# Read the first page of Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah

Read the opening of Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah free, no signup. A former actress lingers alone in an emptied theatre at night.

- Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/untold-night-and-day-bae-suah
- Genre: Literary fiction
- Year: 2020
- ISBN: 9781683359128
- Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781683359128&s=read-page
- Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781683359128
- Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781683359128

## The opening

The former actress Ayami was sitting on the second flight of stairs in the audio theatre, with the guestbook in her hand.

She was alone. At that point, nothing else had been made known.

With the lights off, the interior of the auditorium seemed as though submerged in murky water. Objects, matter itself, were softly disintegrating. All identity became ambiguous, semiopaque. Not only light and form, but sound, too. The auditorium held only five two-seater sofas; other than that, the irregular flights of stairs served as a public gallery.

Sitting in this same spot with the guestbook open in front of her, after the day’s performance was over and she had closed the theatre doors; this time was precious to Ayami. Not that the audience members usually wrote down anything special. Now and then, a blind visitor might record something using Braille, but Ayami could not decipher such language. Still, she didn’t sit with the book in her hand in order to read but to listen, quietly, to a voice that faded in and out.

Don’t go far away, even for just one day, because

Because . . . a day is long, and

I will wait for you.*

Ayami was sitting alone in the auditorium because always, at this time of day, an old radio hidden somewhere among the sound equipment turned itself on. Since Ayami was afraid of the static electricity that sparks in machines, cables, microphones and speakers, and believed the disturbance caused by sound waves was able to inflict physical damage, she couldn’t conceive of touching or even peering at the backs of the bulky machines to look for a radio, deliberately concealed among them or just left there by mistake. Though she worked at the audio theatre, her familiarity with the sound equipment only extended to putting the CD of a given performance into the stereo and pressing ‘play’. Now and then, a sound engineer from the foundation would come to check that everything was in working order, but Ayami had never spoken with him.

The engineer wore a baseball cap jammed right down on his head, obscuring his face and making him look like a shadow of himself. He always came on the shuttle bus, even though he never brought any heavy equipment, and there was never anyone else with him. The bus was white, and emblazoned with the foundation’s logo. The theatre director was informed in advance of the precise time of the engineer’s visit, so that any issues could be discussed in person. The director came out to greet the engineer when he arrived, and saw the bus off when he left.

One time, Ayami had wanted to tell the director about the radio, how it switched itself on and off again. It hadn’t yet happened during a performance, but there would be a problem if it did, and Ayami felt the director ought to be informed, given that he was her only colleague and superior.

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