Dust and Other Stories

by T'aejun Yi

  Is this too much to wish for now that I have devoted half of my life to this collection at the expense of all other desires?

  From time to time, Han would stroke his lotus-bud-shaped beard and conclude that this particular desire was only natural.

  He had yet to reveal the inventory of his books to the scholars who had visited him from Kim Il Sung University. Yet he did not want to keep his secret collection to himself forever, but rather hoped to preserve expectations and the interest of the scholarly world in his rare editions until he could hold a public exhibition.

  As Han packed everything required for the journey into his paper twine bag, now divested of its mold, he pictured the welcoming face of the good man Mr. Sŏng, the antiquarian book broker. The journey to the South that he had been planning ever since Liberation was about to begin.

  Han believes in the political position of the North. But he does not want to believe that the situation in the South is really the way it appears in newspaper reports in the North. Why? Because he has not seen it with his own eyes.

  In his sixty years Han has come to realize that few things in the world can be trusted. Even if other people are crossing a stone bridge, he has to first test it with his own hands before he will walk across. “They say that old house has several rooms full of rare books.” “That’s so-and-so’s grandson’s house and they’ve got all his valuable paintings and scrolls out. No one has touched them yet.” Every time he heard such things, he would pay a visit only to struggle to find even one usable book among the thousand covered in dust, or be told he was the first to look and start diligently sorting through books, only to hear later that several people had been there before him and taken away the egg yolk, so to speak.

  Everything turns out to be different from what people say! Now I have to see it with my own eyes first …

  It would be fair to say that his suspicious nature had only been strengthened over the many years he had spent dealing with antiquarian book brokers.

  What he had seen with his small but sharp eyes, though limited to an extremely small part of the world around him, had led him to recognize that the political line in the North was correct.

  Han had let the garden room of his house to a father and son from another region. The father worked for the Industry Bureau as a department head, while the son attended Kim Il Sung University. Since a bureau amounted to a ministry, the father must be a fairly high-ranking executive, and yet he lived a simple life, walking everywhere, leaving the house early and returning late at night to eat a few spoonfuls of cold rice. The son worked hard too, studying and cooking the father’s meals himself in the absence of a housekeeper. In the old days, university students had worn uniforms made of serge—a light serge in the summer and a heavier weave in the winter—their trousers were braided, and their books were thick with gold lettering on leather covers. But this university student in the garden room wore a wrinkled cotton twill uniform with, at best, sports shoes on his feet. When he went out, he wore his cap on any which way, sometimes crooked or slipping down at the front, and he never took off his uniform, no matter whether he was shoveling coal, cooking the dinner, or cleaning their room. Most of his books were copies produced without much care; their cheap ink and yellowed printing paper emitted a piercing smell. His friends would sometimes visit wearing similar attire, and there would be loud debates, regardless of the time of day or whether someone was trying to sleep elsewhere in the house. They wasted no time on idle gossip, but sprinkled their arguments with philosophical terms, such as “historical materialism” and “dialectics,” and even more fierce sounding words such as “mercilessly” and “pulverize other lands.” The room was no more quiet when the father returned late at night, because he too would take part in the boisterous talk of historical materialism and “showing no mercy.”

  The university holidays had begun recently, and the son had been mobilized to work each day at the borough office in advance of the upcoming elections for the Supreme People’s Assembly. Even though he worked all day at the borough office, he always came home to eat lunch. This was not because he ate particularly well at home. Lunch would be plain cold rice at best. Nevertheless, both father and son would return home from work and school without any complaints, and their happy faces seemed full of hope for the future.

  This university student was strong in body too. When reading something in Russian, he would stretch out a clench-fisted arm as if to exercise, and when trying to memorize some mathematical or chemical formula, he would stride up and down the yard as if brimming with energy. Some days he would even trim green onions and bean sprouts while reading out loud about the “art of surveying” and the “theory of dynamics” from a book propped open, one of those whose ink smell offended Han’s nose.

  At first, this all looked rather strange to Han. Ridiculous even. After a while though, he could no longer dismiss it as lacking in dignity. Gradually the son’s behavior grew to seem substantial and mature, almost fitting. Just as his hard lump of a body now appeared upright and dignified, even in that crumpled and ill-fitting uniform barely worthy of the name, so the record of some eternal truth seemed to glow in every sentence that he read, even in those textbooks lacking leather covers and gold lettering, and that sparkling truth seemed to allow this university student to see through the universe with great insight. Han came to feel a kind of awe.

  Then he witnessed a striking incident involving Taesŏng, his housekeeper’s son, who was only in the third year at People’s School.

  Taesŏng could not be more than twelve years old, but sometimes he would joke around with the university student in the garden room and sing “The Song of General Kim Il Sung” in a voice as strong as a crackling stream. One day Han had secretly observed the boy holding a study session with his classmates in his room. At the start of the session, the five boys, all of Taesŏng’s age, held their own meeting. One lad stood up and began to argue so vigorously that the veins in his throat were clearly visible.

