Page 18 of Perfect Happiness
This happened two years after Yoon-hee had suddenly left Noah with Eun-ho, saying “He’s your son.Youraise him.”It was all so fresh that the ink on the divorce papers was still wet.Eun-ho couldn’t say he felt happy for Yoon-hee.If anything, it angered him to hear that she’d remarried so soon.He was convinced that she had been seeing that man while they were still married.The affair must have been why she asked for a divorce.She’d said she wanted “freedom.”He never imagined that by “freedom” what she’d meant was a redneck from Texas.
The voice of reason inside Eun-ho’s head was telling him to stop imagining things, like a doctor telling a patient with rhinitis to stop blowing their nose.And just like a sickly patient, he needed medicine, something to stop his imagination from growing and ruining his life, a miracle drug that would allow him to forget his ex-wife and start anew.
So, Eun-ho decided to take a trip to Lake Baikal in Russia.It wasn’t a decision he made after a lot of deliberation, but one made while drinking soju by himself and watching a movie.
The movie wasThe Way Back, a drama about escapees from a Siberian Gulag who traveled 6,500 kilometers by foot through a blizzard in minus-fifty-degree weather.Coincidentally, the escapees were searching for the same damned thing his ex-wife was: freedom.Seeing beautiful Lake Baikal on the screen of his TV, Eun-ho got the idea of going on a trip.But he needed a friend.So he asked Jinu to join him.
“Lake Baikal?That’s a bit random, don’t you think?”Jinu asked.
From the look on Jinu’s face, Eun-ho could tell he wasn’t particularly interested.But Eun-ho didn’t want to admit that he was doing this because he needed to get over his ex-wife.Instead, he told Jinu that he had seen the lake in a movie.Jinu changed his mind after watching the movie.He suggested they go as soon as winter break started.Jinu even actively helped plan the trip.But the more plans he made, the worse his “as long as we’re there, we might as well ...”obsession became—an obsession that all tourists suffered from.
Jinu reasoned that “as long as we’re going to Russia,” they might as well start in Vladivostok, which was located in the southern-most region of Russia.From there, they could take a four-day-three-night ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway to a city called Irkutsk, which was said to be close to Lake Baikal.Jinu also reasoned that “as long as we’re on the Trans-Siberian Railway,” they might as well go the whole distance.So, from Irkutsk, they could go to Mongol, which was right next door from Lake Baikal and on one of the railway’s detours.Jinu even convinced Eun-ho to go to the Gobi Desert.He was trying, it seemed, to reenact the entire journey from the movie.Eun-ho put a thumbtack on Moscow, marking it as their final stop.
“Moscow is as far as we go.”
They agreed on an eighteen-day trip.They would spend eight days alone on just the train.Jinu took care of the small things: researching, scheduling, booking train tickets and hotels.Eun-ho, on the other hand, had the difficult task of being the one who had to pump the brakes on Jinu’s over-ambitious plans.
When January came, Eun-ho and Jinu got on a plane bound for Vladivostok.When they finally arrived in Russia, the sun had already set.Despite being the size of a small bus terminal, Vladivostok International Airport had as many travelers as any other international airport.And perhaps because arrivals, departures, baggage claim, and the duty-free shopping area were all squeezed into the same place, the airport felt even more crowded than normal.Once they got their luggage, Jinu ran to the restroom.
“Wait here.”
Eun-ho sat on a bench guarding their two 26-liter backpacks.The whole time he waited for Jinu, Eun-ho was being tortured by a woman across from him who was trying to replace her SIM card.He knew immediately that she was Korean.Everything about her—her hat, her knitted gloves, the muffler around her neck, and the green passport on her knees—was Korean.
But he couldn’t see her face because she was staring down at her SIM card and her straight black hair was blocking her face like a curtain.What Eun-ho could see, however, was her long, padded black jacket, jeans, boots, and a bandaged right hand.Looking closer, he realized her index finger was in a splint.
Eun-ho concluded that the woman must be right-handed.If she were left-handed, she would have used her left hand.But instead, she was stubbornly using her right middle finger and thumb to pinch the SIM card and place it flat onto the SIM tray.Her hands were trembling, as though she had been drinking.She even dropped the chip several times.
