Festival for Three Thousand Women

by Richard Wiley

  “Baaa! Baaa!”

  Though he looked toward where he thought the voice came from, he saw nothing but a bunch of slippery boulders facing the churning sea. He stood still, and in a second one of the boulders stood up, pointed a machine gun at him and spoke again.

  “Baaa!”

  He had been thinking in English. This was no sheep but a Korean saying, “Hands up.”

  Bobby raised his hands slowly and on the way put his collar down, exposing his foreign face. The soldier was dressed to melt into the rocky seascape, with seaweed hanging down from his helmet in a strangely feminine way.

  And the soldier had seen that Bobby was not Korean, for when he got closer he spoke in English: “Who goes there?”

  “It’s only me,” Bobby answered. “The Peace Corps volunteer from Taechon village.”

  But speaking in Korean seemed to have been a mistake. The soldier didn’t lower his rifle but waved it, up toward the higher ground, telling Bobby to march in front of him. “North Korean spy,” he said.

  They marched off the beach and through the brush until they came to the gate of a small army compound. Another soldier stood at the gate, and Bobby’s captor gave him the first evidence that he wasn’t taking things too seriously when he saw the other man. He clowned for the new man a bit, raising and lowering his rifle and sticking out his tongue.

  “What do you think, Pak?” he asked the other man. “Is this a North Korean spy?”

  Pak didn’t understand Bobby’s captor’s desire to toy with him. “No,” he said simply. “He’s the Peace Corps volunteer from Taechon village.”

  Bobby’s captor lowered his rifle and gave his friend a disgusted look. “He’s not supposed to walk this far down the beach,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

  He still hoped to throw a scare into Bobby and Bobby was more than willing to go along, but Pak simply said, “Take him down and turn him over to the teacher,” and the captor nodded, telling Pak to watch the beach while he was gone.

  There were paths all around the army compound and Bobby was told to stay on them, still walking in front of the soldier but noting this time that his rifle was down.

  After about five minutes, when his adrenaline had diminished enough for him to be getting cold again, they came to a little clearing where a farmhouse stood. The soldier told Bobby to wait while he went inside. Bobby noticed that the sea was visible again through the trees. They had curved around and come out on the other side of the rocks that the soldier had been guarding. They had now reached higher ground.

  The soldier was only gone a moment, but as soon as he left children began to appear, coming around both sides of the house to look. Bobby would have spoken to them, some of whom he recognized from school, but the soldier came out and went back up the path without so much as a farewell. And standing in the doorway, smiling slightly and cleaning his glasses on his tie, stood Mr. Kwak. Bobby still had his hands up, and Mr. Kwak waited until he put them down.

  “Taechon Beach is off-limits during the winter season,” Mr. Kwak said slowly. “I think there is a sign, but it is written only in Korean.”

  “I didn’t see it. If I had seen it I could have read it,” Bobby said.

  Mr. Kwak nodded, and then stepped back, inviting him into the house. He had heard the competitive note in Bobby’s voice and said, “I would be happy to speak to you only in Korean, if you wish. After all, it is the only way that you can continue to learn.”

  Though his English was again delivered slowly, it was faultless, and Bobby realized how juvenile he must have sounded.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that among Peace Corps volunteers, ability in Korean is a bone of contention.”

  Mr. Kwak’s English was old-fashioned and deliberate, and when Bobby heard himself speaking, he realized that he was echoing Mr. Kwak’s style, playing a role.

  They stepped into the main room of Mr. Kwak’s house but the children stopped quietly at the door. This room faced the sea and had such a large window that all of the rain and leaves, even the clouds off the bluff, seemed to cling directly to it. It gave Bobby the feeling of being outside but warm.

  “This is wonderful,” he said. “Have you lived here long?”

  There were teacups on the table and Mr. Kwak told one of the children to close the door. “I am not one of the transferrables,” he said. “I have always lived here, even when I was a child.”

