To the Warm Horizon

By Jin-young Choi

A group of Koreans are making their way across a disease-ravaged landscape—but to what end? To the Warm Horizon shows how in a post-apocalyptic world, humans will still seek purpose, kinship, and even intimacy. Focusing on two young women, Jina and Dori, who find love against all odds, Choi Jin-young creates a dystopia where people are trying to find direction after having their worlds turned upside down. Lucidly translated from the Korean by Soje, this thoughtful yet gripping novel takes the reader on a journey through how people adjust, or fail to adjust, to catastrophe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Honford Star
• Release date: May 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781916277151

Jin-young Choi

Choi Jin-young was born on a snowy day in Seoul in 1981 and moved around often during her childhood. She made her literary debut in 2006 and has won various awards including the 15th Hankyoreh Literature Prize.

Book preview

Prologue

Ryu

Have you heard of Korea?

Is Korea still where it used to be?

I was born in Korea. That’s where I met Dan and gave birth to Haerim and Haemin.

That was a long time ago.

Haemin now lives in Warsaw. His wife recently gave birth to their fourth child. They told me they named her Lee Bona. They say Bona is as small as Haemin’s head. I will never see that small, precious, precarious bundle of life. Much less hold her in my arms.

Haerim died when she was eleven years old. We abandoned Korea because she died. I abandoned explanation as we left Korea. Haemin was seven at the time. The age when children have a lot of questions. Haemin could not understand his parents’ decision to leave his bicycle, his computer, and his older sister’s room behind. I could not give him any explanation. I could not tell him, At least some of us have to survive.

I had happened to hear the midnight news in bed. It was a Monday. They said that a strange virus was spreading in a distant country, that the virus would mutate with every new vaccine. Tired as I was, I was mentally adding up our monthly expenses on birthdays, funerals, and weddings as the newscaster explained that there was no way of knowing what to look out for because the infection process was yet unknown. The next day, news of the virus took wind on every street. But it’ll be fine soon. That was what we believed. Because the disaster is in a distant country. Because modern medicine and the government will protect us. Even as we heard about surging death tolls in the Americas, we worried about the cost of living, retirement, and our children’s education in Korea. Then I received the call that Haerim was dead. She’d died less than an hour after being transported from her school to the hospital. Haerim had overslept that morning. After washing her face and tying her hair in a ponytail, she’d complained that her forehead was hot. She’d mumbled weakly that she wanted to eat a Bulgogi Whopper as she put on her backpack. A soft whisper to herself as if chanting an old, bygone wish. I’d handed her a five thousand won bill and told her to buy one after school. Haerim had hugged me tight around my waist and rubbed her head on my chest. I’ll get you medicine on my way home from work, I’d said. That was my last farewell.

The official death toll that day, in Korea alone, had been over a hundred thousand. It increased nearly fivefold the next day. We claimed Haerim’s neglected body from the hospital and buried her in the hills behind our neighborhood. We dug into the earth without shedding a single tear. The parting had struck like lightning. We knew nothing of death. Only as we lowered the body into the pit and began covering it with dirt could I truly see: I was dumping Haerim into the ice-cold earth. Shrieking, I jumped into the pit and embraced her. I wanted to hold her in my arms and be buried alongside her. Haerim looked like she didn’t even know she was dead. As she lay there on the frozen earth, it really seemed as if she was simply waiting for class to end so she could go eat that burger. I covered her with dirt, failing to leave her favorite burger by her side.

Mass bankruptcy brought on a disaster surpassing the disease: a rise in robberies, smuggling, human trafficking, murder, violence, and religious cults. The male mortality rate was much higher, and a baseless rumor began to circulate that the infected could be cured by eating the livers of young children. Governments dissolved; public order collapsed. Those were the days when we could neither stay nor leave.

Nevertheless, there were people who tried to stay. Those who believed that it would be the same wherever they went. Those who did not give up on whatever was left of their daily lives, memories without flesh or bone. Those who said if they must die, then they would die in their own homes. Like noble heroes, like warriors who laid down their weapons, they stood their ground. Meanwhile, I abandoned everyone except Dan and Haemin. My father and my older sister and their families. My old friends. Did they think they abandoned me, too? We had pledged that we would reunite somewhere someday, even if we had wronged each other and went our separate ways. That was our wide-eyed delusion.

