She runs through the starlit forest, the hope of meeting her husband and Bodeuk almost driving her mad. She stumbles again and again, but she gets up and continues to run. Her body smells of blood and breast milk, the stink dripping from her hair. Whenever the wind shakes the forest, she whispers, ‘I must make it, I must make it.’
Still whispering, she falls to the ground. She writhes as she tries to get up again but cannot move her body at all. She touches her forehead and realizes she is bleeding. She tries to tear off a strip of her underwear for a bandage, but her hands are too exhausted. She feels for her coat but realizes that she left it behind at the wall in her haste to run away. She tries to tear her underwear again. She is so tired that all she gets from her effort is her own grunts.
I must make it! I must make it!
Her mind is fading. She tries to get up, but her body is as heavy as iron. When she raises her arms, her legs will not listen, and when she tries to raise her head, all she produces is dry heaves.
I can’t die now. What will become of my Bodeuk?
She gets to her feet but falls again.
‘Baby! My baby!’ She chokes on the dust as she cries. She rubs her ear against the ground, yearning to hear an answer from it. She opens her mouth and calls, ‘Baby …’
There is no answer. Her eyes look up. She thinks she might see her husband carrying Bodeuk on his back, coming to find her through the dark. She gets up again but falls just the same. Why does she keep falling? She bites down on her hand, willing herself awake.
She cries into the air, ‘Baby, I have breast milk for you, drink …’
That patch of empty sky, is that her husband’s jacket? She blinks; it is not. A tear escapes her. She thinks she might try to crawl home, but her arms and legs shudder as they give up their strength.
Baby … baby … come on, get up … my husband, what about him … maybe he’ll become a registered opium seller …
Her life leaves her body, peacefully.
November 1937
Sympathy
‘Have a cup of cool water every morning and go for a walk.’
Ever since the doctor gave me this advice, I had been going to the banks of the Hailan River each morning to drink a cup of water from the well there.
At first I only carried a towel, my soapbox, and a cup, but I was so struck by the sight of the women bringing water from the well that I soon brought a water bucket of my own to carry on my head. The well was almost always surrounded by women, and I would have to wait for a long time for my turn. I suppose this was because it had the best-tasting water in Longjing.
There was a woman whom I happened to meet every time I carried my bucket on my head and passed the eggplant field studded with baby eggplants or the dewy millet field next to it, and we would not say a word as we walked more or less together to the well. She happened to be the only other person passing by those shoulder-high millet stalks, and she was also the only woman by the well who never spoke.
Here she is again! And she’s still ignoring me!
I couldn’t help thinking this whenever I ran into her.
Soon, the autumn elongated the pearls of the eggplants and coloured them a deep purple, and the millet stalks made a whooshing sound as they swayed in the cool wind. I heard footsteps plodding behind me; lo and behold, it was her.
Her face was swollen, and there was a large bruise on her right cheek. I wondered if she had fought with her husband or stumbled somewhere the day before. Perhaps it was my curiosity that made me want, more than ever, to hear her speak.
I finally got up the courage to ask, ‘Are you all right? What happened to your cheek?’
Her downcast eyes looked up at me and she smiled. Then, she sighed.
‘It’s nothing, just my bad luck … Where do you live? You’re always coming from that direction.’
I was glad to find she was happy to talk to me as well. ‘I live behind Yongshin School. What about you?’
She was silent for a moment as we walked. Then, she sighed and said, ‘What kind of home would a wench like me have?’
It was obvious that all was not well with her. ‘Why say such a thing? Even a bird has a nest to return to, and you are a person, no less …’
‘Ha! I’m no better than a common bird. In fact, I wish I were a bird! I could fly through the sky to my heart’s content.’
She looked up at the sky, and I could tell she was near tears. It broke my heart. I wanted to know what made her so sad.
We reached the well. We were a bit early today and there was only birdsong to greet us. I filled my bucket and took up my cup to drink underneath the willow trees that let down their long branches by the well.
The woman made splashing noises as she filled her bucket to the brim. ‘You always have a cup of the water. You must like this water a lot.’
I didn’t want to tell her about my illness, so I simply agreed with her. I gulped down the water, wiped my chin, and said, ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’
She hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘Why not.’
We pushed through the thicket of grass and came out to a long path. The drops of dew dangling on the tips of the grass were like the stars at night, and the dark green of the grass made the jewel-like dewdrops sparkle all the prettier. The breeze, scented with a hint of freshness from the mountains, lightly encircled our skirts and made them flutter.
‘Wonderful!’ The word escaped my lips before I knew it.
I looked back at her. She was only sighing, her swollen eyes still filled with sadness. Then she smiled for a moment as if in answer to my sentiment, but the smile faded quickly. I wondered again what made her so melancholy. Flocks of birds twittered above us, and the poplar trees were so thick that I could hardly see the sky. The white trunks of the poplar trees stood out in the shade as they stretched straight and tall into the canopy.
