Dust and Other Stories
Page 28
You bastards, are you cooking up those Ilchinhoe games again?
His sigh was resolute, but tears collected in his one unbandaged eye.
7
Mr. Han Moe picked up his paper twine bag and left his daughter’s house in Seoul as soon as he could remove the bandage from his eye. He left without visiting Sŏng or any of his other friends again, and without waiting to see his son-in-law, who had little hope of either a trial or release.
He decided to take the Tongduch’ŏn route by which he had arrived. He spent four days in Tongduch’ŏn trying to find a guide, but no one volunteered amidst claims that the security was just too intense. Even staying more than a few days in such a small town might expose his true intentions, and so he set off alone, and with confidence, on the road that he had traveled no more than one month earlier.
After walking thirty ri he reached the Hant’an River: a cock crowed twice somewhere and lights flickered in the windows of both the civilian and official residences in Chŏngongni, the first village on the northern side.
He held his breath as he looked around to his left and right. All was still. He quietly took off his jacket and tied it onto his back, along with his bag. It was already autumn, and although the water was shallow it was as cold as ice and the stones were slippery. No matter how carefully he trod, the water made a noise. And then, before he made it half way across, he fell over with a loud splash. He managed to stand up again, but this time, before he could fully right his body,
Pop, pop,
Pop, pop, de de de …
The sound of the rifles came from a fair distance, from the hill to the west of the iron bridge, and not from only one or two guns. Bullets covered the river, splashing up water like a rain shower.
After a while, the shower of gunfire came to a halt.
Everything was still once more; not even the shadow of a person on either the north or south bank of the river, and no sound in the water.
—February 1950
Translated from Munhak yesul, 1950
1. Dr. Sim mixes Japanese words into his conversation as an indication of both his status and the continuity between the colonial era and postcolonial order in the South. Here nigiyaka means “lively.”
GLOSSARY
Ilbo: A pen name of the fiction writer, translator, and scholar of drama Ham Taehun (1906–1949).
Ilsŏk: A pen name of the linguist Yi Hŭisŭng (1896–1989).
Kubo: A pen name of Pak T’aewŏn (1909–1986), modernist writer and member of the Group of Nine.
Kujō Takeko: A Japanese poet and educator (1887–1928) known as one of the three beauties of Taishō.
Nosan: A pen name of the historian and essay writer Yi Ŭnsang (1903–1982), who was also a poet specializing in the traditional, short form of the sijo.
Pinghŏ: A pen name of the pioneering modern short-fiction writer Hyŏn Chingŏn (1900–1943).
Saturday Society (Towŏlhoe): A new-style drama group formed in 1922 by students in Tokyo.
Sinbok: A pen name of Ch’oe Yŏngju (1905–1945), a writer, translator, and editor of children’s fiction.
Sŏgyŏng: A pen name of the cartoonist and film scenario writer An Sŏkchu (1901–1950).
Sŏhae: A pen name of the writer Ch’oe Haksong (1901–1932).
Suju: A pen name of the poet Pyŏn Yŏngno (1897–1961).
Wŏlp’a: A pen name of the poet Kim Sangyong (1902–1951).
Yi Sang: A pen name of the modernist poet, fiction writer, artist, and member of the Group of Nine, Kim Haegyŏng (1910–1937).
Yŏsu: A pen name of Pak P’aryang (1905–1988), poet and member of the Group of Nine.
Yun: The children’s fiction writer Yun Sŏkchung (1911–2003).
WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
LITERATURE
David Der-wei Wang, Editor
Ye Zhaoyan, Nanjing 1937: A Love Story, translated by Michael Berry
Oda Makato, The Breaking Jewel, translated by Donald Keene
Han Shaogong, A Dictionary of Maqiao, translated by Julia Lovell
Takahashi Takako, Lonely Woman, translated by Maryellen Toman Mori
Chen Ran, A Private Life, translated by John Howard-Gibbon
Eileen Chang, Written on Water, translated by Andrew F. Jones
Writing Women in Modern China: The Revolutionary Years, 1936–1976, edited by Amy D. Dooling
Han Bangqing, The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai, first translated by Eileen Chang, revised and edited by Eva Hung
Loud Sparrows: Contemporary Chinese Short-Shorts, translated and edited by Aili Mu, Julie Chiu, and Howard Goldblatt
Hiratsuka Raichō, In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun, translated by Teruko Craig
Zhu Wen, I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, translated by Julia Lovell
Kim Sowŏl, Azaleas: A Book of Poems, translated by David McCann
Wang Anyi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai, translated by Michael Berry with Susan Chan Egan
Ch’oe Yun, There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch’oe Yun, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
Inoue Yasushi, The Blue Wolf: A Novel of the Life of Chinggis Khan, translated by Joshua A. Fogel
Anonymous, Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou, translated by Patrick Hanan
Cao Naiqian, There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night, translated by John Balcom
Park Wan-suh, Who Ate Up All the Shinga? An Autobiographical Novel, translated by Yu Young-nan and Stephen J. Epstein
Yi T’aejun, Eastern Sentiments, translated by Janet Poole
Hwang Sunwŏn, Lost Souls: Stories, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
Kim Sŏk-pŏm, The Curious Tale of Mandogi’s Ghost, translated by Cindi Textor
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, edited by Xiaomei Chen
Qian Zhongshu, Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays, edited by Christopher G. Rea, translated by Dennis T. Hu, Nathan K. Mao, Yiran Mao, Christopher G. Rea, and Philip F. Williams
Dung Kai-cheung, Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City, translated by Dung Kai-cheung, Anders Hansson, and Bonnie S. McDougall
O Chŏnghŭi, River of Fire and Other Stories, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
Endō Shūsaku, Kiku’s Prayer: A Novel, translated by Van Gessel
Li Rui, Trees Without Wind: A Novel, translated by John Balcom
Abe Kōbō, The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Richard F. Calichman
Zhu Wen, The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan: More Stories of China, translated by Julia Lovell
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, Abridged Edition, edited by Xiaomei Chen
Natsume Sōseki, Light and Dark, translated by John Nathan
Seirai Yūichi, Ground Zero, Nagasaki: Stories, translated by Paul Warham
Hideo Furukawa, Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima, translated by Doug Slaymaker with Akiko Takenaka
Abe Kōbō, Beasts Head for Home: A Novel, translated by Richard F. Calichman
Yi Mun-yol, Meeting with My Brother: A Novella, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl with Yoosup Chang
Ch’ae Manshik, Sunset: A Ch’ae Manshik Reader, edited and translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, In Black and White: A Novel, translated by Phyllis I. Lyons
HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE
Carol Gluck, Editor
Takeuchi Yoshimi, What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi, edited and translated, with an introduction, by Richard F. Calichman
Contemporary Japanese Thought, edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman
Overcoming Modernity, edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman
Natsume Sōseki, Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings, edited and transla
ted by Michael Bourdaghs, Atsuko Ueda, and Joseph A. Murphy
Kojin Karatani, History and Repetition, edited by Seiji M. Lippit
The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, edited by Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko
Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism: The War Experience of the Japanese People, translated by Ethan Mark