b Book and Me Read online

  b,

  Book,

  and Me

  Also by

  Kim Sagwa

  Mina

  Translated from Korean by

  Sunhee Jeong

  Originally published as: 나b책 by Kim Sagwa

  Copyright © 2011 by Kim Sagwa

  Originally published in Korea by Changbi Publishers, Inc.

  English Edition is published in arrangement with Changbi Publishers, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Translation © 2020 by Sunhee Jeong

  Two Lines Press

  582 Market Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94104

  www.twolinespress.com

  ISBN 978-1-931883-96-2

  Names: Kim Sagwa, author. | Jeong, Sunhee, translator.

  Title: b, Book, and Me / by Kim Sagwa; translated by Sunhee Jeong.

  Description: English edition. | San Francisco : Two Lines Press, [2020] | “Originally published in Korea by Changbi Publishers, Inc., © 2011.” |

  Summary: When b and Rang’s friendship ends they are completely alone until a mysterious man, Book, introduces them to the part of town where lunatics live--the End. Identifiers: LCCN 2019025997 | ISBN 9781931883962 (paperback)

  Subjects: CYAC: Best friends--Fiction. | Friendship--Fiction. | Schools--Fiction. | Bullying--Fiction. | Family problems--Fiction. | Eccentrics and eccentricities--Fiction. | Korea--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S58367 Baaf 2020 | DDC [Fic]--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019025997

  Cover design by Gabriele Wilson

  Cover photo by Miguel Sobreira / Millennium Images, UK

  Typeset by Jessica Sevey

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  This book is published with the support of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) and is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

  Contents

  A Seaside City

  My Sister

  Me, b, Book

  The End

  A face as stiff as a boulder, stiff with boredom—

  that’s the face of an adult.

  Adults don’t think about the ocean

  even when they watch it.

  Their minds are full of other things.

  It’s very depressing to think

  that someday I, too, will be an adult.

  1

  We lived on the coast.

  2

  As I stood at the end of the breakwater, my body swayed against a gust of wind. When I looked out over the ocean, the waves filled my eyes. They pushed in and died out, from left to right, then from the left again, making white foam. The foam looked like a sponge or little snowballs. It felt good to watch the small white bubbles disappear when they touched my skin. That’s why I came to the breakwater every day. Even on extremely cold or extremely hot days. Sometimes a strong gust of wind would push me one step, no, two steps to the right. But it didn’t scare me. The frothy waves reminded me of winter. I thought about snow, which I’ve never actually seen, and all at once, I would be standing in the middle of a snowy winter field. The blue ocean would completely transform into a white field of snow. Winter tumbling over the ground. If I lay flat on my stomach, it would spill over my back. It tumbled and tumbled, then jumped into the waves to melt away without a trace. I’d stand still, my swaying body tight, and etch the winter field onto my memory.

  Besides me, the breakwater was always teeming with tanned boys. I knew them very well. We all went to the same school, since there was only one school in our city, and that’s because we lived in a very small city. The boys would stand at the tip of the breakwater with their arms crossed, looking silently down at the water, and then, all of a sudden, they’d jump in. A wet head would pop up, grinning happily. Skinny muscular arms would plow through the water and climb back up the breakwater. The boys thumped each other’s soaked backs. They laughed and yelled, sang songs and danced. When they shook their heads, drops of water fell on their shoulders, sparkling in the blinding-white sunlight.

  One day, I was passing by the noisy group of boys, and one of them, grinning, playfully yanked my hair. I held my bag tightly in both arms and walked faster. Then the boy swore and began to chase me. Frightened, I picked up a stone and threw it. The stone hit him, gashing his forehead. He stared at me, eyes wide with surprise as red blood smeared down his forehead. The other kids started yelling, screaming, ii ii, like angry monkeys. I hunched my back, clasping my bag even more tightly and picking up my pace. The boys continued, ii, ii. I was scared, but they didn’t do anything except make monkey noises. Anyway, after that, no one yanked my hair again. But it was even worse: when I passed the boys, they hunched their shoulders and whispered among themselves. They didn’t laugh or dance. I missed watching them laugh and dance and jump into the ocean.

