Part One.
At first I thought he was just another off-centre local, trying to balance as the subway train lurched, speaking without regard for whether we understood him.
'Ne, ne,' he continued cheerily. His suit hung off his frame as though it were still on a coathanger, and his teeth jutted forward in the manner of an enthusiastic rodent.
Continuing his dialogue, he produced a business card. Most Koreans have cards, so this wasn't significant. But something was different about the white rectangle he dangled before us.
In the bottom right hand corner were two pictures of a womans' face. A few thoughts occured to me at once; perhaps he was canvassing for an escort service, or looking for a missing woman.
But a few words of English dripped through his Korean.
'New skin, new body, new skin,' he was saying. And I realised he was talking about plastic surgery, smiling all the while.
The salesmans' eyes ran over Jeni and Roxanne. He couldn't find any fault, though, and decided I was most in need of help.
'Here, here , here.' I recoiled as he prodded my moles. ' Cut, make new, clean.'
I took a few seconds to compose myself before wondering what sort of an advertisement this man was for good looks. It was like being sold diet pills by Pavarotti.
'Have you had surgery?' I asked, pointing at his blotched nose, ' Not exactly a work of art yourself, are you?'
'Ne, ne,' he smiled, underlining the phone number on his card. 'Monday, ring monday, not today, monday.'
And after I took the card he turned his teeth towards the next carraige, opened the door and scanned for new victims.
No comments:
Post a Comment