He had been walking with these thoughts running aimlessly in his head when he looked up and lo! In the distance, the farm with the acacia forest! How grand that farm was, day or night! This farm was the only thing in the world that seemed glad to see Bawee.
Six years ago, Jeonjung, the current director of the farm, came out to their village and used the authority of the district administrative office to gather the local farmers and propose a new project. They were going to make the marshland behind their homes arable, and once that was done, the farmers who helped would be allowed to farm on it for three years free of rent, and what’s more, they would each receive a new house in the bargain.
Word spread of the proposal, and farmers came from miles around. The village was thrown into chaos for a while as countless farmers were turned away, some resorting to fist fights in the struggle to be part of the deal.
The selected farmers gathered at five every morning with their hoes.
The marshland resisted their every effort. There were rocks the size of houses embedded here and there, not to mention the numerous tangles of arrowroot and thorny vines. But their hopes were as large as mountains, and no one said a word of complaint about their difficult work.
Sweat rained from them as they dislodged the giant rocks. Jeonjung would smile and say, ‘Hard work, isn’t it? But once you’ve tamed the fields through your hardship, they’re yours.’
They felt strength and comfort at these words.
But what were these sweet promises now, six years later? Bawee broke into a cold sweat at the thought.
He had lost the farm he was now gazing at. Lost it, because he had fallen out of favour with Jeonjung, who hated the night school. More than that, he hated Hongcheol. Jeonjung forbade the farmers from attending it, but Bawee had ignored him and was diligent in his studies. Soon, he was kicked out of the farm under a ridiculous pretence.
He had known this would happen since the day he first met Hongcheol, but now that it had, he realized what a terrible thing it was that had been done to him.
Since his banishment, Bawee despised the sight of the farm that he had worked on every day. But somehow, his footsteps kept taking him towards it.
The moon was now rising over the pines. How beautiful the farm looked, bathed in moonlight! Soil would hit his coffin before he forgot the farm. The fields he created by hacking away the thorny vines! The injustice of how the loam he had caressed and coaxed for six years now belonged to a landowner who had never touched the soil in his life!
Bawee wanted to stamp his feet and beseech the sky. This land! To whom did its loam belong?
He was so enraged that he felt the blood rush to his head. He turned his bloodshot eyes towards Jeonjung’s house. A silo stood next to it, its shine in the moonlight like a shout toward him.
A moment later, he heard a creaking noise and was surprised to see himself twisting the lock of the silo with his own hand! Dazed, he opened his eyes wider to rid the illusion of Hongcheol’s face floating before him.
He retracted his hands and listened hard, afraid that someone had seen him. He heard the sound of a drunken voice speaking Japanese from the direction of Jeonjung’s house, followed by applause.
He sighed and quietly made his way to the acacia forest. Still nervous, he looked back towards the farmers’ housing this time. The houses that stood in a circle, a distance from the silo, were dark. Then he heard the creak of a door opening, which made him take a step back while keeping an eye out.
Someone was coming towards the silo. Bawee stiffened, but when he rubbed his eyes and took a closer look, he realized it was Elder Suh, his father’s friend who was in the group of farmers with him as they reworked this land. Bawee clasped his hand to his mouth before he could call out Elder Suh’s name.
He felt he might suffocate, and tears flowed down his cheeks without a sound.
He ran out of the acacia forest. Once he had made it over the fields and could stand tall, he shouted, ‘That’s right! I am a member of the XX Committee!’
The sorrowful memories of his father, whom he resented heavily to this day, came rushing towards him.
*
Champion Kim, as his nickname implied, was a man of great physical strength. The people would jokingly call him ‘the champion’, and the moniker stuck.
Champion’s parents died early, and once he was orphaned, he became a live-in worker at a shipowner’s house. Over the decades that followed, he became a fine fisherman and earned the shipowner’s trust, and this trust along with his strength meant he became a well-respected man. He was, however, distressed to find himself still unmarried at thirty. When he heard of a young widow living in a village nearby, he kidnapped the woman who became Bawee’s mother, forcing her to live with him. Bawee’s mother hated Champion for making her break her widow’s vows and tried to run away at every opportunity, but Champion always caught her again and beat her senseless. She never managed to escape.
Bawee was conceived. Bawee’s mother gave up trying to run away and concentrated on building a good life for the baby, who was eventually born on time and in good health. Having once thought he would die an old bachelor, Champion was overjoyed with having a wife and a fine little son. He quit his drinking – he had once drunk wine by the jarful – and put all his effort into making money.
