Black Flower

by Kim, Young-ha

  Yun Chiho had never been fond of Stevens, who worked for the Japanese yet received a salary from the Korean government. The empire’s foreign ministry, which had no choice but to hire him, was in a pitiful situation. Stevens shook hands with Yun Chiho and rose from his seat. “Anyway, please think it over. After all, this is one of those things an official of the foreign ministry must do.”

  37

  IJEONG WOKE UP from a light sleep as raindrops spattered on the bridge of his nose. It was a welcome rain on the dry land of the Yucatán. The horses whinnied, glad for the water that fell on their hot bodies. The scent of dust rose from the ground. The horizon to the west was still bright. Ijeong could just see the steeple of the Mérida cathedral in the distance.

  Dolseok poked Ijeong. Someone was walking toward them from far off, and his face looked like a Korean’s. The man must have thought it odd to see these two men tied up to a cart, for he stared piercingly at Ijeong and Dolseok as he approached. He wore a Western suit and carried a bundle on his back. When he finally reached them, he spoke first. “Are you Koreans?” He spoke Korean, but this was the first time they had ever seen him. The cart had stopped in the shade, as if the driver intended to rest.

  “I heard that Koreans had arrived in Mérida, and I was on my way to find them.” He gladly took their hands. “My name is Bak Manseok. I sell ginseng in San Francisco, but I also travel to wherever there are Chinese to sell it. How have you come to this?” Bak Manseok looked at their hands and feet, bound to the pillar, and clucked his tongue. Dolseok said, “We’ve been in Mexico for two months, but there was a problem at our hacienda, so we are being sold to another hacienda.” Bak Manseok listened as Dolseok told him everything that had happened to them. Bak Manseok asked detailed questions, like how much they earned a day and how much of that they spent on food. Dolseok told him how one person had slept in a cave and been bitten by a poisonous snake, how the hacendado wielded his whip and yelled like he was driving cattle whenever he came out to the henequen fields . . .

  Bak Manseok told them the situation at the other haciendas, having heard the news from the Chinese in Mérida. One hacienda had a Korean interpreter, but in an attempt to curry favor with the hacendado, he cursed the workers and whipped them; they said he was even crueler than the Mexican foremen. Ijeong and Dolseok could guess who that was. “He wasn’t that bad on the ship,” they said, and clucked their tongues. They were dressed in thin summer clothes and barefoot. Bak Manseok sympathized with their plight and took from his pocket two 1-peso bills and gave one each to Ijeong and Dolseok. “I will see that this news reaches Korea immediately. Hold on just a little longer.”

  Bak Manseok did actually report everything he saw in letters he wrote on November 17, 1905, to the Mutual Assistance News and to the Korea Daily News. The letters arrived in Korea in December and were printed in the newspapers. As luck would have it, the day that he wrote the letters was the day the Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty was signed.

  38

  THE THIEF CHOE SEONGIL skillfully cut up a watermelon with his knife and handed pieces to Father Paul and the shaman. Weary of the heat, they gobbled down the watermelon’s red flesh without a word. Days when the hacienda store stocked watermelons made them feel as if they were sitting in some lookout shed back in their hometowns. The watermelon didn’t taste that different either. They took the green rinds that were left over, cut them into thin slices, and mixed them with chili pepper flakes to ferment. Some called this watermelon kimchi, and others called it watermelon greens. Either way, they did not throw away a single bit of the watermelon.

  They had been sold to Buena Vista hacienda, about forty miles from Mérida. The shaman had originally been sold to another hacienda, but a month later he had been moved to this one. Their tales of woe from the henequen fields were no different from those of the other haciendas, though these three had never farmed before and so suffered from an even more severe fatigue. Three bachelors, they came to live together in one paja.

