At Dusk

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  I saw a mountain covered in low slate roofs, narrow winding alleys tangling around each other, smiling children clustered in front of a tiny shop. Where were they now, these people who found themselves pushed out of a neighbourhood they’d grown to love? Those little shacks clinging to the hillsides like barnacles had all vanished, and in their place mountainous concrete apartment buildings rose up and blocked out the sky. Half-collapsed houses and an abandoned car rusting on top of rubble sat at the edge of an empty field. Weeds that had sprung through cracks in the alleys where no one walked anymore formed a thicket, and in the corner of a devastated building, a scrawny stray dog loitered. Anti-demolition protesters, most of whom were women, held up picket signs scrawled in ungainly handwriting and shouted at the camera. I had witnessed all of this from a distance while out doing site inspections with Byeonggu. We always jumped back in the car and left in a hurry, right before the the demolition crews broke up the protesters and sent in the bulldozers and excavators, as if we couldn’t bear to watch it ourselves.

  Ah, and there. Finally, I saw the last image of the place where I’d grown up. That project had been headed up by another company, one that I knew well. My parents left Moon Hollow long before it was torn down and redeveloped, so I hadn’t given a single thought to what had happened to it. If Soona had not contacted me, it would probably still be far from my mind. I saw the main road through the marketplace that I was all too used to, the familiar buildings and signs. In front of a shop, Myosoon and Soona were playing jacks, and Jaemyung, Jjaekkan, and I were playing a game where we hopped around on one leg and tried to knock each other down. The children in the photographs online were strangers, but they’d probably grown up in the same kind of place and dreamed the same kinds of dreams as we all did back then.

  My memories were different from those of the people who’d lived there. My job had been to shove their memories together into one big pile, sweep them away, and obliterate them. I knew all about the food chain that led from the guild that our consulting team had put together, to the design companies and demolition companies, to the construction companies and the district councils, all the way up to political circles. Byeonggu and I both knew how it worked, from all the countless meetings and rounds of drinks and games of golf, from all the meticulously detailed reports and receipts for gift certificates, designer goods, and hard cash. Byeonggu became a member of the National Assembly and got re-elected only to have to resign halfway through his term due to some unsavoury incident, but I helped him out several times. Actually, we had always needed each other. Byeonggu, the Burnt Sweet Potato who’d been reduced to a vegetable, now lay on a bed of memories that had vanished from Yeongsan, where he’d gotten his start. For a long time, I’d been thinking only that I was lucky enough to have escaped a squalid, shabby hillside slum. As if everyone who’d made it through that era were doing fine now. As if none of us had fallen through the cracks.

  I checked my email inbox again and re-read the last line of Soona’s letter.

  Where did I go wrong? Why did my son’s life have to end that way?

  I clicked reply and wrote her a message.

  Thank you for remembering an old friend. I should have written back to you much sooner. If you’re okay with it, I would like to see you. Just let me know when and where. I look forward to hearing from you.

  10

  I put a kettle on for tea and sit at my desk to eat one of the triangle kimbap I brought with me from work. I’ll eat the other two later, after I’ve slept. I turn on my laptop and look at the various folders on the desktop. One for downloaded movies, one for English conversation lessons, one for scripts that I’ve been working on, another for photos, and so on. The files I’ve been opening the most often lately are ‘Foxtail’ and ‘Black Shirt’. As usual, the first things I look at online are the news headlines. One in particular catches my eye: the chairman of Daedong Construction arrested for embezzlement and malpractice. I skim the article and then check my email. One from my sister, another from my boss at the theatre proposing what our next project should be, and one from Mr Park. Now that he has suggested meeting in person, the time has finally come for me to bring this game to an end.