But Eun-ho was more interested in the woman’s left hand.It’s white skin, the slender fingers, the softness of her fingernails.It looked like the hand of a fairy.Eun-ho couldn’t help himself from imagining what it would be like to touch a hand like that.Was it as soft as it looked?
Having nothing better to look at, Eun-ho continued to stare at the woman as she struggled.He rooted for the right hand while secretly gawking at the left.But her repeated failures made him feel frustrated.The longer he watched her struggle, the harder it was to watch.Of course, he could have stopped watching if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to.He was unable to take his eyes off her hands, determined to see her succeed.And when the SIM card eventually flew out of her hand, he almost cried out in disappointment.
To Eun-ho’s surprise, the woman didn’t lose her composure.She put aside the items on her knees, crouched down on the floor, and stuck her head under the bench to look for the chip as she held her hair up with her injured hand.Had Jinu not come back from the bathroom at that very moment, Eun-ho might have gotten up to hold her hair for her.
“What’s so interesting?”
Jinu followed Eun-ho’s gaze as he turned his head toward the woman.When he finally found her, the woman was sticking her butt up into the air.Jinu shook his head from side to side as he slung his backpack over his shoulder.
“You perv.”
Jinu started walking toward the exit.Eun-ho followed him, but his mind stayed behind with the woman.He was dying to know if the woman had found the SIM card.And just before walking through the exit, Eun-ho stole a glance back at the woman, whose torso was now all the way under the bench.The muscles in his throat suddenly contracted.
When they stepped outside of the airport, they were confronted with a scene from Disney’sFrozen.The falling snow was so thick that they could barely see the street or the sign outside the airport that read -24°C.
They headed straight to the train station, and by the time they boarded, the temperature had dropped another three degrees.And as they crossed vast snowy plains, endless forests of birch trees, wide frozen lakes on their way to Khabarovsk Station, the temperature only continued to drop, reaching as low as -32°C.
It was 8:30 a.m.local time when they arrived in Khabarovsk.The sun was just starting to rise outside the cabin window.Factory chimney stacks near the station were pumping smoke into the sky, and beyond that was a desolate landscape of buildings.Khabarovsk must have been the biggest city in the area because they had cell service for the first time in days.From outside the train, they could hear a loud thumping noise.It was the noise of crews stripping ice from the train with crowbars.The train was scheduled to stay in Khabarovsk for fifty minutes.
Jinu was sleeping like a hibernating bear.He had been unconscious since drinking that bottle of vodka last night.Eun-ho put on his jacket and left the cabin.He didn’t have a particular destination in mind; he just wanted some fresh air.An old Russian lady, whom he had bumped into several times already, was standing by the window in the hallway.She was glued to the window, as if staring at something outside.Eun-ho walked up beside the grandma, curious to see what she was looking at.
On the platform was a woman.She was bundled up in a mask, muffler, and woolen hat.She was using a disposable camera, not a cell phone, to take pictures of the snowy landscape.She turned her body clockwise as she took pictures of the chimney stacks, railroad tracks, and station.Finally, she turned toward the train window that Eun-ho was looking out from.
When Eun-ho saw the woman’s right hand, which was covered in bandages, he realized she was the woman from the airport.She must be a passenger on this train, too.
Eun-ho wondered if she had found her SIM card before leaving the airport.He felt excited, like he had bumped into a minor celebrity in a public bathroom.Eun-ho began observing her carefully, just as he had at the airport.He didn’t feel guilty.After all, stalking was what our hunter ancestors did on the savannah.
After what could have been several minutes, an older lady with a hefty bag approached the woman.They stood facing each other and exchanged a few words.The older lady took out a transparent plastic bag containing what looked like bread.The woman with the camera put her left hand inside her jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of coins.
Soon, Eun-ho experienced another torturous struggle, second only to the SIM card incident at the airport.With the disposable camera in her right hand, the woman used her right middle finger to slide coins from her left palm one by one into the hand of the older lady.Her movements were so tediously slow that Eun-ho wanted to scream out in frustration.It would be faster if she let the lady count the coins for her.