  As soon as he arrived at Buena Vista, Choe Seongil understood the reality he faced. There was no way to make money on the hacienda. Everyone was broke. There wouldn’t be anything for him to steal. Earn much, my brothers, Choe Seongil silently pleaded. Fortunately, his brothers worked hard. While the Mayans could gather no more than four thousand henequen leaves a day, after only a few months his Korean brothers cut more than ten thousand leaves a day. Though the blood flowed freely from their hands, they continued to work. The men cut the leaves and the women removed the thorns. The children took string and tied the henequen into bundles. When the men got drunk they whimpered, wondering whether this was the cost of their nation’s sins, the sins of society, their own sins, or simply fate. Choe Seongil was not fond of such a sentimental attitude. What use was it to argue about whose sin it was? The important thing was that they were here in Mexico. Perhaps nostalgia made them forget: they had not lived well in Korea either. Life had always been rough. Droughts, floods, and famines were yearly events. And the landlords of Korea were no better than the landlords of Mexico. At least here, no one froze to death.

  Choe Seongil worked slowly, so he did not earn much, but he made extra money for food by gambling, which was practically swindling for him. It was hard working under the blazing sun, but gradually he got the hang of it, and it was no longer so hard that his breath rasped in his dry throat, as it had at first. He was more bothered by the nightmares that had begun on the ship, though they were far too vivid to be called nightmares. On nights when they visited him, he could not sleep until early morning. They always played out the same. A black shape whose face he could not clearly see appeared and approached him. As on the ship, the shape said, “I have come to claim the price for my life.” At other times the shape said nothing. Choe Seongil tried to flee with all his might, but his body was rooted fast to the ground like a tree and he couldn’t move an inch. He tried to scream with a voice that made no sound, and when he awoke he often found himself lying in a strange place.

  The shaman who lived with him only glanced at him, but said nothing. When Choe Seongil drew close and asked him about his nightmares, the shaman shook his head and said he didn’t know, but it was clear that he had seen something, too. Finally, the shaman could no longer stand the sight of him nodding off in the fields because he couldn’t sleep at night, and he said, “Your shoulders are heavy, aren’t they? An old man is sitting on your shoulders. He has a long beard and no hair. He looks mischievous. He’s a wicked fellow. It’s the ghost of a drowned man. He’s fretting now because he wants to go back to the water. It looks like he’s been with you since Jemulpo. How long has this been going on?”

  Choe Seongil did not believe him at first. But after listening to him, he thought that his shoulders did truly feel heavy. Why did some blasted old ghost have to go sitting on someone else’s shoulders? “Shouldn’t we have a ritual or something?” He glanced at the shaman. The shaman was drawing something strange on the dirt floor. “What’s that?” Choe Seongil asked, and the shaman laughed and said it was nothing. “Just something I was drawing out of boredom.” Choe Seongil spit on the floor. “Don’t go drawing strange things, that’s bad luck. My dreams are troubled enough as it is.” The shaman used his foot to erase the shape he had been drawing. After he had erased it, Choe became even more curious as to what it had been. “Ah, damn it.” Choe Seongil went outside where Father Paul was sitting on a stump and looking up at the stars. “What are you doing?” Choe Seongil asked, and Father Paul scratched his head. “Looking at the stars.” Choe Seongil sucked on a cigarette. “If you look up at the stars, will they give you rice, or rice cakes? If you’ve got nothing to do, go to sleep. Don’t get bitten by mosquitoes for no reason.”

  Father Paul laughed good-naturedly and stood up. “Now that you mention it, I was just thinking of doing that.” Paul didn’t usually go inside when the shaman was in the paja, particularly when he was performing some ceremony. When Paul did go inside, Choe Seongil raised his arms and
stretched. From far off he heard the murmuring of people at the hacendado’s house. From what he had heard, there was to be some great event at the hacienda on Sunday. Noble guests were coming from somewhere, and it sounded like some special Mexican festival. There might even be something for him to steal. But armed guards stood watch, and one mistake could mean a trip to the afterworld. And anyway, if he stole something valuable, where would he sell it? He couldn’t speak Spanish and didn’t know his way around. Choe Seongil gave up right there and went back into the paja. The shaman was bowing before an altar he had made of straw and crude pieces of wood. Though he had tired of being a shaman, he was never lax in serving his god. The candlelight flickered and cast shadows on the ceiling. Maybe those shadows resembled the god he served. Now Choe Seongil wondered if it was the shaman who was tormenting his dreams, and he stared piercingly at the back of the shaman’s head.