  I opened my bag and peered inside. Inside was my pencil case, some notebooks, and a mirror. I took out the mirror and held it up to my face. The mirror didn’t reflect any light. I held it to the sun. It shone with light. The boys stopped whispering and stared at me. Still holding out the mirror, I walked. I walked faster and faster. I tried to smile, but couldn’t.

  3

  Sometimes, the dads who took their boats out to sea didn’t return. Morning came with its rising sun, then night came again, shining with stars, but the dads didn’t return. People, sobbing and tearing their hair out, came to the beach. They waited. They waited a long time. But nothing happened. The sun sparkled and the stars shone. The ocean rocked from the left to the right. Everything was the same. No one came back.

  Some days, a brave child would swim far out and wouldn’t return. Then the brave child’s mother would come, wailing, staggering along the sandy shore. If she was lucky, a body would be pushed back onto the shore. When that happened, the wind stopped blowing and the waves stopped swaying. People gathered around the body. The other children would stand far back from the breakwater and stare, silent.

  Sometimes, a lonely person walked right into the ocean. It was always at night, and it was always someone from a faraway place we’d never heard of. A few days later, people would arrive in their cars, carrying the person’s photograph, and go into Highway Grocery. But the old lady who owned Highway Grocery was too old to remember anything. The sun sparkled more brightly than ever, and so did the ocean. The boys jumped into the water, and I lay on my stomach at the edge of the breakwater. In the end, no one came back. Everything stayed the same.

  4

  It was noon. The sky was completely dark and hushed rain fell. I had taken off all my clothes and was standing at the end of the deserted breakwater, staring into the ocean. The waves whirled violently, creating foam that was bigger than my body. Overall, the ocean seemed to be extremely busy, so I couldn’t talk to it. But standing still and not saying anything is boring. I got bored and put my clothes back on. My clothes were wet, like my body. I hugged my bag and started to walk away from the breakwater. The rain fell more heavily. The wind whirled around and around, from left to right, then from the left again. I shook and swayed along with it. The sky was a huge ocean, and it poured itself down on my head. The ocean poured down on the ocean. The sandy beach and roads were oceans as well. The rain fell even more strongly. A huge wave reached over the breakwater and yanked at my ankle. Startled, I began to cry, and then my eyes were the ocean as well. My cheeks, my neck, my shoulders, and my belly button all became the ocean. Everything was the ocean. Everything was the same. That means we’re on the same side. I’m on the same side as the waves, the sky, the earth, the ocean. Nothing was scary if I thought of it that way. I was the waves, I was the earth, and I was water. I lifted my arms high into the
air, and let my bag drop to the ground. The falling rain and me, the waves and the ocean and me, the earth and water and me, we were all one. The rain grew stronger, so I grew stronger. We all grew stronger together. Eventually, I became so strong that I forgot who I was. I forgot what I was doing and where I was going. Without a thought for my bag, I started walking.

  Without thinking about my bag.

  Without thinking.

  Without thinking about all that was bad.

  Without thinking.

  Without thinking.

  I opened my closed eyes. Rain ran down my entire body. I was happy. I was happy.

  5

  I got into trouble with my mom.

  I also got a cold, a new bag, pencil case, and mirror.

  6

  The city was located east of the ocean. Everybody who lived there was pretty much the same. We all went to the same school, watched movies at the same movie theater, and ate hamburgers at the same burger place. We all dreamed the same dream—we didn’t dream at all. We just swayed like the waves, back and forth, back and forth, ending up in the same place we were before. Except there was one kid who wanted to be a fish. That’s b, sitting right next to me. “Then you can just go into the water and stay there,” said b. “You can stay there forever. You don’t have to pay rent. You don’t have to go grocery shopping. You don’t even have to work or go to school. You won’t need money. You can be poor,” said b, who was poor.

