初 戀

——獻給韓國
Tigerok譯

她是我荒謬初戀的女主角。在晨曦的微光中，我醒來躺著，等待著她那近乎無聲的腳步下到門廳，等待著她那蜂蜜和蜜桃混合的一種說不清的氣味，來沖淡遊子屋外滿滿的濃厚的孤寂氣息。她會在門外停留片刻，換了拖鞋，然後再走下兩級臺階到廚房。那刻，我的荒謬的想象中便漲滿了她在門外徘徊的側影，再真實不過的幻影，比我睜眼所見的一切更真實。每一個清晨，每一個清晨，我便那樣守侯著，守侯著赤橙黃綠的光暈像雲朵似地聚攏在我緊閉的雙瞼，那時，就似她下到門廳，從我身上走過，那些雲朵突然間散開，露出了她那大大的清澈的帶著靦腆睫毛的眼，蓓蕾般的雙脣一抹笑意依稀可見，我的雙眼仍緊閉著，向著裸露著的白熾燈，我張開雙臂，大聲說出我的愛我的痛苦：你不知我有多愛你，你的倩影將是我腦中持續一生的興奮點，你的名字就像一首沁入我耳的詩，僅僅想象輕觸你的手,我便會輕輕地顫抖。所有這些聲音都被毛毯捂住。
而現在她正坐在我面前，不再是幻影。她正緩緩地攪拌著咖啡，那杯她剛小心地放入兩塊方糖的咖啡。她的動作從容不迫，十分悅目。從這間豪華旅館休息室光線暗淡的一角滲出音樂來，是首著名的小提琴曲，曲裡多有E絃音，裝束完美的女侍者著品紅色及藍色的韓袍託著果味雞尾酒在廳裡緩緩地移動。歲月在她身上的糙化令我震驚。我注意到她臉上抹的粉，均勻地分佈在她溼溼皺皺的膚上，閃耀著。我看著她那蓓蕾不再的脣，明白不用瞧，它們定會在白瓷杯上留下油汙，而她會在認為我沒看她時悄悄地將它們擦掉。當我無望地搜尋著她臉上含糊的反映時，我那心愛的套服內的新襯衣都在嘲笑我，為那女孩幾乎捉摸不定的影子，她的腳步聲已隨我到美國的新生活，且在這二十五年多的每個夜晚安慰我入眠，為我曾經每早等候的那女孩的笑容的影子，若有若無地顯現在妻子蒼白可愛的臉上。

憶起妻，我感到一陣突然的思鄉之痛，為我從沒想過的習以為常：剛出爐的麵食上撤著的巴馬乾酪的香味、聽到不費力地發出我的美國名字中兩個“R”時的愉悅、早晨不加牛奶原味咖啡的魅力、妻長長的四肢及披散著的比連翹稍黑的柔發。在這兒幹什麼？我，這個中年正禿頂的有位美國妻子的美籍男人，這個喜歡打網球和喜歡鮮沙拉更甚於泡菜的成功醫生？我問自己，為什麼仍追逐那個幻影，那個本應在二十五前一個大清晨隨著腳步聲不再經過我的門前就要消失的幻影。這次荒唐的旅行使我懊惱而沉默不語。

我們現已坐在漢城的高階旅館的咖啡廳的一張光滑明亮的桌前，像一對可憐的陌生人。

“你有孩子嗎？”她啜了一小口咖啡問道。她用雙手捧著咖啡杯，好象那是杯熱茶，即便那杯咖啡因她不停地攪動而已變涼。我感到微溫的液體滑下嚥喉的不快。

“沒有，你呢？”我問，配合著她努力打破難堪的沉默。請別，我內心自語，請別對我說你的兒女已經長大成人，甚至你還來不及向他們的嬰兒服道別。觸著喉部不再繃緊的面板及同樣的眼神，別對我說時光過得有多快。當你走進這間休息室，看著我坐在這間高階的西式旅館時，你曾經留給我的形象，當我還是窮學生住在你母親出租房時你的形象，過了四分之一世紀後，我一直期盼的，曾認為你將永遠是我腦中興奮點的形象，不復再存。
“沒有，”她答，“我第一次懷孕流產後便不能生育了。”

