Festival for Three Thousand Women

by Richard Wiley

  To Bobby, Cherry was the most beautiful woman on earth. Again they made love, the house, meanwhile, as quiet as a tomb. Cherry waited, at his pleading, until the last train that night, though it took triple the time to get home. Even when leaving the station, the train did so at a snail’s pace, so Bobby was able to walk along beside it, holding Cherry’s hand until the platform ended.

  When he came out of the station, the Goma and the biting woman were standing there chatting and they gave Bobby kindly looks. “Good evening, look at the sky, maybe the weather’s finally going to break,” their looks seemed to say. The biting woman didn’t ask for money and the Goma wasn’t carrying his English book. Normally Bobby would have walked quickly away, but that evening he stood there with them for a while. It really was warmer. He tried to hold Cherry’s face in his mind, the sound of her train leaving in the channels of his ears. He turned a little in the street, almost a dance, and for a while his heart felt as large as his body once had been.

  Grace

  Six in the fifth place means: Keeping his jaws still. The words have order.

  Some weeks after Cherry’s visit Mr. Kwak and the Lees came to Bobby’s room for another meeting. Mr. Kwak had an anxious-looking face, and when they were all settled he began immediately to speak, waiting only for the departure of Policeman Kim’s maid, who had come into the room with tea.

  “Next week there is a special day at school,” he said, looking directly at Bobby. “It is called spy-catching day and it is a travesty. It builds roadblocks to clear thought in the minds of our students.”

  Taken by surprise Bobby repeated, “Spy-catching day?” and when he did so Miss Lee jumped in. “You have given us great courage,” she said. “Because of you we are going to boycott spy-catching day.”

  Bobby had no idea what to say. What had he done to give them courage?

  “What’s spy-catching day?” he asked, and to his surprise it was Mr. Lee who attempted a clarification.

  “Very strange day indeed,” he said. “Headmaster Kim find out-of-towner to come around wearing long coat and funny shoes. Out-of-towner try buying cigarette or try entering public bath without knowledge of pricing system in Republic of Korea. Middle-school student search for him everywhere. And whosoever discover him win big prize, becoming anticommunist hero.”

  Bobby looked from Mr. Lee to the others, but they were all solemn. Was this what they’d been planning to tell him all along, the real reason they’d wanted to form the group?

  “And you are going to boycott the day,” he said. “Won’t that get you in trouble?”

  “More than trouble,” said Miss Lee. “It will cost us our jobs.”

  The maid came back, breaking the tension by pouring more tea and passing around a little tray of rice balls, but Mr. Kwak motioned her out of the room again.

  “You may not see any importance in this,” he said. “Such a silly day, such a silly, backward country. But we are teachers and feel we must stand up for the rights of the students in our school. Free speech really begins with free thought. Spy-catching day is a small example of the way our government hinders free thought, but it is a good one. And we feel that if we oppose it, maybe others will follow. All we have to give our students is the example that we set. Don’t you see?”

  Bobby did see, but he had no idea what to say. He was touched that they confided in him, but Mr. Kwak was right, it really did seem silly. Finally he managed to ask, “Which day is it? Which day next week?”

  “Wednesday,” said Miss Lee. “Spy-catching day is always the same. It breaks up the week for the teachers.”

  The insight Bobby had into the nature of his three friends was temporarily lost, however, two days before spy-catching day when he heard reports from America of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. Teachers he’d never spoken to shook their heads and laid hands on his shoulders. “Such a violent country,” they said. “And such a young man. The brother of the president.”

  It was Monday evening when the news reached Korea, and the next morning Headmaster Kim called Bobby into his office. “Not a good year for your country,” he said. “First the Tet Offensive, then the death of that good black man, and now this.”

  “Yes,” said Bobby. “It’s a terrible year for my country.”

  He did feel terrible about the death of Robert Kennedy. The Voice of America had broadcast Kennedy’s victory speech from that Los Angeles hotel, and Bobby had turned his radio on in the middle of it. He had heard the assassin’s handgun popping its static over the airwaves, and he had cried, alone in his room, when the announcer told him that Robert Kennedy was dead. Kennedy was the man who would have ended the war, saving guys like Ron and Gary and, who knows, perhaps bringing back Carl Nesbitt too. Bobby understood it all.

  Headmaster Kim saw the grief in his eyes and was offering to let him take the next day off to mourn. Bobby thought about it for a moment. Since the next day was spy-catching day there were no classes to teach, and he would have taken the day off, had it not been for the Lees and Mr. Kwak. Tomorrow was their big day. They had told him about the boycott, so were he not to show up they would think he had stayed away because of it.

  “That’s very kind,” he said, “but I feel my duty is to remain at school.”

  That day Bobby’s students were full of questions about how Americans could kill their leaders so easily, and when he walked into his best class the monitor bowed deeply and presented him with a letter. “I AM SORRY,” the letter said, and below these three English words were the signatures of all the students in the room.

  “Thank you,” Bobby told them. “I am sorry too.”

  This was English they could understand and the students smiled down at their desks. “I am sorry. I am sorry too,” some of them whispered.

