She listened to be sure that no one was approaching and put her hand in the box and stroked the salt. How much would this make her …? Eight won and eighty jeon! She could clear off her unpaid rent … and what remained would last only another month. She ought to use it to fund a new business. But what could she sell? She absentmindedly put a little salt in her mouth and her appetite came back in a rush of saliva. She craved a bowl of rice. No food tastes good without a bit of salt.
That was it! She remembered her family and how she had dreamt of making preserved side dishes if she had just a little salt. That she would think of this only after having lost her husband and children! She simply had to continue living, only because she could not die. She sighed. The life she had lived was like meals without salt. A terrible life. So terrible … She touched the top of her head. It was so sore that the slightest graze of her fingertips pained her. She leaned her face against the box of salt.
‘Oh Bongshik, whether you’re alive or dead, please come find your mother … I cannot bear this life!’
A while later, she woke up to bright morning light and was shocked to see two men in uniform and her salt box at her feet. The sack of salt had been removed and the men’s eyes were boring into her. Policemen! She trembled like a leaf.
‘Where is your salt licence!’
She did not have one. She could not breathe, and her eyes went dark. She felt a sudden sharpening of all her senses, just like that time in the river when she strained against the currents, trying not to drop the salt into the water. The tracker had saved her that time, but who would save her now against these men with guns and swords?
The policemen knew very well she had no licence. ‘You despicable woman! Selling private salt! Get up!’
One of them grabbed her arm. She felt a jolt of electricity run through her as she remembered the words spoken by the voice on the hill, the voice she had listened to with contempt.
‘You are our comrades! Only when we work as one can we fight against the rich bastards who are our real enemies!’
Those words thrown at her from the dark! Her heart was fit to burst. The communists had not taken her salt. She felt that if they were by her side right now, they might even help her. Surely, they would help her! And the real enemies were the rich bastards who were stealing her salt! She was shouting this aloud before she even realized. All the resentment she had harboured until now was blasting from her like flames.
She sprang to her feet.
May–October 1934
The Authoress
The woman suddenly raised her head and opened her eyes wide. She looked about her. Only when she realized she was alone did she let go of some of the tension in her body. She had woken up to the sound of birds – chi-rrup, chi-rrup – and wondered if she were still dreaming. She must look a fright.
She sat up in bed, staring at the door.
The chirruping of the birds, as if it were a serenade to her youth, infused her with a sense of new energy. All the beauty and glory of the world seemed to exist just for her in that moment.
She caressed her breast and thought of how wonderful it would be if her hands were a man’s. She blushed at the thought, and though she quickly removed her hands, a glow of pleasure remained. As she pulled on her clothes and looked in the mirror on the wall, she caught a glimpse of her lovely shoulder and the curls of her hair, black as ink, tumbling behind it. She stood still for a long time, possessed by her own reflection.
Light began seeping into the dreamy, dim room. The street lamps blinked off. She came out of her reverie and finished dressing.
She opened the back door. The fresh wind that swept over her whole body made her feel as if she had wings. The dewy poplar forest emanated a green fragrance of spring. She leaned on the door and looked up at the crown of leaves, like stars on a crescent-moon night. The blue sky showed through, as did red rays of sunlight. She was flying among them.
She thought of that pretty shoulder of hers in the mirror and of the faces of the countless men who were in pursuit of her. She thought of her photo in the magazine and her poem that had been published with it.
She smiled at herself and mumbled, ‘Those idiots. They’ll never pin me down.’ The smile shaded slightly to a sneer.
The more letters she received from men and the more her writings were published in magazines, the greater her pride grew. She felt herself standing tall atop a pedestal.
The woman was as sensitive as she looked. Everyone has a period of time in which they might write a line of poetry or be swept up by a novel or two. She had been going through such a phase, and so she would turn first to the literary section of whatever newspaper or magazine she happened to be reading. She playfully wrote a few verses, and a poem she had written in response to a man’s love letter had ended up being published, making her an ‘authoress’ overnight.
She did not try to think seriously about how easily she had become an authoress. All she knew was that she had an uncommon talent. It got so that she assumed every person she met knew her name – Maria – even the ones who did not utter it in her presence. When she walked the streets, she was sure that everyone was looking at her because of the immense talent that shone through her. She admitted to herself that this must be, as writing talent in a woman was so rare and herself so singular.
Pride filled her heart at the thought of this. She eagerly observed the scene before her, looking for a possible writing prompt. There was some potential here and there, but once she picked up her pen to write, the idea vanished from her mind.
‘Miss, breakfast is served.’
Surprised, she glanced up at where the student stood and then looked back down at her wrist. Her wristwatch was not there, just the pale skin where the watch face would have been. She felt a touch disconcerted until she turned her head to the mirror and her watch lay on a shelf next to it, cheerily ticking away.
She smiled, her mood lightening. ‘What sort of breakfast is served this early?’
‘Miss, you’re supposed to go out of town today.’
