At Dusk

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  Cha Soona …

  If she hadn’t heard my quiet voice, I don’t think I would have called her name a second time. She somehow managed to hear me, though, and turned at once.

  Oh, it’s you!

  We both glanced around. Hometown Coffeeshop had been replaced by one of the western-fusion restaurants that were trendy at the time. The kind of place with partitions between the tables for privacy and plastic clusters of grapes or fake ivy leaves as decoration. Soona was wearing a simple dress, and her lightly made-up face was as pretty as ever.

  When did you get out of the army?

  About a month ago.

  What about college?

  I’m planning to go back. Where are you coming from?

  Work.

  I thought you were leaving the city?

  I got a job at a small company in Seoul.

  What do you do there?

  Bookkeeping and stuff. No big deal.

  Still, that’s good. It’s not easy to find a job these days.

  It wasn’t that hard, actually. My father knows the owner.

  So you’ve got connections.

  It was a predictable conversation, the standard niceties between two people who’d grown up in the same neighbourhood.

  Then, as if in passing, I asked,

  No marriage plans?

  Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, Maybe when you graduate … She giggled and added, I hope that doesn’t scare you.

  There was nothing more to say after that. We sat in awkward silence for a moment, and then she murmured, Be right back, and left her seat. I leisurely smoked a cigarette and waited for her to return from the restroom. Twenty minutes went by. Bewildered, I got up and went to the counter. I checked the bathroom and the entrance, then went to settle the bill, when the waiter said,

  The lady paid right before she left.

  *

  I went home to Moon Hollow a few more times before finishing college, but never went any further than my parents’ house. Right before graduation, I had my interview at Hyeonsan Architecture and began working there. It had been recommended to me by my advisor. I started out as a trainee. Back then, the work was endless, and I slept almost every night curled up on a couch in the office. I was on a team with other trainees, including Lee Youngbin. But even in the midst of that crushing workload, during my second year there, I found the time to apply for a government-sponsored study abroad program, and I passed. That was the same year that all that trouble happened in Gwangju. The country was in turmoil. We were under martial law. Tanks were parked on city streets, and special forces soldiers in full camouflage and carrying bayonets stood guard outside TV and radio stations, government offices, and school gates. Rumours were quietly spreading of a civilian massacre in Gwangju.

  I’d never been to Gwangju in my life, but after hearing the whispers of older colleagues, who in turn had heard whisperings from others, the fact that I had no connections to Gwangju didn’t put my mind at ease. We all had a pretty good idea of how the previous president had died the year before, and we knew exactly what sort of ambitions the new military-led regime held. But regardless, what we were constantly weighing was whether and how the prevailing political winds would affect our own plans. We took the crumbs that those in power tossed our way and used them to grow our own wealth. And even if we did privately feel some guilt about it, we all knew the feeling wouldn’t last. In fact, we still know it. Later, upon arriving in the US, I saw the foreign press footage and photographs of Gwangju and was shocked to the core. A sense of powerlessness plagued me for a long time after.

  Right after finishing my army service, I’d gone back to my job as a live-in tutor and stayed there up until I was settled in my own career. The general’s daughter was one year away from starting middle school, so I tutored her in English. My room on the second floor, including my furniture and books, was exactly as I had left it. They treated me like I was the eldest son. They’d worried about their son growing up lonely, since he didn’t have any brothers of his own, but they saw how completely he trusted me and relied on me. I ended up being his mentor, even though I was hardly able to take care of myself.

  After starting work at the architecture firm and deciding to study abroad, the general’s wife started dropping hints about what other future plans I might have. She told me that one of her friends had a lot of daughters, and that the youngest daughter was smart and pretty. Her siblings were all studying abroad already, and she, too, was set to leave once she finished school. So the daughter and I met, as arranged by the general’s wife, and soon an offer of marriage was on the table. I was honest with her and her family about my background. Her father had travelled the world as a diplomat, which may have been why he was so lenient about our poverty. He implied that all that mattered was that I was smart and talented.

  It had been a long time since I last saw Soona, when she ditched me at the restaurant in Moon Hollow. I’d been back a few times since starting work. Of course, I never asked my mum about her or went back to the noodle house. It wasn’t deliberate. I just felt like Soona had no place in my life anymore. Sure, I’d slept with her right before going into the army. But so what?

  And then, one day, I got a call from her at the office. My heart no longer raced as it used to, and there were no more butterflies in my stomach. Instead, a sense of guilt slowly crept over me. What had she been doing with herself all that time? I realised that I hadn’t thought about her at all.

  I met her in a coffeeshop downtown after work. She was wearing a men’s windbreaker that looked like it was part of a work uniform; it took me a moment to even recognise her. Naturally, I took her to dinner, seeing as how she was an old friend and someone from my hometown. Storm clouds brewed in her face. I asked how she’d been and learned that her father had passed away while I was in the army. I’d had no idea that they’d lost the noodle business. She didn’t seem particularly bothered by the fact that I knew none of this. I asked if she was still living in the same house. She told me she’d moved, but only to the neighbouring village, and was still more or less living in Moon Hollow. I asked if she was still working at the same place, and she told me she’d quit recently. We didn’t part ways immediately after dinner but instead went to a pub and ordered draft beers. I got drunk, but not plastered.