  As Bobby stood in front of his class, though, he began to think of Cherry. When Martin Luther King was killed she’d decided to quit the Peace Corps, saying that his death was personal enough to make her want to go home and get involved in civil rights. Should he feel that way now, then, about Robert Kennedy? Was it his being white that made Kennedy’s death pierce him so; was it King’s blackness that primarily moved Cherry? Would Kennedy’s death mean to Cherry precisely what Martin Luther King’s had meant to him? Bobby had not seen Cherry since that night in his room, but couldn’t he run to her now, letting her comfort him in turn?

  Bobby looked up at his students and said, “You know, in order to become president of the United States you have to pass a test in Korean.” He had no idea where such a statement came from, but there it was, the strangest possible lie in the face of what Headmaster Kim had called his personal tragedy and what North Korean radio had labeled, “America’s continued running-dog murder of its few good men.”

  “What?” said the student. “Ha! Don’t pull our legs.”

  “Not really,” he said, but the students hadn’t heard.

  “In Korean?” asked their monitor. “They must pass a test in Korean?”

  The students were incredulous and talked among themselves. Bobby often joked with them, they knew that. When the repetition of English got boring he would often switch to Korean in order to tell them some wild story, completely made-up. But he was sad now and they knew that too. Could he possibly be joking at a time like this?

  The best student raised his hand, everyone’s questions forming in him.

  “Uh, who got the highest score?” he asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “In Korean. Which one got the highest grade?”

  “Robert Kennedy,” Bobby said, trying to bring his lie around to stand for something good.

  A murmur went up and the spokesman came back to him. “What about Nixon?” he asked. “We all know him. What score did Nixon get?”

  “Nixon barely passed,” Bobby responded quietly. “He got the lowest score.”

  Another boy asked, “Who was second? After Robert Kennedy, who was next?”

  “McCarthy was second,” said Bobby. “You may not k
now him but he’s becoming popular now.”

  This was absolutely crazy. News of the Korean test he’d made up would be all over school the moment class was out. He was supposed to be grieving over the death of Robert Kennedy, not making up terrible lies. Had he learned nothing over the passing weeks, nothing from Cherry? Though skin hung loosely from his body now, he felt the fat come back. What was there, within him, that brought out such awful impulses as these?

  Bobby looked up at the waiting students. “Eugene McCarthy,” he said. “He’s the one.”

  “Yes! Yes!” the students called. “We hope he wins! McCarthy with the highest score in Korean! Good for McCarthy! He’s a good man!”

  They were on their feet when the bell rang, shouting McCarthy’s name and striding into the halls with it on their tongues. This was the day’s last class and when Bobby got back to the teachers’ room he could still hear the students shouting as they marched across the outside field.

  Bobby sat at his desk feeling bad when Mr. Nam put a hand on his shoulder, speaking to him for the first time in months.

  “I am very sorry.”

  Bobby looked up. “Don’t mention it,” he said, “thank you.”

  “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” said Nam. “Who is this man McCarthy?”

  “One of the presidential candidates,” Bobby said. “A Democrat.” He picked up his books and stood, hoping to get out before Mr. Nam, of all people, took him to task. None of the teachers had left yet but surely he could, on a day like today. Headmaster Kim would understand.

  But Mr. Nam, still chin-fisted and worried, followed Bobby when he went into the hall. While Bobby was putting on his shoes Mr. Nam spoke again.

  “What was McCarthy’s score?” he asked.

  “Eighty percent,” Bobby told him.

  “And Nixon?”

  “Low. Under fifty percent.”

  Bobby had his shoes on but Mr. Nam had slipped into his shoes too, clearly planning to walk Bobby to the gate.

  It was such a beautiful day and Bobby felt so rotten. If not for Mr. Kwak and the Lees he could have taken the next day off, riding the train to Cherry’s village where he could regain himself, stop the backsliding and grow. He needed someone to talk to but it had to be an American.

  He was almost off the school grounds when Mr. Nam spoke again. “Tell me,” he said. “In which other languages are they tested, these candidates?”

  “Only a few,” Bobby answered.

  “French? Spanish?” asked Mr. Nam.

  “Yes,” Bobby said, passing through the gate.

  “What about Arabic?” asked Nam. He was leaning through the gate, cupping his hand and calling.

  “No,” Bobby said. “Not Arabic.”

  “What about Japanese? Surely if Korean, then Japanese!”

  “Yes,” Bobby said, “that too.”

  He wanted to run but he merely kept his head low, and didn’t turn back.

  “What about Hebrew?” shouted Nam. “What about Russian?”

  Bobby didn’t answer but Nam kept calling and in a moment his persistence brought a few children out.

  “What about Finnish?” said Mr. Nam’s distant voice.

  “And what about Chinese?”

  His voice stirred the children and they began to skip, keeping up with Bobby’s fast pace.

  “What about hello, OK?” one of them asked, and Bobby turned on the child, frightening him. “What about Serbo-Croatian?” Mr. Nam called, one last time, “What about lies?”

  Bobby was halfway home by the time Mr. Nam finally stopped. When he turned to look he could see Nam’s head still sticking out of the school gate, but it was a quiet head, not even trying to shout.