她穿著兩件套的夏裝，我注意到其顏色正是時髦的俗豔。那天下午，在漢城的街上，我已見過許多那樣著裝的人：微墜的肩上託著肩墊，胸字首著小而亮的圓扣，及膝的裙。她輕拍裙子的前擺，好似要熨平皺摺似的。

“我沒有孩子。”

我感到必須改變話題。“你的母親好麼？”我問道。

“她幾年前去世了。中風。”

我向一位微笑的侍者示意，要了杜松子酒和香味飲料。“房子怎樣？你還出租它們嗎？”

“沒有，我們不得不賣了它們來還看病的費用。我現在住的地方離那很遠，我已有十年沒到那裡去了。”

突然，那些因各自度過的歲月形成的困擾在我們之間粉碎了。我們談起了曾經的“房子”，好象現在還是我們的似的。我們談起了在門旁一到春天便怒放的連翹，談起了埋在後院的泡菜陶缸。我憶起，在路的轉彎處轉彎，便可達一幢老式的大房子。一棵大慄樹從房後伸出來，遮蓋了板石瓦房頂的一部分。穿過房子的大門，一束陽光突然閃現，晃住我的雙眼，一位女孩夢幻般的形象慢慢地從陽光中顯現。那個形象在我突然發燒的腦中旋轉，像幻影般抖動著。她站在前院中央的水井邊，白襯衫的袖子卷著，細長的脖子，一束黑色的馬尾辮垂在背後，胳膊露在抽水機口撒出來的水下，溼溼的面板在耀眼的光線下閃閃發亮。我如何能夠讓自己忘掉這個形象，即使我能做到？

“很抱歉，”她現在微笑著說，“你的房間在門廳的最後一間，就靠著廚房，我和母親每天早上弄了那麼多的噪聲，燒水啦、煨湯啦、移動瓢盆啦，雖然我們盡力減少噪聲。”

“我不介意，”我說，道出了真話。

“你記得嗎……”

“我記得，”我答道，然後從軟墊椅起身。“我們走吧，”我說著，看著她仍然大大的眼睛裡含著驚訝，“去那房子。”

計程車內，她思緒萬千，一語不發。而我驚訝於自己還記得房子的地址。我們找不到它，雖然我們確定是站在正確的街角。陌生！現代的磚式建築簇立在原先散亂分佈的老房子的地方，孩子們在巷子裡跑來跑去，夕陽照在他們背上，他們叫喊著其他孩子的名字，這些曾經熟悉的名字引起了我的一絲共鳴：“印壽——呀!董哲——啊!”一切都已被連根撥起又填平，我們已不能找到曾經蔭護房子的慄木了。我們站在路的轉彎處，過去賣豆奶的小販常將人力車停在那裡，然後拿起鬆鬆地繞在脖頸上的毛巾，擦去額頭上的汗水。我們盯著地面，好象要挖掘出埋葬在水泥地面下的足跡。她轉身，開始走開。面對天空因暮色的逼近而流淌著的紅暈，我閉上雙眼，聽到她那雙廉價的高跟鞋敲打著水泥地面的清脆聲，像那很久以前腳步聲的迴響。但當我驚奇地張開雙眼，卻看到她那裹在豔俗的外套裡臃腫的腰，看到了歲月在她的體形上烙下的痕跡，看到了她短髮上不自然的粗糙捲曲。我重又閉上眼，看到了曾經滋生我那荒謬的愛的房子呈現在眼前，先是連翹，然後是漸漸掘起的房子。

後來，她帶路，我們去了街邊的一家小旅館，那裡濃裝女人圍著滿是汙跡的圍裙，給我們上了雞肫和一瓶韓國白酒。我點了支她遞給我的煙。突然記憶便從嘴中滔滔而出。我談起了美國，談起離開留在腦中的形象的她後的那些年。從廚房的電波傳來悲傷的老曲調，透過女歌手如泣如訴的歌聲，我得出男人總是離開女人的結論。男人，男人啊，所有的男人都是一樣的，啊——，啊——哈。她開始跟著唱，哭泣著。我告訴她我妻子無趣的事實，話一出口，我便感到難堪。我們倆都醉了，不僅僅因這那瓶韓國白酒。

