by Cho Se-hui
1
PEOPLE CALLED FATHER A DWARF. Their perception was correct. Father was a dwarf. Sad to say, that was their only correct perception of Father. They were wrong about everything else. On that eternal fact I would bet all that we have—we meaning Father, Mother, my brother Yŏng-ho, my sister Yŏng-hŭi, and I. And when I say “all,” that includes “the lives of us five.” People who live in heaven don’t need to think of hell. But the five of us lived in hell and we thought of heaven. There wasn’t a single day that we didn’t. Because each and every day of our life was insufferable. Our life was a war. And in that war, every day, we were losers. Still, Mother put up with it. But what happened on that particular morning seemed difficult even for her to bear.
“The precinct head brought this,” I said.
Mother was sitting at the end of our tiny veranda eating breakfast.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A condemnation notice.”
“So, finally,” Mother said. “They’re telling us the house has to go, aren’t they? Well, we knew we’d eventually have to deal with this, just like everything else.”
Mother stopped eating. I looked down at her meal tray. Steamed barley with rice, dark soybean paste, a couple of shriveled-up peppers, potato chunks in soy sauce.
Slowly I read her the notice:
Eden District
House number: 444,1 September 10, 197X
TO: Mr. Kim Pul-i, 46-1839 Felicity Precinct, Eden District, Seoul
RE: Condemnation of Hillside Structures in Redevelopment Zone
As listed owner of the following structure, which according to the provisional authorization of new housing developments has been found to lie within the Felicity Zone 3 Redevelopment Area, you are hereby requested, pursuant to article 15 of the Municipal Housing Reconstruction and Redevelopment Act and articles 5 and 42 of the Building Code, to demolish said structure by September 30, 197X. Noncompliance will result in demolition being enforced under the terms of applicable law, in which case you will be liable for the expenses thereof.
Condemned Structure: 46-1839 Felicity Precinct, Eden District, Seoul
Construction: Lot Size: Floor Space:
*****
Chief, Eden District
Mother sat without a word at the end of the veranda. The shadow of the brick factory’s tall smokestack angled over our cement wall, covering our tiny yard. The neighbors had come out into the alley and were shouting about something. The precinct head shouldered his way through them and set off toward the bank of the sewer creek. Mother took her unfinished breakfast into the kitchen. There she sat, knees drawn up. She lifted a hand and struck the kitchen floor once, and then her chest.
I went to the precinct office. It was thronged with the people of Felicity Precinct, all loudly expressing their opinions. Perhaps two or three at most were listening; the rest, dozens of them, chattered away practically in unison. But what was the use? Chatter wouldn’t solve a problem like this.
A notice had been posted on the bulletin board outside. It concerned such matters as the procedure for occupying an apartment, what to do in case one gave up the right of occupancy, and the resettlement allowance to which one was entitled. The area around the office was like an open-air market. Swirls of residents and apartment brokers rushed this way and that. There I met Father, my younger brother, and my sister. Father sat outside the seal engraver’s shop. Yŏng-ho was approaching the bulletin board I’d just left. Yŏng-hŭi stood in front of a black car parked at the entrance to the alley. They had left home early in the morning looking for work, then returned upon hearing about the condemnation notice. Who could work on a day such as this? I walked up to Father and shouldered his toolbag. My brother approached and transferred the bag to his shoulder. I yielded without protest, and in the process I saw Yŏng-hŭi come toward us. Her face was flushed. Several apartment brokers surrounded us offering to buy our occupancy rights. Father was reading a book. This was something we had never seen him do. The cover was wrapped in paper, so I couldn’t tell what it was. Yŏng-hŭi bent over and took Father’s hand. Father looked up with a blank expression, then rose, brushing off his backside. “Look, a dwarf,” said those who had never seen him before.
Mother was using a kitchen knife to pry off the number plate attached to the front gate post of our house. I took the knife and levered out the nails that held the plate to the post. Yŏng-ho seemed to find this disagreeable. Agreeable work, though, was not something we could hope for. Inscribed on the aluminum plate was the number of our unauthorized dwelling, and Mother knew there would be trouble if she didn’t remove it for safekeeping.
