GUEST LITERATURE – KOREA
being close to the very origin of things.
Buoyed by the feeling of satisfaction, he approached the window looking out to a steel tower the shade of umber and the construction site for a new apartment building. In the far distance, a chimney was spitting out lumps of white smoke. It belonged to Ulaanbaatar’s thermal power plant, which used bituminous coal as fuel. He stood up on the window eight stories high and looked down at the sea of grey exhaust fumes which seemed to overwhelm the city in an impervious haze. How cozy was this apartment, compared to all that dreariness below. Look at that sky! A path that a jet plane had cut across the blue sky was as vivid as a straight line made with chalk.The long line stretched from Russia in the direction of China. It could lead all the way to Korea. Just thinking about it made Chang-dae’s heart open up.
“It’s an amazing view,” he said. Dolma’s face lit up. She must’ve been worrying whether this professor from Korea wouldn’t like the apartment. It belonged to Dolma’s younger sister. Nobody had been living in the place for the past three months since the sister had gone off to study abroad in Korea last fall. Dolma and Bat had also spent three years in Korea. Bat worked as a labourer in a factory, and Dolma was in graduate school getting her masters in international trade. She knew that in Korea, being a professor was a socially respected position that ensured some financial security. She was also a professor in Mongolia, but because it wasn’t enough for them to get by on, she moonlighted as an interpreter and a tour guide. Bat had studied literature in college, but now he was in the business of importing used cars.
Bat went back and forth between the bathroom and the kitchen and opened up the water valves. The water poured out gushing. Bat was hurrying things along like a real estate agent. There was a refrigerator designed for one person, an electric hob and an oven big enough to cook a small lamb whole. Cheap forks and plates produced in China were laid out neatly.When he found spoons and chopsticks among the kitchen utensils, he said, almost shouting: “It’s perfect.”
He would not have reacted this way had he been in Korea. He would’ve suppressed all emotion until the contract was finalized. With his arms folded fastidiously in front of him, he would’ve walked around the apartment with great caution, prepared to find the tiniest flaw. But Bat and Dolma were natives who were helping him out.
178 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