“當我第一次見到我的妻子，她身上的一些東西使我想起了你，”我說道。

“你對我一點都不瞭解，”她說道。

坐在這裡看著她的鼻孔撥出長長的羽毛狀的煙霧，將她同妻子對照，想找回原先的失落，我想這多奇怪啊。

“如果你瞭解我，你就不會說你的妻子使你想起了我。你知道我從來沒有小產嗎？當那個住在你隔壁的傢伙讓我懷孕並拒絕娶我時，我母親叫我做了流產。”她直率地看著我，期望看到我驚訝。我記起了那個傢伙令我厭惡的粗厚易動的大脣，惹眼的二頭肌及他常自吹大學入學考試的三次落第。他靠他母親送來的從微薄的收入中擠出的每月津貼生活，所有的寄膳者都討厭他。她腳步聲停止後不久，他突然搬出。我曾看見他們在空寂的房間裡，陷在一起，像對在令人昏昏欲睡的夏天午時粘在蒼蠅紙上的蒼蠅，緊張地聽著他們自己掙扎時的喘息。於是我明白了。

她的幻影一直徘徊在我夢幻到奇妙的顏色的那些早晨，但不在我門旁。

我是不是以她為模來愛妻，拒絕對妻付出超過我認為可以給腦中的形象更多的愛？我愛她那純潔的幻影，是不是因為我從沒接觸她，從沒允許自己真實的雙手來撥開那層霧呢？我意識到自己根本不瞭解她，那個躲在皺紋、廉價服裝和電燙頭髮下的她。我恨自己背叛了長久以來讓自己一直記得的幻影，那光彩斑斕、迷離雙眼無法分辨的、巧妙地混合的、無法想象有多少故事的幻影。二十五年後，我不知道是否還想聽新的故事。《男人啊男人》。這首歌以所有的男人都是一樣的具體結論結尾。她的菸灰落在她裙子的前擺，但她不想費心去將它們抖落。隨之而來的沉默中，我發覺她很少言語，徑自讓我盯著桌子，即便那首歌曲已結束。她的黑色的睫毛覆在烏雲般的雙眼上，留下汙漬，不再嫻靜，也許它們從不曾有過，但我心中的隱痛--如愛情故事的“愛”中一樣無趣--令我驚訝。我被自己不再回憶感動了。

“你不瞭解我，”她突然說道，好象在安慰她自己。

“為什麼你不告訴我？”我問她，睜著雙眼斜躺在塑料椅上，等待著心醉的故事再一次開始。

To Korea, a Very Short Love Story

By Youngju Ryu ’97

She was my first and foolish love. In the half-light of the morning I lay awake waiting for her quiet, almost silent feet to come down the hallway, for her scent—a curious mixture of honey and peach—to part the thick air outside my room filled with the lonely smells of young men living away from home. She would pause outside my door for a moment to put on her slippers before climbing the two steps down into the kitchen, and my foolish imagination would swell with the shadowy silhouette of her lingering by my door, a phantom more real than anything I could have seen with my open eyes. Every morning, every morning, I waited like that, for the circles of azure and gold and auburn to gather like clouds inside my closed eyelids as I felt her steps down the hallway over my body, and for the clouds to burst suddenly and reveal her large and limpid eyes framed with demure lashes, the ghost of a smile on her bud-like lips. Stretching out my arms toward the naked light bulb, my eyes still closed, I would cry out love and agony, muted by my blanket—I love you more than you will ever know, your image will be a fever that will last a lifetime in my brain, your name a poem heard deep, deep inside my ears, and I will tremble with tenderness and desire fro you at a mere imagined touch of your hand, always.

And now she was sitting in front of me, no longer a phantom, stirring slowly her cup of coffee into which she had carefully dropped two cubes of sugar the minute before, the movement of her hand deliberately and grossly delicate. Into the poorly lit corners of the plush hotel lounge seeped in music, a famous violin melody with a great deal of weeping on the E-string, as impeccably made-up waitresses in fluttering hanboks of magenta and blue floated down the aisles carrying trays of fruity cocktails. The coarseness of her age shocked me. I noticed the powder on her face, spread generously and glistening now in the damp wrinkles of her skin. I saw her no longer bud-like lips, and knew without having to look that they would leave a smear on the white porcelain of her coffee cap that she would try surreptitiously to wipe off when she thought that I was not looking. The new shirt under my favorite suit derided me as I searched her face hopelessly for some faint echo, for an almost undetectable shadow of the girl whose steps had followed me into my new life in America and lulled me to sleep every night of these twenty-five odd years, the girl whose smile I greeted in the morning on my wife’s pale and lovely face.