‘Oh, yes … I forgot. I’ll be right there.’
In that moment, she recalled how she had stayed up late the night before trying to remember a certain Bible verse. She then remembered the place she was to go, the name of which translated to ‘Two-Headed Village’.
The student turned and left. Her braided ponytail fell in a neat line down her back, making the woman nostalgic for her own time as a student in this school.
As the student’s footsteps faded away, she washed her face and approached the mirror in her room again. She could see her voluptuous shoulder once more. She applied some cream to her hands and massaged it gently into her flushed face. The room filled with the scent of the cream.
A lone ray of sunlight flickered in the middle of the room as the leaves outside her window shook lightly in the breeze. The room brightened. As did her face.
Once she was done with her makeup, she picked up her Bible and gave herself another look in the mirror. I, too, would fall in love with you if I were a man, she thought and nodded her approval. Even when she was alone, she always took a quick glance behind her during these moments in case anyone was looking.
She flicked through the Bible until she came to the verse she had searched for the night before and was lost in thought. A vision of the peasantry going about their lives. The faces of the familiar peasants from back home. Would they understand what I mean? She frowned.
The peasants she had known seemed to know only about eating, having children, and work. The ones that knew a bit more had a scattering of old proverbs and stories, but otherwise, they were not aware of what was happening in their own country or to their people. All was peace and quiet for them.
They had wrapped up a few gourds for possessions and led their children out of their beloved homelands without even thinking about why they were being banished or what
was to become of them. All they could do was cry and trust that there may be a better fate for them soon.
She was having second thoughts about going to the Two-Headed Village. Peasants were peasants everywhere you went, after all. They were the most pathetic people on earth, and also the most pitiful. They could not be saved no matter what you did.
Maria ate her breakfast, and her students escorted her to the carriage. An older missionary lady carrying a black book bag followed her inside. A whiff of horse manure made Maria hold a handkerchief to her nose, and the light scent of cream on the handkerchief made its way even to the missionary lady sitting next to her. The harsh-looking carriage driver shouted something and cracked his whip. The horse broke into a trot.
She had already said yes to this trip, and it had been ordered by the principal no less, so she was more or less forced to go. It irritated her, but presently she decided that every literary personage needed to travel once in a while and that mingling with the peasants and the natural beauty of the countryside might inspire her to write a masterpiece. Her spirits lifted.
This was the first time she had left Longjing since coming to the city. A Christian wives’ society had asked the principal of Jeonghwa Girls’ School to send a lecturer, and this was why the woman was setting off so early.
She looked back. There were still students waving at her. As she waved back and smiled, the carriage turned around the corner of a house. The smell of vegetable oil assaulted her nose and the crackling sound of frying food filled the air. Through an open gate, the woman glimpsed the red mouth of a kitchen furnace.
Maria was struck by a sad mood. She turned to look once more over the rooftops at the green canopy of the line of poplar trees that served to fence in the school, before facing forwards again.
What if I were to be sent home, never to work at the school again?
The thought made her look back yet again.
Longjing in the morning was awash with the smell of vegetable oil and pork. They heard the creaking of the water sellers’ racks and the Chinese peddlers calling out in broken Korean their wares of meat and vegetables.
Beside every little store stood a sign on a stick with the name of the proprietor painted in clear letters. A door, decorated with colourful paper crumpled into balls on either side of it, had a black plank lain in front with fresh dumplings letting off wisps of steam.
Once the carriage rolled on to the main road, she could see the deep green of the trees along the avenue and Chinese and Korean children holding hands as they ran and played together on the street. Every crossroad had a policeman, their backs slightly bent and apparently still cold in this weather as they continued to wear their padded uniform jackets, rifles slung over their shoulders. They glanced at every person who passed by. Their foreheads were oily, and their talon-like fingernails occasionally flicked at their nostrils.
Surprised by the loud clanging of a bell, Maria darted her eyes around her, only to realize the source of the noise was the very carriage she was riding. She grinned at the back of the carriage driver’s head. He’s good at ringing that bell, at least!
At the sound of the bell, a vegetable seller ran up to them with his wares. Their cabbages, carried in a wide basket, were slightly dewy and soiled with earth.
‘Look at those cabbages! So large!’ exclaimed the missionary lady. The carriage driver turned to look and smiled at them as if he understood, showing his yellowed teeth. Maria was so surprised that she had to avert her eyes. She tried not to throw up her breakfast.
The missionary lady saw her distress and smiled. ‘I don’t think they’ve ever brushed their teeth in their lives.’
‘Good heavens …’
Maria had to wonder, could such people ever be considered civilized?
Soon they were out of the city. Maria gazed at the green pastures and looked back at the city once more. The dazzling disc of the sun was shining over the red and blue bricks of Longjing’s buildings. The faraway mountains were still shrouded in milk-coloured fog, but the blue of the sky was shredded to a thousand pieces by the rays of the sun, and somehow made all the bluer for it. The earthen walls surrounding the houses along the way were white with bird droppings, sad as an old woman’s expression as she waits for the grandchild that never visits. Tiny blossoms, white and yellow, were scattered by the road. Somewhere in the green grass, ants would be digging their tunnels and dung beetles would be rolling their balls of cowpat. All of this, wrapped in the single embrace of nature.
