Festival for Three Thousand Women

by Richard Wiley

  “You were banished together?” Bobby asked. “That was awfully nice of them.”

  “No, no,” said Mr. Lee. “Banish apart. Come together two years later, secret-like.”

  “Mr. Lee changed his name,” said Mr. Kwak. “After two years in another village he changed his name and was able to secure his position in Taechon. “I was the intermediary. Miss Lee had been here waiting for him all along.”

  Bobby looked at Mr. Lee. “What was your name before you changed it?” he asked.

  “Mr. Lee,” said Mr. Lee, and Bobby’s double take made everyone laugh.

  “Mr. Lee changed his given name, not his surname,” said Miss Lee. “No need to change Mr. Lee. It is so common.”

  Though only minutes before Bobby had felt terrible about the disruption of his class, now he was feeling fine. Mr. Kwak seemed to sense the return of his good mood, for when he spoke again he said, “Please, Bobby, do not get the wrong idea. None of us are criminals here. Mr. and Miss Lee were student leaders, and I am only a country man struggling along with my languages and my verse. We are not North Korean sympathizers at all. Like most Koreans we are in favor of reunification someday, but all we want now is a clear voice. My thoughts concern the tragedy of our land, and Mr. and Miss Lee demonstrated to demand open elections, nothing more. One man, one vote. Do you recognize that slogan?” He sat up a little and grew intent. “Even now,” he said, “even this conversation we could not have in Korean in any of the houses of this town. Any hint of curiosity about our brothers to the North, any comment concerning real elections with real candidates, would be dealt with harshly, to say the least.”

  Mr. Kwak had raised his voice and he sat back down now, a little chagrined at being carried away. “As you can see,” he said, “this is something about which we care rather deeply.”

  Bobby certainly believed that, but when he looked at the Lees, with their bright eyes and their good health, the consummate physical-education teachers, he had a hard time reconciling himself to the fact that they were dissidents and lovers. Only Mr. Lee’s gesture seemed in favor of it.

  “So what is this English class for?” Bobby asked. “What do you want me to do?”

  “What can you do?” asked Mr. Kwak. “What do you think?”

  “Nothing,” Bobby said. “The Peace Corps is just what it seems to be, nothing much, nothing special.”

  “Are you sure of that?” asked Miss Lee. “Some of us have wondered.”

  Bobby leaned back and smiled, looking at the Goma to share the wonder of it with him. What could they possibly think the Peace Corps was? If they had any idea that it was the C.I.A., as some Koreans believed, then they’d never have told him anything like they had. Surely they didn’t believe it was some kind of leftist organization. What else was there?

  “No, no,” said Mr. Kwak, reading Bobby’s smile. “We only want to get it off our backs. We know that you are what you appear to be. We only want a friend, an outlet. Otherwise everything stays bottled up.”

  “Get it off your chests,” Bobby said, “not your backs.” It was the first English mistake he’d heard Mr. Kwak make.

  “Ah, yes,” said Mr. Kwak, “quite.”

  Bobby didn’t know what to do. They had been told in Seoul that they were to stay out of politics, that such involvement, in fact, was a sure ticket home. But was this politics? A couple of lovers who wanted free elections and an aging intellectual who wanted an outlet for his thoughts? No, this was not politics but ordinary human contact of the kind Bobby had rarely experienced at home.

  “OK,” he said, “so what should we talk about?” For some reason the three of them laughed.

  “About poetry,” said Mr. Kwak.

  “About football,” said Mr. Lee, “and judo.”

  “About Mr. Nam’s funny book,” said Miss Lee, “and about the Christian movement in general.”

  Bobby looked back at Mr. Lee. “I’d like to study judo,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of talking to Policeman Kim.”

  “Talk to me,” said Mr. Lee. “I can teach.”

  As suddenly as that the spirit of the little meeting had grown warm and humorous again, all three of them clearly glad to have said what they had, to have finally gotten what they had to say out in the open, off their backs or chests or whatever.

  Bobby was about to suggest that they tell him about their hometowns when Mr. Kwak looked at his watch and said that it was time to go.

