We’re walking down a narrow street in Seoul, and a cab stops for us, and we get in. You give the driver an address. And then you say in a low voice to me, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’ve got to figure out a way to stay here longer.” All my heart can take in right now is that I’m with you. With you. With you. We’ll figure it out. You said so, and I know so. I’ll figure it out. “Lloyd’s waiting for us,” you say, and I’m disappointed for a moment, but I know we’ll have our chance later. This is the way it is. I don’t mind. You look down at me as if reading my mind and pull me closer to you in the cab, and I think I can keep this memory of us, and it will last.
The cab drops us off in a crowd; it can go no farther. People block our way in the street. You pay the driver, and outside the confines of the car the air is festive. It’s as if we’re going to a parade. People laugh and clap each other on the back. They welcome each other and hurry along, talking over each other about their plans for their jobs, their families. They come out of shops, the people who work there and the people who own the businesses, together. From what they say, I can see they’re hopeful and at ease with each other, determined as they join their neighbors in the street.
Lloyd steps out of a doorway, and we greet him louder than we usually would, so contagious is the palpable excitement around us. “Took you long enough,” Lloyd says, but he’s not really complaining, because the three of us laugh and stroll deeper into the crowd.
(I know I should have said something to you here. This was my last chance. If I could go back to that moment, I would say something about what we should do if we’re separated. I’d devise a plan. But how could I have known? Everything until that moment had been easy. We’d escaped everything. Even the trouble in the tour group with the leaders—we’d broken all the rules, and we’d never had to pay.)
Now everything goes wrong. People are shouting, and it’s chaos. Too many people in the street. Where did they come from? And then I hear it: rhythmic chanting. The crowd surges forward, and I’m pushed along with them—pushed to move or else I’ll be trampled. The sense is that we’re going to a slaughter willingly, though I don’t know why we’d face a violent end. I don’t know the street I’m on, don’t know the district. Street to street, left and then right, and then here into this crowd, accidentally into this crowd. And it’s a mistake I can’t correct right away. I have to back up. Escape. Something is in front of us. I feel it even if I can’t see it. Something ahead. You’re to my right, and Lloyd is to my left.
“Something’s wrong,” you say. You freeze just then, we all freeze. Things come hurtling through overhead and clang hard as they hit the pavement. We scatter from them. Tear gas pours out. Our eyes and throats sting. Everyone starts coughing. We jerk away, the whole crowd of us, flinching, together, one mass too big to scatter. We can only brace ourselves as clouds of yellow smoke rise. I hold my hands over my face. The stench of rotten eggs. I bury my face in my shirt. I’m knocked aside. And suddenly there is space and everyone is running. I drop my hands and nearly lose my balance when someone knocks into me. And then it’s as if someone has thrown handfuls of sand lit on fire into my eyes. “Don’t rub them.” Your voice comes through the screams now, and every which way people are running. I crouch, just want to crouch down and wipe my eyes until they stop burning. But rubbing them makes them hurt more.
And then a bigger panic sets in. I look but can’t see my hands. And then I feel your hand pull mine along and someone takes my other hand. Your voice calls for me and then Lloyd’s joins in. I’m dragged to one side and then another and then forward. “Slow down,” I say as my feet slip. I shout, “Wait.”
“Come on,” you shout. I feel bodies press against me. I’m too slow. And I’m dragged to a standstill on both sides.
Lloyd shouts, “This way.” Which way? I take a step, but I’m locked between you.
You hold me up. I know it’s your face in the smoky haze. We must move. We must go. Somewhere. We must run.
“Come on, Yoona,” you say.
Then Lloyd’s voice: “I’m telling you this is the way.”
“It’s not.”
“The fuck, Jaesung.”
“The fuck is wrong with you?”
“Stop it.” I can’t pull my arms free, and then I’m yanked, my arm rips out of your hand. I reach for you and am pushed to the ground. Bodies in white and black, backs, chests, faces of old and young, mouths turned down, hands up to eyes, shoving, pushing along. And where is Lloyd? I stop. I say, “We can’t leave him.” And you say, “I’m not. Keep going, I’ll be right back.” And I tell you to wait, but you’re gone. Suddenly the gas dissipates enough that there is calm for a moment. I think we’ve made it. There are no more people to push against. Like the car ride with my aunt and her chauffeur that comes to mind, we’ll be talking about this afterward and remember how it turned out. We’ll be relieved, and we’ll be planning our next day. And then I see I’m wrong. How many still in the street? They’re crouching. And then I see why they’re not struggling anymore.
Before us is a wall of soldiers. They’re in black uniforms, so I know they’re soldiers. They raise their guns. I see them clearly. Suddenly too clearly. The tear gas matters not at all. I don’t know how I know with so many people in front of me. You’re nowhere in sight, and I know this is the moment we all die.
Everyone ducks. They crouch and cover their heads, make their bodies smaller targets. We squeeze down to the ground. Beg. Everyone around me turns all at once, so completely at once that they look to be people I’ve never seen before coming from a different direction, and they run, and I have to turn and run too to keep ahead of them, even though I can’t, but those people, they overtake us anyway, and I keep looking back for you. Where are you? The explosions come then. At me. Through me. We’re all shrieking. Shrieking. Running and shrieking. But ahead of us are only more soldiers aiming at us.
Doesn’t matter who is knocked down by whom. Everyone is trying to save herself, trampling and dodging, using each other as human shields. I see a man drag a woman behind him, pause only to look back and hold her between the soldiers and him. She pummels him, but he doesn’t let go. I see a woman shove aside another woman in her haste to get away. I run around bodies picking themselves up on the street, trip on someone’s arm, and I think I’ve lost you forever.