Human Acts by Han Kang
‘Why give his contact details to some assistant editor he’s never met before, when even his own family don’t know how to get in touch with him?’
Blinking rapidly, she managed to say that she doesn’t know, she honestly doesn’t know.
He slammed his fist down on the table and she recoiled, her hand automatically flinching up to her cheek, as though she’d been hit again. And only then, upon lowering her hand, did she stare in surprise at her bloodied palm.
How am I going to forget? she wonders, in the darkness.
How can I forget that first slap?
The eyes of the man, who had examined her in silence at first, calm and composed like someone about to carry out an entirely practical item of business.
Herself, who, when he’d raised his hand, had sat there thinking: surely he’s not going to hit me.
The first blow, that had seemed to jolt her neck out of alignment.
Slap Two
The publisher’s niece, a lively, cheerful young woman who frequently ran errands for them, dropped by the office just before lunch.
‘Ah, there you are!’ Her uncle greeted her warmly, but darted a hurried glance over at Eun-sook when the latter looked up from the papers she’d been examining.
‘Have the bound proofs arrived yet?’ Eun-sook asked, smiling stiffly. Unable to tear her gaze from the older woman’s face, the publisher’s niece fumbled with her briefcase, eventually tugging out a proof.
‘What happened to your face?’ When this met with no response, the young woman cornered Yoon, who dealt with production, and asked again. ‘What happened to Eun-sook’s face?’ Yoon merely shook his head; the young woman’s eyes widened, and she turned back to the publisher.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I told Eun-sook she should go home early today, but what can I say, she’s a stubborn one …’
He tapped a cigarette out of his pack, stuck it between his lips and lit up. Opening the window behind his chair, he stuck his head through the gap and took such a deep drag on the cigarette that his cheeks caved right in, then finally blew out the smoke. He was middle-aged, the sort of man whom even the smartest clothes couldn’t prevent from looking permanently wrung-out. A man who used humble, honorific language even to those who were young enough to be his children. A man who, despite being the head of this tiny publishing house, hated the title ‘Boss’ and wouldn’t allow anyone to address him as anything other than ‘Publisher’ to his face. The high-school classmate of the translator whose whereabouts the police detective had demanded from her.
The owner’s niece left once she’d finished talking with Eun-sook, leaving the mood in the office somewhat deflated. The boss stubbed out his cigarette.
‘Do you fancy some barbecue for lunch, Miss Kim? My treat. Beef skirt from that place up by the junction.’
This sudden show of sociability chimed oddly with Eun-sook. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder before, but now she began to doubt. The boss had also called in at Seodaemun police station, early yesterday afternoon – not that long before she had. How had he persuaded them to leave him alone?
‘Thank you for the offer, but I’m fine with getting something myself.’ Her answer might have seemed a little frosty, but she couldn’t really help that given that her swollen face hurt too much for her to smile. ‘You know I don’t like meat.’
‘Ah yes, that’s right, you’re not a meat fan.’ The boss nodded to himself.
It wasn’t so much eating meat that Eun-sook disliked; what really turned her stomach was having to watch it cook on the hot plate. When the blood and juices rose to the surface she had to look away. When a fish was being griddled with the head still attached. That moment when moisture formed on the frozen eyeballs as they thawed in the pan, when a watery fluid flecked with grey scum dribbled out of its gaping mouth, that moment which always seemed to her as though the dead fish was trying to say something. She always had to avert her eyes.
‘So then, what shall it be? What would you like to eat, Miss Kim?’
Yoon chose that moment to pipe up.
‘You’ll bend our ears for us if we go somewhere expensive and run up a huge bill. Let’s go to that cafe we went to last time.’
With Yoon making three the office would be empty, so they locked the door behind them before walking up to the cafe by the junction. It was next door to the barbecue place the boss had originally suggested; a fairly ramshackle place, where homestyle boiled rice was dished up by a proprietor whose summer flip-flops exposed a toenail black with rot, while in winter she shuffled around with grubby socks stuffed into tatty old snow boots.
As they were finishing their meal, the boss turned to Eun-sook.
‘Shall I stop by the censor’s office tomorrow?’
‘That’s always been my job …’
‘Well, there was a lot of hassle yesterday; I’m just sorry you had to be involved in that.’
She looked across at him, pondering his words. How had he contrived to come out of there unharmed? By sticking only to what were, strictly speaking, the facts? Kim Eun-sook is the editor in charge. The two of them met at the bakery by Cheonggye stream and went through the manuscript proofs. That’s all I know. He’d stuck to the facts, nothing wrong with that; but was that bitter thing called conscience quietly needling away inside him?
‘It’s always been my job,’ Eun-sook repeated, but firmer this time. She attempted a smile but the pain rendered it a sorry affair, and she twisted away to save the boss from being troubled by the sight of her swollen cheek.
Once everyone else had left the office and headed home, Eun-sook wound her ink-black scarf around the lower portion of her face, making sure that her cheeks were covered all the way up to her eyes. She gave the kerosene stove one last double-check, switched off all the lights and even flicked the fuses to the down position. Standing before the door, its glass darkly mirroring the lightless office, she closed her eyes for just a moment, as though steeling herself before stepping outside.
