Lost Souls

by Hwang Sunwon

  But Maktong’s grandfather didn’t have time to kill himself even if he’d really wanted to. His immediate priority was to do something about those weeds in the rainwater paddy—everywhere it was open to view, all you saw was weeds. The first thing he had to do was go out to the paddy.

  One day Chŏn P’ilsu went out to check on the sluice gates of his paddies and saw Maktong’s grandfather off in the distance. Looks like he’s simmered down, he thought. He waited until Maktong’s grandfather had gone home for lunch and paid him a visit.

  Maktong’s grandfather had just stepped outside, intending to go back out to the fields. Maktong had come down with malaria, and the old man had decided to dig up some granny flower roots, which were supposed to be good medicine, and send them home with Chŏmsun, who was in tow.

  After greeting the old man, Chŏn said, “I’m afraid I’ve made a huge mistake. I never dreamed that Maktong’s father frequented those places. No one in his right mind would have done what I did knowing that. I just now found out. Please, sir, don’t think ill of me. I will cancel my agreement with him right now.”

  “Why should I think ill of you? It’s all because that no-good son of mine is in a damnable state of mind. I’m right thankful for your offer, but where am I going to get the money?”

  Thinking he had done well to show his generosity in offering to cancel the agreement, Chŏn said, “People are saying I bought very cheaply, your house included, but the house was never part of the bargain, only the land, and I paid ten wŏn a p’yŏng.” By saying this he wanted Maktong’s grandfather to think that even if the money for the land had disappeared by now, he had paid a reasonable price for it. “Well, the price isn’t the point—if I had known what kind of man Maktong’s father is, I wouldn’t have bought at any price,” he added by way of reiterating that Maktong’s grandfather should not think ill of him.

  The damnable person in this affair was sure enough his own damned son, Maktong’s grandfather thought. Near the pass behind the village he began digging for granny flower roots, but he couldn’t seem to get this thought out of his mind, and only when Chŏmsun took his arm and said, “Grandfather, what are you doing?” did he realize that he was digging up plants other than granny flowers.

  After he had dug up two granny flower roots they went down to the stream, where Maktong’s grandfather washed them as clean as he would have washed a gutted fish. And then, as if he had just begun to feel the hot sun, he left the roots spread out on some grass where they wouldn’t get dirty, took off his clothes, and waded into the water. It would be good to take a dip before going back to work in the paddy.

  The water level didn’t come up to a man’s navel, so he had to crouch down in order to get in up to his neck. After giving his face a good splashing of water, he finally seemed more composed and he turned to Chŏmsun: “Come on in.”

  The girl obliged.

  “Come here,” he said in the gentle voice of a grandfather.

  But Chŏmsun had no mind to venture deeper than where the water went up to her knees.

  Her grandfather came to her and swept her up in his arms. She clung fast to his neck. Even before the water reached her waist, she cried out and tried to squirm upward.

  “My goodness, you’re falling, you’re falling,” her grandfather said as he lowered her into the stream. White whiskers trailing in the water, he produced a broad smile that revealed a mouth with no front teeth. Where in that wrinkled, leaden, dead-looking face had that smile come from?

  But after he had washed Chŏmsun’s face, emerged from the water, and dressed, the smile disappeared before you knew it, and there again was his wrinkled, leaden, dead-looking face. Placing the two granny flower roots in Chŏmsun’s hand, he said, “Give these to your mom,” in a tone that was no longer gentle.

  Straightaway he set out for the lower village, where his family’s paddy was located, plodding like an ox and weighed down by the thought that he should hurry up and do his weeding while the ground was still wet, and that if Maktong weren’t sick in bed, his mom could be there to lend a helping hand, and that the damnable person in this whole affair was his own damned son.

  The two granny flower roots were placed in Maktong’s ears. The roots were potent enough that they first needed wrapping in a scrap of cloth, but after a night of this treatment the insides of the boy’s ears were swollen and puffy and no one could tell if the roots were having an effect on the malaria. From daylight the next day Maktong began to shiver uncontrollably, and then his entire body was on fire. This was clearly a case of diurnal malaria.

  Eleven-year-old Maktong was by himself in the family room, lying on his back. His mother had joined the others in the fields. Chŏmsun was in the front courtyard playing house beneath a blazing sun.

  The fever-ridden boy kicked away his ragged quilt. A swarm of flies buzzed about his blackened mouth and his nose, but Maktong kept his eyes closed and didn’t move. The only sign of life was the rapid heaving of his chest. All was still, both inside and outside the wide-open door. Now and then Chŏmsun would mutter to herself, but her voice didn’t carry into the room. A rooster crowed, the sound as long and lazy as this midsummer day, as if to say there was life in the world outside. But the crowing was slower and more feeble than the beating of Maktong’s heart. When it faded, there was only dead silence.

  Suddenly Chŏmsun rushed inside. “Brother, Brother, come look, look!”

  Maktong didn’t move.

  “Brother, look there! The bees, the bees!”

  Finally Maktong opened his bloodshot eyes and stared at Chŏmsun, unable to make out her words because of the granny flower roots in his ears.

