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The Guest

Page 4

by Hwang Sok-Yong


  He opened the planner and began flipping through it, one page at a time. The first few pages were full of phone numbers, written down in no apparent order. There was the number for Yosŏp himself, followed by numbers for the church, for Samyŏl and Pil-lip, for a Chinese restaurant, a garage, a dry cleaner’s, the social security office, and a hospital. There were also names and numbers of Yohan’s friends, fellow senior citizens whom Yosŏp had no way of knowing, and, every now and then, some dates and memos. Most of the pages were left unused, but near the middle of the book Yosŏp found several notes that had been written only a few days earlier. “Call Pak Myŏngsŏn tomorrow,” declared one recent scribble.

  Yosŏp got up, turned on the air conditioner with the remote control, took some water out of the refrigerator, and drank it from the bottle—all wearing nothing but his underwear. He sat down at the table and thought for a while. The only sign of life in the apartment was the whirring of the air conditioner; his wife must have left already, off to her job at the hospital. Who was Pak Myŏngsŏn, again? The name was only vaguely familiar, but he got the feeling he’d be able to put his finger on it if he tried. Several young maidens clad in white chŏgoris and black mongdang chi’mas11 flitted through Yosŏp’s head, but his fuzzy memory was unable to match any satisfactory names to the faces. He thumbed through the planner and located the phone number under Pak Myŏngsŏn’s name. The area code alone was enough to show that the woman lived in Los Angeles. Tomorrow, Yosŏp would be boarding a plane to Los Angeles. The Homeland Visitors were assembling first in L.A. and going on to Beijing from there.

  Holding the planner open with one hand, Yosŏp used the index finger of his other hand to dial. He listened as the phone rang on the other end of the line. He was about to hang up on about the tenth—or maybe the fifteenth—ring, when he finally heard a faint voice.

  “Hello ?” A woman’s voice answered in English.

  “Hello,” he said in Korean.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Ah, well . . . may I speak to Ms. Pak Myŏngsŏn?”

  “Speaking. What can I do for you?”

  “I, ah . . . I am the younger brother of Presbyter Ryu Yohan.”

  The other end of the line fell silent for a moment. Yosŏp could still hear her breathing, but he cleared his throat just to make sure. She spoke up.

  “He said he’d come himself . . . but it seems he’s changed his mind.”

  “I beg your pardon? My brother arranged to visit you? When?”

  “Next weekend.”

  Once again Yosŏp cleared his throat then said, rather nonchalantly, “My brother passed away yesterday.”

  An outburst of emotion, something close to a laugh, was immediately followed by a resounding click. The line was dead.

  It’s something you go through every time you pack. You take all the things you’re going to need, and then you spread them out on the bed and across the floor. Then you try to fit it all into one suitcase. You end up taking some of the stuff out, and then you repeat the whole process all over again. You cut down on the clothes and remove what you can from the shaving kit, and in the end you just barely manage to fit everything in. Before changing your clothes, you go through all your pockets and empty their contents: wallet, passport, tickets, planner, loose change, and car keys. Before changing his clothes, Yosŏp took all his sundry items and put them in a little heap on the bed. Then, one by one, he put each item in its place: the wallet in the right inner pocket of his jacket, the passport and tickets in his left inner pocket, the car keys on top of the dresser for his wife. He was reaching for the coins when something, something resembling a warped tojang,12 caught his eye. He picked it up for a closer look, holding it before his eyes and turning it over a couple of times. Suddenly realizing what it was, he clenched his hand around it and looked around the room. What on earth was he going to do with it? Also on the bed, he noticed something that looked like a small lump of yarn. He opened the soft, strong leather pouch and put the sliver of bone in it. A thin leather string dangled from the pouch, so he pulled. Its mouth squeezed shut.

  On the plane, Yosŏp got the impression that he was chasing after time itself. As he was boarding he’d been struck by the notion that since he was heading westward, the sun would simply continue to hang behind him—but somehow, time had not only caught up, it had left him behind. The screen at the front of the cabin was down; a movie was playing. He hadn’t rented a headset, so all he could do was watch the silent pictures move about. He’d had about three glasses of wine. A Chinese woman in her fifties sat next to him. With a rustling noise, she fished something out from under her seat. Through the open plastic bag, he spotted something mysterious and red. She tore off a strip of the red stuff, about the size of a finger, and held it out to him. “Chicken, chicken,” she mumbled. It appeared to be some sort of boiled chicken dyed red.

