THE LEPER - LEE CHANGDONG

. . . to survive, to hang on, waiting for the new world to dawn, what can you do but become a leper nobody in the world would deign to touch? - From "Windy Evening," by Kim Seong-dong.

- Heinz Insu Fenkl

Before I knocked, I took a moment to calm my breathing. But even a couple of deep breaths did nothing to lessen my anxiety, and, to the sound of voices on the other side, I carefully pushed open the thick door.

A female clerk sat at a desk just inside. “How may I help you?” she asked. The room wasn’t as large as I’d imagined. Directly in my line of sight from the door, I could see a man in his forties sitting with his back to the window. He seemed to be the boss of this office.

“I’m here to see the prosecutor,” I said.

“May I ask your name?”

“Uh . . . my name is Kim Youngjin. I got a phone call yesterday.”

“Ah, please have a seat and wait over there.” Instead of the clerk, it was a man sitting next to her who spoke. He appeared to be the prosecutor’s secretary, and perhaps for that reason I found him very blunt and harsh, though I was too preoccupied to take offense at his tone of voice. I sat myself in the chair facing them.

The prosecutor was talking to someone on the phone. Leaning back in his seat, swivelling this way and that, he spoke in a soft voice, as if he were chatting with a close friend. “Legal procedure,” “execute the warrant,” “keep the case open”—those were some of the phrases he used as he discussed the relationship between senior and junior colleagues, interspersed with observations about the quality of service provided by the madam at a certain bar. Aside from the prosecutor’s voice, it was quiet in the office, so quiet that the place felt oddly solemn.

“Are you Kim Hakgyu’s son?” the prosecutor asked as he stood, hanging up the phone.

“Yes, sir. How do you do? I’m Kim Youngjin.” Bowing much lower than necessary, I took his outstretched hand. I noticed that he had just used my father’s name without prefacing it with the title “Mister” and I was struck with the terrifying realization that those three syllables—