By 2 p.m., Maria was standing tall at the altar of the church in the Two-Headed Village, giving a lecture on John 3:16.
The church was a small one but packed. Of course, Maria knew all too well that not everyone was a congregant. Every person who came through the door was dark-skinned from working in the fields. Just looking at them made her shudder.
Her mouth went on and on while her mind kept thinking of other things. She felt like a phoenix among chickens, a white person among black. How pretty she must seem to them, how touching her words, she thought, and the ardour of her words increased without her having intended it.
She had the Bible out before her and was ostensibly talking about faith, but her talk veered on to the subject of labourers and peasants and criticism of the state of Korean society.
Her audience felt as if they had just come out of a storm as they watched Maria blabber on, her eyes darting this way and that. She seemed like a different species from them, one with no heat or blood, more like a pretty doll that could speak – all this talk coming out of her mouth about labourers and peasants made them feel uncomfortable and pity her. They also could not help doubting that she really knew much about labourers or peasants.
Her face was like that of an early consumptive, and the only thing alive about her were the eyes beneath her painted eyebrows. Those rapidly speaking lips were completely unnatural to them. Was this what an ‘educated New Woman’ really was like?
‘If you die, you must die on your own land, but above all, you must live on your own land! Why did you have to come all this distance! Am I right, or am I wrong? I have never forgotten that it was our old land that knit my very bones! It is the only destiny that I have! Do you know this, or do you not? We must live and die for the land!’
Maria pounded the podium with her ivory-like hand. Her audience, who had been silently mocking her, sighed at her words. They were remembering the days when they were kicked out of their own homes, dragging their children behind them.
‘If you had your own land, you wouldn’t have to endure this pain, this humiliation. What have you accomplished by wandering out here? What? Only our own blood will look out for us. Who else will be happy when we’re happy, cry when we’re sad? Is it not our own people? This is why we must stand our ground and live on our own land, even if it means cutting off our heads, even it means the destruction of our bodies!’
Maria was tearful at this point. The audience raged silently and could barely keep still. They were imagining their hated landowners. Oh, the earth that they had broken in with their bare hands! The land they loved so much and knew so well – every blade of grass that grew on it, every little stone, every inch! The senseless loss of it, being ripped from it; their hearts had broken then!
If they had any pleasure or joy in their days, or any reason for courage to get on with life, that land had been it. But they had been cruelly banished from it at the utterance of a few words from fearsome lips. Were Maria’s words any kinder or more sympathetic to their plight? When did people like her ever stop, even for a moment, to consider what they were going through!
The eyes of the landowners seemed to materialize before the audience, those hated faces large and clear, as they were taken back to the moment they were banished from their lands.
From a dark corner, a cry cut through the church like a bolt of lightning. ‘What use is nation! What use is country!’
&
nbsp; Maria was startled.
She suddenly remembered something about the peasants of Jiandao: they were a fierce, fearsome people.
But she shrugged off her fear. I studied at the best college in Korea, I am a rare authoress, and what’s more, I’m beautiful. She stared down the audience with what was clearly a sneer on her lips.
And you’re just peasants.
The audience realized from her expression that the woman they had regarded as no more than a silly doll was a completely different person from what they had assumed. They suddenly abhorred the sight of her. She was the kind of rich little girl that they detested above all else, and the memories of their poor wives, sisters, and daughters who starved to death without so much as a bowl of rice gruel to save them came back with a vengeance, their ghostly figures populating the stage on either side of Maria. Had their wives and sisters died to feed this woman sweet food? To pay for this woman’s education and for the whitening of her skin? They had sacrificed their own food, clothes, and any hope of an education, and bit their daughters’ thumbs until they bled, giving away their own flesh and blood so disease would mercifully take them.
Their thoughts turned Maria and the pastor and the church leaders standing behind her into vampires.
No! They had always been vampires.
They jumped to their feet. But before they knew it, the church started to cave in around them and the belfry collapsed.
Maria was standing next to the bell that wailed its last ring. Her clothes torn to shreds, she was holding her face in her hands as she shivered, afraid her beauty would be damaged.
September 1932
Darkness
His eyes, sunk into dark circles over his high cheekbones, scanned the outpatient room before he realized it was empty. The man lowered his head and leaned heavily on his cane as he dragged his bandaged leg through the door.
His hair had not been cut in a long time. It covered his forehead like a fur-lined hood and roughly tumbled down to below his ears. His clothes were yellow with dried sweat and stuck to his body, outlining his emaciated frame. A stick-like arm protruding from a sleeve stopped abruptly at his knobby hand, which gripped tight to the cane. It looked as if his skeleton would show through his skin at any moment.
The Underground Village Page 7