise his eyes. 5. 고효진

“We’ve been living in this apartment for nearly three years, but we’ve never seen anyone like you around.”

“Wait, what did you just say?”

Amid feelings of near-explosive anger, he moaned.

“Just because you’ve never seen me, is, is that a reason for accusing the rightful owner of this place of being a thief, a burglar? I’ve also lived in this room for three years. And I’ve never seen your face until today. Mustn’t you, therefore, also be under suspicion?”

Enraged, he shouted hysterically at the top of his voice.

“Still,”

The man was stubbornly persistent.

“Sorry to have suspected you, but what would you have in such circumstances?”

“That’s precisely what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Enraged and grumbling, he inserted his key into the keyhole of the door to the room. The door opened without a sound. 6 Lee Eun Kyung

"If you can't trust me, come in. I will prove it to you." He entered the room. It was gloomy. "Honey!" He yelled angrily as he took off his shoes and felt about the wall for the light switch. The room was dark, and no one answered. Shit. Dragging his legs that were swollen with fatigue, he finally found the switch on the wall. He flicked it roughly. The fluorescent light had a bad connection, so it came on properly only after blinking several times like a firefly in a collecting bottle. The light came on abruptly, and the man stood momentarily bewildered as if he were in a strange place. He noticed that the man outside of the door was still staring at him uncertainly. He felt a bit absurd and slammed the door shut. Spying a piece of paper below the mirror of the dressing table, he exerted himself to get there and picked it up. Honey, I received a telegram this morning saying my father is in a critical condition. I will visit him for a short while. You must be tired, so I will tell him that you are on a business trip. Get some rest. Your meal is already set up in the kitchen. Your Wife 7 Jung Jaeho

He took off his coat, untied his necktie and took off his shirt very slowly but all the time sighing, stamping the floor and feeling deeply tired, and lastly, he took off his pants bending his almost rigid legs like as if folding an army knife and hung it in the wardrobe angrily. Just then he found himself confronting an oldish man, fairly old with countless wrinkles, and vainly cursed the man in the mirror, himself. Shit, I finally got back and now what? Nobody is waiting for me. He felt an intense loneliness. Naked, he wandered around the stifling living room where there was not even a slight crack to let out a bit of the stifling air, moaning like a caged animal. The furniture was in the same position and nothing seemed to have changed since the day he left the room. The transistor was buzzing because nobody had turned it off. He turned it off. His wife’s clothes were all over the floor in the bedroom, and a worn stocking was lying on the sofa. A pair of garters was on the table. The lipstick lay with the cap open. 8 Stella Chun

Since he was hungry, he went to the kitchen. On the small dining table were several slices of bread, as hard as cardboard, instead of steamed rice. He swallowed the cold and stale bread as if he was chewing some kind of rubber. This is too much. He kept grumbling. He thought he deserved a warm welcome with hot food. That's not all. He should have been smoking his pipe and listening to music in the living room by now. Unfortunately, however, he was all alone tonight. He looked around the room, searching in every corner for a newspaper, in vain. So he gave up on reading a newspaper. He glanced at the clock and saw that it had stopped, the date indicating it had died a week ago. His wife had bought the clock and it looked classic for a desk top clock, although it was cumbersome with the date and day of the week showing. From time to time, the clock went crazy and ran so absurdly fast that the numbers indicating the date would flip over ahead of time with a clattering noise, and the letters for the day of the week would jump one day ahead. More than that once the date and day of the week get all mixed up, there was no way to fix them except to manually turn the hands of the clock thousands of times. Angrily, he started to turn the hands of the clock. What made him even madder was the fact that he had just trimmed his fingernails and was feeling helpless from the tip of his nails, the kind of helplessness a person without teeth would feel when trying to crack a walnut using only his gums. He barely managed to suppress the urge to smash the damn clock onto the floor as he repeated the utterly meaningless act of restoring the time. 9 Park Jeongjun

He worked on it for a long time, until inevitably, wore him out. He slowly dragged his painful legs towards the bathroom. When he turned on the lights, its spotless brightness made the bathroom look like a sanitary butcher's shop. His wife must have taken a bath, as the bathtub was filled with filthy water. A wisp of her hair was still dangling on the edge of the bathtub, and it wriggled like a live insect. He reached down for the plug, that reminded him of the back of a crayfish hiding in the dirty, and pulled it out. Soon, the small bathtub shuddered while the emptying water made a sound like lips smacking and leaving sediment and a stain here and there. He stuffed the rubber plug into the drain of the sink and turned on both the hot and cold water at the same time. The hot water felt to him too cold. He rubbed his face making lots of soap bubbles so that he looked like a fool disguised as a buffoon. He found his safety razor with the blade up. It was in exactly the same place where he had left it before he went on a business trip a week ago. Half- dried foam was oozing out of the blade, and the remnants of his beard were still sticking to it. He started to shave, cursing his wife's laziness with words that he would not even say to a prostitute. The beard was too tough and deep-rooted for his rusty and blunt razor to shave off. So he got a couple of cuts on his face, one of which was so deep that it bled. He pasted a scrap of toilet paper on to the cut. The tissue stuck to his face like a stamp. The stamp adheres to an envelope by gum. However, on his face, it was not gum but blood. 10 Sim Yeon Hui

