City of Ash and Red Read online

  International Praise for City of Ash and Red

  “City of Ash and Red is a tale of survival and ruin that leaves no room for even a single drop of comfort to seep in. Pyun builds an airtight masterpiece of agony and mystery with her masterfully crafted sentences, and she colors it with the ash-gray of ruin and the fiery red of life.”

  —Korea Economic Daily

  “A story of modern humanity’s survival and downfall as told through the tale of a man who finds his life ruined for reasons he doesn’t understand, in a city rife with disease, soiled by trash, and teeming with rats . . . [with narrative] tension like a discordant note that jangles the nerves to keep the reader hooked all the way to the last page.”

  —Munhwa Ilbo (Korea)

  “Hye-young Pyun has made a name for herself in literature with her exquisite depictions of a world of strange and grotesque imagination. . . . Though the world she describes is a fictional one, the story of the extinction and denial of a weak man who must persevere within that world feels all too real.”

  —Kukmin Ilbo

  “Completely astonishing.”

  —Le Vent Sombre (France)

  “A dark and utterly unclassifiable novel.”

  —La Bibliothèque de Glow

  “A keen (and rather frightening) meditation on identity, the vacuousness of human relationships, the absurdity of existence . . . and the instinct to survive!”

  —Zibeline

  “A dark, sometimes absurd, often Kafkaesque, fierce, and always harrowing portrait of solitude by force of circumstance and a life in freefall.”

  —Le Choix des Libraires

  Praise for The Hole,

  Winner of the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award

  “A Korean take on Misery.”

  —Time magazine, “Top 10 Thrillers to Read This Summer”

  “An absorbing look at the struggle to find meaning in life’s little passages, arguments, and disagreements.”

  —San Francisco Book Review

  “By the time Hye-young Pyun’s taut psychological thriller The Hole has tightened its grip on the unsuspecting mind, it’s too late to escape. The shadows lurking in the novel become manifest, and dark poetic justice reigns. . . . The Hole is an unshakable novel about the unfathomable depths of human need.”

  —Shelf Awareness

  “Winner of many of Korea’s top literary prizes and accolades, Pyun proves to be an effectively chilling storyteller whose expert narrative manipulations should earn new followers.”

  —Booklist

  “[Be] wary; you’ll be thinking and dreaming this novel long after you’ve put it down.”

  —Words Without Borders, “July 2017 Watchlist”

  “A claustrophobic, riveting story calculated to get under your skin.”

  —Korean Literature Now

  “The Hole is rooted in character but has the suspense of a thriller. . . For readers who are unafraid of knowing that our life and our loved ones are strangers to us.

  —Krys Lee, World Literature Today

  “The Hole is a masterwork of suspense, and a profound meditation on grief, solitude, and secrecy. At once unsettling and richly moving, The Hole is a vital novel, a gift from a wildly inventive writer.”

  —Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me

  “Like Hitchcock or Abe, Pyun peers head on into the unnerving depths of human grief with the most methodical of eye, logically narrating our descent into such a clear, uncanny terror we hope to remind ourselves its only just a book, one wound from end to end with an exquisite magic that refuses to let go.”

  —Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000

  “While reading The Hole, you’ll find yourself suddenly doubting everything. Pyun is asking us a tough and terrifying question that none can dodge: Is your life safe?”

  —Kyung-sook Shin, New York Times–bestselling author of Please Look After Mom

  “Fissures in life offer a glimpse of the truth that starts not from others but from us and that we are all oblivious to.”

  —Maeil Business Newspaper (Korea)

  “Reminiscent of Stephen King’s Misery, Hye-young Pyun’s The Hole shows off her unique style of steadily rising terror with this dark tale of a man utterly cut off from his life.”

  —Munhwa Ilbo

  “[A] disconcerting and often sinister story.”

  —Korea Herald

  ALSO BY HYE-YOUNG PYUN

  The Hole

  Copyright © 2010 by Hye-young Pyun

  English-language translation copyright © 2018 by Sora Kim-Russell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  First English-Language Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Originally published in Korea as (Jaewa Ppalgang) in 2010 by Changbi Publishers

  This book is published with the support of the Literature Translation Institute of Korean (LTI Korea).

  Arcade Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Arcade Publishing® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.arcadepub.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2018025792

  Cover design by Erin-Seaward-Hiatt

  Cover illustration: iStockphoto

  ISBN: 978-1-62872-781-4

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62872-783-8

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  Chapter ONE

  Chapter TWO

  Chapter THREE

  Chapter FOUR

  Chapter FIVE

  PART TWO

  Chapter ONE

  Chapter TWO

  Chapter THREE

  PART THREE

  Chapter ONE

  ONE

  Danger warnings are more common than actual danger. And yet when danger does finally strike, it does so without warning. That was why the man thought nothing of the quarantine notices and infectious disease prevention regulations posted all around the airport. He knew that the more caution signs there were, the less danger he was in. As if overhearing the man’s thoughts, a health inspector in a hazmat suit who was scanning the temperatures of disembarking passengers looked hard at the thermometer and gave him a warning frown. Was it the man’s slight fever? The stink of alcohol wafting off of him? He clamped his mouth shut and slipped a hand up to his forehead. It felt like the lid of a rice cooker set to warm.