I always think of idealistic young people whenever I see poplar trees. At the same time, there’s also a feeling of nervousness; their roots seem so weak. The pine trees of the hills of my home are just as grand, but they are rooted firmly into the ground. The lovely fragrance of their sap! The red-black bark of the pine that has weathered years and years of harsh mountain winds! The sound of the river almost lulled me into my memories.
I bade the woman to sit down with me beneath a willow tree.
‘So, why do you sigh?’
Some men smoking their cigarettes gave us a quick look as they passed. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that the woman’s nostrils flared slightly when their cigarette smoke reached us, which made me wonder if she knew how to smoke.
‘It’s just a habit. I try not to, but I can’t help it now. Silly of me, isn’t it?’
‘Not at all … Oh, but your face must be hurting. What happened?’
‘Well …’ She smiled sadly and brought her slender fingers to her face, rubbing the bruise. She sighed again and looked at me. ‘Look at me. Tell me what you think I look like. A wife? A mother? Or a wench working at a bar?’
I did give her a look. ‘Well … you must be a wife …?’
I quickly realized there was a whiff of the demimonde about her. Only then did I notice how neatly her eyebrows were drawn, like two slender willow leaves. I felt something like disgust, but at the same time, pity.
‘What are you, then?’
‘Ha! You know of prostitutes? Whores?’ Her grin had twisted into a sneer. I was suddenly at a loss as to what to say.
‘I’m a dirty wench, I am. Do be careful of me from now on.’
After a long pause, I said, ‘No one does that work because they want to. I’m sure your circumstances made you so.’
When I turned my head, I saw milk-coloured clouds floating by Majae Mountain across the river. Sunlight began to spread in the blue sky.
The woman stood up. ‘I should go bac
k. I can’t be late again …’
I followed her back to the well.
*
A few days later, we met at our usual juncture.
‘Why would I waste your time with that?’ she said whenever I urged her to tell me her story. But this time, she relented.
‘I was born in Pungcheon in Hwanghae Province. My father was a peasant. He sold me when I was twelve. Looking back, I think it was because he had debts. I didn’t know anything back then. I wonder what would’ve happened if I had tried harder to stay. It wouldn’t have made a difference … Mother and Father said if I followed this man, he would feed me white rice and provide me with nice clothes. They took the rod to me when I refused. How could I not do as they said? I left home with the strange man, crying. I fell on the road with every second step. I looked back and saw the jujube tree in our yard was heavy with ripe, red jujubes. I bawled, sitting in the middle of the road. My father had to beat me with the rod again to make me get up. Those red jujubes are what I remember the most.’
Her eyes had a faraway look as she thought back to her past.
‘We walked to Shincheon. The next day, my new father took me to a troupe of sori singers and told me to learn sori from that day forward. I cried a river then, too.
‘One night, I woke up in bed with my new mother sleeping beside me, and in my confusion squeezed my new mother’s breast. I was only half-awake and had mistaken her for my old mother. My new mother beat me senseless, shouting, ‘Twelve years old is too old to be touching Mother’s breasts!’ I missed my mother so much. After the beating, I couldn’t stop myself from calling out to her, so I muffled my cries by throwing my blanket over my head.
‘When my new mother fell asleep, I pushed back the blanket and got up. The window was full of moonlight. Just like the window at my old house. I thought of my little toys that I had stacked in front of that window. The thought made me open the door and walk out. The yard shone with moonlight as well. The night was just like the ones where we would light a little fire against mosquitoes while we shelled beans. I thought my mother might be hiding somewhere in the yard, so I kept calling to her in my heart as I looked in every corner. Then I looked up at the moon. I thought, just as any child would, that if I kept running to the moon, I would meet my mother someday … Oh, it still breaks my heart to remember such thoughts.
‘I ran as far as I could, asking other children along the way, sometimes an adult, looking for the way to Pungcheon. I ran with all my might, but my new father caught me in the end and beat me, hard. I didn’t dare run away after that. But when the sun went down over the western mountains or the window glowed with moonlight, it made me miss my mother so much. How can I describe it? It was like thirst. No, it was worse than thirst. I just wanted to see my mother. Whenever I saw a long road, I wondered if it would lead to my mother and wanted to run to the end of it. It got better as I grew up. I was singing “Arirang” by then and my survival came to depend on dealing with men. Oh dear, let’s stop talking about this.’
She sighed and tried to smile through the terrible resentment that darkened her face.
I gripped her hand. ‘You’ve been through so much. How large is your debt now?’
‘Five hundred won, they say. When my new father handed me over to a restaurant the first time, it was three hundred. Now it’s five. I make my own clothes and do everything I can to save, but that’s the way it is. I fetch the water and do the washing on top of the other thing, but it’s never enough. I’m doomed to my rotten luck for the rest of my life. I didn’t even do anything wrong yesterday, but the proprietor did this to my face.’ Her eyes flashed with rage. ‘Oh, when will this terrible world end? When will the war blast it to bits?’
After a while, I cautiously asked her, ‘What about a lover? I hear one can buy you out.’