  “What? Already?” Bobby asked.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Kwak, “time flies.”

  When they began looking around for their coats the Goma grew a little frantic. He closed his dirty fist around Miss Lee’s sleeve and looked at her downright lewdly. “Beat me Daddy eight to the bar,” he said. Mr. Nam had forgotten to take the book from the Goma, and Bobby was amazed at the sound. The Goma’s intonation was accurate, his pronunciation clear, and in his eyes could be seen the tiniest flicker of real intelligence, before he dropped Miss Lee’s arm and danced in little circles, moving around the room like a clown, picking up the last piece of cake and shoving it into his pocket like a fool.

  Revolution

  Six in the second place means: When one’s own day comes, one may create revolution.

  After that bizarre evening at the library, Bobby went to school with new resolve, happy to have been embraced by his new friends and determined not to let the cold shoulder he was getting from Mr. Nam bother him. He taught well, and as time went by he met with his English club, studied Korean, and tried to stay away from the bars. He received disconcerting letters from his grandmother, saying Mrs. Nesbitt had been hospitalized because of her missing son and that the Royal Neighbors lodge was writing the White House on Mrs. Nesbitt’s behalf, and in Bobby’s answers to those letters he tried to let his newfound calmness show. But though he sent his sympathies to Mrs. Nesbitt, he could not find it within him to worry about Carl.

  Three days a week Bobby went to a gym behind the police station and actually did begin studying judo with Mr. Lee. Bobby’s fat, though diminishing, still pretty much hid the contours of his muscle, but Mr. Lee commented from the beginning on how strong he was. And he wasn’t slow. For the first two weeks they did nothing but practice falls, and for a month after that they concentrated on the ankle sweep and the hip roll. It was fun and Judo Lee turned out to be a wonderful teacher. He was demanding and stingy with praise, but he was unfailingly kind as well. Judo Lee’s friendship was a prize Bobby had not expected to win, and that he was learning to fight as well seemed like icing on the cake.

  April, however, was the cruelest month again that year. Bobby had just come home from school one day when he happened to turn his radio on a little before his usual time. And the pandemonium of what he heard pierced him all the way from Memphis, Tennessee. Martin Luther King was dead, murdered by this guy James Ray.

  Bobby had never considered Martin Luther King, but now that he was dead, Bobby looked around his room. He could picture the man’s face and he knew the cadences of his voice well enough, but what else? The radio announcer wept, and as Bobby listened through the static and the tears he began to see America in ways he never had when living with his grandmother and thinking only of himself. Was it the era that made his country seem so torn or had it been that way always? He was shocked to understand that he really had no idea.

  On the radio the magnitude of the tragedy seemed indisputable and Bobby tried to bring that level of anguish into his own room and mind. By the end of an hour he was sick at heart and sorry for Martin Luther King, but he fell asleep early anyway, finally knowing he’d be helpless to do anything, even if he were at home.

  Still, Bobby had troublesome dreams that night, until just before midnight, when Cherry Consiliak came pounding on his door. The grandmother had awakened and gone out to open the gate, when Cherry’s voice came into his room, making him sit up straight. Her Korean was poor and he recognized her voice immediately.

  “Here I am!” Bobby shouted. “Cherry! Don�
��t go!”

  He was out of bed in an instant, pulling on his pants and stumbling into the wall. He had spoken too loudly, and the grandmother shushed him, pointing toward Policeman Kim’s door. She then disappeared back into her own room, sliding under the covers next to her granddaughter once again.

  “Cherry,” said Bobby. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Despite her evident anguish, though, he couldn’t help thinking she looked wonderful standing there.

  “You didn’t hear?” Cherry asked. “You don’t know?”

  Cherry’s town was miles from Bobby’s, far closer to Larry Corsio’s. Had something happened to Larry then? he wondered.

  “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

  “It was on the radio. Martin Luther King is dead. Some white fucker shot him!”

  “Oh,” said Bobby. “Yeah, I heard.”

  “You heard? My God, Bobby, what are we going to do?”