  After Minwoo died, I spent every weekend in Bucheon with his mother. I guess you could say we depended on each other. Minwoo’s absence had me feeling more and more out of control as time passed. I blamed myself for being so indifferent towards him, as if his death were my fault. But after a while, it was like what Minwoo’s mother said: the living have to go on living. She and I ate together, drank together, and even laughed together. As my friends would say, she was a cool mum. She was literally old enough to be my mum, but she felt more like a close friend. Maybe, too, it was a certain pureness that came from her having been so immersed in literature as a teenager, or even a childlike naivety, but whatever it was, something about her made it easy for us to relate to each other.

  One day, when the season of Minwoo’s death had passed and the spring blossoms were in full bloom, she and I went downtown to have a beer. There, she told me about how she’d been raped as a teenager. She remembered every detail, but told it like it was nothing. That was when I realised that she’d been keeping a notebook. She asked me to show her how to use a computer, and started transferring her handwritten notes to the laptop Minwoo had left behind. She proudly told me that graduating from an all-girls high school and working as a bookkeeper, where she’d learned to type, had come in handy. I asked her what she was writing.

  I guess you could call it my memoirs. A kind of reminder to myself that I’ve been through a lot but I lived a good life, she said.

  I immediately understood what she meant. Journalling or writing letters to someone when you’re struggling or having a hard time can sometimes cause you to wallow even more, but it is also very healing.

  Then one day, the moment she saw me, she told me excitedly that a close childhood friend of hers was giving a lecture at City Hall. She told me about growing up in the hillside slum, and rattled off the whole story of their friendship. Halfway through, I got impatient and interrupted her.

  This man you’re talking about has the same name as Minwoo. Is he … Minwoo’s father?

  She laughed and teased me about trying to turn it into a soap opera.

  Let’s go to the lecture together, I said. I bet he’ll be happy to see you.

  She shook her head. I’m so chubby now. He’ll be disappointed. She looked down at herself and let out a sigh. He left Moon Hollow and me behind a long time ago. He lives in another world now.

  I went to the lecture without telling her. I waited for the lecture to end, and I handed him a note with her name and phone number. When I told her later what I’d done, she frowned and scolded me.

  Where did you get such a stupid idea? she said.

  I suggested that we place bets, hoping to trick her out of staying angry at me.

  Don’t be ridiculous. Even if he does call, I’ll just say it’s the wrong number.

  Still, I bet you 50,000 won he’ll call.

  100,000 won says he won’t!

  So if he does call, you’ll give me 100,000 won? For real?

  Late one night, when I’d nearly forgotten all about the bet, she called me. She sounded drunk. She said that Park Minwoo had called her but she didn’t answer, and now there was a text message from him. She wasn’t an alcoholic, but ever since Minwoo had died, she’d been drinking more and more. I warned her that she shouldn’t drink alone, what with her blood pressure, but she told me in a slurred voice that alcohol made the hours pass faster. Makes day and night fly right by, she said. I started to fuss at her again, but she cut me off in a flat voice.

  The greatest blessing is to die in your sleep, so why not.

  I decided to visit her that weekend and jokingly demand that she pay me 100,000 won. But the part-time worker who normally worked the weekend shift at the convenience store qu
it suddenly, and I had to fill in for him. The next weekend, I was overwhelmed with theatre rehearsals and opening night preparations. I didn’t even have time to talk on the phone, so we just texted back and forth. One day she texted that she’d finally talked to the architect. I pushed her to meet him in person, but she adamantly refused.

  Then, that morning, when I had finished up at the convenience store and was on my way home, I got her last text message.

  Heading home? Bet you’re exhausted. You said opening night is tomorrow, right? If I can’t make it then, I’ll go the next day. It’s been a while. Miss you.

  But she didn’t come that week or the next week.

  I’ve kept in my room some of the things she left behind. She died in her sleep, the blessed passing that she’d joked about, and only a few months after her son had passed, as if she were rushing to catch up to him. She died of a stroke while wrapped up in her blankets at home.

