Reluctantly, as slowly as possible, I go downstairs to the bakery, pushing the door open with my shoulder. The year I got accepted to the university, this had been a bookstore. I used to browse books here. The owner, a young man with Coke-bottle glasses, helped me find Michael Jackson posters and recommended social science books published by small presses like Mung Bean Press, Raven Press, and Rock Pillow Press. He said I didn’t even have to buy books to hang out here, I could just read them there as long as I didn’t wrinkle the pages. This was the place where I bought the Dictionary of Aesthetics Theory Terms for the Aesthetics Theory class I took. (I ended up not really reading the book. I don’t really know what I was doing signing up for that class.) But one day, the New Day Bookstore became the New York Bakery. As with most of the buildings near the university, this building is now filled only with stores for entertainment and food. Oh wait, the fourth floor is for lodging, so my observation isn’t entirely true. The first floor became a bakery, the second floor a café, and the third floor a billiard parlor. The café’s sign—INSTANT PARADISE—is the biggest. At night the sign flashes garishly in the dark. The building owner’s store sign dwarves those of the renters. Faced with this unfair reality, are we just supposed to shrug and say, That’s just the way things are?

5. Ajumma is used to address an older woman.

6. Si is an honorific added to a name to make the address formal, used when speaking to a person of equal social standing who is not a family member or close friend.

7. Sajang-nim is used to address one’s boss in the workplace.

Matryoshka

Matryoshka

“Do you think he married her for her money?” I ask the toothbrush salesman—I mean, the dentist who’s now become a regular at the café.

“What?” he asks.

“You told me he’s four years younger than the café owner, right? He’s a handsome bachelor. Ajumma has married two or three times now. So …”

“I think they married because they love each other. No one outside a relationship can know what goes on between a couple.”

“Even if that’s the case … It hasn’t been very long since you brought him here and introduced them to each other. Don’t you agree?”

He sits at an angle and looks straight into my eyes. His irises seem small in relation to the whites of his eyes. His facial expression is that of a crane waiting for the right moment to snatch up a fish from the river, focusing. I suddenly feel embarrassed and annoyed. Like the fish head Nana likes to chew on, my head droops. With the sudden silence in the conversation, the music in the background grows louder.