  After he finished bowing, the shaman began to sketch a person in splendid attire on a piece of wood using red dye he had drawn from a cactus. “Say, that’s enough!” Choe Seongil shouted at the shaman as he glanced over at Father Paul, who was already asleep. Poof, the candlelight went out. Suddenly he was afraid of the shaman, rustling about wordlessly as he searched for his bed. No, he was afraid of the world with which the shaman was related. Where is this netherworld he talks about? Does it even exist? As he wondered these things, Choe Seongil fell asleep. How much time had passed? Choe Seongil opened his eyes. He was thirsty, and he opened the door of the paja and went outside. The hacendado’s house was brightly lit. A savory aroma wafted toward him. Choe Seongil walked in that direction. Countless people were gathered around the fountain inside the front gate of the house. Liquors and meats were spread out there, a veritable feast, and he saw servants in uniform as well. He was ashamed of his shabby appearance and hid behind a tree. He wanted to step forward and eat those delicious things, but he knew the guests would not tolerate him. The longer he stood there, the more he was tempted by the food. Finally he worked up his courage and calmed himself, and he slowly approached a table piled with roast chicken. Yet as soon as his hand reached out to grab that glistening chicken, it disappeared like smoke. The lords and ladies that had been talking around him also vanished. In their place, a black shape with a hat pressed down over his face stood before Choe Seongil. The black shape squeezed his neck with his rough arm. Then he spoke.

  “The time has come.”

  Choe Seongil did not resist any longer. He closed his eyes and surrendered everything to the shape’s will. When he did, an unbelievably happy feeling, spouting forth like the fountain, suddenly gushed out from inside him. He was shaken by an amazing ecstasy, by a perfect satisfaction. If this is how it is, I can die, he thought. And he felt as if this joy would continue forever.

  39

  THERE WAS A BOY. His hometown was Wi Island, the largest populated island in the West Sea. The islanders made their living from yellow corvina. When the corvina fisheries in the ocean off Chilsan were at their peak, the ship owners pooled their money and held a shamanic ritual, and at the beginning of the year they held a grass boat ritual, sending off a grass boat loaded with misfortune and praying for a good catch. They also held a ritual to the dragon king for those who had drowned at sea. When the time for the rituals neared, the village was filled with taboos. Men kept their distance from women, and women who bled were isolated. As the people took care in each word and each action, the festival began, and the shamaness and the men who were not unclean made sacrificial offerings to their unseen guests. The women and children could only watch from afar. The first festival guests were twelve tutelary deities and the dragon king god. The old shamaness tied together the heads of the men participating in the offerings with hemp and dragged them into the shrine. The men, tethered like yellow corvina, delightedly gave their offerings. Only when these rituals had ended could all the people in the village join the festival. While musicians struck gongs and drums and played flutes, everyone came out of the shrine and swarmed toward the ocean. The men added to the excitement by shouting cries of “Hoist the anchor! Unfurl the sails! Row the oars!” and climbing atop the mother ship and dancing. The grass boat, which was tied to the mother ship, was loaded with all of the village’s misfortune and dragged out to sea. When the waves grew high, as if the god of the ocean were raising his body, they stopped the boat there and cut the cord that tied the grass boat, letting it drift into the distant sea. The misfortune on the grass boat was carried off to China, and with it all the taboos disappeared. Wi Island reveled all night with merry dancing, drinking, and song.

  The boy grew up in this sort of place. It was a place where one was born the son of a fisherman, lived life as a fisherman, became the father of a fisherman, and then died. There was no other way. The boy’s father and uncles spread out their nets in the yard and tied the knots, and his mother and sisters reeked of fish. If they had salt, they pickled the fish, and if not, they ate it raw on the spot, dipped in soybean paste. One day, the boy’s father decided to go out to fish for yellow corvina. The owner of his boat attempted to dissuade him, but the father just laughed. He never came back. The next day, the fishermen who had gone out as one to fish in the sea off Chilsan sighted the debris of a shattered fishing boat. A few days later, the boy’s mother called the village shamaness and asked her to hold a ritual to save the spirit of her drowned husband. His mother, sisters, and aunts sat down together without a word and prepared for the ritual. His mother caught his sister crying in the outhouse; she beat her and drove her out of the village. “Don’t even think of coming back before the ritual is over, you father-tormenting wench!”