  How did you find out where I work? I asked.

  She looked at me with a straight face and said, Why? Did you think you could run away from me? I can find out anything I want about you anytime I want.

  Then she giggled, as if she was messing with me just like old times, but her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  I hear you’re leaving the country? she said.

  It was stupid of me to ask how she knew. Her mother and my mother saw each other all the time at the market and would of course have shared such news with each other. And besides, the first thing I’d done after finding out that I passed the exam for studying abroad was to go home and tell my parents and then treat Jaemyung to a celebratory drink. By then, Jaemyung had moved on from the shoeshine business and had opened a bar. It was the kind of upscale establishment where clients were treated to young female hostesses who sat beside them to keep them entertained. The booths were partitioned to form private rooms, and there was even a live musician. Jaemyung had a head for business and knew the area like the back of his hand; it would have been strange if the business didn’t do well. That was probably when I told Jaemyung that I was getting married.

  Soona and I had a lot to drink that night. As the midnight curfew drew near, I started getting ready to leave.

  Actually, she said, I have a favour to ask.

  The whole time we’d been drinking, I’d had a feeling that there was something on her mind.

  Do you have any connections in the military? she asked. Someone high up?

  … What’s wrong?

 
Someone I know was taken away.

  Anyone I know?

  She nodded. All at once, I realised who it was.

  It’s Jaemyung, isn’t it?

  She lowered her head. I’d thought the windbreaker looked familiar.

  Were you two … living together?

  No, not together. But he’s been looking after my mum and me.

  She explained that a few days earlier, the local police chief and a detective had picked Jaemyung up at his bar, and no one had heard from him since. She’d gone to the station with Jaemyung’s sister, Myosoon, to ask what happened, but no one would tell them anything; all they could get were rumours that he’d been arrested and taken to a military camp. A nationwide order to round up gangsters had been issued. Well after the round-up was complete, they found out that Jaemyung had been placed in the Samcheong Re-education Camp.

  I walked her out to the curb and hailed a cab. Before getting in, she threw her arm around my neck and hugged me.

  Goodbye, she said. Congratulations on getting married.

  I stood there long after her taxi had left.

  *

  Though I wasn’t crazy about it, I couldn’t bring myself to do nothing at all about Jaemyung. After a few days of dilly-dallying, I carefully brought the subject up with the general. He listened and then asked who Jaemyung was to me. I told him Jaemyung was a distant relative, and that he wasn’t a gangster, just the owner of an adult entertainment establishment. Without getting up from the sofa, he picked up the phone and called someone. He read off the name and address that I’d jotted down on a scrap of paper and told the person to take care of it. That was all it took.

  After that, I officially proposed to the girl the general’s wife had introduced me to, and left for America with her. Around the time I completed my studies, her father, the retired diplomat, passed away. The rest of her family emigrated to the US, and we held our wedding in New York. My parents were unable to attend, so we had a simple wedding attended only by her family and the friends we’d made in America.

  8

  Up until it happened that winter, I didn’t see Kim Minwoo for nearly a month. His mother texted me once to invite me over, but I never found the time. I managed to get my play staged, but it didn’t do well, which left me feeling depressed and apathetic about everything. My boss hurriedly ended the run and switched back to rehearsing a foreign play. It was a long, depressing winter, with hardly any fun and nothing to hope for. Minwoo hadn’t called me either, but I was so busy trying to get by that I felt no desire to try to check in on him. When I think about it now, we didn’t have that heat that you’d expect between a man and a woman. I felt relaxed and reassured whenever I was around him, but my feelings for him went no further than that.

  Then, on one of those frigid mornings when the snow has fallen and the clouds have cleared away, leaving behind a crisp blue sky, I got the phone call. I’d turned off the sound, so my cell phone was vibrating and wiggling around on the table. I didn’t recognise the number. I decided not to answer it, but then a text message arrived, asking me to contact an Officer So-and-so at some police station. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I knew that when it came to any sort of bureaucracy, it was best to be compliant. I called back immediately. Is this Ms. Jung Woohee? Yes, what is it? Ah, I’ll have to explain in person. I asked if it was urgent. It was obvious to me that he was holding something back. For a moment all I heard was breathing. Then he said, If you’re at home, I can come to you. It was my turn to pause and catch my breath. He said it would take only five minutes and asked me to send him my address. I said okay. The police station must not have been very far, because my doorbell rang in less than thirty minutes. I already had my coat on. I didn’t want to let him in my apartment. I opened the door to find a uniformed officer standing there. He spoke before I could even step foot outside.

  Do you know a Kim Minwoo?

  Yes, I do.

  He’s committed suicide. I would appreciate it if you would accompany me to the station.

  I was stunned, like I’d been hit over the head.

  What? What did you just say to me?

  Kim Minwoo is dead.