  “Yesterday was not the first time that comrade Ungi did this. It’s already the third time this month that he’s been late, we absolutely cannot allow this to continue. Comrade Ungi must pay more attention and try to eliminate this backwardness, which brings disgrace upon our entire class, and he must not be late again. Comrade Ungi should do a self-criticism and swear before all of us that he will not be late again.”

  Even before the child had sat down, another one jumped up and repeated the same content in even stronger terms, before sitting down again. Next up must have been the backward element Ungi himself, who stood up and slowly opened his mouth to speak, after wiping away his tears with the back of his hand.

  “I confess my mistakes in all honesty in front of my comrades … we don’t have no clock at home and some days when I think I’m late, I run to school but it’s still early, and some days I think there’s still plenty of time, but it turns out I’m already late.… I will pay more attention in future to be on time and try to remove the disgrace that I have brought on our class.”

  The two other boys clapped loudly. But just as all seemed to be over, Taesŏng, who had not clapped even once, wiped his nose and stood up. He clenched his two fists and began to speak with such vigor that the veins on his neck protruded too.

  “I cannot agree with my comrades’ discussion or comrade Ungi’s self-criticism. It’s easy to say he’s done something bad, or I’ve made a mistake, but will this solve the problem? Will paying more attention help him know the time when there’s no clock at home? Just telling him to pay more attention is not much of a discussion, and saying I will pay more attention is not much of a self-criticism either. We need to help create the conditions in which comrade Ungi will not be late again. This is what I conclude. Comrade Ungi needs to make the effort to talk to his parents and ask them to buy a clock quickly, and until comrade Ungi gets a clock, the four of us need to take turns to stop by comrade Ungi’s house in the morning and go to school with him. What do you think of this,
comrades?”

  All of them, besides Ungi, agreed with this.

  Han’s jaw had locked open as he watched, but now he walked up to the door of their room. He wanted to praise them, but was so dumbfounded and awestruck by their smartness that no words came out of his mouth. While he stood there with a blank expression, one lad closed the sliding paper door in front of him.

  “They seem like bright kids …”

  With that, Han had no choice but to turn around.

  On his occasional trips to Pyongyang, Han noticed many things had completely changed. The narrow lanes through which a handcart could barely pass were now roads as wide as a sports field, and such-and-such a hospital and such-and-such a newspaper building some four or five stories high had popped up all over the place, like mushrooms sprouting overnight. Places that had once been filled with mountains of rubbish had now become parks, where fountains spurted out water. Trees the size of houses had been planted to produce a luxuriant, cool shade, as if in the woods even during the boiling-hot dog days of summer.

  “I wonder if I should buy one of those trees?”

  Many people were anxious. Yet for the most part they had endured quite well. Some people even joked about the situation.

  “Why shouldn’t we live when we’ve been ordered to?”

  In fact, nothing seemed impossible in the face of the commands of the people’s sovereignty:

  A strong practical politics where public and private are clearly divided,

  A politics run by patriotic, self-sacrificing executives,

  A politics where laborers and farmers are respected as people,

  A politics where all receive equal education regardless of ancestry.

  But …

  From what he had seen with his own eyes in the three years since Liberation, Han agreed with these conclusions about politics in the North, but he could not avoid this final “but.”

  He did not try to explain this “but” to anyone. And yet,

  “Hearing something over and over is not equal to seeing just once. Not until I’ve been to the South and seen with my own eyes …”

  This is what he told himself after hearing from several friends who had returned, and then, when the August 25 elections for the Unified Supreme People’s Assembly were announced, this “but” had started to play more insistently on his mind. Moreover, he wanted to be in the South just once for the anniversary of Liberation. He had already celebrated the anniversary twice in the North, but he felt that he would only experience the full emotional impact of Liberation as a national event if he could spend the anniversary in the South, even just once. By this time, order had been restored to Pyongyang, and his fears of a burglary or fire had eased.

  All right, this is my chance to just do it! Forget about the thirty-eighth parallel, even if I won’t be able to escape that damn unified election …

  And so, Mr. Han Moe had taken out the old paper twine bag that had lain forgotten for five years and shaken off the rainy season mold.

  2

  The train arrived in Haeju on time, but quite late at night. When Han came out of the station, he stood in the street for a while and looked around; the town had changed considerably since Liberation.

  He could not help but recall how life had been before. When exiting a station, the first thing to catch the eye would invariably be a police box lit by a red light, where a policeman wearing a long sword would stop all the Koreans and grill them like criminals for no reason at all, and if absolutely no fault could be found, they would be made to read the Imperial Oath and free to go only if their Japanese pronunciation was judged acceptable. The fact that nobody paid any attention to him in his current solitude left a profound impression of the nature of liberation and freedom.

  He began to walk in the direction of Suyang Hill. From time to time, he hesitated and looked around, wondering which way to go. It was at one of those moments that a safety patrolman appeared before him.

  “Excuse me. Is this the way to Okkye-dong?”

  “You can get there this way, but who are you looking for?”

