A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom

by John Boyne

  When she was finished, we consulted over the pouch of money before approaching Bal Priscumi to begin our negotiations. She wanted five men, Nala said, indicating which ones, and four women.

  “What about a child?” I asked, looking toward the younger group, who were clearly frightened to be the subject of such intense scrutiny.

  “We have enough children,” said Nala, shaking her head.

  “Just one, though,” I said. “A female. One who will have years of work ahead of it. Perhaps that would be a real bargain, Aunt?”

  Nala considered this for a few moments before nodding. “Perhaps,” she agreed. “But just one. Choose whichever one you like the most.”

  I walked past each child slowly, looking them up and down, and when I stood before the prettiest of the girls, I reached out to lift the base of its dress, just as Nala had done with the men’s loincloths. The moment my fingers touched it, however, the boy standing next to the girl reached out for one of the branding irons that sat in the hot coals ready to mark each item as the property of a new owner. Had I not leaped back in time, I might have found myself scarred for life. Instead, the tip of the iron merely glanced across the skin of my neck. I cried out in pain, for it burned badly, and I could not have been more surprised by the impulsive actions of this slave if one of the cows in our fields had begun to relate the gossip of the herd to me.

  The boy began shouting in a language that I did not understand, but I sensed, by the uncanny resemblance between them, that they were brother and sister and, for some reason, it had taken offense at my touching its sibling. I would have liked to strike it back but the slave trader was already beating it with a stick so I returned to the girl.

  “This one,” I said to Nala, and I turned back to it, smiling to show that I meant it no harm, but its face hardened and it looked at me with nothing but hatred in its eyes. I lifted its dress then and was pleased by what I saw.

  Still, it seemed that my mother, Furaha, had been right. Some slaves were given to incitement and curious bursts of emotion and we had to be careful which ones we purchased. I wondered for a moment whether it might be better to buy none at all, and to wait until another day, when more obedient slaves might be brought to the marketplace, but Nala had already struck the deal with Bal Priscumi and now it was time for me to make the payment.

  That done, we shackled our belongings together at the ankles and led them home.

  SOUTH KOREA

  A.D. 311

  TWO YEARS LATER, in the house to which we had been taken against our will, I took a life for the first time.

  From the moment of the Great Humiliation, I felt a sickness gnawing at the pit of my stomach, one that twisted around my guts and pressed into the core of my being. The pain was there when I woke in the morning, it grew worse throughout the afternoon and by nightfall it was almost unbearable. Not for the last time in my life, I realized that I longed for vengeance and for this to be taken in blood.

  It was difficult not to blame Honored Father for subjecting our family to this degradation. He had lived his entire life in the town of Binjeon, on the banks of the Gongneungcheon River, where he repaired boats for the fishermen who sold their daily catch in the marketplace. It was honest work; it afforded us a small house, clothes for our backs and shoes for our feet. We never went hungry. But Honored Father was greedy, resenting having to pay taxes to the sacred landowners, and so, with the support of men he had known since childhood, he rebelled against the tariffs that had been part of life in Binjeon since Dangun first descended from the heavens to create the glorious land of Joseon. The uprising was always destined for failure and the insurgents were punished by having their freedom and the freedom of their families revoked. We were placed into the custody of a slave trader, who brought us to Incheon, where we were purchased by the great trader of spices Cheong Yeon-Seok, who in turn took us to his home in Wiryeseong to live out the rest of our lives as chattel, assigning us numbers in place of our given names.

  How I despised Honored Father for his pride! He who had always looked down at me for not wanting to spend my life chopping wood to repair hulls or cutting cloth for sails! He who belittled me by speaking of Older Brother as the lost hero of our family, despite his having deserted us years before and disappearing into who knew what life of debauchery or crime! He who ridiculed me for not rolling around the streets like an animal, fighting with the other boys, drawing blood and having blood drawn, for preferring a life of contemplation and artistry!

  Ha, to that!

