Lost Souls

by Hwang Sunwon

  “The wheat must have ripened by now.”

  It was a cloudy day, but the mention of ears of wheat made me feel nostalgic for the first time in a while.

  “Do you realize what a stir you caused that night you got so sick gobbling wheat off the stalks?”

  She looked in my direction for a time, then with the back of her hand wiped the tears squirting from her eyes. “You got scared within an inch of your life, and then the next night you went right back out and did it again. I was terribly worried.”

  “Did I used to wander the fields back then?”

  “Yes, and you didn’t come back till dark. I worried so much. By the way, your father wants you to go down to the countryside and take care of the harvest. I wonder how you’re ever going to last even a few days in the country—there isn’t much variety in the food, and the insects have always feasted on you. I’m afraid you won’t be able to tolerate it. But whatever your father tells you, just keep quiet and don’t talk back. I’ll do the talking. Before we die, you need to learn something about managing a family. We’re not going to live forever, you know.”

  “There you go again, talking about dying.”

  “When you grow old like us, that’s all you think about—except for the grandchildren.”

  I found the beginning of a line that our boy had probably drawn on the wall, and wondered if, when he was older, he’d have the same conversation with his mother that I was having now with mine. That wouldn’t do, I decided, and in my imagination I forcefully shook my head no.

  My wife was in the family room unraveling a skein of thread that our boy appeared to have tangled up. Beside her the boy was by himself, playing with his ball.

  I looked down at him and said to my wife, “If I go down to the countryside to help with the harvest and come back with my face all sunburned, all I’ll have to do is look at him and he’ll start crying.”

  The boy looked in my direction; he seemed to have forgotten his ball.

  Before I knew it, there was my wife bringing the ties of her jacket to her eyes again.

  The thing that aggravated me was not so much her crying at the drop of a hat as it was the dirtiness of those jacket ties.

  Head lowered, she blurted, “If you want me to go live somewhere else, I will.”

  “Stop touching your eyes with those dirty things.”

  She immediately let go of the ties.

  “But even if I did, part of me will always be here.”

  “So I should leave? And how would I survive?” So saying, I laughed for the first time in a long while.

  My wife’s shoulders heaved, but she wept silently.

  I tilted back the mirror on the dressing table beside her. A portion of the ceiling filled the mirror. I tilted the mirror forward and my wife appeared.

  My wife in the mirror spoke to herself: “The one I feel sorry for is the boy.” And she proceeded to weep more sorrowfully than the situation demanded.

  The boy was cutting up a scrap of cloth with the scissors as if oblivious to it all.

  Mother probably said the same thing to yours truly every time Father went to visit his concubine.

  I’ll see if I can feel sorry for myself, I thought. But then I considered both the self that wanted to feel sorry for himself and the self that was being felt sorry for. Which was my real self?

  And with Father feeling sorry for himself and not fault-finding these days, which was my real father?

  His latest refrain went something like this: “As long as I’m alive you’ll never be able to do as you want, because I worked too hard for what I’ve earned to turn it over to you now,” followed immediately by something like, “Which is not to say I’ll be living that much longer.”

  The fingers of his left hand trembled more now, as if to express the long suffering he had experienced in making a success of himself.

  Beside him, hunched over and worrying as always, Mother said, “When we’re dead you can do things your own way. I’m sure you’ll have your own thoughts about raising Changson.”

  Father merely swallowed. His neck looked so slender.

  Once again I played with the notion of which of them would pass on first. But when my thoughts reached the point that upon their passing, the responsibility for our family life would rest with me, I felt a stinging in my chest.

  Father and Mother mustn’t pass away, they mustn’t.

  “Changson, fetch me that broom,” said Mother to our boy, who was playing with his ball.

  I picked up the broom beside me and held it out in front of the boy. Mother stretched out her hand for it. I ignored her and offered the broom to the boy.

  He hesitated before accepting it, then with an effort, as if it was too heavy for him, he passed it on to Mother.

  Father and Mother mustn’t pass away, they mustn’t.

  Father was feeling sorry for himself. “I had gravestones made for us, seeing as how you wouldn’t have a mind to do it yourself,” he murmured.

  Who else but yours truly, though, would be the one to have the dates of their passing carved on those gravestones?

  In the end, I couldn’t let Father get away with thinking about death and feeling sorry for himself. So like him I murmured, loud enough for him to hear, “I’ll probably end up losing the land, family burial ground and all—I don’t even know what’s ours anymore.”

  The Dog of Crossover Village

  BOOZE

  When the Nakamura distillery in Sŏsŏng-ni was taken over, Chunho was chosen to manage it. In terms of age and work experience he was a logical choice. For one thing, the distillery was the only place he had ever worked, starting there in his mid-twenties running errands and now as a head clerk who had passed the milestone age of forty. And this is spite of an education consisting solely of the Chinese character primer he had memorized back at the old-time village school. And so his rise from errand boy to head clerk he had accomplished entirely on his own; his native intelligence enabled him to assimilate what he saw and heard, but much of his success was also due to his characteristic persistence. The result was that Chunho knew the distillery business inside and out—if you ever wondered how a distillery worked, he would be the one to ask.