  As the ritual was being held on the shore, the boy’s sister stared at the sea from the mountain behind the village. While all the villagers gathered and clucked their tongues, the ritual was reaching its climax. The tide came in and the waves shifted direction. “How cold it must be!” his mother cried. The shamaness, caught up in her own excitement, shook her sacred staff as if mad and called to the deceased. And then a strange thing happened that would be talked about for years whenever a ritual was held in that village. Something approached rapidly, like lightning, and drew near the warped pier that bulged out like a woman’s breast. Even if three or four men had been rowing a boat, it could not have traveled faster. The shape, at first glance resembling a log, made straight for the place where the ritual was being held, and it came to a stop on a sandbar. People screamed, “It’s Geumdong!” It was one of the boy’s uncles, who had been on the boat with his father. The uncle’s body sloshed back and forth with the waves, his fish-bitten arms flapping. The waves repeatedly licked his body like a cow’s tongue. Nothing like that had ever happened in the shamaness’s life, or in her mother’s time. The ritual was meant only to save the soul of the drowned, not to reclaim the body. Anyone could tell that this was not the work of the shamaness. Yet Uncle Geumdong had clearly appeared before their eyes, right in the middle of the ritual. They covered his body with a straw mat and carried it up the mountain. His eyeballs were missing and one arm hung loosely from its socket. An eel slithered out from between the folds of the mat and was trampled underfoot. And someone took out a small octopus that had crawled into an empty eye socket. At that point the shamaness called off the ritual—“I think it’s time to stop. The dragon king doesn’t want to see my face”—and hobbled back to her house. Not long after that, another shamaness who lived at Gomso Ferry came and held a ritual for the soul of Uncle Geumdong, who had died before he could be married, but no one was very interested. Soon the town shamaness succumbed to a lingering illness and died, and her daughter performed the ritual for her mother’s soul to the beat of her father’s drum.

  When the shamaness from Gomso Ferry didn’t receive all the money promised to her, she was furious and returned to her home. Sometime later, a strange woman appeared before the boy. “Let’s go to the mainland. I’ll give you white rice and meat soup. Your mother is already there waiting for you.” The boy took t
he prettily made-up woman’s hand and boarded her boat. After an hour they arrived at Gomso Ferry. Only after they walked for some time and then entered a house fluttering with cloth, colorful clothing, and military officers’ robes, and decorated with idols, did the boy realize who was waiting for him. It was the shamaness of Gomso Ferry. Of course, his mother was not there. The shamaness did not say a word, and locked the boy in a shed. Has my mother sold me off? The boy shed tears of outrage. But a short while later, he lifted his head at the thought that it couldn’t be true. That shamaness is laying a curse on us. Fear swept over him. It was said that some shamanesses seized children and starved them to death. They did this after they had been serving their god for a long time and their powers were failing. Then the grieved spirit of the dead child would enter them. It was said that shamanesses locked children up in chests and poked them with metal rods so that they couldn’t sleep, tormenting them cruelly until they died. That way, the grieved spirit of the dead child would be powerful.

  Three days later, the shamaness of Gomso opened the shed door and led the boy out. Then she taught him to play the drum. Bum ba-ba dum ba-ba dum . . . clack! He was clumsy. If he made a mistake the shamaness hit him. She did not lock him up in a chest and poke him with a sharp rod, but he was just as vexed. Day in and day out, the foul-mouthed shamaness swore to kill him. The boy wanted to see his mother and sister. His body swelled from some illness or other. The shamaness stuck charms on his body and mumbled for some time. He shivered with cold. Strangely enough, in only a day the swelling went down. When he was better, the shamaness started teaching him to play the drum again. Every night the boy dreamed that his mother came to find him. He dreamed that his mother threw open the doors of the dark shed, rushed in and grabbed his wrist, and led him home. But when he woke up, he was still in the shamaness’s shed.