  I recount now the story of that ignoble afternoon when Honored Father returned home to discover Gentle Mother teaching me the venerable art of sewing. She was making a new dress for Older Sister from a spool of fabric imported directly from Goguryeo and was putting the finishing touches to her craftwork by using thread the color of dragon-fire to run along the hem. Watching her, I imagined a different design, marking it out in the sand at my feet with a twig, a pattern that reflected the flow of the great Han River. To weave this into the dress, I suggested, would be a most beautiful thing. Gentle Mother took delight in this idea and I asked whether I might be permitted to undertake the task myself. She agreed, and I had been working on the garment for perhaps two hours, lost in the sheer ecstasy of creativity, when Honored Father returned and kicked me from my stool, throwing the dress into the fire, where it fizzled into nothingness even before Gentle Mother’s cries had come to an end. Honored Father beat me while I was on the floor, saying that it shamed him to witness his son engaged in the work of women.

  “Ha!” I cried through my tears, enraging him further by insisting that the creation of beauty was worth every beating that he might inflict upon me, that I would simply find another dress, another needle, another set of threads to create my own designs. He threw his hands in the air then, beseeching the heavens to explain why they had inflicted such a son upon him, but I cared not for his insults, crying “Ha!” again and “Ha!” a third time, which led Honored Father to kick me in the face, silencing me so that I could “Ha!” no more.

  I hated myself for weeping, but his brutality injured not just my body but my mind, too. Still, whenever I felt maltreated, I could console myself by knowing that one day I would leave Binjeon forever, just as Older Brother had done, and make my own way in a world where, if I wanted, I could sew night and day! All that was taken away from me, however, when Honored Father decided that he was too good to pay his taxes!

  * * *

  • • •

  From the moment that I first encountered him, I despised Cheong Jung-Hee, the son of my master. A year older than me, he had been present when I was bought, poking at me and my siblings as if we were pieces of fruit that needed to be squeezed to discover whether we were ripe enough for his taste and pulling our clothes asunder to examine our bodies. That much-loathed villain rode his own horse back to Wiryeseong while the rest of us were thrown into a cart, and the sight of his fat body bouncing up and down on the back of his unfortunate beast made me red with anger. When we stopped to allow the horses to rest, his servants offered him chicken stew flavored with gochugaru to eat, washed down with flasks of miyeok guk, and he made a point of gobbling it down in front of us, mocking our hunger. What he didn’t finish, he simply threw away, laughing when he saw how we longed to lick his leftovers from the street. Gentle Mother and Respected Aunt wept, such were the pangs of hunger in their stomachs, and he called them vile names, for which he received no reproach, for Honored Father simply sat toward the back, staring out across the fields and, I prayed, regretting the bad decisions that had led us toward the Great Humiliation.

  It took several days, but finally we arrived at a large estate where Cheong Soo-Min, our master’s wife, explained in a bored voice what our roles would be now that we were no longer free. Honored Father was taken to work in the fields while Gentle Mother and Respected Aunt were given the degrading tasks of cleaning floors on th
eir hands and knees. Older Sister was taken inside the house to work in the kitchen and I was told that I would be a factotum, expected to appear at any summons, day or night, and to do whatever was required of me. A small hut stood toward the rear of the house with six cots, and that was where Older Sister and I, along with four other children who worked on the estate, were expected to sleep. An image of three candles, the middle one extinguished, was carved into the door and, in hot weather, the roof was pulled open and I could stare up at the sky, which fascinated me.

  “Someday I shall live among the stars,” I remarked to the boy on my right-hand side one night, and he laughed and mocked me, so I punched his face and never did he mock me again! Ha!

  Each cot was separated from the one next to it by a thin curtain and, while it was small comfort, I was glad that Older Sister and I were adjacent to each other so we could whisper words of encouragement before we found the solace of the dream world.