When we arrived in Vladivostok, having abandoned everything and endured so much, I was thrown into confusion again: Where do we go now? Is there a place for us here? Yet the land was vast. We could keep going. We could roam to avoid the virus and the bandits running amok. To watch the sunset from somewhere other than where we’d watched it yesterday, and from somewhere else yet again tomorrow. To escape from the now as soon as possible. Our reason for escape pierced through the solid earth and soared like the sun and shone brightly on us every day. All the people of that land believed in God. God’s purpose, God’s grace and blessings, God’s gift bestowed from Heaven, God is looking after us, God is omniscient … I believed in their God and feared Him. The natural landscape—outstretched menacingly yet senselessly as if to say, I have no use for you humans—made me fear Him.

And then there was Dori, who had glared at me as she held her little sister close in a small oratory near Ulan-Ude. I had shoved Haemin in Dori’s arms and shut the doors on them. It was the first time I entrusted my child with someone on Russian soil. Dori embraced Haemin as she did her own sister and crouched down in a corner. After evading the bandits, I opened the doors to fetch Haemin. Dori was muttering to herself.

—God is rebuking us. The god of this land. He’s telling us to leave here at once.

By the time we met again in Tomsk, Dori no longer feared God. She didn’t believe in such things. Because she didn’t believe in it, she didn’t curse it either. I feared her new ways but wanted to believe in this new Dori.

I am now over seventy years old—no, eighty? I’m not sure. I have lived for too long. Relative to my years, the two months or so I spent in Russia would at most amount to a single sheep in a herd of a hundred. And yet that one sheep remains so vivid in my memory. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember you all.

God no longer rebukes me. He is uninterested in me. I’ve survived for this long thanks to His indifference. If only I could’ve shared this loathsome life with my daughter.

Do you know Korea?

Is Korea still there?

There was a time when I’d wandered around Russia to flee the disaster that had shrouded the entire world. I’d been thirty-nine years old then.

To the Warm Horizon

Dori

I think about only one thing: to never leave Joy behind on her own. So I must survive no matter what. I must do my part as someone who’s still alive. This imperative is a Da capo without a Fine, a prayer I dedicate to myself. As Mom died, she asked Dad to look after us. As Dad died, he asked me to look after Joy. Like a secret key in some legend, Joy was handed down from Mom to Dad, from Dad to me. What could I ask of Joy in my dying moment? I love you. I will ask her to look after love. Joy, with my love handed down to her, will survive somehow. With love in her arms, she’ll dash towards the end of the world.

Our parents reassured us by saying, It’s fine. They said that humans were intelligent and persistent. That intelligent people would find a solution in no time, that we just had to sit and wait until then. What I thought was the exact opposite. That the world would most certainly be upended. That human determination would turn crisis into despair. That intelligent people would not find a solution but a bigger disaster. I had to find a different approach than my parents’. The day Dad died, I packed my bags right away. As light as possible. Only what I could carry on the run. I took Joy by the hand and headed straight to Incheon harbor. I wasn’t sure if there’d be a ship running under such circumstances, but there was. The problem was that the tickets were unbelievably expensive. People who see opportunity in disaster, who don’t starve or run even in disaster—they must belong to a world somewhere beyond the afterlife. To ride on the boat, I had to offer up as much gold and diamonds as they wanted. A gold ring wasn’t even enough to cop a pack of gum. However, in exchange for taking my parents, God had given me the wondrous talent of stealing. I came to know something much better than ever before: what it was I needed. Where it was. Like a rat, I burrowed into the bedlam of screaming, brawling, milling people and stole two tickets. Tickets to Qingdao. Once there, I stole another pair of tickets. We traveled all the way to Ulan-Ude that way. What happened to the people I’d robbed? It wasn’t just tickets or money but their lives I stole. I deserved their hatred.

I got caught in Ulan-Ude. Joy and I ran. She’s a fast runner. So fast I can’t keep up. But she can’t run as quickly as she wants because she has to hold my hand the whole time. I’m the millstone around her neck. If it weren’t for me, Joy would be able to reach the end of this continent without a car or a train, without getting tired. She can run and run until she flies like a bird. I tried to keep going as she dragged me forward but eventually had to let go of her hand. Joy stopped stockstill like a switched-off toy. The small angel looked back at me with a guileless expression. I’m the reason why Joy can’t run. Dad’s request had been misplaced. Instead of asking me to look after Joy, he should’ve told her to keep running even if her sister lets go of her hand. That my letting go is her cue to run faster.

Russia also had its share of crazy bastards gunning for children’s livers. There even seemed to be a rumor going around that eating girls’ livers was more effective than boys’. If only I were a magician. If only I could hide Joy away in my pocket like turning a handkerchief into a rose or making a pigeon disappear inside a top hat … We had to avoid places with too many people, but places without