  “I want to go into the water and never come out.”

  b reached down and brushed the sand off her knees.

  I waited for b to start talking again.

  “I want to be a fish.”

  That’s all b said.

  But in my opinion, it wouldn’t be that easy. “Being a fish,” I said, “means that you have scales all over you.” I put my palms together and stretched them out toward b. “It means that your body is flat. It means that you have fins and gills, that your legs disappear.” I tightened my fists and shook. “You’d be ugly. Is that what you want? Are you into that?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  b was resolute.

  “I’ll go into the water and I’ll never come back out.”

  We were sitting on the sand. The ocean glittered, reflecting the sunlight. It was a really splendid Friday afternoon in the middle of spring. But there weren’t any slim women in flowery bikinis, or well-tanned men hitting on them. You couldn’t find people like that here, not even in the summer. Because our city is dull. “In Seoul,” Glasses once said, “you can get a TV as big as fifteen of the TVs in the classroom put together. But it’s even thinner than my workbook.” Glasses was our class president. He was talking about Seoul again. But we all knew as little about Seoul as we did about how to turn into a fish. Actually, turning into a fish sounded more feasible than living in Seoul. Glasses wanted to live in Seoul, so he worked feverishly on his workbook through his thick glasses. I thought Glasses’ parents were pretty impressive if they’d named him Glasses knowing he’d wear glasses and study hard. Glasses was sitting with us on the sand, but instead of just wasting time like we were, he was solving problems in his workbook. Glasses’ aunt, who lived in Seoul, had bought him the book. Supposedly, all smart students in Seoul use that brand to study. Glasses had one for every subject. He particularly liked the math one, which could be why he was very good at math. We called Glasses the King of Math.

  Glasses, the King of Math, sat on the sand, finding the length of side a for an unknown figure. I was imagining the television screen supposedly sold in Seoul, as big as fifteen of the classroom television sets put together. I imagined myself watching the screen. Wouldn’t my neck hurt? I’d have to watch it from far away. But if you sat far away, wouldn’t the screen seem smaller? Then why would you need such a big screen? After thinking it through, I concluded that there was no possible need for a TV that big. b got up from where she was sitting and slowly walked down the beach toward the black boulders. Seagulls flocked in the sky. b took off her shoes and climbed on top of the boulders. She stood on one boulder and reached a foot out to the next one. Then she did the same with the opposite foot. And again with the first foot, and again and again.

  b was getting farther away.

  “I wanna go home,” said Glasses.

  “Bye,” I said, without looking at him.

  “You’re not coming?”

  “I’m staying with b.”

  “Okay then.”

  Glasses got up from where he’d been sitting. After pushing up his glasses, he started to walk away. Glasses got farther away from me. Like b. In the distance, I could see the boys jumping off the breakwater into the ocean. They were getting farther away, too. Everything was far from me. I was suddenly afraid. I stood up and ran after b.

  7

  On the way home, b and I stopped by Highway Grocery. The old lady was alone in the store. We greeted her politely, then took some barley tea from the fridge and drank it. The lady had piled dried clam meat on a table and was putting fistfuls of it into small plastic bags. We helped her for as long as we were treating ourselves to the barley tea, which was about ten minutes. We placed stickers that said “Quality Guaranteed—Fisheries Cooperative Association” on the plastic bags. The lady lit a cigarette and then went outside. She sat on a plastic chair outside the door, smoking and watching the ocean. We didn’t know anything about her. We weren’t curious to know, either. And she knew that. Nobody was curious about her, which meant that she didn’t have anyone to talk to. Instead, she quietly made barley tea, distributed clam meat into plastic bags, and smoked cigarettes. Just like the ocean and the forest, the old lady, without a word, got older every day.