  The fat pig, Cheong Jung-Hee, spent almost as much time in the kitchen as those who worked there because he could not go from one hour to the next without stuffing his face full of food. He was so overweight that his body was always slick with perspiration, and just to look at him made my stomach turn in revulsion. He had more chins than I have fingers! Ha! Sometimes he would throw things on the floor for no other reason than to tell me to pick them up. He loathed me as much as I loathed him but I took pleasure in the knowledge that it infuriated him to see me so lean and handsome when he was a disgusting monster who made girls want to rip the eyes from their faces in abhorrence, lest they ever witness his vile visage again. When he caught me kissing one of the kitchen girls, he grew scarlet with rage and, pulling my shirt off, instructed two other slaves to tie me to a post so that he could beat me with sticks. Afterward, when I fell to the ground, bleeding and faint, he took out his tiny ding-dong and pissed on me, a stream of stinking yellow effluent that made me want to tear the skin from my body and wander the world as a skeleton of blood and bones!

  He reserved most of his attention, however, for Older Sister, coming into the kitchen night and day to tell her to make him some kimchi jigae or a few steamed mandu dumplings. As she cooked, he would step closer to her, pressing his corpulent body against hers, and on more than one occasion she ran from the kitchen in tears as he insulted her with his desire. Then he would grow angry again and throw the half-cooked food on the floor, leaving me to clean up the mess that he had left behind. I longed to see Honored Father to tell him what was happening and form a plan for our escape, but we had been kept apart since our arrival.

  I knew that if Cheong Jung-Hee continued to behave as he did, it would be left to me to defend Older Sister’s honor.

  * * *

  • • •

  The moment of reckoning came late one night when Cheong Jung-Hee’s behavior finally became too transgressive. The days leading up to this had been very busy as my master, Cheong Yeon-Seok, had invited the elders from the town for a ceremonial dinner and the entire household had been working endlessly in preparation for it. My tasks had included sweeping the driveway, peeling vegetables and roasting oats for the visitors’ horses. More humiliation, that I should be forced to prepare better food for the animals than I was given to eat myself! Ha!

  In the evening, I was outside, emptying the vegetable peelings into a trough for the pigs and having to endure the torment of listening to that brute, Cheong Jung-Hee, who was seated with a friend of his, Ghim Do-Yeon, a boy with no honor. It was well known that he had mistreated a local girl of low birth, committing the marriage act with her and putting a baby inside her belly against her wishes and then refusing to take her as his wife. Ignoble boy! She had been driven into exile by her family, who blamed her for allowing Ghim Do-Yeon to steal her virtue, even though it was common knowledge that he had forced himself upon her. Nevertheless, Cheong Jung-Hee idolized him, following him around like the disease-ridden dog that he was!

  “Look how skinny he is,” said Ghim Do-Yeon, pointing in my direction, and it was true that you could count my ribs through my skin. “And he stinks, too! I can smell him from over here!”

  “He’s the stupidest of all the slaves,” said Cheong Jung-Hee. “And so ugly to look at. Never have I seen a boy with such a miserable expression on his face. He turns the milk sour.”

  I looked at him, my hands clenching into fists. I might have attacked him then, only this was when Older Sister emerged from the kitchen carrying a bucket of slops, and when she came toward me silently, the boys stopped their mocking, looking her up and down with the demon lust in their eyes.

  “And who is this pretty thing?” asked Ghim Do-Yeon. “I haven’t seen her here before.”

  “That one’s even stupider than her brother,” replied Cheong Jung-Hee. “But yes, she’s nice to look at. Hey, come here and sit on my knee, kitchen girl!” he called to her, and Older Sister stared at him for a moment, her facing growing red, and she shook her head, turning back for the house. “I said come here!” he shouted then, leaving her with no choice but to obey. When she got close to him, Ghim Do-Yeon grabbed her and pulled her onto his knee. She let out a scream and, at that same moment, Cheong Jung-Hee reached for her dress and pulled it apart at the chest, her breasts spilling out. The insult was too great, and I dropped the pail, ready to run over and rip his head from his shoulders, but his mother chose this same moment to appear and he released Older Sister, who ran crying back toward the kitchen.