  With a shudder, Yosŏp shook his head violently and said in English, “Oh, no, no thank you.” The foreign syllables felt raw, lingering about his ears. The voice didn’t sound like his own.

  Yosŏp was sitting in an aisle seat, facing the curtain that hung at the far end of the cabin to screen the entrance to the toilets. Someone behind the curtain was moving around. As the top of the curtain shook a little, the person’s lower half came into view: a pair of trousers and dress shoes. All at once the curtain was parted, and the man behind it was now looking in Yosŏp’s direction. Staggering every now and then to the rhythm of the plane, Big Brother Yohan was walking directly toward Yosŏp. Yosŏp closed his eyes. No one passed. When he opened them the aisle was empty, the screen still flickering. He stood up, holding onto the back of the seat in front of him. Making his way out into the aisle, his step a bit unsteady, Yosŏp wondered where Yohan might be sitting.

  Turning this way and that, Yosŏp peered back into the faces of the passengers he’d just passed. Well, he’s not sitting on that side of the aisle. Yosŏp drew the curtain aside and walked into the darkness. A gleaming blue light showed the toilet to be vacant. He pushed the door open and entered. The deafening roar of the plane filled his ears. The tired face of an elderly man floated on the mirror’s surface. He washed his hands and face. He scrubbed his face dry with a paper towel then ran his two palms down across it, from forehead to chin. Turning around to face the door, Yosŏp suddenly felt like he was a stranger to himself. He glanced back at the mirror. Looking back at him was his brother. Frantically, he threw the door open and stumbled out. He yanked the curtain aside and came out into the aisle, only to see Yohan sitting in his seat. After a moment’s hesitation, Reverend Ryu Yosŏp stepped forward, looking his brother straight in the eye as he made his way back to his seat. When he got to it, however, it was empty. As he turned to sit down, he looked behind him and saw his brother’s face appear in the back of his seat. He went ahead and sat down. Crushing his brother’s phantom with his body, Yosŏp leaned back into the seat.

  Yosŏp, Yosŏp!

  Startled, he jumped up, then sat back down, mumbling to himself, Don’t do this—it’s futile. Once you’re gone, you’re gone—that’s all there is to it. What reason do you have to keep showing up like this?

  I want to go home, too—that’s what.

  The plane seemed to drop all of a sudden, and the cabin shook a few times. Yosŏp hastily fastened his seat belt and sat up straight. Maybe I had a little too much wine. He felt as if he and his brother had become one and the same being. His mind grew hazy and soon only his brother’s murmurs were audible:

  I want to go to our hometown with you, to Ch’ansaemgol, to the old days. Look over there, you can see the nettle tree. We never could get our arms all the way around its trunk. They said it’d been there forever, since long before we were born, so it must be hundreds of years old.

  The tree stood strong all throughout the war, so it’ll probably still be the same as it’s always been. Roots that look like the fingers and toes of some giant would crawl out above the surface at the base of the trunk, stretching out in a
ll directions. The scars here and the gnarls there, the bark, wrinkled like the skin of an old man—all inspire awe. The tangled mass of branches looks like a head of hair, the strands reaching up towards the sky. The pieces of cloth the villagers have knotted onto almost every branch all billow together in the wind, a rainbow of five colors—yellow, blue, red, white and black. It will be dusk soon, and under the tree a woman in white sits with her back against the setting sun. She has a bowl of clear water set on a little table before her. She is praying fervently to the divine spirits. Big Brother Yohan whispers nearby. Look—it’s Great-grandma. The woman in white, her hair white, and the band around her head white, too, is Great-grandmother. At home they call her Big Grandma. I’m on my way back from the fields, and Big Grandma motions to me, calling me over.

  Little One, Little One!

  My name’s Yosŏp, not Little One.

  Big Grandma gestures wildly, as if something is wrong.

  Your pa and grandpa will be punished—the heavens will punish them. Possessed by the Western spirit, they gave you and your brother such hideous names!

  They say God is one and the same everywhere, in all countries.

