by Cho Se-hui
Just the thought of it was frightening. If a large plant closed its doors a host of workers would have no place to go. The number of employees that small plants could take on was limited. I wouldn’t be able to earn any money and might remain unemployed. I could look for a new place to work but it would take getting used to. It would be a small plant, and so the workplace might be worse, the pay might not go up, and the amount might be much smaller than what we received now. It was an awful thought. The majority of the workers had come to the plant in their youth and spent three or four years here, the precious years when young people should be growing. Except for the skills we acquired, there was nothing here in the way of a foothold for growing up. Our understanding was limited to what we were familiar with. None of us wanted to lose the foothold he’d sweated for. The company people didn’t want us to think. Workers worked, and that was it. The great majority of the workers accepted a situation in which change was impossible. And there was no one to awaken them to a single thing. Nor did the adults among us have any experience to pass on. All they saw was that reality moved in the direction opposite of what their hearts thought was right. There was so much that we didn’t know. This was good news for the company president. His family had a machine they pushed about the yard to cut the grass. In the yard were well-tended trees that absorbed the bright sunlight and grew fast and thick. The trees were cared for by a tree doctor from the General Tree Clinic. I had once passed by that clinic. “Valued Citizens—Are Your Trees Healthy?” read the sign. And beneath in small lettering: “Detection of Pests * Detection of Blight * Pruning * Maintenance.” “We don’t have any trees at home, and I’m not healthy,” said the young assistant beside me. We laughed so hard we had to clutch our sides. And then I wondered what was so funny. Almost every day the young assistant had a nosebleed.
Brother removed his shirt and placed it over my back. Soon his pantlegs were damp with dew from the grass and weeds.
I tried to explain: “No one’s seen Yŏng-hŭi except The Lush. This is where he said the flying saucer landed.”
“So you stayed up all night? What did you see?”
“You think I believe him?”
“No.”
“I didn’t know where to look for her.”
“Let’s go home.”
“Big Brother, why do you think Yŏng-hŭi left?”
“Because of you two,” Mother had said. “She left because you’re hanging around doing nothing. We have no money, no house. It’s all your fault. Other youngsters played it safe and they’re still working—why did you two have to get yourselves fired?”
“Yŏng-hŭi always says where she’s going. I can’t figure it out.”
“Probably couldn’t stand it any more,” Big Brother said.
He produced a woeful expression. My brother had always been a deep thinker. And he knew a lot. If Father weren’t a dwarf, my brother could have ended up a scholar. In every spare moment he read books. After he dropped out of school he read even more books. It was for his sake that I gave him printed matter fresh off the press. He patiently read even the most difficult material. And when he came into some money he would shop at a used book store and read those books too. Books gave him everything. My brother frequently wore the expression of a suffering man. He copied things down in a notebook, things I didn’t understand. These were some of the writings:
“What is violence? Violence is not just bullets, nightsticks, and fists. It is also neglect of the nursing babies who are starving in the nooks and crannies of our city.”
“A nation without dissenters is a disaster. Who is bold enough to try to establish order based on violence?”
“The seventeenth-century Swedish prime minister Axel Oxenstierna said to his son, ‘Do you realize how unwisely the world is ruled?’ Our situation has not improved all that much since Oxenstierna’s time.”
“If leaders are well off, then human suffering is forgotten. Accordingly, their use of the word sacrifice is utterly hypocritical. I think the exploitation and savagery of the past were forthright in comparison.”
“Isn’t the capacity to cry in response to the despair of one’s neighbors paralyzed or forfeited in the so-called educated people who cry while reading Hamlet or listening to Mozart?”
“We have witnessed the passing of generation upon generation, century after century, but to what end? Because we were isolated from the world, we gave it nothing, taught it nothing. We have contributed nothing to human thought…. From the thought of others we have adopted only the deceptive exterior and useless trappings.”
“To govern is to give people something to do in order that they may accept their society’s traditions and remain occupied, and to prevent them from wandering the periphery of an empty, dreary life.”
For me, my brother was unknowable. While I read the notebook, he wore the expression of a suffering man. It was the very image of a dignified, suffering man. I managed to suppress a laugh. My brother probably scorned me for my ignorance and foolishness.
“What do you figure on doing with this stuff?” I asked.
“Yŏng-ho,” Father used to say. “I want you to read books like your brother.”
“It’s not a matter of doing something with it,” my brother said. “Books help me learn about myself.”
“Now I understand,” I said sometime later. “You’re an idealist.”
I felt wonderful saying this. I wanted to let my brother know that I’d grown up like him. I wanted him to know I wasn’t like other boys and girls—I was mature enough to use difficult words. I studied his suffering idealist’s face. My expectations were off the mark. My brother was angry. At the time, I couldn’t understand why he had to be angry. I myself admitted I was foolish. We were the children of a dwarf. Shoulders drooping, my brother left. I picked up a pebble and threw it into the sewer creek. Bubbles rose silently from the water. From our yard I lobbed pebbles one after another toward the creek.
