by Hwang Sunwon
All these outcries Pau had heard from the villagers. And every time, he couldn’t help thinking back to when he and his father had gone to Ch’ungju in autumn two years ago to buy the bull calf. They had to borrow money first, and that was when Pau had seen all the sacks of rice stacked to the ceiling of Old Kim Long Pipe’s storehouse. And the ink-black iron padlock bigger than a man’s fist.
Again they came to mind, the storeroom filled with sacks of rice and the padlock on the door. That padlock wasn’t about to open. And that led to the image of something whipping down. But not to break open the padlock; rather to break the back of his squirming father. Pau imagined his father’s back giving out, his father collapsing on the spot. Now I’ll have to carry Father. I can do it. That time Father’s back gave out in the middle of the harvest, I carried him home on my own back, didn’t I—even though I had to stop for a rest three times along the way.
The sky couldn’t have been darker; not a star was to be seen. When his father had muttered to himself that morning about the moon not being out until later in the evening, Pau didn’t know if his father was hoping for a moon or for no moon, but for Pau on a night like this, even a waning moon would have been welcome. And if not the moon, then even a sprinkling of stars. And just then there appeared far ahead a cluster of stars. Wow, they’re beautiful! But the next moment he realized they were the lights of Ch’ungju. This was the first time he had seen Ch’ungju at night. Before he knew it he had arrived at Masŭmak Pass, comfortably warmed from the effort of following the villagers uphill. There at the high point of the pass the breeze, absent till then, swept past his ears and down his back. Pau didn’t mind.
The next instant he was telling himself he had to be ready, and his hand tightened on the backrack stick. But what was this? Instead of heading straight down into Ch’ungju the villagers were making their way up the left-hand slopes of Nam Mountain. He couldn’t understand it, but he climbed after them nevertheless. And then it seemed they had staked out an area and squatted. Pau squatted too, still keeping his distance. As ever, no one was speaking.
Pau heard someone cough, and then cough again. It sounded like Kŏbuk’s big brother. He could tell that Kŏbuk’s brother was standing, not squatting, and that he wasn’t coughing in Pau’s direction but in the opposite direction instead.
And then from out of the darkness in the opposite direction came a similar cough, followed by the sound of movement. Who? Pau’s heart began pounding. And then someone, it looked like Kŏbuk’s brother, was moving straight toward the oncoming person. Pau heard whispers. Much to his relief, the two whispering voices were not arguing. And then he noticed that they were not the only ones on Nam Mountain. He could now see many other people as well, villagers like them, also squatting. Pau felt safer.
And it was better now that he could see light coming from the streets of Ch’ungju. It was almost like having starlight. That place off to the left, where a lot of light was concentrated, had to be the train station. Pau heard no whistle—when would the next train be coming? Wouldn’t it be fun to take a train to Seoul sometime? And now he was imagining a bus coming into Ch’ungju by way of the main street in front of the train station, a bus from Seoul, raising a cloud of dust as it rattled along and then coming to a stop, and passengers getting off, quite a few of them. How could so many people fit into that little thing? Now it was the bus he wanted to ride, rattling and shaking, to Seoul.
Hmm, where is the bus station anyway? His eyes scanned the lighted streets of Ch’ungju. There? Or there? He remembered it being across the alley and a couple houses down from where Old Kim Long Pipe lived, and then his eyes came to rest on an area that was brighter than anywhere else—maybe there. And popping up once again in his mind’s eye was that magnificent house of Kim’s that he and his father had visited the year before last, when they had come to Ch’ungju to buy the bull calf.
As soon as his father had entered the stately gate that time, he had bowed from the waist toward a sliding door to the right. Was that where the old man was sitting? He too, as his father had taught him, bowed deeply in that direction. But all that Pau perceived as he bowed and straightened was the play of light on the glass-paneled door; he didn’t notice the nose, which the villagers said (but never in Old Man Kim’s presence) resembled the gall bladder of a slaughtered animal, nor did he notice the pipe with the large bowl that never left Old Man Kim’s hand. Then again he shouldn’t stare through the glass, and so he directed his gaze to the palm-sized patch on the back of his father’s traditional going-out jacket, which his father had changed into before leaving on their outing. And then from the other side of the door came a booming voice calling for Kwidong, the errand boy, a voice loud enough to startle Pau and to rattle the glass panes.