  “Look there!” Chŏmsun blubbered, pointing toward the beehives. “The bees!”

  Maktong sprang to his feet. He saw that the bees were on the move, a basket-sized swarm that was one moment rounded and the next moment elongated, already high up and moving off into the western sky. Oh my god! Before he knew it he was running off after the swarm. He remembered his grandfather saying a few days earlier that there were too many bees and he needed to move some of them—now he could see why. If he didn’t get those bees where they first lighted, they would be gone forever. A couple of years earlier something similar had happened, the bees swarming out on their own because they hadn’t been divided up and given more space. The bees had lighted at the pass behind their house, where some villagers gathering wood had spotted them. But by the time Maktong and his father and grandfather had run there to retrieve them, the swarm had taken off, and for as long as they chased it the bees didn’t light again and finally were lost. This time he had to get them when they lighted. Oh my god! Beneath the blazing sun he ran after the bees on shaky legs, calling out to them. Chŏmsun didn’t know what else to do and ran, whimpering, after her brother.

  The swarm came to rest in a willow tree outside the entrance to the village. Maktong ordered Chŏmsun to stay there and ran off toward home. He reappeared shortly, coming around the village drinking house, a net on a pole resting on his shoulder and inside it a clump of wax from the beehive. He went to the base of the willow and, before he had stopped panting, began crawling up it. Before he could reach the first branch he slid helplessly back down. He had to catch his breath and he did so clutching the tree, a cheek resting against it, his eyes closed.

  At the cost of repeated stings, he finally managed to get the swarm, with the queen bee in the middle, to settle around the clump of wax inside the net, and then he returned home, where he collapsed on the floor of the family room. A feverish moaning escaped his lips. Beside him, inside the net covered by the ragged quilt, the bees buzzed as if to keep Maktong company until the adults returned.

  The following morning when Maktong’s grandfather left for the fields he looked back at the house seemingly for the first time in days. It was leaning more than ever. Someone seeing it for the first time might have been reluctant to venture near, thinking it was about to collapse. Because the family had more important things to
do at that time, their only recourse was to temporarily shore up the leaning area with wood.

  They called Big Nose the carpenter, and as he was selecting some of the timbers obtained by the family for the repairs, he saw Chŏn P’ilsu rounding the corner of the rock wall out front. He looked as if he had been keeping an eye on the house and waiting for this moment to visit.

  After the customary greetings Chŏn spoke to Maktong’s grandfather: “Goodness sakes, this is going to need more than a couple of timbers. I’ve been meaning to mention this, but I wasn’t sure what you’d think and so I kept quiet. . . . You know that farming shack down in the lower village? What would you think about moving there? It doesn’t have doors, but we could hang these good doors there and move you in right away.”

  Maktong’s grandfather couldn’t help but feel thankful. Big Nose the carpenter said, “That’s a good idea. Then I can fix the house up right.” And so the family began preparing immediately for their move.

  It so happened that Slit Eyes was home just then depositing his winnings and learned of the move, and he reported this to Maktong’s father when he returned to the gambling den. For a time Maktong’s father simply stared at his cards as if he hadn’t heard; then he flung the cards down and rose.

  On his way to Sŏdanggol Maktong’s father kept thinking he was forgetting something. He wondered if it was because he had left in the middle of a winning streak. He kept asking himself what he had forgotten and finally realized he hadn’t bought that ox. But that other man, the one who had bought the ox, had probably slaughtered it by now. Oh well, he could always buy an ox later. First he had to get the land back. But the agreed-upon date had passed—what if Chŏn refused? I’ll beg. I’ll beg him if it kills me. But what if he still refused? What if he flat-out refused? A dismal feeling came over him.

  He crested the pass and looked down to see that his family seemed mostly to have left already. There was only his father off to the side of the yard, near the beehive.

  Maktong’s father went straight down to Chŏn’s house. As soon as Chŏn saw him he noticed his face was frightfully distorted and wondered if he would soon be hearing some outrageous story about the loss of a gambling stake.

  Inside, Maktong’s father produced a wad of money from his pocket and slid it toward Chŏn.

  “I want my land back.”

  Chŏn slowly counted the money, kept only the amount that covered the land sale, and said, “This is all I need.” And with that he returned the rest of the money and the sales contract to Maktong’s father.

  Maktong’s father left, dazed by this unexpected display of generosity and vowing never again to sell the family land, no matter how desperate he might be. A good portion of daylight remained and he told himself he would wait until dark to go home. In the meantime, how about a drink at the village drinking house? On his way there he encountered some villagers on their way home with beef they had purchased. He had thought that Chungbok, the middle of the three Dog Days, had already passed; he realized now that it was the very next day. He decided he ought to buy a few pounds of meat for his family. He went to see the slaughterer, who lived in Magpie Hollow, and there he learned that the meat was from the ox the man had purchased in the upper village and had slaughtered that very day.

  Maktong’s father bought a couple of pounds of beef, and returning to Sŏdanggol, he found an idle boy and sent him home with it before continuing on to the village drinking house. Red dragon-flies flew low in the sky, as if they had sensed an oncoming rain shower. Maktong’s father had just finished his second bowl of makkŏlli when Song Saengwŏn passed by outside on his way home from the fields.