“Yŏng-ho,” said Mother. “That’s enough—go down to the precinct office and see what’s going on.”
“It doesn’t matter if I go or not. An hour ago it was two hundred twenty thousand wŏn. You think it’s gone up again?”
“Go anyway and find out. Tell them we’ll sell for two hundred and fifty.”
I picked up another pebble and lobbed it toward the creek. People were milling about in front of the precinct office. There were a few cars. Only two kinds of people were there: people selling their occupancy rights and people buying them. The sellers, their faces anxious, tried to read the brokers’ expressions. They were underfed faces, all of them. Those faces smelled of tears. I breathed in that smell, breathed it deep inside me. Someone took my arm. It was Yŏng-hŭi. She looked away; her face had been reddened by the sun. She’d been to Chamshil. The current price at the realty offices near where the apartments were going up was also two hundred twenty thousand, she said. I felt there was no use holding out any longer.
“Brother,” she said. “Tell Mother we should sell. Before the price drops. Tell her.”
“I’ll buy,” said a woman. “I’m not a real estate agent. I’ll be occupying the apartment myself. Will you be able to transfer the title?”
“Of course,” I said. “We have the number plate.”
“What does this number plate of yours look like?”
“It’s a small aluminum plate. It’s marked ‘unauthorized structure’ and there’s a number.”
“Then what is this ‘No Plate’ business? Whatever it is, it’s cheaper.”
“‘No Plate’ just means a house without a number plate. Years ago when the city surveyed all the squatter houses some of them were left out by mistake, some of them were found to be on private land, and some were lost in the paperwork.”
The woman was perspiring. She dabbed at herself with a handkerchief and indicated the bulletin board. Posted there was a title transfer form for unauthorized structures. Written below it was a list of the necessary supporting documents. “
Title transfer form, one copy; notarized impression of buyer’s registered seal, one copy; duplicate of sales contract, one copy; guarantor’s affidavit, one copy,” the woman read.
“Just a copy of the sales contract should do it,” I said. “And we can write in a purchase date that’s a month or two before the date of the condemnation notice.”
“Is that going to get us in trouble?”
“No, ma’am, because the title will be transferred to you. And you’ll be the occupant of the apartment.”
“Isn’t that against the law?” The woman stood stiffly, dabbing at her perspiration.
“You could ask the people in the precinct office who take care of housing matters,” I said. “Ask them why they’re handling something illegal.”
“Two hundred twenty thousand is too expensive. Could you lower it ten thousand?”
“Ma’am,” I said. “Our house is about to be torn down. If we were to rebuild it, we would need one million three hundred thousand wŏn. This was the house our father worked his whole life to build. Our price for that house is two hundred twenty thousand. If we subtract the hundred and fifty thousand deposit we owe our renters, that leaves us with seventy thousand.”
“So you’re saying two hundred ten thousand won’t work?”
I said nothing. The woman turned away. Yŏng-hŭi punched me in the back with her small fist. A short time later she punched me again. She was wearing blue jeans. They looked good on her. Without looking at Yŏng-hŭi’s face I turned and walked away.
“Wait before you sell,” said a man in a car. “I’ll buy.”
“For how much?”
“How much are you asking?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand wŏn.”
“Fine. I’ll come around this evening. And if any of your neighbors are selling, tell them to hold out and wait for me.”
“Wait a bit longer,” Father had said. “There are people who speak the truth and then get buried. I think that’s happening to you kids.”
Big Brother and I had stood on the concrete bridge above the sewer creek. Father had sat with his legs between the railings, drinking. I had to wait until Father finished. At the far end of the bridge was The Lush, passed out and snoring. Father’s capacity was less than a quarter of his. That night Father drank half of The Lush’s capacity. It grew late and the neighbors turned off their lights and went to bed. Two houses remained lit—The Lush’s and ours. I was afraid Father would drink himself to death that night. Big Brother had not taken Father’s bottle away from him. I tried to imagine the day Father closed his eyes for the last time. Death was the end of everything. The minister at the church on the hill was different. He spoke of human nobility, suffering, and salvation. He said humans commenced a different life after they died, but this I couldn’t understand. There had been no nobility to Father, no salvation. Only suffering. I had once seen the slave sale document that my brother had typeset. Surely it was not Father alone who had suffered. Father and Mother hoped that all of us children would start a new life. But we had already lost our first battle.
I tried to imagine the day I closed my eyes for the last time. I didn’t even measure up to Father. Father, his father, his grandfather, his grandfather’s father, that father’s grandfather—all of them were the product of their time. I felt that my body had become smaller than Father’s. When I closed my eyes for the last time I’d be nothing more than a small clown.
Nobody gave us anything to do. People prevented us from entering the plant. The president and his staff stood at the window of the conference room looking out at us. They had deprived us of our work.
“So, why don’t we talk it over again?” Father had said. “You’re saying you two are the only ones left? All of you stopped work together and decided to negotiate with the president, but the others betrayed you and you were the only two left. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Father, haven’t you had enough?” I said.
“Well done.” Again Father tilted his bottle and drank. “You did well and those youngsters did well.”