  Add to this the fact that Chunho had made every effort to prevent Nakamura from looting the distillery after the August 15, 1945 Liberation. Chunho had by then taken up residence with his family in the night watchman’s room at the distillery, so he could keep an eye on the buildings day and night.

  Nakamura’s primary facility was a large grain warehouse in Chinnamp’o, and that was where the boss could generally be found. He was there on Liberation Day, and in the following days he and his men made several attempts to drive off with a truckload of soju from the distillery. But Chunho was always there to stop them, the first line of defense. Danger lurked everywhere, what with disarmament not yet accomplished and people more often than not in a vicious frame of mind. And yet Chunho refused to negotiate with Nakamura and his men. “From now on, everything’s ours!” This declaration by Kŏnsŏp, a clerk who worked with Chunho, filled Chunho with heartfelt emotion.

  Nakamura and his men gave up on the soju and tried to drive off with the trucks alone, but once again Chunho was there to stop them. At one point a Japanese approached Chunho on behalf of Nakamura, subtly nudged him out of sight, and placed in his hand a roll of hundred-wŏn notes. Chunho, already surprised at being approached, grew bug-eyed at the sight of the money; he took the roll and threw it in the man’s face, the notes scattering to the ground. There were no further overtures from Nakamura.

  Because he had proved so passionate and tenacious in his stewardship of the distillery, and with the time nigh for the appropriation of Japanese businesses, it was only natural that Chunho was chosen by his co-workers to be the new manager. His first order of business was to register the distillery, renamed the Yugyŏng Distillery, with the authorities. The same day, he prepared to move from the night watchman’s room to the manager’s residence. It w
as unusual to have lived with one’s family in the same rented room for fifteen years or so, as Chunho had, the kitchen never failing to take in water during the summer monsoons, but his circumstances had been difficult and the rent was cheap. But unavoidably, the house in which they had rented this room had been torn down that spring—it was among a cluster of dwellings that had to be thinned out amid fears of an Allied firebombing—and in searching for another room he found not only that rents were exorbitant but also that no one would let a room to a family with so many children (five of them—Chunho had started a family somewhat later than others). He felt as frustrated as the proverbial mute who can’t express his feelings to a beautiful woman and he began to recite to himself, If you want to live inside the city walls of Pyongyang you can’t have offspring; otherwise you’re out of luck. Finally he had decided to move his family into the night watchman’s room at the distillery, after first throwing together a makeshift kitchen next to it. He was fortunate to have found a rent-free place to live, but it couldn’t be considered permanent, so it made sense for him to take advantage of the opportunity to move into the residence of the former distillery manager.

  The day before Chunho was to move, a rumor arrived that Nakamura, under cover of night, had loaded a truck with his most valuable household possessions and had fled Chinnamp’o for Seoul. The same day, Chunho and three other employees went to the manager’s residence to ask the current occupants to vacate and to prepare for his family’s arrival the following day. The house was on the eastern fringe of Namsan in Pyongyang and had a south-facing view.

  At first glance the home appeared somewhat weathered, but it was well designed, with a U-shaped structure and an outer wall plastered with cement. It had seen four occupants, whom Chunho had visited to pay the customary New Year’s greetings, but all that this involved was leaving his business card at the front gate; he had never seen the living spaces of the home. A week or so before Liberation the former manager had suddenly died of a heart ailment and Chunho had gone to offer condolences, but he had been received in a visitor’s room off the entrance, where he had kneeled on the tatami floor to pay his respects before departing. So he knew little about the layout of the interior. Before, this hadn’t really been an issue, because there had been something forbidding about this house. But now, as it came into view in its not-so-cramped alley, Chunho felt the peace of mind of a homeowner, and this gave him a sense of satisfaction.

  Chunho’s only reaction when they arrived was that the house looked somehow vacant. He wondered if this was because only women had lived there after the passing of the manager: the man’s widow, who was in her early fifties; her daughter-in-law (her son had been drafted into the Imperial Army); and their maid. Or had the three women fled with Nakamura to Seoul? And the front door, which would open to the tinkling of a bell, was locked. Chunho ventured a hello, to which a woman’s voice responded from a distance, almost as if from another house. There followed the even more distant sound of footsteps coming down a hallway, and finally the door opened.

  Instead of the maid it was the aging widow who appeared. The woman probably hadn’t seen Chunho more than two or three times, but she seemed to recognize him, even though he was wearing Western rather than Japanese clothing. More surprising, she proceeded to kneel before them—a courtesy not even the maid had extended to him—and bow repeatedly. The woman’s skin had a familiar metallic bluish cast and exhibited the loss of elasticity characteristic of those entering old age, but she looked thinner since her husband’s passing, and her skin was darker and coarser. Chunho explained the purpose of his visit, then left the woman where she was and entered the reception room.

  Thinking they should wipe out every last vestige of the Japanese presence, in accordance with Kŏnsŏp’s “Everything’s ours!” Chunho called out “Comrades!” and proceeded to remove all the scrolls and framed pictures from the walls. Some of the scrolls were carefully taken down and rolled up, others were pulled down so forcefully that they ripped across the middle. “It’s all right—do what you want with that Japanese crap,” was all Chunho said.