  Later that night, when we were settled into our cots, Older Sister was still upset by the humiliation that had been visited upon her and I held her for a long time, swearing that I would remove us from this wretched place as soon as I could. I returned to my own bed and was close to sleep when I heard the door to the hut open and the sound of bare feet padding across the floor. At first, I wondered whether I was already dreaming, for there was no reason for anyone to be there at that time of night, but then I saw the great hulking shadow of Cheong Jung-Hee on the other side of the curtain, the one that separated my cot from Older Sister’s, and a moment later heard the sound of muffled cries as he held his hand over her mouth.

  My anger built into a great whirling tornado inside my body and I jumped from the bed and pulled the curtain aside, only to find that filthy animal on Older Sister’s bed, pulling at her clothes with one hand while trying to push her legs apart with his knee. He stopped for a moment when he saw me, then climbed off her, pushing me back onto my own bed with a curse before dragging the curtain across, and I saw the shadow once again attempt to mount her. I ran into the kitchen and looked around, hoping to find something that I could use to stop him, and when I saw the silver statue of Minerva that stood on the windowsill, I lifted it from the shelf and ran back to Older Sister’s cot, jumped on the bed behind Cheong Jung-Hee and bashed it down against the back of his head! He groaned and fell to the floor and I hit him again, and again, feeling more powerful with every thrust of my arm.

  A horrible gurgling sound could be heard from his body as he died, and then a great explosion of blood burst from his mouth, covering his lips and chin. A moment later, his body jerked in spasm, his head fell to one side, and when I dared to lean down and look him in the eyes, I knew that I had killed him.

  I do not regret my actions! He was an animal and he deserved to die! Ha!

  ERITREA

  A.D. 340

  HER NAME WAS LERATO, which, in my language, means “beautiful woman,” but she was not quite a woman yet, any more than I was a man. Halin and I first noticed her on a cold spring morning soon after the drought that had plagued our land for two years finally came to an end, when the great trader of spices, Chuseok, transported her to Adulis. Having purchased her a few days earlier, he made a point of parading the girl, along with a dozen new slaves, through the marketplace at the busiest time of the morning. Chuseok had not always been treated with great respect, for he was uncommonly short and round, like an
obscene orb of blood and blubber, and throughout his life he had suffered at the hands of mocking tormentors, who referred to him as the Great Ostrich of Asmara, but the spice market was a lucrative trade and he was determined to see his status recognized in his hometown.

  Lerato wore her hair cropped tightly to her head and her eyes were unnaturally large. Her cheeks were gaunt, perhaps from hunger, and the bones beneath her neck were prominent. Even from a distance, the clarity of her blue pupils was dazzling. She was so striking that neither I nor my cousin could keep our eyes from her. I pressed Halin to speak to her, for, despite his infirmity, he was much better at talking to girls than I, with a talent for making them laugh over silly jokes. I remained shy and self-conscious and was almost alone among the boys of my village yet to commit the act that defines the border between childhood and adulthood. But when Lerato walked by, three steps behind her master, Halin could not summon the courage to speak, and nor could I, but still, she seemed aware of my gaze, for when she turned to look in my direction our eyes met and I felt a stirring inside unlike any I had known before.

  So distracted was I by her beauty that I could barely concentrate on my work for the rest of the day. Old enough, at last, to be liberated from the demands of my father, I had become a craftsman of the wooden steles that served as eternal monuments to the dead in the graveyard at the edge of our town. Only the wealthy could afford to honor their loved ones in this way, of course; the rest buried their people without markings, but as humility was in short supply among my neighbors, even those with little money aimed to raise their prestige by availing of my services whenever a family member passed to the other side. As my skills grew, so did my reputation, and families had started to compete with each other to commission the most ornate memorial.