The evening wind was bitter. It chilled the skin around her eyes, the only part left exposed by the scarf. Still, she didn’t want to take the bus. After a day spent sitting at her desk, she took pleasure in an unhurried walk home through the streets. This was the only time of day when she chose not to shut out the inchoate thoughts which surfaced, unbidden, as she threaded her way through the streets.
Was it because he is left-handed that the man hit my right cheek with his left hand?
But when he tossed the proofs onto the table, when he handed me the biro, he definitely used his right hand …
Is it that the specific emotional rush when you attack someone sparks a reflexive response in the left hand rather than the right?
The bitter taste at the back of her mouth was identical to the bile which surfaced before a bout of carsickness. Swallowing saliva was her usual trick to quell this familiar nausea, the sensation occurring simultaneously in the back of her mouth, her throat and stomach, and unaccountably tied to thoughts of you. Yet it wasn’t enough, this time, so she got some gum out of her coat pocket and started to work it with her teeth.
Wasn’t his hand a little on the small side, compared with most men?
She threaded her way between men in monochrome blazers, schoolgirls wearing white surgical masks, women whose skirt suits left their calves exposed to the biting wind, walking with her head bowed.
Wasn’t it a hand like any other, not especially large or coarse, one you could see on any man?
She walked on, conscious of the scarf’s slight pressure against the swelling. She walked on, the strong scent of acacia coming from the gum she made sure to keep on the left side of her mouth. Remembering how she had sat there, neither seeking to flee nor uttering the faintest cry of protest, merely waiting, holding her breath, for that second slap to come flying towards her face, she walked on.
Slap Three
She alights from the bus at the stop in front of Deoksu palace. Just like the day before, her scarf is wound aro
‘Excuse me.’ A robust-looking plain-clothes policeman stops her in front of City Hall. ‘Please open your bag.’
At such moments, she knows, a part of one’s self must
be temporarily detached from the whole. One level of her conscious mind peels away, a sheet of paper folding with the ease of habit along an oft-used crease. She opens her bag and displays the contents – a hand towel, acacia gum, a pencil case, the bound proof which the publisher’s niece brought to the office the day before, Vaseline for chapped lips, a notebook, a purse – without the slightest flicker of shame.
‘What is your business here?’
‘I have an appointment at the censor’s office. I work for a publisher.’ She looks the policeman directly in the eye.
She produces her resident’s card when instructed to do so. She looks on, unmoving, as he rummages through the pouch containing her sanitary towels. Just like what had happened two days ago, in the interrogation room at the police station. Just like that sleet-streaked April four years ago, after her cramming had finally paid off, and she’d passed the university entrance exams second time round and moved up to Seoul from Gwangju.
She’d been eating lunch late in the university cafeteria when the glass door banged open and a crowd of students raced in. The hand clutching her spoon had frozen as she stared blankly at the sight of plain-clothes policemen pursuing them through the cafeteria, roaring threats and brandishing clubs. One of their number seemed especially worked up – skidding to a halt in front of a chubby boy whose mouth was hanging open above his plate of curry and rice, he snatched up a chair and swung it over the table. The burst of blood from the boy’s forehead gushed down over his nose and mouth. The spoon dropped from Eun-sook’s fingers. Unthinkingly bending down to pick it up, her hand closed upon a flyer that had fallen to the floor. The thick font swam in front of her eyes. DOWN WITH THE BUTCHER CHUN DOO-HWAN. Just then, a rough hand grabbed hold of her long hair. It tore the paper from her grasp and dragged her off her chair.
DOWN WITH THE BUTCHER CHUN DOO-HWAN.
Those words feel seared onto her chest as she gazes up now at the photograph of the president hung on the plaster wall. How is it, she wonders, that a face can so effectively conceal what lies behind it? How is not indelibly marked by such callousness, brutality, murderousness? Perched awkwardly on a stool beneath the window, she tears at a hangnail. The room is warm, but she can’t remove her scarf; the brand on her cheek is flushed from the radiator’s heat.
The man behind the counter wears the uniform of the Defence Security Command. When he calls the name of her publisher, Eun-sook goes up to the counter and hands over the book proof. She asks for the manuscript proofs to be returned, which she gave in for inspection two weeks ago.
‘Please wait here.’
Beneath the murderer’s framed photograph is a door with frosted glass. Behind that door, she knows, the censors are busy with their work. She pictures the scene: middle-aged inspectors sporting army uniforms, their faces entirely unfamiliar, poring over the open books covering the table. The counter manager opens the door just as wide as he needs to angle his body through, the movement swift and practised.
Barely three minutes have gone by before he returns to his post.
‘Sign here, please.’ When he pushes the ledger towards her, she hesitates. A single glance had been sufficient to see that there was something strange about the manuscript proof he has just put down on the counter. ‘Sign, please.’
Eun-sook signs her name, and is given the manuscript.
Any further exchange of words would be pointless. The censors’ task has been carried out, and now Eun-sook holds the result in her hands.