  Catching sight of Maktong’s father, Song came inside, saying, “Is that you?” and half hoping Maktong’s father would feel inclined to buy him a bowl of makkŏlli. Maktong’s father did just that. Song drank the bowl in a few gulps, then licked his lips clean.

  “I heard you won big,” he said with an insinuating look at his counterpart, thinking it would be nice to have another bowl of makkŏlli.

  “Not really.” Maktong’s father displayed the sales contract for the land.

  “So you got it back.” Seeing this, Song told himself, Maybe there’s hope for this guy after all. “Well done. . . . So he just gave it to you? Didn’t make a stink?”

  “Yes, just like that. No argument.”

  “Good for him. That Chŏn P’ilsu is some kind of man. So, all’s well that ends well.”

  It was the perfect occasion for Maktong’s father to be treating, thought Song, and with that he had the barmaid refill his bowl.

  Song was about to drink from his newly filled bowl when the interior grew dark and from a distance came the sound of raindrops. The next instant they felt a gust of moisture-laden air, and then the rain came pouring down. Bowl still raised halfway to his mouth, Song said, “A good soaking downpour—” What came next might have been “would be nice” or “is just what we need,” but whatever he said was lost in the clamor of the rain shower.

  Song finished his second bowl as quickly as the first, and as he was licking his lips and his mustache the shower abruptly ceased. There followed crimson twilight that was uncommonly bright, and then dusk began to settle. Song had not had supper, and the two bowls of makkŏlli on an empty stomach did the job. To Maktong’s father, who had silently been drinking his makkŏlli, he said, “Well done, I mean it—but I’m not so sure you can quit. I guess we’ll see. And you cut off your thumb as a reminder, but . . .” Even though he was tipsy, Song realized he shouldn’t talk that way, especially since he was being treated, so he added, “Still, I say well done—I mean it. Getting back the land you sold. . . . You know, you ought to build yourself a new house. Well done—really. . . . Well, we’ll see what happens. . . .” Song had meant to say something pleasing to Maktong’s father, but decided that in his tipsy condition the words might come out wrong again, so he rose. “Well, I ought to get going.” And out he went.

  So, he thinks I can’t stop? And I’ll end up selling off the land again? Damned old man, I ought to rip out that yap of yours. . . . Well, it was true that he’d gambled in secret from the time he could count, and when caught by his father he’d been beaten with a pine bough until the side branches broke off, and still he hadn’t stopped, and even now. . . . But this time was different. I’ll quit if it kills me! But as Song Saengwŏn had said—No, no way!—but—No, no way!

  When Maktong’s father emerged from the drinking house it was pitch dark. There was no moon.

  The following morning the body of Maktong’s father was discovered beneath the ruins of the house. He was embracing one of the pillars on the side of the house that had been leaning—evidently he had pushed it, causing the house to collapse on top of him. But the villagers couldn’t decide if he had been trying to kill himself or if in his drunken state he had been trying to take down the house but couldn’t escape once it gave way. The collapse of the house had knocked out part of Chŏn P’ilsu’s back wall. Maktong’s grandfather, afraid the bees wouldn’t find their way back to the hives because of the evening rain shower and the onset of darkness, had decided when the family moved to leave the hives behind until the following evening. He had now buried those hives, but the bees continued to crawl out and fly away. It was as if they were departing the body of Maktong’s father.

  That night a vigil was held in the farming shack and Chŏn arrived with a crock of makkŏlli. He sat with the village elders as they offered each other drinks, then turned to Maktong’s grandfather, who was sitting next to the boy. Whether it was the granny flower roots or the shock of the events of the past two days, Maktong had recovered from his bout with malaria, though he was still drawn. To Maktong’s grandfather Chŏn said that until their new house was built they could continue to live in the hut; he asked only that they repair his back wall.

  The circle of villagers nodded in spite of themselves, acknowledging the compassion of this man Chŏn. Song Saengwŏn, observing the gathering, was as moved a
s anyone by Chŏn’s benevolence, but it suddenly occurred to him that the more compassionate such a man became, the more likely it was that Maktong’s family would eventually come under his thumb. But when it was his turn to be offered a drink, he put such thoughts aside. Let’s have that drink! And he proceeded to gulp his bowl of makkŏlli with a flourish.

  The day after the burial of his son, Maktong’s grandfather took his family to Chŏn’s house and they set about repairing the wall. No one spoke. A solitary bee circled the ruins of the shed and flew off overhead while Maktong and his family went to work. Perhaps it had lost its way, or maybe it was flying by instinct to its former home.

  No one seemed to notice the bee except Maktong. No sooner did his drawn face look up than his field of vision was blocked by a gigantic tile-roof house. But the next moment his gaze had streamed over the roofline of the house and out to the skies beyond.

  August 1946

  BULLS

  Pau just couldn’t put his mind at ease. Surely something was going to happen to his father tonight. Pau was with the other boys twining sack-rope in Sshidol’s family’s work shed. He stopped his work and went outside, pretending he had to pee.