The Mountain by Paul Yoon

Author:Paul Yoon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

THE MOUNTAIN

I.

She had been at the stop since before the morning. She was often there, sitting on the bench, avoiding the rain. If she had enough coins she bought tea from the vending machine. If she didn’t she waited to see if someone would give her some coins. She had nowhere to go. She stayed until someone noticed or until it got too dark or when, on a rare summer night, it got too cold. Even then she stayed a little longer, leaning into the hum of the vending machine, the brief air of a bus’s open door.

One day a young man approached her about a job. He had been watching as all the buses picked up and dropped off passengers while she stayed, the tips of her shoes drenched by the spray of the tires. In her years in South Korea she had never been approached about anything except by men who asked her if she was lonely and wanted company. She felt the small knuckle of the pocketknife in her boot as he approached. She started to lean down but changed her mind. He waved a piece of paper at her in a way that reminded her of a long-ago friend whose face she could no longer recall, only that gesture, a wave before they went swimming.

He was wearing sunglasses even though there was no sun that day. He was young and handsome and smelled like an expensive fragrance. He also had on the sneakers she saw on the television at an electronics store downtown. A music video with dancers. A good song. She tapped her foot to the remembered beat as he stood at a respectful distance and opened the paper, which was a pamphlet, and showed her photos of an apartment complex. A great river. Parks.

Then he spoke in Mandarin, which surprised her. She spoke in Mandarin back to him. She said she liked his sunglasses.

He laughed and bought her tea. He sat down. A puddle began to form on the uneven road, catching a portion of the sky. He said it was okay if she no longer had her documents. He said they would take care of her. On the back of the pamphlet was the name of a ferryboat and a pier number in the harbor. Below that was written a time and day.

She looked away to cough and wiped her mouth, swallowing some phlegm she would spit out if he weren’t here.

Come back home, he said.

He didn’t wait for her to answer. A bus pulled up and she watched him get on, still stunned by what he said, still confused. She wondered if he meant the city. She looked down at the pamphlet, searching the photos, not yet recognizing the river. Then she did and even though she knew the stranger was gone she leaned forward to follow the route of the bus as it made its way down the hill.

She wondered if they had met in an old life. He wasn’t the

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