She turns and walks away from the counter, her steps slow and almost stumbling. She comes to a halt by the row of benches, and turns the pages of the manuscript. Having spent a full month typing it up, comparing it against the original and completing the third printer’s proof, she knows its content practically by heart. Now at the final stage before publication, it only remains to be properly printed.
Her initial impression is that the pages have been burned. They’ve been thrown onto a fire and left to blacken, reduced to little more than a lump of coal.
Submitting the manuscript proofs to the censor’s office, then calling back on the appointed day – she’s been through this same process every month since starting work at the publisher’s. After checking to see which sections of the text had been crossed out with a black line – usually three or four, a dozen at the most – she would return to the office feeling somewhat deflated, and send the corrected proofs off to the printers.
But this time is different. More than half of the sentences in the ten-page introduction have been scored through. In the thirty or so pages following, this percentage rises so that the vast majority of sentences have a line through them. From around the fiftieth page onwards, perhaps because drawing a line had become too labour-intensive, entire pages have been blacked out, presumably using an ink roller. These saturated pages have left the manuscript bloated and distended, water-logged flotsam washed up on some beach.
Handling it as though it really were charcoal, friable and likely to crumble, she slipped this alien object into her bag. Its leaden weight was entirely incommensurate with its actual substance. She cannot remember how she made it out of that office, how she walked down the corridor and out through the main doors, where a plain-clothes policeman was standing guard.
There is no way, now, that this collection of plays can be published. All their efforts had been in vain, right from the start.
Her mind fumbles through those few, scattered sentences that were spared from the introduction.
After you were lost to us, all our hours declined into evening.
Evening are our streets and our houses.
In this half-light that no longer darkens nor lightens, we eat, and walk, and sleep.
She recalls sentences roughly darned and patched, places where the forms of words can just about be made out in paragraphs which had been otherwise expunged. You. I. That. Perhaps. Precisely. Everything. You. Why. Gaze. Your eyes. Near and far. That. Vividly. Now. A little more. Vaguely. Why did you. Remember? Gasping for breath in these interstices, tiny islands among language charred out of existence. How can there be water coming out of the fountain? What can we possibly be celebrating?
She turns her back on the black bronze statue of the general with his sword, and walks on without pausing. Her breathing constricted by the scarf, pain throbbing dully beneath the reddened skin of her exposed cheekbone, she walks on.
Slap Four
The editor Kim Eun-sook had sat there and waited for the man’s hand. No, she had waited for him to stop. But really she hadn’t been waiting for anything. She was simply struck in the face. The man beat her; she was beaten. And that, now, is what she has to forget. Today is the day for forgetting the fourth slap.
Just outside the office, at the end of the corridor, she turns on the tap at the washbasin and holds her hands under the cold water. Her wet fingers smooth her long hair, which curls without the need for a perm, and after she has succeeded in neatening it a little she ties it up with a black rubber band.
She doesn’t put on any make-up, just Vaseline for her chapped lips. Powdering one’s face to a milky whiteness, spritzing on perfume, slipping feet into high-heeled shoes; these are all things that other women do, but not she. Today is a Saturday, meaning her working day finishes at 1 p.m., but she has no boyfriend to eat lunch with. During her brief time at university, she made no friends whom she could now arrange to see. Instead, she will do as she always does, which is to return quietly to her rented room. She will soak cold rice in warm water to soften it, eat, then go to sleep. While she sleeps she will forget the fourth slap.
The corridor is fairly gloomy even during t
‘How have you been, Eun-sook?’
Her response to this hearty greeting is a quiet ‘hello’, and when she bows Mr Seo’s eyes widen visibly behind his brown-framed glasses.
‘Goodness, what happened to your face?’
‘I had a bit of an accident.’ She gives a half-smile.
‘What kind of accident …’ Seeing her hesitation, he swiftly changes the subject. ‘Is the boss in?’
‘No, he didn’t come in today. He said he had a wedding to attend.’
‘Is that so? I called him yesterday evening and he said he’d be here.’
Eun-sook opens the door to the office.
‘Please come in, sir.’
Something twitches in her cheek as she leads him over to the table they use for receiving guests. She goes into the tiny kitchen and places her hands on both cheeks; the right one throbbing, the left, tensed. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she heats up the coffee pot. She can’t understand why her hands are shaking, as though she’s been caught out in a lie. After all, it’s not as though she’s the one who destroyed that book. Why isn’t the boss here? Has he deliberately stayed away in order to avoid this delicate situation?
‘While we were on the phone yesterday evening and I asked how much they’d redacted, the boss just sighed,’ Mr Seo tells Eun-sook. She sets his coffee down and straightens the pale yellow tablecloth. ‘So I came to see for myself. Even if the book itself can’t be published, that won’t really affect the performance run. Any parts they had an issue with will just have to be fixed or taken out, and then they’ll give us the go-ahead.’
Eun-sook goes over to her desk and opens the bottom drawer. She takes out the manuscript proof, brings it back over to the table and puts it down in front of Mr Seo. As she sits down, she sees his habitual friendly smile falter; he seems shocked, but quickly regains his composure. He examines each page of the manuscript, not even choosing to skip the ones that have been completely mulched by the ink roller.