From the middle gate there emerged a boy even smaller than Pau who took the wicker basket wrapped in cloth that his father had brought and went back inside. Both their presence and their gift must have been clearly visible to Old Kim Long Pipe behind his sliding glass door.
Telling Pau to wait, his father removed his shoes and carefully brushed off the soles of his socks. Pau went toward the middle gate, where the errand boy had just disappeared. He heard the sliding door open and close. His father would be meeting now with Old Man Kim. Once he had the loan, he could buy that calf he’d had his eye on.
The middle gate opened and Kwidong handed Pau the empty basket. Visible through the open gate was an array of glass-paneled doors to the inner quarters. What a magnificent sight it was! So that’s why the villagers talk themselves silly about this house.
“Are there lots of persimmons where you live?” asked Kwidong.
He must have seen the persimmons they had brought. And he talked funny.
Pau nodded.
“There’s lots where I live too.” Kwidong was about to say more when a woman’s voice called him back in.
Kwidong soon reappeared with a small meal table set with two bowls of soup-and-rice. He carried the table to the sliding glass door, which opened to reveal Pau’s father. Instead of receiving the table where he was, his father came out to take it. From inside came Old Man Kim’s voice asking both of them to eat inside. “We’re fine out here,” said Pau’s father, who then joined Pau and set the table on the ground.
Pau sat down opposite his father and began to eat. It was honest-to-goodness rice. Even before the grain tax came along, it was all you could do to get a bowl of rice not mixed with other grain, and after the grain tax, forget it! And even though there was no meat on their table, the broth was definitely meat broth. As soon as this food was in his mouth, it went straight down. They probably ate like this every day—judging from the fact that the meal had been brought out right away. Boy, was it good!
His father transferred a spoonful of his rice to Pau’s bowl. Kwidong stood outside the middle gate, watching. Pau felt ashamed of himself. “I don’t want it,” he said to his father. But instead of returning the rice to his father’s bowl, he ate it himself. Next his father found a morsel of meat in his soup and added it to Pau’s bowl. “I said I don’t want it”—louder this time.
As soon as they had finished, Kwidong took the table inside and Pau’s father returned to the master’s quarters. I wish Father would hurry up and get that loan so we can buy the calf and go home.
Suddenly he heard a loud tapping sound—it must have been Old Man Kim’s pipe bowl in the ashtray. Pau had been told that the old man liked to bang things around when his dander was up. Maybe the loan hadn’t worked out.
The middle gate opened again and out came Kwidong. He approached Pau and said, “How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
“Eleven? I’m ten.”
Kwidong gestured with his chin toward the master’s quarters. “So that’s your father. Good for you.” He still talked funny.
“You don’t have a father?”
“Why shouldn’t I? He’s with my family. In Mungaeng.” By which he meant Mungyŏng. “Ever heard of Mungaeng?�
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Pau shook his head.
“Kyŏngsang Province. That’s where we—”
The rest was lost as the same woman’s voice called Kwidong, who hurried back in.
Pau wondered why Kwidong wasn’t at home with his mother and father. He peered through a gap in the gate and saw, off to the side of the yard, Kwidong emerging from the storehouse, a sack of something or other slung over his shoulder. Just before Kwidong closed the door Pau’s eyes were drawn to the sacks of grain stacked inside the storehouse with its padlock bigger than a grown-up’s fist. He quickly turned away, as if he had witnessed something shameful.
Presently Kwidong reappeared, his face suffused with a smile that revealed dimples in both cheeks.
This time Pau spoke first: “So what do you do here?”