  Bobby had recently learned that all teachers were transferred, every six years or so, by the Ministry of Education. Promotions and demotions were subtle affairs, the size and prestige of the school affecting a teacher’s sense of himself and, to some extent, his salary.

  “How can you be nontransferrable?” he asked. “I thought everyone was.”

  Mr. Kwak was already sitting down, his back to the howling scene outside. He pushed a cushion around and motioned for Bobby to join him, letting him look, if he would, out at the incredible view.

  “Oh, this little farm is my true livelihood,” he said. “And sometimes village schools take on a local man.”

  This didn’t seem right, but Bobby didn’t want to pry. Mr. Kwak was the best English teacher in the school, and he was the oldest, in his late fifties if Bobby was any kind of judge.

  Bobby intended to ask Mr. Kwak how long he’d been teaching at the school, but instead he asked, “How did you learn English so well?”

  At this Mr. Kwak passed his hand through the air, disdaining the compliment and chuckling. “Languages are a hobby of mine,” he said, “but my English is by no means strong. I am only a dabbler, a language dilettante.”

  The room was full of books, even the table ladened with them. The books nearest Bobby were in Japanese and the ones by Mr. Kwak were in German. Chinese books lined the bottom of his window. The more Bobby looked the more he saw: Latin, then Greek. There were titles along some of the bindings in languages that Bobby couldn’t recognize. Mr. Kwak saw him looking and waved his hand again, as if to apologize for the erudite nature of the room.

  “My wife accuses me of studying a new language every time we have a child,” he said. “It is an obsession and I’m afraid I am not a very good father because of it.”

  Bobby asked the obvious question. “How many children do you have?”

  “We have nine,” said Mr. Kwak, “but please, it was not my intention to brag.”

  Bobby picked up a teacup and was quiet for a while, letting everything sink in. He was proud of his ability in Korean, but was busy studying it at least in part so that he could better his fellow Peace Corps volunteers when the time came. Mr. Kwak, on the other hand, was studying for the joy of it and Bobby felt himself wake up. He looked at Mr. Kwak and said, “It is wonderful to be here with you. I have been so lonely.”

  When he spoke, his heart was in his throat and he nearly sobbed. And he was so embarrassed by his words that he had to look away. Powers were at work here that Bobby didn’t understand at all. Mr. Kwak, meanwhile, began cleaning his glasses again. Luckily one of Mr. Kwak’s children opened the door just then, and came in to sit upon his father’s lap.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Kwak, letting them both focus on the boy. “This is Bo Peep, my youngest. He is only five years old but he is the true intellectual of the family.”

  Bobby was in emotional turmoil, perhaps, but surely Mr. Kwak could not have said Bo Peep. The boy’s black hair stood straight up from his head like he’d recently received a terrible scare. He was a goofy-looking little kid, and when he smiled up at his father Bobby saw a strong resemblance.

  “Bo Peep,” said Mr. Kwak, still speaking English, “this is Mr. Comstock. He teaches with me at the school.”

  “Ah,” said Bo Peep. “How do you do?”

  Bobby looked around the room. This was some kind of trick—the Kwak family ventriloquist was hiding somewhere behind a stack of books. He grinned, trying to catch the boy up. “What’s my name?” he asked.

  Bo Peep looked stumped and Bobby immediately felt gui
lty. But then the boy looked up at his father. “What was it, Daddy?” he asked.

  “Mr. Comstock,” said Mr. Kwak.

  “Mr. Comstock,” said Bo Peep.

  Bobby was stunned. Though the boy was five years old he looked even younger. “You can call me Bobby,” he said, and he drank the rest of his tea, which had gone cold and chilled him all the way down.

  Bobby stayed at Mr. Kwak’s house for a few more hours, until a break in the weather let him hurry down the pathway to catch the six o’clock bus back to town. He was feeling fine after meeting Mr. Kwak and his son. They had talked about ideas, about differences and similarities, about one country and another, and about language, of course. And though Bobby could not have said precisely why, he was feeling, as he left, that loneliness was as elusive a concept as love, and as difficult to focus upon.