  The tatami mats were still serviceable. With houses, once you set your hand to renovating them the expenses never stopped, and with that thought in mind Chunho looked into the next room and saw that the mats there were also in good condition. As he was thinking that there ought to be a room with the traditional heated floor, and hoping that such a room wouldn’t need repairs, he looked up and a paulownia wardrobe caught his eye. Let’s get this Japanese stuff out of sight.

  Chunho was about to return to the woman, but there she was right behind him, her face a mixture of surprise, sorrow, and fear. Was she so attached to the house and its furnishings? He asked where the storage room was. The woman indicated a far corner of the house and said she would show Chunho the way. “Comrades!” Chunho called out, and he instructed the others to remove the wardrobe to the storage room.

  The next room was small and had a wooden floor. The paper-paneled door had been slid open and sunlight flooded the inside. Chunho’s eye was drawn to a potted plum tree resting on a table. It was the same kind of miniature plum tree that had occupied the table in the manager’s office at the distillery. Rumor had it that the manager, who himself had had the emaciated, desiccated appearance of this little plum, was more fond of plum trees than any other flowering tree. Now that Chunho thought about it, this might have had something to do with the fact that the owner himself, Nakamura, was even more enamored of plum trees. According to what Chunho had heard, the manager had come to know Nakamura while working at a bank in Chinnamp’o; until then he had never been that fond of plum trees, but upon learning that Nakamura liked them immensely he had read books on the subject and had proceeded to cultivate a miniature plum tree, and at some point in his dealings with Nakamura had presented the tree to him and had then obtained the position of manager at the distillery. But according to another report, the manager had always been fond of plum trees. Plum tree enthusiasts had formed an association and held an exhibition in Chinnamp’o, and it was there the manager and Nakamura had been introduced. At the time, through his position at the bank, the manager had frequent business dealings with Nakamura and the two men became close. The manager had once visited Nakamura at his home, at which time he noticed a stand with a miniature plum tree with two blossoms and commented that when there were two plum blossoms a third one would ruin the mood, and in this way he ingratiated himself to Nakamura, who thought likewise, and in the end it had been an offer from Nakamura and not a request from the manager that brought the latter to the distillery.

  Chunho took this plum tree and left for the storage room, intending to dispose of it just as he had the plum tree in the manager’s office at the distillery. The storage room was where the woman had indicated, at the end of one of the wings of the U-shaped house.

  Opposite the storage room was another reception room, this one a Western-style space that was filled just then with dazzling sunlight. One of the men was removing a picture from the wall. The other two were about to leave for the storage room with another miniature plum and a potted white chrysanthemum. Chunho asked the man with the chrysanthemum to leave it.

  The chairs, sofa, and carpet looked the worse for wear, but still had some use left in them. The woman was standing to the side. She had managed to compress her large frame into a deferential, hunched-over posture but gave no indication that she would leave the men to themselves. Seeing how attached she was to her furnishings, Chunho advised the woman that she need concern herself no longer with the house. The woman responded with a deep bow, as if in agreement, and said that as long as she had to give up the house and furnishings, she was happy that they were going to Chunho.

  In replying to the woman, Chunho again relied on something Kŏnsŏp had said: as far as the assets of the Japanese in Korea were concerned, originally they had all belonged to Koreans—what had the Japanese brought from Japan?—and since they had arrived empty-handed, wasn’t it enough
that they had lived well in Korea? What did they have to be dissatisfied about? They ought to be thankful that they had survived safe and sound. Luckily for them, there were Koreans living in Japan who needed to return home, so the Koreans in Korea had to exercise forbearance with the Japanese. Why, the very fact that Koreans couldn’t raise a hand against the Japanese even after Liberation showed just how much the Japanese had stripped Korea during thirty-six years of colonial rule. While saying this to the woman, Chunho realized yet again that there was something to what the young clerk Kŏnsŏp had said. He then told the woman that it wouldn’t do to complain about having to give up the house and the furnishings and such—why should they feel dissatisfied, anyway? The woman once again bowed deeply and said that she and her family had come to the same conclusion, and as she had just said, she was happy to know that the house was passing on to Chunho. Still, Chunho could see in her face that the woman had yet to give up her attachment to living there.

  Along the corridor that led to the toilet was an open door that revealed a large room in which there sat a young woman who looked to be not yet thirty. She started as they entered, and her bowed head sank lower. This must be the wife of the manager’s only son, who had left to fight in the war. The room was layered with tatami mats, and the various household items indicated it was being used as the family room. Among the furnishings was a new paulownia wardrobe, probably the wife’s.

  Here too Chunho instructed the others to carry off to the storage room whatever they found. While the men were removing the room’s contents the young woman seemed frozen for eternity, head bowed. The widow for her part asked Chunho over and over again what if he simply left the things where they were for his family to use, since she and her family no longer needed them. Chunho replied that he and his family had lived without such items till now, and so he had no interest in them. Chunho’s gaze wandered off to the side, and when the widow saw where he was looking she cried out in surprise. Only then did the young woman look up, and when the widow nodded toward the wall she rose in alarm.