  The flight had been short but exhausting. Not only had he been working overtime every night to prepare for this trip, he was still hungover from the night before. His hand felt even warmer than his forehead. His wrist ached and his palm throbbed as if he had been squeezing something hard. He took a closer look and saw that his palm was bruised. Even the slightest clenching of his fist brought on a tingling pain.

  This time, the health inspector placed the thermometer directly against the man’s right ear. An electric hum buzzed in his ear like an alarm. He barked out a loud cough as if in
response to the sound, and the health inspector jumped back.

  The inspections were due to the recent outbreak. An illness had been spreading fast, from country zero to most of the rest of the world, like fire jumping from roof to roof. No one knew exactly how it was spreading, treatment was still in the developmental stages, infection rates were high, and there was talk of a growing feud among countries to secure the limited supply of vaccines. And yet, luckily, there’d been few fatalities so far. The man figured the news back home was right: no matter how strong the virus was, he had nothing to worry about as long as he kept his hands clean.

  On the way there, the man had been seated next to another passenger who had coughed nonstop, right up until they were lined up in the aisle to exit. The coughing man had shivered uncontrollably, despite the unseasonably heavy, old-fashioned tweed coat he’d kept on, and complained of a severe headache, swallowing three or more aspirin during the five-hour flight to Country C. The flight attendant had brought two extra blankets and covered the sick passenger up herself, and blamed it on the air-conditioning. But the aspirin seemed to have no effect on the fever, as the coughing passenger’s face stayed the same deep shade of red. If the man had known how strict the airport’s health inspection would be, he would have taken some aspirin himself before getting off the flight, and if he’d known how high the infection rate was, he certainly would have asked to change seats.

  The health inspector gave the man a look and said something into his walkie-talkie. A reply came back, mixed with static, and abruptly cut off. Instantly, two men came walking towards the checkpoint. With their puffy suits and face masks, they looked like rubber lifeboats bobbing towards him. Their suits were clearly stamped with the words DISEASE CONTROL CENTER. He assumed they were public hygiene medical examiners attached to the airport. Their suits were identical, and they were even similar in height, which made it difficult to tell them apart. The masks covered their eyes, but the man knew they were watching him closely. His heart began to race. He did not know why but he felt he should not let them take him away. He quickly scanned his surroundings, but before he could make a move, the inspector who had checked his temperature grabbed his arm. He stood there powerless, trapped in the other man’s suspiciously strong grip.

  The inspector held onto his arm until the two men were on either side of him. They did not touch him, but standing there between the two large men and sweating profusely, he felt hog-tied. The other people waiting to go through health inspection and passport control stared at him. Maybe it was all those eyes on him, but his sweat turned cold and he grew so flustered that he swallowed wrong and started coughing uncontrollably until the blood rushed to his face and his cheeks burned.

  The two medical examiners took him down a long, featureless corridor and into a room that looked as if it had just been dipped whole into a bucket of white paint. The floor was tiled in white, and the walls and ceiling were painted white. There was a small cot covered in white sheets, and a table and chairs that were also white. Everything gleamed like a freshly bleached and disinfected sink. All that white made the room look frigid, and indeed the air conditioner was set so low that he caught a chill and coughed several times while rubbing the goose bumps that broke out on his arms.

  One of the medical examiners directed him to sit and slowly sat down across from him. The examiner’s friendly, polite tone put the man at ease. He had pictured himself being thrown to the floor the moment he stepped into the room. The examiner apologetically explained that the man had an unusually high temperature and was being detained so he could receive a complete checkup. The man barely understood a word of it. Not that the examiner’s choice of words was particularly difficult, but the man was not very good at the language of Country C to begin with, and he was too flustered to catch the words he did know. He stared blankly, feeling like a fish in a tank, as the examiner repeated the same words over and over, until the other examiner, who’d been standing by, lost his patience and went to fetch an electronic dictionary. Between the dictionary and a mix of speaking and writing, the man finally understood that he was being detained for quarantine. He felt a deep sense of relief that had nothing to do with whether or not he was infected.

  The first examiner had him change into a hospital gown and lie on the cot, and then inspected him from head to toe, searching for symptoms of the illness. The man kept raising his head from his prone position and straining to keep track of the two examiners.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” the examiner said gently. “This is just a preventative measure.” He seemed to sympathize with the man’s anxiety.