  Such thoughts preoccupied him until he got to Taechon village. He had walked halfway back to Policeman Kim’s house, nearly past his old inn when a familiar braying brought Bobby back to himself. The Goma ran from the doorway to greet him.

  “Oi,” he said. “Drink tea go?”

  “What about the money you owe me?” Bobby asked gruffly. “What about my thousand won?”

  The Goma pulled at Bobby’s sleeve and grinned. His lip was bleeding again where someone had whacked him, knocking the scab away.

  When they got to the Love Tearoom, Miss Moon, in her formal Korean dress, hurried over to meet them. “Your friends were here,” she said nicely. “A Negro girl and two American soldiers.” She put her hand on Bobby’s arm and smiled, but the thought of missing Cherry Consiliak turned Bobby’s mood dark again.

  Still, he stood there for a time, trying to remember the nature of Cherry’s interest in him, still strongly possessed by whatever he had learned from Mr. Kwak, touching Miss Moon and letting the Goma decide what it was that he wanted to drink.

  How cold it is this season and how stark the mountains look as I bicycle my way back home in the moonlight after a long day at school.

  It is strange to understand that one spends more time thinking about the nature of life as one approaches the end of it. I have kept my journals for forty years—there are stacks of them in my closet—and when I read the earlier ones, it startles me to see the man I was. Of course I have always had this philosophical bent, but those early journals contain entries that appear to me now to be shallow and mundane. In one journal, for example, I wrote the name of a particular wine-house girl seven times. Seven times this woman’s name is in my journal, yet now I remember her not. Who was this girl? Is she now dead? Or if she is alive, do her wrinkles reminisce, remembering the fullness of the beauty they once contained?

  We do, I think, end our lives as we have led them. The Christians believe that one can turn things around even on one’s deathbed, but I don’t agree with that. The lead we write with is a part of the pencil, that’s what I believe… We are what is written. I, for example, had I my life to live over again, would surely not live it very differently. I have three sons and two daughters; how many men can say that? And two of my sons have three sons as well, and both of my daughters have married above them and have borne sons for the families of their husbands. These are concrete ways of judging a life, and as I notice a progressive brittleness in my bones, I progressively value the concrete.

  Lately I have been grumbling on about the American, blaming him actually. I know that is unfair, and I am going to stop it. After all, he is only one, odd-looking man, and I know that I have been short with him because it strikes me that the example he sets is wrong. He has no decorum with the students, no bearing. And he is too friendly. He is a teacher, yet the other day I saw him walking along the street with a beggar by his side. He and the beggar were laughing—braying is a better word for it—and when the American leaned his enormous head back to share in a guffaw, I could see an uncomfortable and frightening new world down the huge channel of his throat as I quickly passed by.

  But I do not dislike the American. As a matter of fact, though I distrust what he represents, I am interested in him, drawn to him oddly, like a hand to an uncomfortable bruise.

  Written on a cold Sunday morning, in the Pleasant Feeling Tearoom, as I wait for Mr. Song to arrive for our paduk game.

  Limitation

  Six in the third place means: He who knows no limitation will have cause to lament.

  Bobby had been at peace with himself when he’d come back to town, but by the time he left the tearoom the thought of missing Cherry Consiliak had ruined all of that. To be sure, they had planned to meet during winter vacation, but Bobby had not understood that it would be today, when school had just gotten out. He remembered distinctly, in fact, that it had been tomorrow, or perhaps the day after.…

  Once outside the tearoom Bobby turned toward the Goma and spoke harshly. “Did you see my friends too, the ones who came to town?”

  The Goma gave a little shrug and held up a piece of paper, trying to unfold it with his filthy hands.

  “What is it?” said Bobby. “Give it here.”