  Well, I know everything, everything from the very beginning. Those big noses just came here with their books and spread them all over the place. Our ancestor, the founding father of our race, was Tan’gun. He came down from the heavens a long, long time ago.

  They say that’s not so. They say that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.

  People should worship their ancestors properly if they want to be proper human beings. Our country has gone to the dogs because so many have started worshiping someone else’s God.

  Big Grandma wraps up the water bowl, the little wooden table, the candle, and the incense burner in a square of cloth. Then, facing the changsŭng pŏpsu13 chiseled into the stone post along the road, next to the cairn, she says, Come, Little One—bow to him.

  Pah, what’s it even supposed to be?

  The spirit of Mount Ami, of course. The honorable spirit who protects children from catching the Guest. Worship him well and you won’t get sick. You’ll live a long, long life.

  If Father finds out I’ll be in big trouble.

  Tell them Big Grandma told you to, and neither your pa nor your grandpa will dare lift a finger—don’t you worry. What are you waiting for? Come on now, quit dawdling and bow!

  I’m a bit frightened and I feel kind of strange, but Big Grandma has given me an order, and I’m tempted by the guarantee of protection against smallpox, the Guest that could leave my face ugly and pockmarked. The changsŭng pŏpsu has a tiny nose and eyes that poke out like a pair of glasses. Its mouth is a slit stretching from cheek to cheek, with fierce looking canines sticking sharply out at each corner.

  Big Grandma, if this changsŭng pŏpsu helps children, how come it looks so scary?

  Ah, that—that’s to scare away the Guest, the barbarian spirit from the faraway lands south of the sea. Come on now, hurry up and bow.

  I finally give in and bow, but it’s the kind of bow I’d give to a Japanese teacher who has a sword at his waist—my heart shriveled with fear. I am so sick with dread that as soon as I finish bowing I take off running for our neighborhood. It isn’t just frightening, it’s unfamiliar. Big Grandma may be friendly with it, but I can’t shake the feeling that the heavens will punish me for what I’ve done. The incident stays with me for a long time.

  Again, Big Brother’s voice:

  You know, the day I was named deacon, I took the young men in the church and we uprooted that thing. We threw it away in the thicket along the stream. That hideous monster lay there in the grass for a year or two before a flood finally washed it away.

  Again, I heard myself answering.

  Well, I don’t think what I did was right. I bowed in spite of myself because I was afraid of the Guest—because even if you survive you’re scarred for life.

  Unlike the rest of the family, who were all busy in their own way, Big Grandma and I didn’t have much to do. We spent hours together in her room across from the main wing. With nothing but sisters and a ten-year difference between Yohan and myself, there was no one around for me to play with. Whenever I dropped by Big Grandma’s room she offered me all kinds of goodies—the grown-ups brought her all the best seasonal foods and she always had some hidden away for me. Melons, watermelons, and peaches in the summer; chestnuts, dates, and apples in the fall—which were too common to be really inviting—and honeyed wheat cakes and even baked sweet potatoes in the winter. Grandma told me all kinds of stories.

  “If you go fifty ri14 from our village towards the setting sun, you can see Mount Kuwŏl. At the top of Sahwang Peak, there is a rocky cliff that looks like a paneled-wood door. In the olden days Grandfather Tan’gun—he’s the one that founded our nation—would come down and stay there sometimes, and whenever he went back up to heaven they say he hid his sword and armor behind that stone door. That’s why that rock’s called the Armoring Stone. Some time ago the Japanese came and cracked that cliff trying to steal away the hidden sword and armor, but they just ended up spending a whole lot of money for nothing. Here in our Chosŏn, we say the son of God is Tan’gun, the Honorable Grandfather. When I was young, I, too, once climbed all the way up Mount Kuwŏl. There’s a temple there called P’aeyŏpsa, and on the peak across from the temple you’ve got the Tan’gun Platform. They say that was where Grandfather Tan’gun, standing on the flat stone, looked down to choose the very best place for his people to settle. That very best place is the place we call Changjaeibŏl today. They even have writing there that says ‘Tan’gun Platform,’ and you can see the equipment the Honorable Tan’gun used to shoot arrows, and even the spot where he placed his knee when he took aim. Tan’gun’s footprints, the ones he made when he crossed from Siru Peak in front of the temple all the way to Sŏngdangri—you can see those, too.