He got angry. Standing there depressed, he felt huge languor sweeping from his toes up through the body. He saw his face rising blurry in the mist with a stamp attached like a delivered package. Suddenly he realized there was something on the mirror. Stretching out a hand, he recognized what it was. It was chewing gum. His wife always chews gum, and it is one of her habits. When eating or taking a shower she puts gum on the kitchen table or on the mirror, wetting it enough with sticky saliva, carefully planning to remove it completely. He giggled. He put the gum into his mouth. The congealed and contracted gum felt like a raisin. Lacking fragrance, so it felt odd and nasty in the mouth, but soon it became soft. His wife’s gum was the only comfort to him. Therefore he felt better and started to sing.

Hey you bird in the leaves. I don’t know why you changed your mind. What should I do but let you go. Leave me if you want to.

His voice was resonant in the bathroom. Making the whole room echo, the sound whirled around like the ringing of a bell in the sealed bathroom with no way out. Then he began to whistle as well.

There’s no place like home. He said quietly. Unconsciously mumbling, he thought the voice sounded like another person’s, so he looked back. He sensed someone behind him. But he decided not to care. 11. 권현민

He found a magnifier lying in front of the bathroom mirror. Of course, he was well aware of its purpose. It was the thing his wife used along with her tweezers when removing hair under her armpits or fuzz under her nose, and he grasped it. Holding it and looking through it, he saw his face reflected in the mirror. The indistinct figure of a man was oddly bloated and enlarged. By moving it, he began to struggle to concentrate fluorescent light in the bathroom into a focus. Under the sun, by tilting the magnifier you can burn an insect with broken wings. In the sticky and clammy bathroom, feeling eerie chills, he was sweating to concentrate the fluorescent light into a focus and thus to bring heated air together. He was experiencing the mid-summer of the last prolonged summer.

Last summer was happy, he thought. Then he had an urge to murmur this thought. So he made a sound.

Surely it was happy. No doubt about it. Startled at his own sound again, he looked back. But no one was near him. Rather embarrassed and ashamed, he roared with laughter.

He approached the shower, which stood disheartened like a tall cockscomb, glaring down at him bleakly. Every time he came near the shower, he felt an impulse to measure his height against it. The shower, whose neck was cracked like that of a hanged prisoner, gave him a grim stare. He grabbed the control levers, supplying hot and cold water, which stuck out from both sides of the shower’s pipe. With deliberation, with careful deliberation, he turned the lever for hot water. And boiling rain began to pour down. The rain hit the tile floor of the bathroom, turned briefly into steam and rose up. Amazing, this hot water is not the same as yesterday’s, he realized. He was amazed, like a man who suddenly opens his eyes after long darkness. Now he let the cold water run as much as the hot water. He realized the cold water was no longer the same as everyday. With the water on his palms feeling too hot and too cold, he hesitated for a while, and eventually, chewing the gum, jumped into the fierce shower. He reveled in the touch of warm water licking his fatigued face and, like the girl cursed with red shoes that would not stop dancing until she died, slipping and streaming down his body. 12. 김보람