  The paper was a note from Cherry, which had been tucked beneath the Goma’s belt. She had looked for him at the inn and at the various tearooms around town, and she would be waiting at the train station until the last train left for Seoul. “If I don’t see you, have a wonderful Christmas,” the note concluded. “I had hoped we’d be able to see each other one more time.”

  Bobby looked at the Goma and felt like smashing him. What a little unreliable jerk! Why hadn’t he given him the note before?

  “What time is it?” Bobby demanded.

  The Goma shrugged again and then Bobby did shove him. “When is the last train to Seoul?” he shouted.

  “One go early, one go late,” said the Goma.

  From the inn Bobby could have walked to the station in five minutes, but from where they stood it would take ten. He gave the Goma another push and took off quickly, his coat flapping in the breeze as he ran. He could feel his flesh bouncing arhythmically, and as he looked to his side he saw the Goma darting along, but he didn’t pause to consider how absurd he must look, and he did not slow down. At the station even the crazy woman stood clear when she saw the speed he’d built up. He vaulted the turnstile, making the train man blink, and stopped only when he was about to be pitched down onto the empty tracks.

  “Where’s the train to Seoul?” he asked when the train man came tentatively up to his side. The Goma had stopped short of this last, law-breaking activity and was waiting in the station proper, gasping for breath.

  “Gone,” said the man. “Twenty minutes ago. Nothing more until the local at midnight.”

  Accompanying Bobby’s feeling of despair was a physical illness of a sort. He had not only sprinted through the town, but he had jumped the turnstile, pushing his heavy body up into the air, and now he was paying the price. He held his heart and put his other hand upon the train man’s shoulder. Where was his dignity, where was his recently secured peace of mind?

  Bobby tried to concentrate, hoping to God he wouldn’t throw up, but the station man smiled. “Never mind,” he said. “The evening air is fresh and there are the others.… I believe they are waiting for you in the truck.”

  “What?”

  “Those who brought the young lady. They are your acquaintances also, are they not?”

  This station man was old and his face was friendly. “Such a big truck,” he said. “They are letting it idle while they decide what they want to do.”

  Bobby straightened up, letting Cherry go and feeling his nausea subside. He peered back through the station waiting room, and sure enough, the fender of a big army truck was in plain view, parked out on the narrow street right in front.

  The station man laughed and brought some water over from a nearby tap. He helped Bobby wash his forehead and push the worst of his hair from his eyes. When Bobby went back into the station the Goma pressed his body against the wall, rolling his eyes in a bad imitation of terror. Soon, however
, he fell in behind.

  Now that he was walking, this truck seemed impossible to have missed. Ron and Gary Smith were sitting in it and waved when they saw Bobby coming. Though he had flashed by like a meteor, they didn’t seem to have caught any sense of his mood.

  “Man, you can run,” said Ron. “We thought we’d just wait out here rather than try to catch you.”

  “Hey!” said Bobby. “Great to see you guys.”

  He was smiling like a fool, his face round and wet, his voice too loud. Slow down, he told himself, stop your manic ways.

  Ron was driving and Gary was sitting there with a beer in his hand. They were both dressed in army fatigues and Bobby realized, as the truck doors opened, that it really was good to see them—far better, anyway, than spending the night alone.

  “I didn’t know it was today,” he said. “I mean, did we set today as the day you’d come?”

  “No, it was Cherry,” said Gary. “She’s going to Japan and wanted to see you to explain her change of plans.”

  When Bobby heard this he was suddenly sure that she was quitting. Cherry Consiliak was going home. When he asked about it, though, Ron said she was on vacation, that she was meeting someone in Seoul.

  All the Peace Corps volunteers were on vacation now that school was out, but it hadn’t occurred to Bobby to leave the country. Christ, he thought, they’d only been here since October. What was she going to use for money?

  “Listen,” he said, “how long can you guys stay? I can’t put you up but there’s an inn…”

  Ron looked up at the truck and Gary shook his head. “We’re pushing things real hard now,” he said. “We’re on duty. Got to get this truck back by morning.”