And remembering my wife, I felt a sudden pang of homesickness for the things I never thought I would get accustomed to: the smell of Parmesan cheese sprinkled over freshly cooked pasta, the pleasure in hearing the double "r" of my adopted name pronounced effortlessly, the strength of full-flavored coffee taken black ("American-style" they called it here) in the morning, my wife’s long limbs downed softly with hair only slightly darker than the color of forsythias. What was I doing here, this middle-aged, balding man with American citizenship and an American wife, a successful doctor with a passion for tennis and a fondness for fresh salads rather than pickled cabbages? I asked myself why I was still chasing the ghost that should have dissipated away twenty-five years ago with the footsteps that failed to reach my door one early morning. The folly of this trip angered me and made me silent.

We must have sat like that across the varnished table in the coffeeshop of the fanciest hotel in Seoul, miserable strangers.

"Do you have any children?" she asked me after a very small sip from her coffee cup. She held her coffee cup with both of her hands as if it were a hot cup of tea, even though the coffee must have gone cold with all her stirring. I felt the unpleasantness of the lukewarm liquid down my throat.

"No, but you?" I asked, meeting her effort to break the embarrassed silence. Please don’t, I said to myself, please don’t tell me of your daughters and sons grown to adults even before you’ve had time to say good-bye to their baby clothes. Don’t tell me how fast saewol is, and touch the no longer firm skin of your throat with just that look in your eyes. The one you gave me when you came here into the lounge and saw me sitting here in a fancy, Western hotel that didn’t exist when I was a poor college student living in your mother’s boarding house, expecting, after a quarter of a century, for you to be what I thought you would always be—a fever in my brain.

"No," she said. "I miscarried my first and couldn’t after."

She wore a two-piece summer suit of gaudy color that I had noticed was in vogue. On the streets of Seoul that afternoon, I had seen many wearing suits just like that: slightly fluted shoulders hiding the shoulder pads, beady buttons down the front, and a skirt just above the knees. She patted the front of her dress as if to iron out any wrinkles.

"I don’t have any children."

I felt that I ought to change the subject. "And your mother?" I asked.

"She passed away years ago. Stroke."

I motioned to a smiling waitress and ordered a gin and tonic. "What about the house? Do you still keep boarders?"

"No, we had to sell it to pay the hospital bills. I live far away now. I haven’t been back to the house in ten years."

Then all of a sudden, the awkwardness of the years spent living separate lives broke between us, and we talked of the "house" as if it had been, was still, ours. We talked of the forsythias blooming by the gates in the spring and the clay jars of kimchi buried in the backyard. I remember turning at the curve of the road, and arriving at the large, old-fashioned house with its slated roof and a huge chestnut tree rising up from behind it to cover parts of the roof. Entering through the gate, my eyes had been blinded by the sudden burst of sunlight until a dreamy image of a girl by the water pump in the middle of the front yard emerged slowly out of the sun, rotating around my suddenly feverish head and trembling like a mirage. The sleeves of her white shirt rolled up, a slender neck, black hair braided down her back in a simple plait, arms under the water falling from the mouth of the pump, glistening with the prismatic layering of light on wet skin. How could I let myself forget that image, even if I could?

"I felt sorry for you," she said, smiling now. "Your room was the last one on the hallway and next to the kitchen; mother and I made so much noise in the early mornings, the water, soups simmering, pots and pans clanging even though we tried to be quiet."
"I didn’t mind," I said, speaking the truth.

