Our Happy Time

by Gong Ji-Young

  I opened another link: Origins of the Death Penalty. According to one amusing article, England used to be crawling with pickpockets, so they were executed in public to discourage the practice. People gathered like clouds to watch these executions, and other pickpockets made a fortune off of them. There was another article that said 164 of the 167 death row prisoners incarcerated at Bristol Prison in England until 1886 were executed in public. The United States, as well, held public executions up until the end of the 1930s. Of the world powers, the United States produced the highest number of death row inmates after China.

  I went to the kitchen to top off my coffee and looked out the window for a moment. Just as Yunsu had described in his letter, the hills behind the apartment building where I lived were tinged with yellow.

  The letter continued:

  After you left, I had a dream. Maybe it’s because my little brother died in the spring, but every year at this time, he shows up in my dreams. He got sick once when we were very young. I remember running to buy him medicine. Back then, the whole world had turned pale green—why did that color seem so sad? Yesterday, I prayed before going to sleep. If I saw my brother in my dreams again, I was going to tell him that I met the pretty singer who sang the anthem he loved so much, the one about whom he asked if she was as pretty as our mom, and I was going to say that she is now a wonderful college professor. My little brother would probably have said, See? I told you she would be pretty and wonderful. But last night, for the first time in a long time, I slept well without dreaming. I read the book you sent me. I didn’t know books could be so interesting. Lately all I do is read all day. Maybe that’s why I miss you. I know you’re busy, but I wish you would come by some time with Sister Monica. I hope that’s not too forward of me to say.

  It looked like the shaky handwriting of an adolescent boy trying to impress a female teacher that he has a crush on. I could tell I was getting sentimental about the fact that he was a man facing death. I shook my head. This was not a good sign. My heart felt like it was bubbling over, like it was filled with soda water. Over the last few days, whenever I was driving somewhere, I kept catching myself thinking about him. I stared blankly out the window. Since he had gone to the trouble of writing me a letter in handcuffs, I had no choice but to write back. But I had no idea what to write. I couldn’t exactly say, So, you were suicidal? What a coincidence. So was I.

  While I was standing at my kitchen window sipping coffee, I saw something strange happening in the park behind the apartment complex. There was a circle of teenagers, around twenty of them, a little too big to be middle-school students, but a little too small to be in high school. Curious as to what they were doing, I took a closer look and saw that they had another teenager surrounded and were beating him up. Even from the fifteenth floor, I could see that his face was covered in blood. An eerie feeling came over me, and my heart started to race. When one of the kids was done punching him, another would step forward and start punching him again. I remembered that I had seen other kids gang up like that and fight in the park from time to time. I think I had also seen fliers posted in the elevator stating that the neighborhood association had passed a resolution and asked the police to increase security in the park behind the complex. In the past, I would have been indifferent to something like that, but not anymore. I felt scared, as if I were witnessing a murder. I picked up the phone and dialed 112 for the police. My family had had to dial 119 for medical emergencies several times because of me, but it was the first time in my entire life that I had ever dialed 112. I heard a voice on the other end.

  “Hello? Hello, I’m calling from, um, Gangnam-gu in Seoul—”

  “Yes, Seoryeon Apartments?” The operator cut in as I was stammering, trying to figure out what to say. I thought to myself, Wow, Korea’s emergency services are really advanced.

  “Yes, hello, uh, there are some teenagers beating up another kid on the hill behind building Number 109. He looks like he’s bleeding.”

  I took the phone to the window in the kitchen and looked out again. The kid was on the ground.

  “He’s fallen! Please come quickly!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The operator hung up. I looked at the clock. It was 3:48 pm.

  I felt a little bad about the mean things I had said about Korea after returning from abroad. Once, while arguing with a man I had lived with in Paris, I had screamed at him in the street. Not five minutes went by before a police officer came over and grabbed him by the arm. I was shocked, as was the man I’d been arguing with.

  The officer asked me, Mademoiselle, is this man bothering you? Shall I take him down to the station?

  Oh, no, we said. We were just joking around.

  That’s how I remember our fight ending. Someone had looked out their window and reported it, and the officer got the call and was dispatched. The swiftness of it shocked us, and we said, Let’s not tell anyone we’re Korean, and went back into the café for a drink.

  Feeling anxious, I stood and watched out the window. Several minutes had passed since the kid had fallen, but he still wasn’t getting up. I thought, What if he dies? Several of the kids picked him up and started helping him out of the park. Since the fight was over, the police would not be much use even if they did show up. But then two of the kids grabbed another kid by the arms and led him into the circle. It looked like they were dragging a condemned criminal to an execution ground. Another kid stepped forward and began beating him. I checked the road and the path right in front of the apartment building, but the police were not yet on their way. I couldn’t even hear any sirens. When I checked the clock, it was past four. I dialed 112 again.

  “Hello? I called a moment ago. The kid who was bleeding is gone, and now they’re beating up another kid. Why aren’t you here yet?”

  “Yes, thank you, we’re on the way.”