Mother looked silently at the plate resting in her palm. Yŏng-hŭi took her hand.
“If you all hadn’t lost your jobs I wouldn’t be so concerned,” Mother said. “Twenty days from now—it would take a miracle. All we can do now is deal with things one at a time.”
“Are you talking about selling our occupancy rights?” asked Yŏng-hŭi.
“Selling—what are you talking about!” shouted Yŏng-ho.
“Well, it takes money to move into an apartment.”
“We’re not going to an apartment either.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to live right here. This is our home.”
Yŏng-ho bounded up the stone steps and put Father’s toolbag under the veranda.
“Someone was talking about this only a month ago,” said Father. He had just finished reading the condemnation notice, which Mother had handed him. “Since the city has built apartments for us, there’s nothing more to talk about.”
“They weren’t built for us,” Yŏng-ho said.
“We need lots of money to move in, don’t we?” asked Yŏng-hŭi. She was standing in front of the pansies in the yard. “We’re not leaving. We’ve got no place to go. Isn’t that right, Eldest Brother?” she asked me.
“I’m not going to stand here while some son of a bitch tears down our house,” said Yŏng-ho. “No matter who he is.”
“Stop it,” I said. “The law’s on their side.”
As Father had said, there was nothing more to talk about.
Yŏng-hŭi, standing where the pansies grew, looked away. She was crying. It didn’t take much for her to cry. She had been like that since childhood.
“Don’t cry, Yŏng-hŭi,” I used to tell her.
“The tears keep coming out.”
“Then try to be quiet about it.”
“Mmm.”
But she couldn’t. We were at the grassy place near the bank of the sewer creek and she was crying. I put my hand over her mouth. Yŏng-hŭi smelled like grass. From the alley in the residential area across the sewer creek came the smell of grilled meat. Although I knew what it was, I used to ask Mother anyway.
“Mom, what’s that smell?”
Mother walked on without a word.
Again I asked: “What is it, Mom?”
Mother took my hand and walked faster. “It’s meat cooking. One of these days we’ll have ourselves some.”
“When?”
“All right now, hurry along,” Mother said. “You study hard, and you can live in a nice house and have meat every day.”
“That’s a lie!” I said, shoving Mother’s hand aside. “Father’s a bad man.”
Mother came to a dead stop. “What did you say?”
“My father’s a bad man.”
“You want a spanking? Your father’s a good man.”
“I want to have clothes with pockets like everyone else.”
“You hurry along, now.”
“Mom, how come you don’t put pockets on our clothes? ‘Cause you don’t have money or food to put in them, right?”
“One more word about your father and I’ll give you a spanking—remember that.”
“Father can’t even be a bad guy. Bad guys have lots of money and stuff.”
“Your father’s a good man.”
“I know,” I said. �
��You’ve said it a thousand times. But I don’t believe it anymore.”
“Mommy,” said Yŏng-hŭi. She was standing at the door to the kitchen. “Eldest Brother didn’t listen to you. He sneaked out to smell the meat. I stayed right here.”
Mother said nothing. I scowled at Yŏng-hŭi.
“Look, Mommy, he wants to hit me because I told you he went out to smell the meat.”
Yŏng-hŭi wasn’t about to stop crying. I removed my hand from her mouth. It was a mistake to take her to the grassy place. I regretted hitting her. Yŏng-hŭi’s cute face was soaked with tears. Back then our clothes didn’t have pockets.
