The Art of Forgetting (Ch.3)
BY ANONYMOUS
I put some rice on to cook and brought a beer back to the recliner and resumed reading. Though I had read it at least 14 times before, I still found Ivan Klima's "Love and Garbage" one of he most engaging books I have ever read.

'With his honesty, Kafka could write only about what he had himself experienced. He recorded Kafka could write only about what he had himself experienced. He recorded his lonely road into the depths. He descended as far as anyone could descend and down there came to the end, the end of his road and of his writings. He was unable to sever himself from his father, nor did he bring himself to contemplate adult love…that was his abyss. At its bottom, he saw the person he loved, and as he descended that person's image drew closer and at the same time began to disappear in the dark, and when he was close enough to reach out with his hand he had no breath left and was engulfed by unconsciousness.

His abyss, is like the abyss into which we all descend or into which at least we gaze with curiosity or fear. We can see in it a reflection of our own destinies, of ourselves endeavoring in vain to reach adulthood, in vain reaching out to another being and to the one who is above us. Except that I don't know if we are still capable of descending to any depth, whether or not we are not so pampered or so spoiled that we can no longer recognize honesty when we see it and stand before it in admiration, whether instead we are not trying to diminish it, to question it and to adapt it to out own ideas. Honesty then becomes for us an inability to live or even a source of mental disorder, courage becomes pitiable weakness. Only a weak person, one incapable of living according to our ideas and demands seems acceptable and comprehensible to us. Indeed, we pity him for his loneliness, his vulnerability or his sick body. For the way he suffered, for being, compared to us, unhappy. We do not even perceive what that painful descent into the depths brings. The lonely diver sees in one instead what most of us who pity him don't see in a lifetime." Klima wrote.

The bell on the rice cooker sounded, announcing that my rice was ready. I slugged back the rest of my beer and drifted into the kitchen. I slowly ate a simple meal of rice, kimchi, and seaweed while contemplating where He might be and what I would do after I finished eating. I ate until I was full, washed my dishes, returned to the avocado recliner, and tried to call him again. His phone was now turned off. I leaned back in the recliner, took a deep breath and thought about our relationship.

We met on a tour to Keumgang mountain. I was traveling with a friend I had met through work. We both lacked the funds that were needed to travel to the destinations of our ideal vacations - she Ireland and me the United States - but we were not so poor that we could not afford to do something interesting during our ten-day break from work. After many complications, we were booked on a tour to Keumgang mountain in North Korea. We left on December 30th from Seoul to Seokcho where we boarded a ferry that took us to North Korea. The first day we went through immigration, checked into out hotel room and were immediately herder onto buses that brought us to the tourism center where we would shop, eat, and spend most of our free time for the next few days.

The second day we climbed the mountain and saw a show put on by North Korean acrobats. After the show we had time to either go to the spa or loiter at the tourism center. Being foreigners (being foreign and naked in front of a bunch of Korean women always invited comments that were not meant to be rude, but that made us uncomfortable nevertheless…for example "look at her nipples" or "holy crap…are they gangsters?? Look at those tattoos" never sounded quite right when you knew that you were "her"), we decided to loiter.

Sitting in the tourism center, I noticed Him, toting a large camera bag. I nudged Anna. "He's cute. I wonder what He is so keen on taking pictures of. I mean, basically, we are not allowed to take pictures of anything but the scenery, and that is not much different from what we have in the south." I said with a wry smile.

"You're SUCH a sucker for good looking Korean men…and you are such a complete cynic too." Was all she said as she turned her attention back to Jane Austin.

Later that evening, we were all brought back to the floating hotel and told that we would be leaving the next morning at 6 a.m. What an ungodly hour to be doing anything except going to bed. Being New Year's Eve, Anna and I decided that it would be in our best interests to have some drinks to ring in the New Year…and then have a few more drinks because everyone knows that no sleep is preferable to one or two hours of drunken R.E.M.

Anna and I went upstairs to our room. In three hours, we had consumed three-quarters of a bottle of North Korean snake liquor and two roasted squids. A few minutes before midnight, Anna and I decided to go down to the hotel bar and see if anyone else was ringing in the New Year. We dressed and went down. In the bar we found most of the other foreigners (mostly diplomats and their wives or mistresses who had been invited to ring in the new year with many members of the South Korean Olympic teams at Keumgang mountain). Having an aversion to dancing, I stayed behind smoking Marlboro Lights and observing the room while Anna got her dance on. Near the stage, I spotted Him, without His camera, smoking a cigarette and talking to another Korean man who looked considerably older and drunker than the camera-less cute guy. I reached for my own pack of cigarettes, only to discover, much to my disappointment, that I didn't have a single cigarette left. After contemplating my situation got a moment, I decided that instead of going back to my room to fetch a fresh pack of cigarettes, I would go and ask Him if He had a spare cigarette. Normally, I would never have done something so forward, especially since He was someone I had never been introduced to. As luck would have it, the consumption of a considerable number of drinks gave me the Dutch courage that I needed.