He wets the soap in his hands and runs his hands over his body. When the white lather was sheathing his entire body like the fluff on a pet poodle, he watched his member grow hard, like a stick, and rise up, stiff and powerful. Desire boiled up within him, and he plunged back under the stream of hot water, moaning, feeling the jet beat against his chest, his member, until it hurt. The steaming water drenches his flushed muscles, sinews emanating the odor of fresh meat. Even after the soap suds had melted away, he wallowed under the stream of water, letting it take over his body as he chewed his gum. When some of the weariness has washed away, he switches off the tap and scrupulously dries himself. He is parched. Stepping out of the bathroom into the now-chilly living room, he opens a cabinet and takes out some powdered juice mix and sugar. He pays close attention not to spill any of the powder, yet manages to pour nearly ten spoonfuls into the glass. He adds cold water. He then patiently stirs the contents with a long- handled spoon. Holding the glass in one hand and stirring with the other, he walks toward the record player. He pulls out a record at random, not recognizing the title of the album. As he plugs in the cord, the record player suddenly lights up with a soft whirring noise. The turntable begins its circular trajectory. Like a thrower letting fly his discus, he gently sets the record on the turntable. The dull needle makes a whooshing noise, and after a few moments, the machine spits out its song. Listening to the music, he sprawls out on the sofa. The furtive light from the lamp stand charges the room with a sense of gloom. From above, the man hardly looks human. He lies immobile, a part of the furniture landscape. Then his wife’s note, placed on the dresser, catches his eye. He recalls what it says and smiles bitterly. He realizes she has lied to him. He was supposed to get back the night after. Yet there she sits, writing that she has received a telegram that her father is in intensive care and that she must go to him. He smiles. He is filled with exhilaration as an itchy sense of revulsion creeps over him. I know, he thinks. My wife probably left the house the very day I went on my business trip. My wife thinks I’m returning tomorrow evening, so she’ll only be back the morning of the day after, at best. Feeling rather sheepish and ashamed, she will apologize to me in a low voice. 13 Lee June

I know my wife has unusual genitalia; it comes with a zipper – firm and strong. She likes to undress herself in front of me and test it. The way the zipper is displayed on her lower body reminds me of a snug winter coat; it shows off her ability to readily let others in. He chuckled and started to stir with his spoon. It was at that moment. He heard something – footsteps gliding through the air. He listened closely. Something was in the bathroom. He made a violent move and charged in that direction. Water was pouring down from the shower; he remembered turning it off. “Shit.” Grumbling, he turns it off and comes back to the sofa. This time the sound came from the kitchen. He clenched his teeth and tried not to complain as he walked over there. The oil burner was blazing. Grumbling, he turns it off. He slowly walks back to the sofa, and sees a fresh cigarette lit on the ashtray. With a jerk, he looks around. Extreme loneliness overwhelms him. “Who’s there” He calls out with caution. His voice was cut short. He realizes he’s trapped. He feels like somebody is watching him. Throwing himself on the sofa, he stares at the furnishings one by one. Like leaves washed by the rain, the furniture starts to glow with a bright hue. He stirs his spoon aggressively. The steamy water was full of sugar, but some of it hadn’t dissolved and settled at the bottom of the cup. Yet, he continued to stir. Suddenly he has a feeling the long spoon held in his hand was no longer an ordinary spoon. 14 Perry Miller

Thereupon in his shifting awareness of the spoon, he saw it at the edge of his vision, glittering and jumping up like a bizarre fish. He grips the spoon with all his strength. As he does so, the spoon responds with the same vigorous resistance as a live fish. Then the spoon in his grip slips nimbly through his fingers. With his mouth agape in momentary shock, he watches the spoon soar through the air and float weightlessly. He stares hard at everything in the room to inspect it again and reassure himself. Every object that enters his awareness is shaking in unison and increasing mirth. He gets up, reeling, and walks over to turn on the living room light. He presses the switch. The mini light bulb in the lamp flickers several times, contemplating illumination. Then suddenly the room is lit up. He discovers the spoon held in his fist, placid like a freshwater fish at rest. Cautiously, he scrutinizes the room object by object, taking an inventory of everything which just been shaking and jumping up, clattering. The objects had astonishingly, and insolently, settled back into their proper places. He feels sorrow. Though they are not completely still, the objects sit sneering. Complaining to himself, he turns the light off. He sits on the couch and starts to drink the sweet sugar water. He hears whispers from the darkened corners of the room. Darkness colludes with darkness in a council of co- conspirators. Friend, let’s have a chat. From the depths of the room’s corners one guy bravely sends his invitation. Millipede-like insects make audible footfalls crossing the wall surfaces. Also audible are the wardrobe mirror and vanity mirror, invisibly mating. He stares hard in the darkness. The walls swell and roll. He moves slowly. A sound issues from the two holes of the wall socket into which the iron is plugged. Hey buddy. Listen close. I’ll tell you a secret. He presses his right ear up to the socket. His ear connects with the socket like an appliance plug. As he does so, his entire body starts to burn like a high-grade electric heater. He feels a passing spark, then light throughout his entire body. 15 권은희