“Grandpop here asked my father to send him a boy to run errands—and that’s me. Our family works his land, see? And me being here is a big help to my family because now they have one less mouth to feed. There’s nine of us—but that doesn’t include my two big sisters, who got married off. . . .”
“Don’t you get homesick?”
“Sure I do. More for my mom than my father. When I left to come here she followed me out to the main road—she couldn’t stop crying. I eat better here, but I still wish I was home. But my father told me not to think about home and just take care of myself here. . . . We got persimmon trees out in back of our house, and the persimmons are bigger than the ones you brought. We pick them in the fall—”
Yet again the woman’s voice called Kwidong, and again Kwidong left off in mid-sentence, the smile gone from his face.
It looked to Pau as if Kwidong would keep thinking of home in spite of his father’s instructions. When he came out again Pau would ask when he was going home to all those big persimmons. He wished Kwidong would hurry up and come out.
And then out he came. But this time he scurried past Pau, saying he would see him after he ran an errand, and disappeared through the main gate.
A short time later the glass door slid open and his father emerged. His face looked careworn. Maybe he didn’t get the loan. Behind him came Old Kim Long Pipe’s raspy voice: “Look here, I just gave you a three-percent loan, that’s practically free money, so why the long face?” I guess he got the loan after all. But why did his father look so down in the dumps?
His father approached him, picked up the empty wicker basket and the wrapping cloth, and used the corner of the cloth to rub off a reddish-orange stain on the tip of his right thumb. Pau didn’t realize that his father had just used that thumb to seal the loan agreement.
His father led Pau back to the sliding door and performed a bow, as he had done when they arrived. Pau did likewise. Again he was aware only of the gleam of the glass panels; he couldn’t see Old Kim Long Pipe, but knew the man was there on the other side.
Outside the main gate, his father gazed at the sun setting in the west, his face still careworn. “The market’s probably shut down, but let’s hurry there anyway.”
But it bothered Pau to have to leave without saying good-bye to Kwidong. When Kwidong got back from his errand maybe he’d look around wondering where Pau went. As he and his father emerged from the alley he kept looking back, but Kwidong never came into sight. . . .
Pau wondered now if Kwidong was still there at Old Kim Long Pipe’s house, where all the lights were coming from. His father had since paid several visits to the old man, and upon his return Pau would ask if Kwidong was still there, but his father never had a definite answer. It looked like the grown-ups didn’t pay attention to things like that.
From the darkness he heard Ojaeng’s muted voice: “How long till ten o’clock?” It sounded as if he were talking to himself. “Isn’t it about that time?” That was Ch’unbo’s trembling voice, muted like Ojaeng’s. So, something’s going to happen at ten o’clock. Again the voices fell silent.
Ch’ik ch’ik—flint striking on rock. And then an urgent shushing sound, telling whoever it was to stop. I guess you’re not supposed to light a cigarette.
The back of his neck and from his waist down felt cold. His body, sweaty from the uphill walk, had cooled off, and the chill was working its way in. The pants legs he’d rolled up before crossing the stream had come partway down; Pau pulled them the rest of the way down over his ankles. Then he put down his backrack stick and wrapped his arms around himself.
That’s when it happened. All the lights in the Ch’ungju streets went out. The next moment all the villagers stood up, as if they’d been waiting for this signal. Before Pau knew it he was standing too, backrack stick in hand. He thought he heard Kŏbuk’s big brother say something and then move out in front, and then the villagers began to flock downhill, like riled-up bulls. Bulls from his own village and the other villages descending toward the streets of Ch’ungju, the bulls that Kŏbuk’s big brother had been whispering to, the bulls just beyond them, the bulls hidden all over Nam Mountain, those bulls just like the bulls from his own village.
So surprised was Pau that for a moment he couldn’t move his trembling body. You idiot, you idiot, you’ve come all this way and look at you now. . . . Finally his hand tightened around the backrack stick and he began to chase after the grown-ups. He kept stumbling and falling. Got to catch up. But instead he gradually fell farther behind and eventually he lost sight of the grown-ups altogether. And still he ran.