"Excuse me, do you have an extra cigarette?" I asked in Korean. He looked a little startled for a moment. He had reason to. A strange foreigner had just walked up to Him, tapped Him on the shoulder, and asked Him in Korean for a cigarette. He paused for only a second too long before saying "Of course." and fishing a cigarette out of his pocket. After he lit my cigarette I did not know what to do. so I just stood and smoked. A moment later, He asked me in perfect English if I wanted a beer. I really didn't…as I was already quite drunk…but in the interest of getting to know Him better and keeping out conversation, which was perilously close to dying going…I accepted.

Anna came back from the dance floor and sat with us. We talked, He and His older drunk friend bought more beer, which we drank in unmemorable conversation, and we closed the bar. Some time later (alcohol had impaired my sense of time) we went upstairs to bed. He and His roommate for the trip (the somewhat older and considerably more drunk gentleman) were staying on the same floor as we were, just a few doors away. As Anna and I got back to our room, I had the brilliant drunken idea to go back down the hall and give our business cards to Him so that there would be some hope of contacting one another again once we had returned to South Korea. He was standing in the hallway smoking another cigarette. We sat in down and began to talk and smoke. A few hours later, as light ticked the horizon, we decided to take a short nap in His room before our six o'clock departure time. An hour and a half later, I returned to the room I was sharing with Anna for a shower, not entirely rested.

The next day I was a complete waste of life. I don't know how He had the energy to run around taking pictures like a good little tourist. Even though he was a photographer for an insurance assessor, I found out during our night together that he had been hired by a small and little known magazine to go to North Korea and take some pictures of the New Year tour. Though he didn't usually take on extra work since He was so busy with his regular work, He decided to take this job since it would afford him the opportunity to go to Keumgang mountain, a place he had wanted to visit anyway. I don't think I was sober again until about eleven o'clock, well after we had watched the first sunrise of the new year.

Back at the visitor's center, I met Him again, had a few cigarettes, and we parted saying that we would see one another again on the ferry. Of course I was hopeful, but not really so sure that it would happen. As Anna and I got on the boat and went to take the seats that had been assigned to us, we were hailed by a member of the ferry staff in no uncertain terms that we were to go upstairs and sit in the bar. Confused as we were, we knew immediately by the authoritative tone in the woman's voice that it would be futile to argue. We obediently climbed the stairs to the third floor to see what fate awaited us in the bar.

When we reached the third floor, we took seats in the corner and breathed sighs of relief. We were both exhausted from the tour and all the drinking we had done the night before. After a wee while I saw Him outside smoking a cigarette and went to say hello. We talked until He felt seasick and then went inside for the duration of the journey, which he and Anna sent in a stupor induced by the motion sickness medicine that I gave them both. When we arrived back in South Korea, we said our goodbyes, exchanged phone numbers, and went back to Seoul on our separate buses.

Of course I though about Him on the way back to Seoul, but at the same time, I knew that our night together, despite our exchange of phone numbers, might well have been something of a one-night stand without the sex. Not that I was predisposed to such encounters…in fact, in my entire life, I have never had a one-night stand. But still, knowing what I knew about Korean men and their mother's predisposition to catering to their every need and not necessarily being accepting of the women that they held dear in their hearts, I was not exactly hopeful that a meaningful relationship would develop from our chance and very physical first meeting. I had, in the past, been rejected by a Korean boyfriend's mother simply because I was not Korean. I was jaded and didn't really think that it would be possible to have a serious and meaningful relationship with a Korean man as a result of my previous experience, and I was fine with that. I knew that I was judging all Korean men by one bad experience, but as the popular saying reminds us, I had been burned, and now I was a bit skittish. I have my heart to a Korean man once and had it stomped on and destroyed like a bit of chalk under the heel of a boot. A few days later, much to my surprise, and pleasure, he called. As I hadn't eaten dinner yet, He came over under the pretense that he was going to bring me dinner. We spent a pleasant night together in my flat. Though I knew that there would be difficulties in the future as He told His mother that He was just out with one some of His male friends drinking. I wasn't really surprised or irritated or angry. Who could tell their mother that they were spending the night with a member of the opposite sex after knowing them for a total of twenty-four hours anyway? I know that I couldn't.

We began to see one another more and more frequently. At first, every few weeks. Then every week. After a little more time had passed, we were seeing each other every weekend and sometimes during the week. In about May, He told me about the flat in Seoul and from that point on, we saw each other as much as possible.

