***
Che Sang Gyu hurried through the doors of the upscale tourist hotel. He immediately felt out of place in the fancy lobby, dressed as he was in downscale student attire. But no matter, these were brash Western tourists here, unconcerned with the nuances of Asian culture.
They did not deign to notice a struggling young man from a poor background in the southwest provinces. It didn’t matter to them that his government grant paid for his education and little else, that he shared lousy dorm accommodations with three other students as poor as himself, that he seldom had any cash in his pocket; that, for all his personal excellence, he still counted for nothing in the world.
He felt a sudden, irrational desire to set off a bomb in the lobby. Blow all these rich foreigners to kingdom come, along with the snotty hotel staff! He’d never actually do something like that, of course, but the thought that he could, if he wanted to, was oddly comforting.
Anyway, this was all going to change. Soon he’d be moving into the world of work, employed at high salary by one or another of the world’s premier robotics facilities. Hadn’t he already spoken with three enthusiastic recruiters? Hadn’t he already adopted the moniker Jerry to indicate that he was a ‘show me the money!’ type guy?
When he finally burst out of his straightjacket, the world would take notice ... and tremble.
He entered the hotel coffee shop. The place was noisy and bustling, and almost painfully bright. Why had Estrella asked to meet in surroundings so different from the dim, out-of-the-way tearooms where they usually hooked up?
Snooty waitresses bustled about delivering coffee drinks and fabulous, over-priced desserts. You could even get a foreign brandy here to go with your coffee. It was all out of his price range, of course, but Estrella had insisted that today would be her treat.
There she was now! Seated at a corner table, pensive and lovely, waiting for him. She held a little mirror in one hand, with the other she primped her luxuriant hair. Immediately, everything else in the world disappeared. He glided toward her, scarcely aware of the floor under his worn shoes. His Estrella!
What did she in him, he wondered for the thousandth time? Of course, he was brilliant, reasonably good looking, and a guy on the way up. Around other girls he had some confidence, but now he felt like an unworthy penitent approaching a goddess. He should be stumbling along on his knees, begging for her attention.
He was almost to her table when Estrella looked up at him.
“Hello, Jerry,” she said in her low, sexy, Brazil-accented voice.
A decade later, when he began the Estrella project, he would forgo duplicating that accent. Hearing it again would have driven him mad.
Che sat down at her table, like someone in a trance. She ordered coffee and cakes for them, and afterwards foreign brandy – so different from the rotgut soju he was accustomed to drinking with his buddies. Throughout their light chit chat, he sensed that something might be wrong. But didn’t he always feel unsettled in her presence? By the second brandy he was feeling a bit more secure.
Then she dropped her bombshell: She would be returning to Brazil the next day with her father. He had forbidden her to see Che any more.
“That son of a bitch!” Che practically shouted, getting to his feet. “He thinks I’m a poor nobody, doesn’t he?”
He was so distraught, that he’d reverted to the Korean language. Patrons looked his direction, then went uneasily back to their drinks.
“Please sit down, Jerry,” Estrella said.
Che plopped back into his chair, groped for English words.
“Things will change soon,” he said. “In a few months, I will be well established. I’ve already had interviews ... I’ll head my own design team ... my work will revolutionize robotic science.”
“I know that,” Estrella said. “Papa does, too.”
“Then what is it?” Che said. “I’ll have money, fame. I’ll take excellent care of you.”
Estrella sighed and finished off the last of her brandy.
“Papa says there’s already enough Asian blood in our family,” she said. “He wants his grandchildren to look more like himself.”
Che sank back in his chair, mouth gaping.
“Surely you don’t buy into that crap,” he said.
“No, I don’t,” Estrella said.
“Then tell him to go to hell,” Che said. “Stay here with me. I’ll be finished with school next month, and – ”
Estrella shook her head sadly. “It’s more than that, Jerry. It’s me, also.”
The final sentence struck Che like the clap of doom.
“What?” he squeaked.
Estrella glanced uneasily around the coffee shop, at the foreign tourists looking their direction, at the disapproving frown on the manager’s face.
“You scare me, Jerry,” she said. “I’m scared now.”
“Scared? B-but ... I could never hurt you .”
“I sense a whole other person inside you,” Estrella said. “Somebody dark and unstable, somebody who will lash out at the world some day.”
Che was too stunned to answer, especially since he detected truth in her remarks.
He did have a wide streak of nihilism – deep anger exacerbated by poverty and rejection, by his jealous and abusive drunk of a father. He did cherish ambitions of getting even with the world, once he had power and money. Towering resentments were his constant companions.
Hell, they’d accompanied him as walked to the hotel this very afternoon. But couldn’t he overcome these psychological brutes with the right woman at his side?
“I need you, Estrella,” he said.
“I’m really just an ordinary girl,” she said, “even if you don’t think so.”
“There’s nothing ordinary about you.”
The sadness on Estrella’s face was almost unbearable.
“I could never control that dark person once he decides to come out,” she said. “Some day, when my looks have faded and I no longer captivate you.”
“Estrella ...”
“You need a woman of uncommon strength and wisdom,” she said. “I’m sorry, but it cannot be me.”
And so it ended.