It was virtually black in the direction of Ch’ungju, now that the streetlights were off. There were other lights, flitting through the darkness this way and that, coming in and out of sight. Pau realized they were coming from cars, but the cars were making a strange noise. His heart kept racing.
He heard a popping sound and straightened in spite of himself. It’s that horrible rifle! And then people crying out. He imagined his father among those people, sprawling onto the ground. Oh my god, oh my god. Why couldn’t you catch up with the grown-ups? You idiot, you idiot!
Flames shot up through the darkness. He felt as if those flames were flaring up inside him. The outcries from the people were sounding inside him as well, his father’s voice distinct among them. And then he realized that the voices were coming from where the flames were rising. He ran toward those flames. It didn’t seem that far.
Breathing heavily, he came out onto a street. The fire was farther off than it looked. Voices in the dark asked where the fire was. And then from nearby came gunshots. And once again a confusion of outcries. He imagined, there in front of him, a formation of those fearsome rifles, stopping him. Go anyway, you’ve got to go!
He arrived at what looked to be a main street. The clamor was louder. He saw people running recklessly in the dark. The next moment, as Pau ran breathlessly along, the street fell silent.
A strange noise cut through the air and a large light sped past. In the light Pau could see running figures, and then in a split-second their shadows enlarging, shrinking, and enlarging again, before disappearing. He spied an alley to the right—maybe a shortcut to where the fire was—and turned down it.
Just inside the alley he bumped into something and the next thing he knew he was huddled on the ground. He heard a cry of pain and saw a man with a bulging straw sack. There was a dull pain in Pau’s head, he was out of breath, and he couldn’t get up. But he was glad to see that the man hadn’t been knocked down. “Are you fucking blind?” snapped the man. Off he went. Finally Pau got to his feet.
He had taken only a few steps when he saw someone else coming. He couldn’t see clearly in the dark, only that the person was carrying something heavy and that the effort was costing him dearly. Make sure you don’t bump into him. He quickly dodged the man. Wait a minute! The house that the man had come out of, a house in a dead-end alley—it was Old Kim Long Pipe’s house. How did I end up here? He’d never expected this. He went closer, saw that the main gate and the middle gate were both wide open, and slipped inside. There in the yard, peering toward the storehouse, was a man holding a candle. Pau was sure it was O
ld Kim Long Pipe—though he had actually seen him only twice, and from a distance, when the man had come to their village.
“Hurry up, there, hurry! . . . I can’t believe those sons of bitches set fire to the police station.”
It was Old Kim Long Pipe’s voice all right, but not the intimidating voice Pau remembered. It was stifled, urgent. As always Old Kim had his pipe, the pipe that never left his right hand. When he gestured with it now, the candlelight glinted off the metal bowl. The candle flame was fluttering. Why is it doing that? There’s no breeze. The glass-paneled door, so magnificent before, was merely a dark background that reflected the flickering candlelight.
The candle rose up head high, then was lowered; up and down, up and down it went, as Old Kim Long Pipe tried to see inside the storehouse. The candlelight shone on the drooping bridge of his nose.
“Come on, boys, hurry it up!” His voice was louder now.
From out of the dark storehouse came a man hefting a straw sack of grain. He walked past Old Kim in Pau’s direction. And then someone else emerged from the darkness, approached Old Kim, and took shape in the candlelight—an elderly woman.
“Dear, what’s the use—”
The woman’s fragile voice was silenced by Old Kim’s angry bark: Be quiet! What do you women know, always getting in the way!”
The old woman disappeared helplessly back into the dark.
Suddenly the candle in Old Kim Long Pipe’s trembling hand went out. Did the wind do that?
“Kwidong—bring me some matches! They ought to kill ’em off—what did they have to cut the electricity for?”
Kwidong’s still here! Pau’s heart jumped for joy. Kwidong—here I am—I just plain forgot you were here.