The Invisible Hotel by Yeji Y. Ham

Author:Yeji Y. Ham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zando

Ms. Han had come up to Seoul. She said she was meeting up with an agency, the broker that had found her mother and brother in the South. Aside from her brother, she never mentioned her family in the North. Me and my daughter, Ms. Han said though. Minkyung. If Ms. Han was married, if she had a child, all I knew for sure was that they had not made it here.

She would have crossed the Tumen River. Crossed China. Crossed so many borders, hidden in so many mountains. But at least, I told myself, at least, Ms. Han was in the South now. Here, there was plenty to eat. She was freer than ever before.

I was about to close my eyes when I saw the lunch box. The plastic, two-tiered lunch box, left behind on the passenger seat. Ms. Han had cooked for me again. She did not like to be without food. That scar, on Ms. Han’s back. Someone had hurt her. And her daughter. I swallowed. Ms. Han said she couldn’t use public transportation. She couldn’t have anyone next to her, so close to her body. No touch. Ms. Han had said from the start: Please don’t touch me.

I clamped a hand over my chest, feeling a sudden tightness. Each breath coming out shallower than the last. I moaned, my head falling onto the steering wheel, my consciousness wrestling to stay inside the car, but the hotel.

I am standing in a kitchen. Cabinets torn open. Shelves ravaged. Shards of glass cover every countertop, every surface, piled high in the sink. The stoves caked with thick dust. As I take a step, pots and pans clatter to the floor.

Inside, I see nothing, smell nothing. No food. Not even a rancid, rotting stench. No sight of anything edible—the only evidence is a stack of containers, licked clean or emptied out. Someone broke in here. And someone then fled, flailing as they tripped and grabbed the counter, knocking the dishes awry.

There is a door. A red swinging door. I stumble forward, kicking my way across the room through the shattered pieces, clattering as I struggle.

Outside, a dining room. A vast, open space—I imagine it bustling with life. Waiters and waitresses gliding around, each of their actions careful and graceful, moving between the tables like they are in a ballroom, spines bending as they ask the diners how the food is. Holding their chins high, eyes alert. Their smiles, a part of their uniform. I can almost smell the food: steak and pork chops over open flames, a waft of sweet vanilla ice cream, hot raspberry jam, and melting butter. Diners sniffing their plates, pointing at the food that comes out from the kitchen.

That is how it should, how it would have been.

Instead, I see a girl with her jaw cracked open. A woman whose head is drooped like some lifeless bird, hung at a butcher shop. A man with his head burrowed into a broken plate. I keep walking, my instinct telling me to move forward, get past.

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