Listen carefully, the socket murmured. It was like listening to a crackling voice through transistor headphones, the voice whispered to the outer edge of his ears. Tonight, there will be a fateful coup d’etat. Aren’t you afraid? He moved his ear away from the socket. Then rushed to switch the lights back on. When he turned the lights on, the shameful mess of the place feigned innocence, despite being as clear as day. With the lights on, he approached the dresser. He opened and inspected everything on the table, cosmetics large and small, all the while muttering to himself. Next, he opened the cupboard and took stock of the neatly arranged empty containers, the matchbox, and candlestick holder; he opened the closet and checked the clothes, hung like fish out to dry, followed by their pockets. Although it was a bit disgraceful, the clothing kindly allowed its pockets to be emptied. He decided he would look at every single thing. He opened the drawers and rummaged through their contents. There he discovered some old dried leaves that would crumble at a touch. They reminded him of the previous fall, and for a moment he began to feel depressed. He gazed at the faded photograph in the picture frame. He observed the books resting in their covers on the shelf. He went into the kitchen and examined the wick of the oil heater. While he was checking everything with a cover, he proceeded to lift the bed covers and shake them. He even looked in the toilet, and through the crack in the window. Everything in the house patiently complied with his demands, like good citizens who pay their taxes. But these were not your ordinary, everyday things. They were not things of the past. As he felt a wave of exhaustion come over him, he went back to the living room, poured himself a glass of liquor and threw it back in one shot. A feeling of foolishness, followed by loneliness and isolation washed over him. He continued to refill the glass and choke down one shot after another. It tasted salty and bland, sweet and bitter. 16 Peter Koh

He thought that there might be a half-finished cigarette somewhere, so he rummaged through the drawers and found a dried-out cigarette butt, which he lit. The alcohol made his face flushed and relaxed him as well, so that he began to sing loudly like a child.

A bird frolicked amidst the leaves. Who knows why? I can’t do anything about it. If it doesn’t like me, let it fly away.

Stark naked, the man began pacing and then running about the apartment as if it were a matter of habit. As he was examining the kitchen, he noticed that the bathroom looked a bit odd. While he was investigating the bathroom, the living room in turn seemed peculiar. He continued running around in circles like a pulley belt, yet he couldn’t find anything amiss. He felt ashamed to have been startled by the inanimate objects in his apartment and finally began to relax. He confidently strode to the light switch and turned it off. He then sat down on the sofa and began sipping the rest of his sugar water. With the lights off, the darkness slathered like paint on the surrounding walls slowly began creeping towards him and even began giggling brazenly. Discarded tissues strewn about the floor like strips of cloth fluttered in the air. Underwear in the dresser drawer and the four legs of the table began to stir.

The phenomenon began quietly enough, but sensing that their prey was defenseless, all at once sundry items yelled out, creating a tumult. Crayons began flying through the air. Clothes in the closet started to flap and dance. A leather belt began writhing like a water snake. The more intrepid objects even approached the man, lightly brushing his face. “Be careful, be careful!” murmured a match inside a matchbook. A dried-out flower in a flowerpot began kicking its legs up and down in a dance, revealing glimpses of its underwear. The wall gradually leaned in and blinked its eyes once or twice and then returned to its original position. The transistor radio raised its antenna and did a hand-stand, upon which the ash tray began clapping. Music could be heard coming from around the socket of the radio. He was reminded of his amazement at the rain running off the eaves when he was a little boy. At those times he would take off his shoes and hold them up to catch the rainwater. He now opened a small umbrella in memory of the past and dove headlong into the floral wreath of ecstasy, his world. 17 Benedict Jackson

It was then that it happened. He felt his legs slowly turn rigid. He just happened to feel this. It was when he had first resolved to move slowly, stealthily and escape from the room, making as little noise as possible. But because his legs had turned hard and numb as plaster, all he could do was make up his mind to use his hands and drag himself towards the switch. Stretching his hands out, he used every last bit of strength to haul his ever heavier and stiffer legs over to the switch. But before he could reach it, he found his whole body growing hard. So he gave up altogether. Thinking how strange it all was, he quietly brought his legs together and stood up straight. He looked as if he was coming back to life. The day after next, some time in the afternoon, a woman came into the room. She found signs that someone had broken in. She was startled, and thought about calling the police, but when she calmed her beating heart and took a careful look around every corner of the room she discovered that, although somebody had clearly broken in, nothing was gone, and she felt relieved. But she also discovered that, while nothing was missing, another object had been put in the room. Because the woman liked this object very much she kept it dusted for a few days and, somewhat awkwardly, kissed it. But later she became aware that the object was not serving any purpose and she got fed up with it. So she stuffed it among the odds and ends in the attic. And the woman made up her mind to leave the room. She tore off a sheet of notepaper, wrote the following note in neat handwriting, and placed it on the dressing table:

Darling. I got a telegram this morning saying my father is critically ill. I’m going back to my hometown for a while. You must be exhausted so I’ll tell them you’re away on business and couldn’t come with me. I’ve left your dinner in the kitchen.