  I was the one who found her. The play was in its third week and was only one more week from finishing, but she wasn’t the type to just not show and not even call. I tried contacting her but got no responses to my texts, and each time I dialled her number, her cell was turned off. I had a feeling something was wrong, so I went straight to her place after my shift at the convenience store. The door to her apartment was plastered with fliers and delivery menus for Chinese food and other places nearby. I rang the doorbell. No response. I rang it several more times, but all I heard was the chiming of the doorbell echoing inside her apartment. I knew the code to the digital lock. It was Kim Minwoo’s birthdate.

  The second I opened the door, I smelled something terrible. When I turned on the light, the first thing I saw was a low folding table in the middle of the living room covered in soju and beer bottles. I opened her bedroom door and saw a gray leathery face peeking out over the soiled hem of her blanket. I covered my mouth and hesitated a moment, then ran to find the building superintendent. The police came, and the next day a simple autopsy was performed. Her funeral was as quick and businesslike as Minwoo’s. I guess having one less person in the world didn’t cause much of a stir. People die everyday for all kinds of reasons, and new ones are born. Death and life are just ordinary occurrences.

  The police asked if I was an immediate relative. I insisted that I was her son’s fiancee. That’s how I was able to hold onto Minwoo’s laptop and the cardboard boxes stuffed with photo albums and the five thick spiral-bound notebooks that she’d been writing in. Once I had the photo albums in my room though, I realised I shouldn’t have bothered with those. I didn’t know what to do with all the photos. I decided to hold onto them for the time being, and to later take them to the quiet riverside in Chungju where Minwoo had died, and burn them there.

  As I was carrying the last of her items out of the apartment, I noticed a flowerpot in the corridor outside her front door. It was overgrown with foxtails. They were yellowed and starting to wither, as if they’d been neglected for a while. I told myself she couldn’t possibly have planted them on purpose, that the seeds must have been blown into the pot by the wind and sprouted there. But at the same time, someone must have watered them for them to grow that lush in the first place.

  *

  Lately, I’ve been absorbed in reading her memoirs. She wrote so much. I don’t know when she had time to do all that typing; she’d already transferred the contents of one of her big notebooks to the laptop. The originals were fairly rough, but it looked like she’d edited them as she typed. With a little more editing, it would be publishable. Then one day, while reading, I had a crazy idea. I knew who her first reader should be.

  I started using my spare time to create an abridged version of her journals, just like writing a treatment, and contacted him using her name. I already knew a lot about him. Several times a day I looked up news articles and information on him online. Each time I wrote to him, I became Cha Soona of Moon Hollow. I even had a dream one night where I took his hand and walked out of this basement room. I dreamt that I’d come back from the convenience store and had fallen asleep in the middle of writing. A heavy rain poured down, and muddy water surged down the stairs into my room. In a flash, the room was submerged. As I floundered, Kim Minwoo reached out to me and said we had to go now. I grabbed his hand and barely made it out. But when I looked, it was the other Minwoo, Mr Park.

  It’s time now for me to exit the stage. I reply to Mr Park’s email. Jung Woohee and Cha Soona clamour and compete for the spotlight. But as soon as my fingers touch the keyboard, I become her. Dear Minwoo, I would love to see you, too …

  I arrive at the location an hour early to take a look around. I don’t know what it looked like back then, but it doesn’t have any of the charm that I’d seen in Minwoo’s mother’s writing. The ridgeline bristles with apartment buildings; the whole place looks like a fortress. Clusters of leaves turning colour cling to tall trees that are just starting to bare their branches. Pines and firs line the paved roads. A young mother pushes a stroller down a sidewalk blanketed in red, orange, and yellow leaves. Children play with a white puppy. Their clear peals of laughter rise into the air.

  I walk downhill from the apartment buildings to a hotel on the main street. I heard that it used to be a movie theatre. I go to the lounge on the top floor and sit in the very back, next to the window. I had scouted out the location already and decided where I would sit. The floor-to-ceiling windows face east; the afternoon shadows are advancing. The apartment buildings block all view of the mountains.