  “Your Big Grandma grew up in Namuribŏl in Chaeryŏng, and your great-grandpa and I are both from families that never had to worry about putting food on the table. Both our families worked as agents for the landowners—we farmed the land that belonged to the palace. In the very beginning, all of Hwanghae Province belonged to the palace. Your grandfathers were all diligent workers, and they even managed to buy a bit of land—and back then there weren’t many landowners to speak of, you know. But after the Japanese took over, all the land belonging to the palace was given to the Oriental Development Company, the Financial Union, or the Industrial Bank—that’s why your grandpa’s the only one still farming our land and why your pa has to work as a clerk for the Oriental Development Company.

  “Your grandpa ended up believing in those Western ghosts all because he made the wrong kinds of friends. I hear that those big-nose missionaries, the ones who keep spreading the tales about those ghosts, I hear they first got into Chosŏn through Sollaep’o, in Changyŏn. Ever since then, everybody in Changyŏn, rich or poor, believes in those Western spirits. That boy from Changyŏn, the one who made friends with your grandpa—the one who became an elementary school teacher—he’s just like his crazy parents—he’s a Western-spirit freak. In the town of Sinch’ŏn, too, I hear they built a mission home or a chapel—whatever it is they call it—and every day the young ones gather there to talk about who knows what. How can a mother win over a full-grown son? Even the ancestor tablet that stood in our living room has been smashed, though it was terrible for me to bear.

  “The village women came and said something awful was happening, and I asked what. They said, ‘Your son, your son is in the chapel, and he’s doing the rite of receiving a spirit.’ ‘Receiving what?’ I asked them, and they said, ‘It means your son, he’s being possessed.’ I ran like hell, let me tell you. When I got there I found them asking this and answering that and rubbing his head with water. They told me that was the sign a Western spirit has come into your body. It reminded me of my husband and how he wailed his heart out when he got home, after they chopped his topknot off in the marketplac
e. I cried and cried and beat the ground with my fists. After that your grandpa became a very high shaman of the Western spirit. And now, now, how can I stop him from turning his own offspring into Jesus freaks? You tell me! Your own father aside, even the girl he brought into this family under the name of daughter-in-law was the child of a Jesus shaman . . . so, there, you listen well—never forget what I’m telling you now.

  “Your grandpa wasn’t really the first son in the family. In fact, he was the youngest of my three sons—his two older brothers died, and then he was my only son. You, too, have to be careful. You don’t know how scary the Guest can be, do you? Just over the past few years, in this valley alone, hundreds of children have died from it. Even if you survive, I’m telling you, it’s no use—the Guest scars you, it scars your face, leaves you marked for life.

  “Once the Guest started spreading, the doctors would only visit the rich—in the countryside you couldn’t even get hold of a blind medicine man. Consulting a shaman was the best you could do. But wine and meat were impossible to find, and unless you had offerings or money you couldn’t even dream of having a full exorcism. You could place a gourd down on top of the water jar and chant a sutra while beating it. When more and more people started falling ill, they built a makeshift shelter outside the village to house them, gave them rice, soy sauce, and salt to live on by themselves. Even family members weren’t allowed to go near them. They were mostly children, you understand, but there were a few adults, too—when a grown-up died the oldest child would take care of the family. And, well, who wouldn’t cherish their own flesh and blood? So some people would keep their sick child until they just couldn’t hang on any longer, and then they’d wrap it up in a skirt or cloth and go up to the mountain in the middle of the night. In the mountain they’d find a tall tree and tie the child to one of the branches, and then they’d come back down. Heaven only knows where all the crows came from, but they’d flock to the babe and peck out its eyes. Sometimes, though, the child wasn’t dead yet—so the parents would stay all night long to keep the birds away. If the death was a long one, the parents would have to guard the tree night after night for days on end. Ever since we were children we have known that the Guest is a Western disease. A barbarian disease, they call it, from the Western country, so it’s certain that it came from the land where they believe in the Western spirit, you see? I had to send away two sons, your grandpa’s two older brothers, with the Guest. So would I be overjoyed, would I be ready to believe in the Western spirit like my one surviving son—or would I be angry at it—angry forever? You tell me. I’m telling you, a man needs to understand where he comes from in order to be truly human, to be blessed.”

 

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