Chapter Fourteen
I found it among the maze of streets in the area of Sangam Dong, north of Haneul Park and the river. Close by, as the name suggests was the World Cup stadium
Parking my car down a side turning I walked back to World Cup Buk-ro 48-gil. Its shops catered for the workers in the nearby Media City. There were several cafes and fast-food shops, a health-food store, and so on. It seemed the least likely street for a man with an egg-sized bump on his head to be wandering down in search of . Well, in search of what? I asked myself, gazing vacantly into the window of a traditional tea shop.
Breaking from a reverie I suddenly realised that I was staring at a quaint Chinese doll. My eyes wandered to the other objects in the window - some hand-painted fans, a model of a Chinese junk. I looked up at the name running in gold script across the window. The Golden Sun, it said. I thought a tea in there might help to set my brain working.
It was the usual sort of tea shop. There was a long counter, in front of which were a dozen lacquered tables with matching chairs. The Chinese motif of the window was even more prominent inside. Tourist publicity posters of China in cherry blossom time decorated the walls, interspersed with hanging fans. Pots of chrysanthemums were on every table. I went in and sat at a table
In the mirror behind the counter I had a full view of the tables. The sole occupant of these, just visible between the sails of a model junk, was an elegant woman wearing a close-fitting emerald green dress.
A harassed girl, dressed in a silk smock, string-like hair hanging down to her shoulders, swept a used tea cup and saucer from the counter in front of me. 'Yes, sir?' she said, adenoidally disinterested.
I ordered a tea and idly watched her manipulate the chromium monster. As she came back with my pot for one the woman behind me called: 'My bill, please, So- hyun'.
The waitress searched in the pockets of her smock, found a check pad and the stub of a pencil, and murmuring a fretful, 'Coming!' began to make out the bill.
'How's Jaw-long?' the woman in the green dress inquired, over the lid of her compact. 'Are you expecting him in today?'
The girl brushed some hair from her eyes impatiently. 'He's better now. He should be in this afternoon, Miss Kong'.
I was about to light a cigarette, but now my hand tightened on the dormant lighter and I risked a direct look at the woman, between the sails of the junk.
She was in her mid-thirties, not unattractive in a supercilious way. Her eyes were jade green and penetrating, her mouth a shade too large. I imagined a shrewd, restless mind at work behind the immobile face.
Her eyes met mine and I turned my head quickly away. In that instant of contact I had the feeling that hers had shown a more than casual interest in me. But I was over-receptive to impressions just then; the note in my cigarette case, and Kong So-ra's presence in a tea shop, which featured a Chinese doll in the window, was stretching coincidence to snapping point.
Through the mirror I watched the girl take the bill to Kong So-ra's table.
Closing her compact the latter drawled in a bored tone: 'What is it with Jaw-long, 'flu?'
'Oh, with the usual tummy trouble', So-hyun replied with a sniff. 'I'll be glad when he's back. Leaving me to cope on my own here .'
A postman came in, flourished a bundle of mail in So-hyun's direction, and slapped it down on the counter at my elbow. 'Turned out nice again!' he said cheerfully.
'Has it?' So-hyun responded perfunctorily. 'I wouldn't know'.
I glanced casually down at the pile of mail. It seemed to be mostly bills, apart from one large buff-coloured envelope, which from its bulk I assumed contained printed matter of some kind.
My attention returned abruptly to the mirror as I heard the door open and voice of Kong So-ra exclaiming: 'Su-mi!'