  What was all this? Was it his job to lie to everyone, making light of serious matters, just as the fat that had always surrounded him had begun to give way like it had, to the thin man whom he’d never suspected was inside? He resolved to take spy-catching day off and to go see Cherry after all. He would send word back to Headmaster Kim with the boy who was bad in English. And when he returned on Thursday he would see Mr. Kwak and the Lees and try to explain. He was an American, after all, and in times of trouble he really did have to get together with someone who would understand and talk about the awful times at home.

  When one lives one’s life in pursuit of scholarship and understanding, it is the highest and most honorable of paths—any fool knows that. And though I did not meet my goal of becoming either a college professor or a government official, I have not done so badly. I am a teacher and an administrator in a provincial school. When I walk through the town people stop to greet me, many of them bowing, many more remembering that they were my students and silently thanking me for what I did.

  Now, though, my sense of things is being undermined by this American. There was another assassination in his country and I do not fully understand his attitude. He was in the headmaster’s office for a long while, and when the headmaster offered him a day off and his own profound sympathy, the American turned it down—the day off, I mean. Of course, anyone can understand that he did so out of loyalty to the school, but who can understand these ridiculous jokes of his? They are barbaric, they show a cruel heart, and Mr. Nam has started a campaign against him because of them, insisting on calling them lies.

  What am I to do? I want to come to the American’s defense, but I do not know how. When Mr. Nam asked me for my opinion on the thing I was able to put him off, but I know he will ask again. What am I to say? How can I defend such behavior in the face of a man’s frivolous understanding of his place? Think of what it must mean. If a man does not understand his relationship to his rulers, which is primary, then how can he understand anything else?

  I am still drawn to our American teacher. I still want, somehow, to be of help to him, but I am perplexed and unhappy with today’s turn of events.

  Written at the Pleasant Feeling Tearoom again, as I put off going home, hoping that the tearoom’s name will influence the darkness of my mood.

  The Clinging Fire

  Six in the fifth place means: Tears in floods, sighing and lamenting. Good fortune.

  Bobby took the night train, hoping to get to Cherry’s town early enough to find her house and knock on her door. But as he neared the town he grew tentative. Would she be glad to see him? Were these things reversible, the midnight visits of mourning friends? Was he in fact mourning, or did he just want to see her?

  He worried all the way to Chonan, but when he got off the train and came out of the station it was not yet ten, and his mood expanded. He asked a young cab driver if he knew where the American black girl lived, and the driver said that though he did not, he had seen her often enough. He said he knew her tearoom so Bobby got in his cab.

  “She’s pretty, eh, the black girl?” said the driver.

  “Are you sure you know the right tearoom?” Bobby asked.

  The driver didn’t answer, but in less than a minute he pulled up in front of the DeLuxe Tearoom. “Do you want me to wait?” he asked. “If you want me to I can wait a while.”

  Bobby said that waiting would be fine and went inside. This tearoom, despite its name, was shabbier than his own.

  “Ah,” said a woman. “You must be Miss Ko’s friend.”

  Peace Corps volunteers were often given Korean names. Bobby nodded and asked, “Do you know where she lives?”

  “I do,” said the woman, “but she’s out of town.”

  “It’s the middle of the week,” Bobby said. “Doesn’t she have to work tomorrow?”

  “Miss Ko’s not working anymore,” said the tearoom woman. “She and her headmistress argued and she quit.”

  “Where did she go?” he asked, alarmed.

  “I don’t know,” said the woman, “but perhaps up to the American base. She and her friend only left this afternoon.” Bobby thanked the woman and hurried back outside. If Cherry had a friend, then who could that friend be but Gary Smith? He imagined Ron’s truck, Cherry popping
in to say good-bye. The taxi was idling at the curb, and when he got in he asked the driver if he knew the American base, down the coast, near Hongsong.

  “Sure,” the driver said.

  Bobby asked how much it would cost to go there, and the driver eyed him carefully for the first time. “If we had time I’d take you for two thousand won,” he said. “But curfew is near. I won’t be able to get back.”

  “OK,” said Bobby. “Two thousand won plus a room for the night. You can drive back tomorrow.”

  The driver nodded, but said that he wanted to stop by his farm first and tell his wife. His farm was on the Hongsong road, not far out of the way.

  For Bobby’s part, though he wanted him to floor it, he had no choice but to agree to the stop. He couldn’t get back down the coast by train, and he had to catch up with Cherry before she left the country altogether. He was anxious and obsessed but luckily the driver turned out to be fast. They were only on the road for fifteen minutes when they got to his farm’s turnoff. Not seeing any lights, Bobby asked how far it was.

  “Up there,” said the driver, “bottom of that hill.”

  The new road was flat and in the distance Bobby could see the dark shape of a low mountain, where this driver’s farm was presumably nestled.

  Though he had ridden in the back of the cab when going from the station to the tearoom, when he came back out he’d climbed into the front. Now he looked at the driver suspiciously. Was he in danger, riding alone with this man? They were already miles from town, after all, and the driver was young and tough-looking. He had a tooth missing in the front of his mouth and was wearing only a T-shirt under his open coat.