  Right then Bobby knew how little he understood, how clinically he’d reacted before. Cherry was brimming with grief, wrapped in it so completely that she was unaware she was wearing only a shawl against the cold. Bobby pictured her grabbing it as she ran out the door.

  “Come in,” he said, “it’s late and we should be quiet.”

  Cherry let Bobby guide her into his room. She was crying quietly now, yet without restraint, and Bobby wanted more than anything to share it with her, to feel the loss too. How had he managed to lose touch with his emotions so, when she had hers there at her fingertips? He realized, as he watched her, that he had never been connected like this. He was nothing, a robot, as much affected by any old death as by this one.

  “Now, now,” he said, completely at a loss. “It’s terrible, I know.”

  Cherry removed her shawl and looked around for something with which to wash her face. “Nice room,” she said. “Do you have any water?” and Bobby was out the door instantly, out with his bucket to the well.

  When he got back Cherry had composed herself a little. He wrung a washcloth out and carefully ran it across her face.

  “It just seemed like it would work this time,” she said, and Bobby nodded as if he knew what she meant. After that neither of them spoke for a while, though they sat under Bobby’s covers and held each other a little to keep warm. But finally Cherry sighed and asked, “Why are there so many small-minded white shits in the world?” She looked up at Bobby as if she expected an answer.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe the guy was crazy.”

  “He wasn’t crazy, he was evil!” she hissed. “How the hell would you know? How the hell would you understand?”

  By then it was one o’clock and Bobby was supposed to console Cherry Consiliak, the only black girl he had ever known and the woman he’d been thinking about for months, over the death of Martin Luther King, who was a legitimate hero, a true national leader whose fall really was tragic. And he had to teach school in six hours.

  They were quiet for another long stretch, Cherry with her eyes closed, Bobby understanding that she needed him to hold her, when she spoke again, her voice a whisper.

  “You’ve lost some more weight,” she said, putting her arms around him. “I mean, really.”

  He had lost fifty pounds and he told her so. Policeman Kim had a scale. Because his skin was loose he still looked overweight, but the fact of the matter was that for the first time in his life he truly was not. He weighed only two hundred and five pounds, seventy-five pounds lighter than on the day of his military physical.

  Cherry told him that she had lost weight too, placing his hand along her rib cage to prove it. And when she looked up to see his reaction he kissed her, clumsily laying his broad face down on hers. It was the most unpremeditated thing he had ever done, and it was his first kiss. He hoped desperately that she wouldn’t misunderstand.

  There was a moment when Cherry did misunderstand. Bobby could feel it in her lips, which remained uncommitted, as if waiting to taste the pureness of his motives. “Could you possibly be using the death of Martin Luther King to get laid, you white scumbag?” her lips seemed to ask. But then they answered their own question by finally kissing him back. And when it was over Cherry sighed and then stunned him again by saying, “Hey, Bobby, you’re a virgin, right?”

  Bobby was embarrassed as much by the matter-of-fact tone of Cherry’s question as by the words, and he said, “What of it?” really hurt and surprised.

  But Cherry was smart and caught herself immediately. “Nothing, man,” she said. “I was just asking. I’m sorry.” Then she snuggled up to him again, pulling his left hand down onto her breast.

  Cherry turned off the light and then undressed as casually as though she were alone. Bobby, trying to act as nonchalant, nevertheless threw his clothes around wildly, as if they had hot coals in them. This was the moment he had dreamed of, though he had believed that it would never come.

  When they got back under the covers Bobby was shivering a little, and Cherry was careful, from the beginning, not to appear to be his teacher. She muttered “Slowly” a few times but was careful, even then, to appear to be speaking to herself, and not to the frantic beating of his exploding heart.

  When they actually made love, every fiber of Bobby’s body, every thought and feeling, every loose piece of tissue, was involved with it, finally no part of him holding back. Cherry kept her dark eyes open and she smiled with them whenever he looked, letting him know that for the moment, at least, he was alone with her in the world. Cherry made low, whimpering noises, but though Bobby’s spirit rose and dashed about the world, all the while he didn’t make a sound, only telling her once that he loved her when everything was finally done.