  At the agreed-upon time, Mr Park enters. He wears a dark gray suit with no tie. When he glances around, I lower my head to avoid his eyes. He comes over to the window and stands there a moment, looking out. Maybe he’s looking for some trace of the old neighbourhood. A waiter comes and leads him to a table. He takes his time sitting down, facing away from me. Right in front of me is his gray hair and the bald spot at the top of his head. His shoulders are slumped, causing the back of his jacket to bunch up. Elderly men always look a little melancholy from behind. He keeps gazing out the window, then swiveling his head toward the entrance, as if suddenly remembering something. He is facing his past, but his past is my present. He pushes up his sleeve to check his watch. Twenty minutes have passed already. I get up and walk over to him. When I am right next to him, his phone rings. He answers it.

  Yes, it’s Dad. How are you?

  I keep walking quietly past and go outside. I don’t know how long he’ll stay there, but I don’t think it will take long for him to realise that there is no point in waiting. I might have to be Cha Soona for a while longer. It makes my life bearable, and there’s still more story to be told. Some of it is my story, and some of it is Cha Soona’s unfinished story.

  …

  My daughter told me that she was coming to Korea for the winter. Her husband was on sabbatical and wanted to come, too. I accidentally blurted out, And your mother? Just us, she said. She was quiet for a moment, and then said, Really, Dad, how come you’ve never visited even once? She sounded resentful.

  I waited thirty more minutes after hanging up, but Soona didn’t come. I debated whether to wait a little longer, but then thought better of it and got up to leave. She was the one who picked this place, so why didn’t she show up?

  Outside, the sun was already setting. Beneath the trees heavy with autumn foliage, yellowed foxtails were waving in the breeze.

  Look at this. The housekeeper says it’s all weeds. You can tell them apart by their colour. They’re lighter than grass. Grass grows together neatly, but with these, you have to rake around them one by one with a hoe and yank them out by the roots.

  My wife used to love explaining this sort of thing to me at great length, as if it were some amazing fact, all while pulling weeds from the yard and showing them to me. I would sit on the deck under a sun umbrella and glance over at her to pretend I was listening, then turn back to the newspaper.

  They grow so fast
that if you don’t do anything about them, they’ll destroy your lawn. See? How they’re spread all over the lawn?

  Every summer, my wife liked to sit in the yard and grumble and pull weeds. After returning from the US and going into architecture, nearly a decade passed before I got around to buying land in a new suburb of Seoul and building a house of my own design. Initially, my wife hated the idea of pulling weeds and getting her hands dirty, but the other women in the neighbourhood got together every spring and went around in twos and threes to plant flowers. Seeing that triggered my wife’s competitive side. She was a neat freak who liked to keep up with the neighbours and couldn’t stand anything unsightly. She became temporarily obsessed with fixing up the yard, and planted the garden with all sort of rare wildflowers. The yard was tiny, but it took a lot of work to cultivate it. Once the house was built, I claimed that I was too busy to do anything else, and besides, I had no interest in doing yardwork. My wife asked why I’d insisted on moving into a house with a yard if I was going to be that way, and complained endlessly about how scary it was to be alone in the house at night.

  I found myself wondering when we’d started planting grass in yards anyway. Traditionally, courtyards were lined with sand or dirt, with a small flowerbed near the wall planted with rose moss, balsam, asters, hydrangea, or with vegetables. Grass didn’t even make sense in our climate, and besides, the only place we really planted grass in Korea was on top of graves. And yet, from some point on, grass started showing up in people’s yards and came to signify that they were middle-class. One day, I was standing out in the yard and debating whether to just plow up all the grass and replace it with sand when I spotted some familiar, downy-looking plants poking up among the flowers. My wife and the housekeeper had missed a few while weeding, and now they’d revealed their identity. It was foxtails. I walked over to pull them from the earth, but stopped myself. They looked kind of nice there, mixed in with the flowers that had been planted on purpose.