"Do you remember…"

"I remember," I answered her and got up from the cushioned seat. "Let’s go," I said, watching her still large eyes grow with surprise, "to the house."
In the cab, too busy with memory, she didn’t speak a word, but I surprised myself by remembering the address of the house. We couldn’t find it, even though we were sure we were at the right street corner. Unfamiliar, modern brick buildings were clustered where the old house had once been sprawled out, and children ran in the alleyway with the twilight on their backs, shouting once familiar names of other children that resonated weakly in my brain, "Insu-ya! Dongchul-a!" Everything had been uprooted and paved over; we couldn’t even find the chestnut tree that used to shade the house. We stood at the curve of the road where the bean-curd vendor used to rest his rickshaw and wipe off the sweat from his forehead with the towel looped around his neck. We stared together at the ground as if to trace the footprint buried under the cement. She turned around and started walking away, and I closed my eyes to the sky bleeding red with the approaching night and heard in the harsh click of her cheap high heels on the cement, an echo of her footsteps from long ago. But opening my eyes cautiously, I saw her thick waist wrapped in a gaudy suit, the age that had settled on her figure, the unnatural ahjooma curls of her short hair. I closed my eyes again and saw the house where I had once foolishly loved rise up before me, resurrecting itself by degrees, the forsythias first.

Afterwards, she led the way. We went to a small street-side restaurant where a thick-set woman with a generously stained apron served us chicken gizzards with a bottle of soju. I lit the cigarette she held out to me. Suddenly becoming voluble, with memories I never knew I had loosening in my mouth, I talked of America and the years that separated me now from that image in my brain. The radio from the kitchen spilled out old melodies with pathetic lyrics; through the weeping voice of the female singer, I made out a verse about men always leaving women. Namja-neun, namja-neun da, moduga geurukye da, ah-aaa, aaaah-a. She started singing along, crying. I told her the banal truths about my wife that embarrassed me as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Both of us were drunk on something more than the bottle of soju.
"When I first met my wife, something about her reminded me of you," I said.

"You don’t know anything about me," she said.
I thought how strange it was to sit here and watch her nostrils breathe out long plumes of coupling smoke from her cigarette, to compare her to my wife and find the original lacking.

"If you knew anything about me, you couldn’t say that your wife reminds you of me. Do you know that I never miscarried? My mother made me get an abortion when the guy who lived in the room next to yours got me pregnant and refused to marry me. " She looked at me flatly, expecting surprise. I remembered his thick and mobi
le underlip that repelled me, the showy strength of his biceps, and how he used to brag about failing the college entrance exam three times. He had lived on the monthly allowance his mother sent him out of her own small income, and all the boarders hated him. He had moved out suddenly, sometime after her footsteps stopped.

I saw them together in the empty and silent house, trapped like a pair of flies on flypaper one of those drowsy summer afternoons, listening breathlessly to the sounds of their own labored breathing. And then I understood.

The shadow of her silhouette had lingered all those mornings when I dreamed in fantastic colors, but not by my door.

Did I model my love for my wife after her, refusing to give more than what I thought I could give to the image in my brain? Was she the pure phantom I loved because I would never touch her, never allow my all too real hands to dissipate the mist? I realized I knew nothing about her at all, that underneath the wrinkles and cheap clothes and permed hair that I hated for betraying the image I made myself remember long ago, were colors of a different kind, mixed in combinations too subtle for my dream-dazed eyes, stories I couldn’t imagine. And after twenty-five years, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear new stories. Namja-neun da geurae. The song ended with a specious conclusion that all men are the same. The ashes from her cigarette fell onto the lap of her dress, but she didn’t bother to shake them off. In the silence that followed, I could see that she was ashamed of the words that remained bare for me to see on the table even though the song was now over. Her darkened lashes fell over her cloudy eyes, leaving smudges. They were no longer demure and I realized that perhaps they never were, but the dull ache in my heart—as banal as the word "love" in a love story—surprised me. I was moved by what I did not remember.

"You don’t know anything about me," she said suddenly, as if to assure herself.

"Why don’t you tell me?" I asked her, reclining in the plastic chair with my eyes open, waiting for the enchantment to begin, once again.