  Bobby rose early the next morning, found the boy who was bad in English, and told him to tell the teachers at school that he was sick. It would be the first day of school he had ever missed.

  It had always amazed Bobby that though there were six other people living in this house, he never ran into any of them. Now, though, with Cherry asleep under his quilt, they all appeared in the hallway together, falling over each other as if the house had suddenly grown small. Policeman Kim’s wife had heard him telling her son that he’d be staying home and she lingered back, giving instructions all around. The grandmother, who had seen Cherry come in, knew that he wasn’t sick and said something fast, which made them all fall silent once again. And Heh Sook, the little girl, positioned herself so that she’d have a chance of seeing Cherry, should Bobby open his door again.

  Cherry, when she finally awoke, looked great. She found a T-shirt to pull on over her nakedness, but it did nothing to cool Bobby’s ardor. “You don’t have to wake up yet,” he said. “It’s early and I’ve just told them I’m not going to school.”

  Cherry yawned. “Do you have a substitute teacher?” she asked. “Is there a substitute teacher at your school?”

  Bobby thought about it, but he didn’t know. In fact, he could not remember any teacher having been absent before. What did they do when someone was ill? “Do you?” he asked. “Is there a substitute teacher where you work?”

  “No,” said Cherry. “The other teachers cover. It cuts way down on absenteeism.”

  Daylight was at the window, and Bobby closed the curtains tightly before he sat back down, hoping Cherry would want to make love again. She seemed relaxed now, but when she did let him under the covers she put her arms around him again quickly before telling him another bit of news.

  “I’m thinking about quitting, Bobby,” she said. “I’m thinking about going home.”

  “No,” said Bobby.

  Cherry laughed. “Hey,” she said, “we never see each other anyway.”

  Bobby tried to think fast. It was Martin Luther King’s death that had depressed her enough to make her want to leave. Life in Korea was hard enough when things were fine. He had to think of something quick, to make her change her mind.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said.

  Cherry laughed again, for the first time regainin
g a little of her old spirit. “You? What would you do at home-march for civil rights?”

  Bobby could think of nothing to say to that, so he asked, “How many of us have left by now?”

  “Sixteen,” said Cherry. “So leaving’s no big deal. Besides, my town doesn’t need an English teacher. I’d be doing them a favor.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “And none of these towns need English teachers, so what the hell.”

  “You really want to quit with me, Bobby? Come off and be my babe?” She was teasing, but at least she was cheerful. Now his job was twofold: to keep her happy and to make her stay.

  “I don’t want you to go,” Bobby said. “We could see each other every week. We could see Larry more often too.”

  Cherry smiled. “Larry quit,” she said.

  “What? He did not!”

  “Sure did, just last week. He was the sixteenth.”

  Bobby was speechless. Why hadn’t he heard?

  “Anyway,” said Cherry, “that’s not the point. Even if nobody quit I still would. That fucking man has shot Martin Luther King, and the Peace Corps is no place for me now. Things aren’t fine at home; my own house is not in order.”

  Bobby stopped when she spoke, though he’d formed a line of arguments a mile long in his head. Maybe she should quit. And if she shouldn’t, then why shouldn’t she?

  “Really, Cherry, I don’t know,” he said, but she could hear the change in his voice and she immediately pulled him to her, kissing his cheek.

  “I knew you’d understand,” she said. “I knew it!”

  After that the day passed quickly. They made love again, this time Cherry clearly the teacher, and then Bobby went into the kitchen to ask the maid to fix them eggs and toast. Cherry talked about growing up in Philadelphia. She had been young for her class, she said. She had been studious and conservative and had gone away to college though most of her friends had not. She’d wanted to be a writer, a journalist, and had thought that the Peace Corps would broaden her, giving her a sense of the world. And as she talked Bobby thought, God, what a wonderful woman. Would she finish the term, he asked, would she stay until June at least? But she said she couldn’t say. Martin Luther King had been an idol of hers, did he understand that? This was no ordinary loss. Martin Luther King had been larger than life, so his death was larger too. She had heard him speak in Washington and had thought of going South a time or two, to Selma and Montgomery.