  They hung up again. This time, the kid who was getting beat up looked like he was putting up some resistance. Several kids surrounded him and, all at once, they started beating him at the same time. He flopped to the ground, and they started kicking him. Like a flock of vultures surrounding a dying animal, the kids would not get off him. I looked at the clock. It was 4:15 pm. The police still had not arrived. My heart would not stop racing, and I felt like I might throw up. It was as though the child’s despair was being transmitted directly to me. The police showed no sign of arriving. I paced around the room, and then out of some sort of stubborn pride I dialed the number again.

  “I’m the person who called a while ago. Why aren’t you here yet? A kid is getting beat up. They have him surrounded and are kicking him. He’s already on the ground, and they’re kicking him! This is the second kid.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The operator hung up again. I went back to the kitchen window. Two kids had picked up the boy who was on the ground and were holding him up by the arms while another kid did a flying kick into the exhausted boy’s stomach, like something straight out of the movies. My entire body reacted to the boy’s pain. My teeth started chattering, and I felt like I was being tortured. The police did not come; my telephone rang instead.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello.”

  “Did you report a crime in progress? This is the police.”

  South Korea’s emergency hotline system is indeed amazing, I thought stupidly. They even know the phone numbers of the people who call in crimes.

  “Why aren’t you here yet? If you’d gotten here sooner, you could have stopped the first kid from getting beaten up. Now they’ve moved on to a second kid! A bunch of them are ganging up on one kid. You have to stop them. Please hurry.”

  “Listen, we’re on our way to a three-car collision at the Gangnam intersection. So we’re going to be a little late. We’ll be there as soon as we can, so please stop calling.”

  The police officer sounded like a friendly car repairman. He was explaining his tardiness and asking for my understanding. Meanwhile, the kid was nearly unconscious. I
looked at the clock. It was 4:20 pm. I calmed myself down by saying, “Viva la Korea.” After a while, I heard a siren. I waited with my fists clenched for the police to hurry up and punish those bad kids. Several of the kids left the park to stand guard. The strong circle they had formed started to come apart. They, too, had heard the siren. The phone rang again.

  “This is the police. The park is empty.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The park at Seoryeon Apartments.”

  “Do you mean you’re in the little park inside the complex?”

  I hurried to the front window. The apartment complex had a fountain and a small marble-paved park.

  Out front, a police car was parked with its siren wailing. In the toddler playground with its swings and slide, women pushing baby strollers were crowding around and staring at the police car.

  “Officer, what kind of madman would be beating someone up in a children’s playground in an apartment complex where there are guards on duty? I didn’t mean that park. I said the hill behind building Number 109!”

  “Lady, why are you yelling at me?” the officer said. “I got it now.”

  After a moment, the phone rang again. It was the officer.

  “Are cars allowed on that hill? I don’t see a road.”

  Before, he had sounded like a car repairman, but now he sounded like an unfriendly removals man. I suppressed the emotions that were welling up inside of me and responded like a friendly operator.

  “Park behind building Number 109 and walk up the hill. Please hurry!”

  I went back to the kitchen window. At least the police had showed up. They were here now, and no more children would be hurt. A group of kids were standing in formation, like they were discussing something, and then several of them took the blood-covered boy with them and took off on a path through the woods. Their timing was like something out of a script. The police were slowly making their way toward them. They looked like they were out for a walk. Since I was up on the top floor, it felt strange to be looking down on them from the sky, like I was a god or something. The phone rang again.

  “Lady, we checked out the area. But no one seems to be hurt.”

  “What? So?”

  I could longer keep my voice calm.

  “I asked, and the kids said they were having a middle-school reunion. I ordered the kid who was beat up to step forward, but no one did. If none of them were beat up, then none of them could have been beating up anyone either.”

  I exploded with rage. I could not think of how to respond to him.

  “You asked the kid who was beat up to step forward? Did you also ask the one who was doing the beating to step forward? I guess I made a mistake. It was wrong of me to expect anything from the police in this country. It’s already been over thirty minutes since I placed the call. That’s enough time for two or three people to die!”

  I slammed the phone down hard. I wondered if I would have let them off the hook that easily if it were my son or little brother getting beat up. The phone rang again. The officer seemed to be calling back. I felt like the young Rastignac mumbling at the top of the hill in the final scene of Balzac’s Le Père Goriot, except instead of saying to the city of Paris, “Henceforth there is war between us,” I was saying it to the police.

  “Hello?”

  “This is the police. Lady, what are you so mad about? We didn’t do anything wrong. I’m going to speak now, so listen up. We weren’t late because we wanted to be. A handicapped guy fell into Yangjae Stream today. We were late because we had to go fish him out and take him back home. And the kids here said they were just playing. That’s what they told me. I don’t know what kind of world you think this is, but what were you expecting? For me to torture a confession out of them?”

  He made it sound like I was the unreasonable one. It seemed as if he was pleading with me, saying that I didn’t understand his job, that there was so much to do and so few people to do it, and that he worked and worked but there was never any end. I felt like muttering, We got a real comedian here, but my anger rose.