Father set the condemnation notice on the edge of the veranda and read his book. We didn’t hope for anything from Father. He had put in enough work over the years. And he had suffered enough. Father wasn’t the only one to have experienced trouble. His father, his grandfather, his grandfather’s father, that father’s grandfather, and so on down the line, from one generation to the next—they may have experienced even more trouble than he. At the print shop I once had the opportunity to typeset copy for an unusual document of sale. The setting of one part in particular required me to move my hands fast and hard: “Maidservant Kim Yi-dŏk begot slave Kŭm-dong in the kyŏngin year; slave Kŭm-dong’s good wife begot slave Kim Kŭm-i in the chŏngin year; slave Kŭm-dong’s good wife begot slave Tŏk-su in the kisa year; slave Kŭm-dong’s good wife begot slave Chon-se in the shinmi year; slave Kŭm-dong’s good wife begot slave Yŏng-sŏk in the kyeyu year; slave Kim Kŭm-i’s good wife begot slave Ch’ŏl-su in the pyŏngsul year; slave Kim Kŭm-i’s good wife begot slave Kŭm-san in the muja year.” At first I didn’t realize what I was working with. But by the time I composed the next plate I had an inkling. It was part of a sales document involving slaves. I typeset that book for ten days. During that time I said nothing to Father. Nor did I say anything to Mother. Mother’s mother, her grandmother, her grandmother’s mother, that mother’s grandmother—I knew what kind of work they had done as humble people of the lowest class. And in Mother’s case it was no different. Not for a day did she enjoy peace of mind, and the drudgery she performed to pay off her indebtedness was the same. Our ancestors were bound by heredity to a life of physical toil. They could be inherited, bought and sold, given away, and taxed.
One day Mother said to me, “You children are suffering and it’s all because of me. It has nothing to do with your father.”
She had said this to me for I was the eldest son. It was something she had heard from her mother and now she was passing it on to me. For a millennium our ancestors had left behind these words for their posterity. But I already knew. I knew that Father was the offspring of a hereditary slave.
During the generation of my grandfather’s father the slavery system came to an end. At first my paternal great-grandparents knew nothing of it. When finally they learned of their freedom what do you suppose they said? “Please don’t send us away.” Grandfather was different. He tried to liberate himself from the old ways. Grandfather’s elderly master gave him a house and land. But it was to no avail. In terms of ignorance, Grandfather was no improvement upon Great-grandfather. Through Great-grandfather’s generation the life experiences of one’s forefathers were helpful, but they proved of no help to Grandfather’s generation. Grandfather had neither education nor experience to draw on. He lost his house and his land.
“Was Grandfather a dwarf too?” Yŏng-ho once asked.
I gave him a rap on the head.
When Yŏng-ho was somewhat older he said, “Why do we have to hush things up like before? Isn’t it kind of ridiculous? I mean, nothing’s changed.”
I kept silent.
Yŏng-hŭi produced a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. Father continued to read his book. Mother was talking with Myŏng-hŭi’s mother, who lived in the house in back of ours.
“How much did you sell for?”
“We got a hundred and seventy thousand.”
“I guess that’s more than the moving allowance City Hall said they’d give us?”
“Twenty thousand more. In any event, you folks won’t be able to move into an apartment, either, will you?”
“I should think not!”
“They say it’s five hundred eighty thousand if you buy an apartment and three hundred thousand if you lease. And either way you have to pay fifteen thousand a month.”
“So everyone’s selling their occupancy rights?”
“Yes. And don’t you folks wait till the last minute.”
Mother wore a pained expression.
“We’re ready to leave. We could go tomorrow,” Myŏng-hŭi’s mother added, “if you folks can give us the money. A couple swings of the ax will take care of our house.”
Again tears gathered in Yŏng-hŭi’s eyes. She was like that even after she grew up. Girls cry easily. I went to Yŏng-hŭi and she pointed to the cement terrace where our crocks of condiments stood. Written in the cement was “Myŏng-hŭi likes Yŏng-su.” It’s been there ever since the house was built. Yŏng-hŭi smiled. That was the happiest time for us. Father and Mother had carried home rocks from a ditch. They’d made steps with them and cemented the walls. We were still young and couldn’t do hard work. Even so, there was much to do. For several days we didn’t go to school. Every day was fun. Several times a day a group of people we had never seen before would tour the neighborhood. That was the only time the young children in their dirty clothes stopped crying. Even the browbeaten dogs of shouting owners stopped barking and retreated. The entire neighborhood grew calm. Suddenly it was so still—what the heck was going on? I was ashamed of the way our neighborhood smelled. They had bowed and greeted Father. Father had to stand on tiptoe to shake hands with them. But that didn’t matter to us. In our eyes our dwarf of a father was a giant.