  “Preventative?”

  “Yes, just think of it as a regular physical. Most of the time it’s nothing, and you can laugh about it later.”

  “I’ve felt a cold coming on for some time.”

  “Oh, then you’re definitely infected.”

  The man sat bolt upright in shock, but the examiner laughed and gently pressed him back down by one shoulder.

  “Calm down, I’m only joking. As a matter of fact, the illness that’s been going around is no different from the common cold in that they’re both caused by unknown viruses. The only difference is that a cold responds to aspirin, while the new virus does not. Don’t worry. Most of the people who come in here with fevers turn out to only need some aspirin.”

  Though he struggled to understand the words the examiner kept repeating, the man was relieved to recognize “nothing” and “aspirin.” This incident would soon be just an amusing anecdote from his time spent working in Country C. He found himself suddenly craving an aspirin as if it were some delicious food. Just one aspirin, small and round as a button, he thought, would not only take away his faint headache and his cough but also cure his hangover and his anxiety.

  Instead of an aspirin, the examiner held out a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. He rolled up his sleeve to make it easier to draw blood. His forearm was black and blue.

  “That’s an unusual color,” the examiner said as he searched for a vein.

  The bruises on the man’s arm seemed to turn a darker blue by the minute, like a shy little girl whose cheeks turn redder the harder she tries not to blush, he thought. After several failed attempts to find a vein, the examiner finally managed to slide in the needle. Meanwhile, the man struggled to remember what had happened the night before. Had he gotten in a fight? Judging from the bruises, it was obvious someone had hit him. He’d never won a fistfight before in his life. Pure, red blood filled the syringe. He wasn’t sure if it was the color of his blood or the fact that he could not remember a single thing from the night before, but something made him frown.

  The results weren’t ready until the next day. During his overnight detention, the man had examined the mysterious marks on his arms one by one. The stark white of the room made the blue of his bruises even more conspicuous. But no matter how he stared at them, he could not remember how he’d gotten them. It wasn’t the first time he’d blacked out while drinking, but he had never woken to find himself injured. His lost memories of the night before had vaporized without a trace into his bruises, into the ache deep inside his bones, in the unexplained fear and unpleasantness he felt every time he tried to search his memory. He grimaced as he fingered the large, distinct marks and then gave up on trying to recover his memories.

  It was evening by the time one of the medical examiners returned, carrying a large envelope. Excited, he nearly ran to embrace him. But he worried it might be a bad sign that the results had taken so long, so instead he greeted him in the small voice of a student who knows he is about to be scolded by his teacher.

  The medical examiner handed him his clothes with a friendly, reassuring smile. He got dressed and looked over the documents in the envelope. One was a detainment consent form. It seemed unreasonable to have him sign it after the fact, but he was just happy to get out of there and hurriedly signed the paper. For the physical examination certificate, he listened to a brief explanation and signed t
hat as well. The gist of it seemed to be that he would need a follow-up exam since it was too early to make a definite diagnosis, but for now he was released from detention and allowed to enter the country. He knew he could have taken this time going over the documents and asking questions, to understand in detail what it all meant, but the thought that he was free to leave made him suddenly anxious. The examiner put the signed documents away and asked where the man was staying. He showed him the rental contract that Mol, his contact at the main office, had sent him. Mol had included the keycard to his new apartment and a map drawn in such detail that anyone could find it easily on their first try. It showed how adept Mol was at his job, and this made the man, who was not quite so meticulous, all the more nervous.

  The medical examiner dialed a phone number on the contract—to confirm that it was valid, the man assumed. He didn’t know who the examiner was calling until he heard him read off the name of the branch manager back home, who was listed at the bottom of the contract as a personal reference, and ask to be put through. The man slowly folded his hospital gown as he listened in on the conversation. The name of the city and the area where his new apartment was located were mentioned, and he thought he heard something about his high temperature and about being detained, but the words he did not know outnumbered the words he did know.

  He was grateful for the phone call. He’d been unable to notify the branch manager about his detainment. There had been no way to contact anyone on the outside, and anyway he was too flustered at the time to even think about the company. If not for that call, he would have been seen as a deadbeat, an untrustworthy and unreliable employee who skips out on the very first day of work. He was supposed to start that day. But right up until his arrival at the airport, the idea that something might prevent him from showing up for work never once occurred to him.

  The medical examiner hung up and handed him his passport, then repeatedly told him not to change addresses or leave his place of sojourn, as he would be visited for a follow-up diagnosis. Excited to be released from detention, he forgot to ask if they knew when the follow-up would happen. He did not discover until later, after arriving at his new apartment, that next to the entry stamp in his passport was a mysterious red stamp.