I quite clearly remember the first time it happened. It was Saturday, July seventh. I had gone to Seoul to meet a friend from work and do some shopping. I had made plans to see that evening after I was finished hanging out with my co-worker. We had planned to make dinner together at his flat and then catch a movie afterward. In the interest of making our liaisons more discreet or less complicated or something, we had had an extra key to his apartment to his apartment made for me several weeks before. After shopping I went back to his flat and let myself in. I was a few hours early, so I went back out and did some shopping for our dinner. I would have called to ask Him what He felt like eating, but since I had so much time I decided that I would surprise him with some home-cooked Italian food just like my father made.

I chose tomato paste, stewed tomatoes, 12 fresh tomatoes, several cloves of peeled garlic, one small onion, one medium green pepper, and a handful of mushrooms for the sauce and placed them all in my shopping cart. I added two chicken breasts, bread crumbs, a few eggs, mozzarella cheese, a yellow pepper, some red leaf lettuce, a few more mushrooms, a cucumber, some feta cheese, a bag of rigatoni, and a decent bottle of wine to my shopping cart and made for the register. After paying and lugging everything back to his apartment, I started to prepare the sauce.

First opened the can of tomato paste and the can of stewed tomatoes and emptied them into a sauce pan and set them on the burner to warm. Then I sautéed a few razor thin slices of garlic in olive oil until they were no longer raw, but not yet browned. Then I cut the onion, pepper, and some mushrooms and added them to the tomato sauce already warming on the stove. I added salt, pepper, oregano, sugar and bay leaf and set the sauce aside to let the flavors blend and mix.

Next I set about preparing the chicken parmesan. I put the chicken breasts on a clean plate and in lieu of a meat cleaver, pounded them with the bottom of a ladle (which worked rather well but looked somewhat silly). Then I carefully coated the chicken breasts with a thin layer of flour, dipped them in beaten egg, and finally coated them with bread crumbs seasoned with oregano, parsley, garlic powder, and bay leaf. I sautéed the breasts until they were golden brown, and then I set them aside on a paper towel to soak up the extra grease and cool. In the meantime, I cleaned up the dishes I had dirtied in the process of preparing the sauce and the chicken and then prepared the pan in which I would bake the chicken breasts. I coated the bottom of the pan with home-made sauce, added the chicken breasts, covered them with sauce and some mozzarella and parmesan cheeses and then covered the pan with aluminum foil and placed it in the refrigerator while I awaited His arrival.

Finally, I prepared the salad, finished cleaning up, and retired to the green chair with Haruki Murakami's "South of the Border, East of the Sun"

"Hajime," she began "the sad truth is that certain types of thins can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back to the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever."

I read about one hundred and fifty pages before I realized that it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. We had definitely missed our movie, and He was nowhere to be seen. I guess it was a blessing that I am able to get so involved in a book that I don't realize how much time has passed. It keeps me occupied and distracted so that even at times when I should be worried and having an ulcer, I can get lost in the world of a good storyteller.

First light. He had still not returned home and I had killed the bottle of wine. That became my little ritual when He didn't show up for our dates. Take the edge off with a few drinks and then wait until He came back. Sunday evening just as I was about to leave, I heard a key in the door. I look up expectantly, only to see Tae-hee walk through the door.
"Oh, hi. Have you seen Him?" I asked.
"We had lunch together yesterday. But I haven't seen Him since." Tae-hee replied.
"Did He say where He was going? We were supposed to have dinner here Friday night, but He never showed up. I've just been hanging out since then." I said a bit dejectedly.
"No idea…He said nothing to me." Tae-hee replied.
"Did He seem OK when you saw Him? I mean…." I didn't know what else to say. I was angry and worried and concerned.
"Forget it. If you see Him tell Him I was here. There's some sauce, salad, and chicken parmesan in the fridge if you are hungry. Heat the chicken at 350 degrees…what is that in Celsius? I don't know…you figure it out….heat it until it is warm and the cheese is melted. There's some rigatoni on the counter and some sauce there that just needs to be reheated. There was some wine, but I killed it." I grabbed my bag and headed to the door. I put my shoes on.

"Don't dismiss Him because of this Camille. He really loves you despite whatever you may think of Him right now. I know He can be a shit sometimes, but I haven't seen Him so happy, confident, and comfortable with anyone else before you. I don't know what He has done, but give Him a chance. He is not a bad guy." Tae-hee said.

I looked at him. "I'll keep that in mind." I turned and left. I knew that it was a bitchy response to a sincere plea and immediately felt bad because I knew that Tae-hee only wanted what was best for his friend, yet at the same time, I was too disgruntled to be able to muster a more civil response. I walked down the three flights of stairs from their flat and there He was walking in the front door. He looked at me somewhat vacantly.
"Hey." He said.