‘Ha, lovers. What kind of a lover would a woman with my luck have? Men are like dogs to me. They only know one thing, these men. Hah.’
This irked me at first, as I thought of my husband, but I realized she had good reason to curse men as she did, considering her circumstances. I was always sorry for her. She had a certain dignity about her that was rare in one so young, and I was drawn to how determinedly she held her ground against any man in her life.
‘When I was eighteen, I fell in love with a man. I poured everything I had into him. I’m ashamed of it now but look at this hand. I even cut my finger off for his sake.’
She spread the hand she always held in a fist.
She sighed. ‘I saved up the money I made from my customers, and when the proprietor wasn’t looking, I would slip the money into my lover’s pocket. He promised me … promised … a future together. What a foolish girl I was. He must’ve married some lady student by now … Come on, let’s go.’
She jumped to her feet. It was clear how wrenching these memories were for her. I held her hand and begged her to visit me at our house sometime. And from that day on, we would often take a walk together. I sympathized with her no end.
*
It was a windy night, the dead leaves sweeping down the street. I was about to turn the lights off when I heard a voice from outside.
‘Sister, are you sleeping? Please, open the door.’
I immediately realized it was Sanwol and rushed to open the door. As she walked in, all I could see was her bloodied cheek and messy hair.
‘What is it? So late… Oh no! Were you beaten again?’
She bowed to my husband and slowly sat down on the sofa. My husband only stared, taken aback. She was clutching a wrapped bundle of clothes close to her chest.
Her eyes flashed as she looked up. ‘Sister … I want to leave this city!’
I suddenly remembered an offer I’d once made her, that if she ever wanted to run, I would give her some money. She’s here for the money!
I felt a sliver of irritation. My next words left my mouth before I could stop them. ‘But you have nowhere to go!’
We donated three won to the flood relief musical benefit last night, must we spend more money now? We’ll have to give up saving any money this month.
She only sat there, silent. But I could see the shifts in emotion on her face.
With my broken promise lingering in the air, my words tumbled out of my mouth with defensive uncertainty. ‘If you have to go, you must have a destination in mind. You might want to discuss it with me, I can help you think it through. And you’ve got to tie up your loose ends here. What if they come after you? You must see that I’m right …’
She gave me an unreadable look. Then, she stood up, and ran out of the house without another word.
I felt guilty and relieved at the same time.
*
In the morning as I carried the bucket on my head to the well, I thought of Sanwol and wondered if she really did run away in the night. I reassured myself that she didn’t have the money to do so. I looked forward to seeing her at the well again.
A woman ran up to me, out of breath and pale as a sheet.
‘Don’t get your water from there … Someone fell in… that pretty one… you know… the one, the one who’s your friend. She’s dead!’
Shock seized my body, spreading like liquid, numbing my mind. Without a word, I turned around and walked home in a daze.
As soon as I opened the door, I said, ‘The girl … Sanwol is dead!’
‘What?’ My husband got to his feet. ‘Sanwol? Where!’
‘She fell into the well …’ Frightened out of my wits, I ran to my husband and held on to him as I cried, ‘Sanwol is dead! The poor girl!’ I couldn’t stop sobbing.
Was her untimely death because my sympathy had stopped only at words? Or was it because, secretly, I wasn’t sympathetic to her at all?
Somehow, I know that only one of these thoughts is the truth.
October 1934
Father and Son
‘When you meet your uncle, thank him for the rice. Don’t forget!’
Bawee’s mother said this to the back of his head as he left after finishing his dinner. Bawee did not answer her.
He walked to Hongcheol’s house, wondering if there was any news that day. After some hesitation by the gate, he entered the courtyard and coughed. The door to the main room opened, and Hongcheol’s wife stuck her head out.
Before Bawee could say anything, she said, ‘I’m afraid there’s no news today, either.’ She came out of the room with a child in her arms. ‘I think something is up. That’s why there’s no news. I think I’ll go out there.’
Bawee was always shy before Hongcheol’s wife. He never looked directly at her face and kept his hands clasped before him in silence.
She said, ‘Isn’t the town a hundred li from here?’
‘Yes.’
Bawee had said the single word with some effort. He kept his head bowed. Hongcheol’s wife knew he was being courteous, but she felt sorry for him all the same.
‘Would you like to come in?’ She had made the offer but was at a loss herself as to what they could make conversation about.
‘I must be off.’
Like the other times, he left after saying this. Once outside, he let out a relieved sigh.
Hongcheol was an important figure in the seaside village. He had graduated from middle school and was a dedicated teacher at a night school for ambitious, disadvantaged youths. The authorities, however, had suddenly ordered his night school closed, searched his house for secret documents, and taken him to the station in town. There had been no word from him since.
Bawee plodded along. He knew what would happen to Hongcheol from the beginning. Now that it had actually happened, he was not exactly dismayed, but he was worried that they had nothing to eat and he would need to find some work tomorrow.
The Underground Village Page 13