——獻給韓國
Tigerok譯

她是我荒謬初戀的女主角。在晨曦的微光中，我醒來躺著，等待著她那近乎無聲的腳步下到門廳，等待著她那蜂蜜和蜜桃混合的一種說不清的氣味，來沖淡遊子屋外滿滿的濃厚的孤寂氣息。她會在門外停留片刻，換了拖鞋，然後再走下兩級臺階到廚房。那刻，我的荒謬的想象中便漲滿了她在門外徘徊的側影，再真實不過的幻影，比我睜眼所見的一切更真實。每一個清晨，每一個清晨，我便那樣守侯著，守侯著赤橙黃綠的光暈像雲朵似地聚攏在我緊閉的雙瞼，那時，就似她下到門廳，從我身上走過，那些雲朵突然間散開，露出了她那大大的清澈的帶著靦腆睫毛的眼，蓓蕾般的雙脣一抹笑意依稀可見，我的雙眼仍緊閉著，向著裸露著的白熾燈，我張開雙臂，大聲說出我的愛我的痛苦：你不知我有多愛你，你的倩影將是我腦中持續一生的興奮點，你的名字就像一首沁入我耳的詩，僅僅想象輕觸你的手,我便會輕輕地顫抖。所有這些聲音都被毛毯捂住。
而現在她正坐在我面前，不再是幻影。她正緩緩地攪拌著咖啡，那杯她剛小心地放入兩塊方糖的咖啡。她的動作從容不迫，十分悅目。從這間豪華旅館休息室光線暗淡的一角滲出音樂來，是首著名的小提琴曲，曲裡多有E絃音，裝束完美的女侍者著品紅色及藍色的韓袍託著果味雞尾酒在廳裡緩緩地移動。歲月在她身上的糙化令我震驚。我注意到她臉上抹的粉，均勻地分佈在她溼溼皺皺的膚上，閃耀著。我看著她那蓓蕾不再的脣，明白不用瞧，它們定會在白瓷杯上留下油汙，而她會在認為我沒看她時悄悄地將它們擦掉。當我無望地搜尋著她臉上含糊的反映時，我那心愛的套服內的新襯衣都在嘲笑我，為那女孩幾乎捉摸不定的影子，她的腳步聲已隨我到美國的新生活，且在這二十五年多的每個夜晚安慰我入眠，為我曾經每早等候的那女孩的笑容的影子，若有若無地顯現在妻子蒼白可愛的臉上。

憶起妻，我感到一陣突然的思鄉之痛，為我從沒想過的習以為常：剛出爐的麵食上撤著的巴馬乾酪的香味、聽到不費力地發出我的美國名字中兩個“R”時的愉悅、早晨不加牛奶原味咖啡的魅力、妻長長的四肢及披散著的比連翹稍黑的柔發。在這兒幹什麼？我，這個中年正禿頂的有位美國妻子的美籍男人，這個喜歡打網球和喜歡鮮沙拉更甚於泡菜的成功醫生？我問自己，為什麼仍追逐那個幻影，那個本應在二十五前一個大清晨隨著腳步聲不再經過我的門前就要消失的幻影。這次荒唐的旅行使我懊惱而沉默不語。

我們現已坐在漢城的高階旅館的咖啡廳的一張光滑明亮的桌前，像一對可憐的陌生人。

“你有孩子嗎？”她啜了一小口咖啡問道。她用雙手捧著咖啡杯，好象那是杯熱茶，即便那杯咖啡因她不停地攪動而已變涼。我感到微溫的液體滑下嚥喉的不快。

“沒有，你呢？”我問，配合著她努力打破難堪的沉默。請別，我內心自語，請別對我說你的兒女已經長大成人，甚至你還來不及向他們的嬰兒服道別。觸著喉部不再繃緊的面板及同樣的眼神，別對我說時光過得有多快。當你走進這間休息室，看著我坐在這間高階的西式旅館時，你曾經留給我的形象，當我還是窮學生住在你母親出租房時你的形象，過了四分之一世紀後，我一直期盼的，曾認為你將永遠是我腦中興奮點的形象，不復再存。
“沒有，”她答，“我第一次懷孕流產後便不能生育了。”

她穿著兩件套的夏裝，我注意到其顏色正是時髦的俗豔。那天下午，在漢城的街上，我已見過許多那樣著裝的人：微墜的肩上託著肩墊，胸字首著小而亮的圓扣，及膝的裙。她輕拍裙子的前擺，好似要熨平皺摺似的。

“我沒有孩子。”

我感到必須改變話題。“你的母親好麼？”我問道。

“她幾年前去世了。中風。”

我向一位微笑的侍者示意，要了杜松子酒和香味飲料。“房子怎樣？你還出租它們嗎？”

“沒有，我們不得不賣了它們來還看病的費用。我現在住的地方離那很遠，我已有十年沒到那裡去了。”