“See that?” I had asked.
Yŏng-ho nodded.
“So did I,” Yŏng-hŭi said.
The man who had just bowed and greeted Father said he would put in a bridge over the sewer creek, pave the streets, and renovate the houses in our neighborhood. Taking our cue from the adults, we clapped loudly, very loudly. The next man quoted the previous one’s promise to put in a bridge and pave the streets, and said we should put that man to work for the district chief; he, on the other hand, promised to do this and that on behalf of the nation, and asked for our support. Once again the grown-ups clapped. And once again we followed their lead. Until I myself was grown up I often thought of that incident. My impression of those two was deeply embedded in my mind. I hated them. They were liars. They had such fantastic plans. But plans were not what we needed. A lot of people had already made many plans. But nothing had changed. And even if those people had achieved something, we wouldn’t have been affected. What we needed were people who could understand our suffering and take it upon themselves.
“She’s one in a million,” said Mother.
“Who?” asked Yŏng-ho.
“Myŏng-hŭi’s mother. She lent us a hundred and fifty thousand so we can give our renter’s deposit back to him.”
“Yŏng-hŭi’s Mom,” said Myŏng-hŭi’s mother over the back wall. “Don’t take what I said the wrong way.”
“I won’t,” said Mother. “And you can rest assured we’ll pay you back.”
“You know where that money came from.”
“Yes I do. When I think of your Myŏng-hŭi I get all choked up.”
“Myŏng-hŭi ŏnni,” Yŏng-hŭi used to call out. “Come on over! Come on over to our house!”
“You like your new house?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“If you don’t get rid of what you wrote on the terrace I’m not coming over.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because the cement’s all hard.”
“Then I’m not coming over.”
I could tell Yŏng-hŭi was crushed. But I saw Myŏng-hŭi anyway. Back then there were woods off to the right of the sewer creek bank. If you sat
there you could see the lights from the print shop through the trees. The people there, they worked through the night.
“If you promise me something then I’ll let you do it,” said Myŏng-hŭi.
“Promise what?” I said.
“That you won’t work at that print shop.”
“Are you out of your mind? I’m not going to work at a place like that.”
“Really? You promise?”
“Yeah. I promise.”
“All right. You can feel me, then.”
Myŏng-hŭi offered me her chest. It was positively tiny.
“You’re the first one,” Myŏng-hŭi said. “No one but you has ever felt my chest.”
I had my left arm around her shoulders and felt her with my right hand. The curves of her chest were warm.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered. I could feel her breath beneath my ear.
“I won’t.”
“And don’t tell your brother and sister.”
“I’m not going to.”
“If you keep it a secret and keep the promise you just made, I’ll let you do whatever you want.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
“Can I feel you somewhere else now?”
Myŏng-hŭi, though, looked like she didn’t have any energy. She was always like that with me. Sometimes she just sat there in a daze.
“What’s the matter?” I was worried. “Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“I don’t like the food we eat at home.”
“How come?”
“I’m sick of it.”
“You’ll die, then.”
“I want to die.”
“Myŏng-hŭi, I’m not going to work at that shitty old print shop. I’m going to study and go to work for a big company. I promise.”
“I’m hungry,” little Myŏng-hŭi said with a smile.
“What would you like to eat?” I asked her.
She took my hands. And as she answered, she counted off on my fingers one by one: “Citrus soda, grapes, instant noodles, pastries, apples, eggs, meat, rice without barley, laver.”
She left one finger uncounted. That was all Myŏng-hŭi needed at the time. When she was older she became a tearoom waitress, an express bus conductress, and a caddy. One day she returned home looking pale. This was her farewell. Later Mother said that whenever Myŏng-hŭi came home her stomach was big. Myŏng-hŭi breathed her last at a suicide prevention center, the kind that deals with poisonings. “No, Mommy, no!” she shouted while in the throes of the poison. Grownup Myŏng-hŭi, at her final moment, must have been wandering among the memories of her childhood. The savings account she left behind contained a hundred ninety thousand wŏn.