I looked at Him, surprised that He was able to greet me so casually.
"What happened to you? Are you OK?" I asked. I had imagined a terrible dismembering accident, or some hideous car trouble and the unfortunate coincidence that His cell phone battery had run out and He had been stranded in the middle of nowhere without the means by which to contact me, or help for that matter. He paused.
"I'm fine, you?" He replied.

I stared at Him for a moment in complete shock.

"I'm fine, and you? That's all you have to say? Where have you been? Why didn't you call? Why didn't you answer your cell phone? Did you completely forget about our conversation on Thursday when we planned to make dinner and go to see a movie together? Did you completely forget that you said that you didn't think you could wait another twenty-four hours before you saw me? I have been here since yesterday afternoon waiting for you to turn up. I was worried that something terrible had happened to you. What the fuck did you think I would thin when you just didn't show up?" I was so angry and concerned and hurt that my voice: me who hates scenes, detests women who make them; was rising and sounding more and more like that of the angry jealous girlfriend that I scorned both publicly and privately.

He looked at me somewhat dazed and said "I'm sorry. I know. But sometimes I just need to get way, no questions asked. Believe me when I say that it has nothing to do with you and I swear on my life that I wasn't with and never would be with another woman. I need you. But I also need you to understand that sometimes I just need some time and space. Sometimes I have warning and can say 'I need to be alone.' But other times it just happens.
It hits me and I have no choice but to just follow because I know that otherwise I will be
a miserable wreck. I was at work yesterday and when I finished I just needed to be alone. It isn't you, it's me. Everyone says that, but I swear to you it is true. I don't want to lose you." He paused, looked at the ceiling, looked at me, and put His hands on my shoulders. "God knows I don't want to lose you. I don't know what I would do without you.
I love you, but I need you to understand this about me and accept it. Everyone needs time off and away. My way may be different than the way others do it, but the quality of that need is essentially the same." He looked into my eyes.

I was confused, and very much still angry. I kissed Him on the cheek and without a word I walked out of the building and headed for the subway. I expected Him to come after me and offer some better explanation, but after walking two blocks, I realized that He wasn't coming to explain more. My entire subway ride home I replayed our exchange in my head. I was furious. Who was He to disappear for twenty-four hours without explanation and just expect me to accept it no questions asked because He claimed to need me? I slept fitfully that night and awoke the next morning with a vague feeling of emptiness that I promptly swept aside and went about my life as usual.

Five days later, no phone call, no mail, no email, no messages on my cell phone. I was feeling sorry for myself and still quite angry with Him. At about 9 pm I finally conceded and dialed His cell phone number.

"Camille?"

Damned caller ID.

"Hey." I said.

"I'm just about to leave work. Can I come by?" He asked.

"Whatever." I said and hung up the phone before He had a chance to say anything more. Anger and pride are an ugly combination. Why I hung up the phone like an irrational woman who lacked self-control, I will never know.
Forty-five minutes later there was a knock at my door.
"Come in." I called. My dog and I were watching 'High Fidelity' for about the tenth time.
He came in. I glared up at Him from my reclined position on my bed. He advanced and hugged me.

"I missed you." He said.
I laughed. I tried to talk but He kept silencing me with His fingers and lips. We made love without a word being uttered by either one of us. Later, as we lay in bed watching television, I propped myself on His chest, looked at Him and said "So are you ever going to explain yourself? Or am I just supposed to accept that you disappeared and reappeared and offered me no explanation?"

"I explained. The rest you just need to accept. I love you. I need you. And sometimes I need to be alone and away, no questions asked. I'm not a woman hater, I am not abusive, I don't use drugs, I'm not crazy. I just need some time once in a while."
I looked at Him for a long time and then I kissed Him long and hard. It was OK. I understood in a way and could relate. I too had moments when I was completely unreachable.
I usually had the presence of mind and consideration to let those who it would affect know that I would be indisposed, but I understood. There were times when I needed to have nothing to do with another human being, and I felt no need to apologize for those times and neither should anyone else. And so from that moment on it was accepted. It didn't happen often, but once in a while He would be gone.
It didn't really bother me that He was unreachable, but never once did He give me any hint of where He had been or what He had been doing. The first few times He was gone I asked where He had been and what He had been doing. His response was always the same. "I was out. I needed to be alone for a while." After receiving that response a few times, knowing the futility of my question, I decided that it just wasn't worth the effort to try to find out where he had been. After all, didn't I sometimes hop on a but that I wasn't familiar with, ride to a place that looked interesting, get off, have a look around and a bite to eat and then go home? And if someone were to ask me where I had been and what I had been doing, I wouldn't have known what to say. The truth would have been difficult to explain.