  At the station, the officer wrote my statement down line by line in a notebook: ‘We were just friends. We were not dating. I met him while working at a part-time job and came to think of him as my brother. I have not seen him in a month.’

  I asked if they’d contacted Minwoo’s mother, and the officer said, How do you think we got your number? There were two phone numbers written down in his suicide note. His mother’s and yours. So, you never observed anything unusual?

  I said that Minwoo had always been outgoing and hard-working, that he was cheerful and driven, and was holding down three different part-time jobs. Then it was my turn to ask questions. The officer told me that his estimated time of death was five days ago, but that he’d been found only that morning, next to a river in Chungju, about two hours southeast of Seoul. His beat-up Galloper jeep was parked next to an Avante. It was winter, the road unpaved and far from the highway, so not many people passed through. The local residents said that some people did go there sometimes to fish and had thought nothing more of it. But then a day passed, and another day, and then three and four days, and still those two cars were there. Wondering why two unknown cars had been abandoned for nearly a week, they called it in, and the police contacted a tow truck driver. The driver arrived and checked the inside of both cars only to discover people dead inside. There were four in the Galloper — two in front and two in back — and two more in the Avante. The edges of the windows, the vents, and even the gap around the bottom of the steering wheel column had been sealed with duct tape. Soju bottles and plastic cups littered the floor, and a portable camp stove was covered in charcoal ash. Minwoo was in the driver’s seat of the Galloper. Next to him was a man believed to be from Ansan. In the back seat were a brother and sister from Chuncheon. The man and woman in the Avante had different addresses — Icheon and Chungju — but based on their ages, their clothing, and the photos and videos on each of their cellphones, it was conjectured that they’d had a common law marriage. The six of them had probably met on a suicide pact website or a social networking site. There was no way of knowing who the ringleader was, but it was clear that Minwoo and the man from Icheon, the two car owners, had picked the others up and brought them there. According to phone records, they’d all started talking to each other several months earlier and had met regularly in person. There was even a photo of several of them drinking beer and eating fried chicken at some pub on the outskirts of Seoul.

  What must it have been like to meet people with the goal of dying together? I wondered what he’d written in his suicide note. But why … I mumbled, half to myself. As if there were any point in asking. After all, I, too, had once thought how nice it would be to die as quietly and easily as falling asleep in my room. To just fall asleep and not wake up. But it never went beyond a thought. As soon as I opened my eyes, a day passed, and then another. Everyday life in its tenacious continuity.

  The body was delivered to his mother after a perfunctory autopsy. As with most families of suicides, she opted to skip the usual funeral arrangements and go straight to the cremation.

  I dialled his mother’s phone number and said, It’s Woohee. Her voice sounded sunken. Wicked boy, she said, and was quiet for a long moment before asking if I wanted to join her. She gave me directions to the city-run crematory north of Seoul, at the foot of a hill, way out in a remote part of Gyeonggi Province. To one side was a memorial park and the columbarium where the ashes were housed; in front of me was a marble-panelled building that looked like a hospital. I found Minwoo’s mother right away in the waiting room. I had learned from the police and now from the bereavement register that her name was Cha Soona. She was holding a number and waiting for her son’s turn. There were at least ten incinerators; an electronic screen in the wait
ing room listed the names and numbers of those currently being cremated. I sat next to her and held her hand. When his number came up on the screen, we were guided over to where we could observe the cremation. I saw flames rise behind the fireproof glass. His mother didn’t cry, but just stared silently into the fire.

  After a while, we were guided over to where his ashes were collected. A worker poured them through a kind of net to catch what remained of his bones, and then those, too, were ground into a fine ash. We took Minwoo’s remains in their small clay vessel and went to the area that was designated for scattering ashes. Lingering patches of snow speckled the surrounding hills, and frozen clumps of earth crunched beneath our feet with every step. The entire process took barely more than an hour. Minwoo’s mother wrapped her knitted scarf around the lower half of her face and invited me to her apartment.

  The whole way there, in the taxi and on the subway, we were each quietly lost in our own thoughts. She stopped by a local market to buy fruit, boiled pork, blood sausage, fishcakes, and two bottles of soju. When we got to her apartment, it was exactly the same as before, except chillier somehow. On a small, shabby folding table, she set out the food she’d bought and slowly poured the soju into a nickel kettle.

  I can’t exactly hold an ancestral rite for my own child, she said, so I figured I would offer a silent prayer for him to be reborn in paradise.

  She said this in an offhand way and tried to smile at me.

  I don’t have any photos of him that would work as a funeral portrait either, she added, so let’s just pretend he’s standing over there in front of the window.

  She poured some of the soju into a glass and spoke to the empty air near the window.

  Drink up. I brought you that blood sausage you like, too.

  She lowered her head and closed her eyes. I prayed silently with her. When I raised my head, hers was still down, and tears were falling from her face and onto the table. I held my breath and stayed quietly at her side, watching as her tears pooled. She took out a tissue and wiped her face and blew her nose. Then she let out a long sigh, as if shaking it all off, and looked up.