“We’re going home.”
“All right, go ahead. And send your mother out.”
“That won’t be necessary.” It was Mother. She had almost tripped over The Lush. “This is wonderful! The two of you together can’t take proper care of your father?”
“Easy now.” Father tossed his empty bottle beneath the bridge. “The boys were splendid today. They met with the president. Told him that if the company was to do well, they’d need to cut a few of their own throats. And not to force the workers to do anything he wouldn’t want forced upon himself. Boys, you think your mom understands? Hmm?”
“Father, that’s not how it happened,” I said. “We couldn’t meet anyone. Our plans leaked out and we got fired—that’s the size of it.”
“It amounts to the same thing!” Father said in a loud voice. “If you’d met with the president that’s what you would have said. Right? Answer me.”
“Yes,” I answered in a small voice.
“Hear that?” he said to Mother. “Did you hear that?”
“No need to worry,” Mother said. “The boys are first-rate skilled workers now. They can get a paying job at any factory they go to.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t? Well, I think it would be good if the boys moved to a different factory.”
“It won’t work. All the factories know by now. They’re all the same—no factory will take the boys. You don’t realize what these boys did today.”
“That’s enough. The way you carry on, a person would think they committed treason or something.”
“What?”
“Let’s go.”
Big Brother strode across the bridge. At the far end he hoisted the comatose Lush on his back. He tottered off and managed not to fall. Brother hadn’t eaten right for several days. And he hadn’t slept well. His tongue had developed cold sores and he’d lost his appetite. At night he felt wide awake and couldn’t sleep. And now all of this was beginning to show. Brother lowered The Lush to the floor of his veranda. The Lush’s young daughter appeared rubbing her eyes and laid her father out on his back. We emerged from the alley and took a deep gulp of the night air. There was Mother, carrying Father on her back. My brother turned away, pressing his hands to his head.
The workers, as they usually did, had gone out to the cramped yard to kick the ball around. They made no attempt to turn their heads in our direction. After twenty minutes, dripping with sweat, they surged back inside the plant.
“What the hell!” my brother had mumbled to himself.
“I hope you don’t change your mind this evening,” said the man in the car.
“If it’s two hundred fifty thousand wŏn, then no problem,” I said.
That night the man in the car bought up the occupancy rights of all the neighbors who still had them. He bought them all up at two hundred fifty thousand apiece; other brokers had paid two hundred twenty thousand. Again that night Yŏng-hŭi sat in front of the pansies playing her guitar. She picked two of the pansies and stuck one in the guitar and the other in her hair. She didn’t budge, merely played the guitar. The man offered Father a cigarette.
“It’s two hundred fifty thousand—we’re clear on that?” Mother asked.
An older man who had accompanied the man in the car opened a black briefcase and displayed the money. He sat down on the veranda and filled out a sales contract. Mother went inside and reappeared with an envelope of documents and a personal seal. Father wrote his name—Kim Pul-i—in Chinese on the seller’s line and affixed his seal. The older man didn’t realize the meaning of Father’s name: kŭmppuri, reflecting the desire of poor parents for a son to become wealthy. He had no way of knowing the connotation of painful longing in that name. One by one Mother handed over the items she had wrapped so carefully: the number plate with its knife scratches; the condemnation notice, which had caused Mother to put down her spoon and ch
opsticks and pound her chest three times; two copies of the notarized impression of Father’s registered seal, used for the first time, to dispose of their house dirt cheap; a title transfer form, with Father’s name entered; and two copies of the family register, containing the names and ages of the powerless members of our family. Yŏng-hŭi, sitting in front of the pansies at the side of the yard, hung her head. The man held out the money. Mother shook her head, retreated, and sat. Father accepted the money. He held it exactly three seconds, then handed it to Mother. Mother received it with both hands.
The next morning Myŏng-hŭi’s mother had her house torn down. Mother repaid her the one hundred fifty thousand wŏn. The two wives silently held each other’s hand. A moving truck threaded its way into the narrow alley and loaded Myŏng-hŭi’s family’s belongings. Myŏng-hŭi’s mother wiped away her tears with the hem of her skirt.
“Isn’t it funny!” she said with a great sigh. “The thing that makes us close makes a time like this so difficult.”
These words were pepper in our eyes. The moving truck went past our house. Father lifted his right hand halfway, then lowered it. In his left hand was Chi-sŏp’s book. It had been soiled by the grime from Father’s hand. In Father and Chi-sŏp we seemed to see two people who had flown off beyond the atmosphere. In a single day they made several round trips to the moon.
“Life is too hard,” Father had said. “So I decided to go to the moon and work at an observatory. My job is to keep an eye on the telescope lens. Since there’s no dust on the moon, there’s no need to clean the lens or anything like that. But they still need someone to keep an eye on it.”
“Father, do you really think something like that’s possible?” I asked.
“What have you learned up to now?” Father said. “Three centuries have gone by since Newton came out with his laws. You’ve learned about them, right? Ever since grade school. And you talk like someone who knows nothing about the fundamental laws of the universe.”