  “Do the police usually get permission from citizens before torturing confessions out of people?” I said. “Is that what you’ve done so far? If I asked you to now, would you do it?”

  “You know we can’t.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “The very least you could do is teach those kids that they can’t just beat someone up in broad daylight, at least not out in the open like that right in the middle of the day in a residential area. That’s your duty. We’re the grown-ups, so we at least have to tell them that it’s not okay. When those kids grow up, they’ll commit even bigger crimes and wind up on death row!”

  “Who do you think you are? I guess you think that every time someone does something wrong it’s the police’s fault? You really don’t get it.”

  This time, he was the one to slam down the phone. To him, the only thing that had come of this incident was that I just didn’t get it. I wondered if I had gone too far, but then just as quickly I wondered why I had gotten so upset in the first place. I never used to care about anyone, except for our dog Shimshimi when I was in middle school. The comment about death row was definitely going too far. I sat down at my desk. This was not at all like me. The first thing I had noticed after returning from seven years abroad was the coarse way in which Koreans talked to each other. The words they used had become harsher, and people walked faster on the street. If someone stepped on your foot in the subway, or slammed into your shoulder as they were passing by, they would stare straight ahead and not apologize. I used to get angry because I thought they were being rude, but later I realized that I had stopped noticing anymore when someone bumped into me or stepped on my foot. Everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere. But to where? Neither they nor I had any idea. In the movies, every other word was a cuss word, and though they were well made, they were filled with such cruel scenes that I had to turn my eyes away. I couldn’t look, even when the actors were so attractive that I wouldn’t have minded dating them. Nevertheless, the newspapers crowed about the fact that Korean movies were drawing international attention.

  I missed Aunt Monica. I also thought about buying some kind of potted spring plant and taking it to the detention center to give to Yunsu. I didn’t know why he was on my mind. I wanted to ask him how someone who was so moved by the story of Orestes, who ached at the thought of his first and last spring, could have done something so cruel. I felt confused. What did it mean to be human anyway, and to what extent were we capable of being good, and to what extent were we capable of evil? It bothered me to be having these thoughts. The phone rang again. I thought it was the police and worried about what they might say to me. I couldn’t call my older brother for help this time, and even if I did, what difference would it make? I answered the phone. It was my older brother. For a brief moment, I stupidly pictured an imaginary line going from the police to the prosecutor’s office, and I thought, The emergency line goes all the way to my brother? But then Yusik spoke. His voice was heavy.

  “Come to the hospital. Mom’s had a relapse.”

  I asked for everything from God so I could enjoy life.

  Instead, He gave me life so that I could enjoy everything.

  I got nothing that I asked for but received everything that I hoped for.

  – Epitaph on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Turin, Italy

  BLUE NOTE 13

  After Eunsu was gone, I felt like a burden had been lifted. Physically, at least, I felt lighter. I started hanging around with a bad crowd. Well, not a bad crowd, exactly. When I was hungry, they gave me food to eat, and when my clothes were ragged, they gave me clothes to wear, and when I was thirsty, they gave me alcohol to drink, and when I was in jail, they came to see me. I was in and out of jail all of the time and slowly slipping into darkness. Never having made it through elementary school, jail provided me with a comprehensive education. There, I majored in the criminal arts with a double
minor in hatred and revenge. Inside were thousands of people giving lectures on how to rid yourself of things like guilt and increase your brazenness and underhandedness. Whenever I was on lookout while the others were stealing, the moment I felt a tug of fear and nervousness, I would sing the national anthem quietly to myself. When I did that, I didn’t feel like a good person, the way Eunsu did, but I didn’t feel afraid either.

  PART 13

  There were only three of us in the room: Yunsu, the guard, and me. Yunsu kept glancing up at me while eating the pizza I’d brought. I still had not said anything. I couldn’t stop asking myself whether I was doing the right thing. I was so quiet that Officer Yi pushed his glasses up then pulled them back down several times. I had not even brought the Bible that Aunt Monica always had with her. All I had in my bag were cigarettes, lipstick, a wallet, and a small compact. Yunsu stared at me as if to get me to say something, anything. So did Officer Yi. But I still couldn’t bring myself to start talking. Outside the window it was spring, but all I saw inside were gray cement walls. The bright green sprouts I had seen from the car on the way here, the river rippling and flowing under the bridge like freshly washed hair now that the weather had finally warmed, and the tiny scattered flowers blooming like stars in a green field—none of that mattered here. Spring could arrive, but there wasn’t really anything to awaken. Oscar Wilde had said about prison, “With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain.” In a six-by-six meter room, seven or eight healthy young men sat face to face all day. If a young couple in love were put into that tiny room for just a month, even they would probably call off their love at once and start to hate each other instead. As Aunt Monica said, it was a miracle that people who had not always been good could sit face to face all day long and not want to kill each other.

  “The weather’s really warmed up. I guess the frostbite must be wearing off, because my ears are itching me to death,” Yunsu said.