  “A Mr. Yun Myŏnu, who lives at the entrance to Okkye-dong.”

  Yun Myŏnu was originally from Haeju and a relative of Han’s son-in-law in Pyongyang. Yun had long promised that if ever Han wanted to go to the South, he only had to come to Haeju and Yun could find him a reliable guide.

  “There’s a large zelkova tree in his yard.”

  “Oh, I know where you mean. Please follow me.”

  The patrolman went ahead and led the way to the house gate, even going so far as to knock at the door and call for Mr. Yun.

  Mr. Yun was indeed at home. There was also one other guest, who looked familiar.

  “Oh, did you have trouble finding the way?” Yun asked as soon as Han had sat down.

  “Trouble?”

  “I mean, because you came here with a patrolman.”

  “He was most kind. I just asked for directions, and he goes and brings me here himself!”

  “Is that so? Then, if it hadn’t been for that patrolman, you would have had trouble finding the house.”

  Yun seemed glad. The guest, who sat glued to the warmest part of the floor as if it were his very own spot, glanced over and asked, “Was the train on time today?”

  And immediately thereafter, “Who knows whether he is a kind guide or on your tail? Ha, ha …”

  He laughed. His voice, too, seemed familiar. Just as Han was thinking “I know that man and yet I can’t think who he is,” the man took a drag on his cigarette and laughed again, “Are you sleeping well these days?”

  They had met only a couple of times before, when the man had sat in a swivel chair, wearing a white doctor’s coat with a stethoscope in hand. Han barely recognized him outside of the examination room in his ordinary clothes. He was a doctor of internal medicine in Pyongyang, whom Han had visited several times on account of his insomnia, before stopping on account of the high cost of the medicine he prescribed.

  “It’s Dr. Sim! What a surprise to meet you here.”

  “I guess so. Ha, ha.”

  Dr. Sim laughed several times, as if he had suddenly become jovial. It was not long before Han realized that the doctor was in Haeju for the same reason as himself.

  “So, Dr. Sim, you’re planning to leave Pyongyang for good?”

  “I’ll come back in the open after reunification. Ha, ha.”

  “Well, how are things? With your hospital you can surely make a living unlike many of us, why not wait for reunification since you’ve made it this far?”

  “What else can I do when I can barely get by?”

  He rubbed two plump and oily hands together while he pleaded poverty. It was Yun Myŏnu who responded with a joke, as if the two of them were unconnected.

  “You doctors are all hoodlums anyway, aren’t you? It’s because you can no longer get away with it that you’re running away.”

  “Well, to tell the truth, who becomes a doctor just to get by?”

  “Dr. Sim, you’re not making as much money as before Liberation?”

  “How can I make any money? As you have surely noticed, a People’s Hospital has sprung up in every borough, then there’s the Central Hospital, the Soviet Hospital, and the Red Cross Hospital; there’s just so many hospitals now, aren’t there? On top of that, we should be receiving two thousand won for a dose of penicillin, but those guys give them out for six or seven hundred won, and at the Soviet Hospital, if you have no money, they just give you a dose anyway, don’t they? What kind of idiot would go to a private hospital these days? And we’re doctors. Those shamans who used to do so well, they have absolutely nothing to do in North Korea!”

  “But isn’t it the case that most people who used to go to shamans in the past went because they were too scared of how much a hospital would charge …”

  “I’ve been too lazy to move my arse up ’til now, so I’ve been stuck here watching it all, but it seems to me that anyone looking after their own i
nterests fled immediately after Liberation, didn’t they?”

  “And don’t some of them regret it now?”

  It was the owner of the house who asked the question.

  “Regret it?”

  Dr. Sim jumped up, his round eyes wider than ever. Apparently, those people had amassed amounts of money far greater than the value of the land that had been confiscated from them in the North, and they had taken possession of hospitals formerly owned by Japanese, which were far larger than the ones they had left behind.

  “Well, there must be competition in Seoul, what with all those doctors leaving from the North, how’ve they made so much money?”

  “Are you crazy or what? No fool of a doctor wears a stethoscope in Seoul these days!”

  “What do they do then?”

  Han was really curious.

  “Those of us from Severance know how to speak the ‘yes-no’ language, don’t we? There are Americans all over the place, so why would we sit around cutting out boils and the like? If you can become an interpreter for someone in power you can earn enough overnight to loosen the belt, and if that doesn’t work out, well you can trade in millions of won as a pharmacist!”

  “Really, do pharmacists do that well? Better than doctors?”

  “Oh really, you’re such a scholar! Do you think that I’m talking about someone selling ointment in the street, like in the old days? Diazine, penicillin, and whatnot are coming in and spreading all over the country, aren’t they? If you can get a foothold in that trade, they say it’s a goldmine.”

  It appeared that Han had found the most reliable travel companion in this Dr. Sim, who was so passionate about everything in the South. The doctor said there was nothing to fear once they had crossed the border. His cousin counted General Hodge’s secretary amongst his friends and was a real power player with important figures in the military administration under his thumb.