  8

  A little walk from Highway Grocery took us to an old alley. The alleyway, which was dry and crisp with sunlight, was so quiet I could hear the sound of b’s breathing. We walked in silence. Occasionally we changed directions, or moved slightly to the side to avoid cars. As we walked, the city slowly came into view. Reluctant to leave the ocean, I looked back several times. The ocean was slowly falling out of sight. It eventually disappeared completely, once the sandy coast and the hills and the forests that covered the hills could no longer be seen; once the wind didn’t smell of sand, dust, and salt, we were in the city. Being in the city felt strange. As if I were trapped in a mirror. No matter where I looked, I was the only one there. Of course, I was still with b. We were even holding hands. But I could no longer see her, nor hear her, nor feel her. It was very scary and strange.

  9

  The city we lived in was ridiculous, because it was a city that imitated Seoul. But the more it imitated Seoul, the more it became… not Seoul and foolish. People bought cars from Seoul Motors and ate at Seoul Kitchen. They bought glasses from Seoul Eyewear and went on trips through Seoul Tours. We all knew how absurd it was. But we didn’t know how to do anything that wasn’t absurd. The determined ones, the ones who were set against absurdity, left the city and went to the real Seoul. Like how Glasses will leave someday. Or like how his aunt had already left.

  Seoul Tours sold three-day packaged trips to Seoul, which my school bought every year for our annual field trip. On the first day of the trip, we all arrived at Seoul Station early in the morning. Seoul Station was big, white, and new. It was so big that our whole city could have fit inside of it. We waited for a native Seoul tour guide, who was supposedly born in Seoul and knew it very well. Her name was Sara. While waiting for Sara, we ate American bread laden with sugar and watched the sophisticated Seoul people. They all stared straight ahead and walked quickly with stern faces. Sara was ten minutes late, but didn’t apologize. She had permed hair that was dyed brown and looked sophisticated, like Seoul. The boys in my class were already blushing, having fallen in love with her. Sara took us to the center of Seoul. There was a museum, a movie theater, and the royal palace. It was evening by the time we finished visiting them. On the second day, we went to Myeong-dong, a department store, the 63 Building, and the Han River. From
the observation deck, the sky looked like a garbage dump and the river looked like a swamp. There weren’t any seagulls, or boys who took their clothes off and jumped into the water. That night, we went to a restaurant with a bamboo garden and ate court-style bulgogi. It was a traditional Korean dish but didn’t look Korean at all. On the final day, we went to a gigantic underground shopping mall that was right next to the subway station. I got lost looking for the bathroom. I was so terrified that I couldn’t even cry. Too many people swarmed around me, then swarmed away. I knew they all spoke the same language as me, but for some reason I couldn’t ask anyone for help. I only burst into tears once Sara found me. When she hugged me, I smelled a scent as wonderful as Seoul.

  A few years later, our city built a gigantic shopping mall that looked like that underground mall in Seoul. Our mall had a bakery that sold bread that looked like their sugary American bread, and a restaurant that looked like the restaurant with the bamboo garden. There was a copycat clothing store, a copycat bar, and a copycat movie theater. The mall was a huge success. People were happy there, because they could experience a hint of Seoul. A hint of Seoul was perfect enough to satisfy them. That they were absurd was an acceptable trade-off for that feeling.

  10

  The abandoned people lived north of the hill, in a place called the End. “You mustn’t ever get lost,” Grandma was always saying. “If you get lost, you’ll end up in the End. Lots of children get lost, wander into the End, and never come out,” Grandma said. Grandma said that the End was where the crooks, thieves, prostitutes, orphans, murderers, and insane people lived. All I knew about those types of people was what I saw in movies or read in comic books. Even in movies or comics, they lived in places like the End. Everyone drank liquor instead of water and ate rotten food instead of vegetables, and no one went to school or to work. Corpses lay in the streets, and mice and cockroaches scuttled through the houses. I once saw a movie on television in which the main character, looking for the villain, went to a place like the End. The streets were dark and wet, and crazy people in torn clothes came up to him. I was afraid and shook Grandma to wake her up, though she had been sound asleep. She asked what was wrong and I pointed to the TV, asking if the End that Grandma talked about was as terrible as that. Grandma didn’t even glance at the television, replying right away that it was.