Months after Bawee came into the world, he opened his petal-like mouth and said, ‘Abba! Abba! Umma! Umma!’ Champion thought he had never heard a more enchanting sound in all the world. His son’s affection melted away his fatigue at the end of the day, and his hope for the future became greater with each year.
Bawee turned five. Every afternoon, he would run out on his little legs to greet his father, and Champion would arrive home with his son in his arms.
One very windy day, Champion had not come home despite the late hour. Bawee tried to run out to greet him as usual, but his mother held him back.
‘Your father will come soon. You can’t go out in that wind.’
‘No, no, Daddy is coming!’
Bawee tried to twist out of his mother’s grasp but ended up sitting on the ground and crying. His mother gathered him in her arms and could not help feeling anxious about her husband being so late. On days of strong wind and rain, she was in the habit of laying down her sewing and going out to the yard, where she would stand on the flagstones for the large preserve jars and look out towards the blue ocean in the distance. Little Bawee’s frustrated huffing made the house feel strangely quieter. She carefully laid her exhausted son on the warm part of the floor and stood still in the middle of the room.
The wind continued to rage outside. Raindrops pattered on the mulberry paper screens of their doors. She did not know why she felt so nervous. Pacing back and forth, she listened hard for approaching footsteps, sometimes mistaking the sound of the wind for the plodding of feet. She was never before so aware of how significant her husband was in her life.
She decided to go to the shipowner’s house but then looked back at her sleeping son. How peaceful he looked! His long eyelashes curled over his chubby cheeks. What if he were to wake and she was not there? She sat down with a thud.
After a long while, she determinedly locked the house behind her, wrapped her skirt tightly around herself, and made for the shipowner’s house. The wind was so strong she felt like she was suffocating in its grasp. Even when she briefly stopped to gather her wits, she kept an ear open for her child’s cries.
Her dress had hopelessly unfurled in the wind and her hair was flung from its bun by the time she arrived at the shipowner’s house. She could see the light coming through the tiny crack between the double doors of their gate. Her fear subsided somewhat as she shook the door.
After she gave a few shouts, she heard the sound of footsteps coming up to the door. ‘Who’s there?’ a man called. ‘Is it Champion?’
The question made her feel as if sh
e were plunged into underground darkness. Her husband was not there in the house!
The gate opened. ‘Who is this?’
‘It’s me. Is Bawee’s father here?’
The man was glad to hear a woman’s voice. He came closer. ‘Ah, it’s Champion’s wife! No, he hasn’t come in yet. The headwinds are probably forcing him to spend a night on one of the islands. You came all this way in the dark?’
The man’s chatty attitude gave the woman some relief. ‘Are you sure he’s spending the night on an island?’
‘Yes!’ He even laughed. ‘Don’t worry about him. He is an excellent sailor, is he not? Go home and rest.’
His words made her anxieties and fear melt like spring snow. ‘Thank you so much. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’
She could almost picture her son getting up and crying, so she made haste to go back home.
The next day, Champion did return, but on the back of a stranger. His surprised wife ran out to meet them, shouting, ‘What has happened?’
Champion opened his eyes with effort and called out, ‘Bawee! Bawee!’
He fainted. Bawee, standing next to him, called out, ‘Daddy!’ His small hands tried to make his father’s eyes reopen.
The fisherman who carried Champion caught his breath and said, ‘Thank the heavens this man held on to a rock! The others were not so lucky … Don’t know if they’re dead or alive …’
Champion opened his eyes. ‘Where’s Bawee?’
‘Daddy! Daddy, did you bring me fish?’
All the innocent boy cared about was that his father would bring home fish for dinner.
‘Oh! I’ll bring you some fish now,’ said Champion as he hugged his son tight. Bawee’s mother gazed upon father and son with tears in her eyes.
A few days later, she asked Champion what had happened at sea.
‘What is there to talk about? I survived, what else is there to say … It was the headwinds.’
He did not elaborate on the ship’s sinking. His pride was hurt. His wife, having heard what happened through the other villagers, did not press him further.
A little over a week later, Champion rose from his sickbed despite not being fully recovered from his ordeal. More than anything, he wanted to be back at sea and casting his nets. He missed the sea as if none of his hardships had ever happened. He shook off his imploring wife and trudged on towards the docks.
First, he dropped by the shipowner’s house.
The shipowner, surprised, forgot to stand up to greet him. ‘Ahoy, but isn’t this our Champion? Have you regained your strength?’ He stared at Champion as the man listlessly sat down before him. ‘You look like you should be in bed.’
‘I am feeling well, thank you.’ Champion bowed his head, grateful for the shipowner’s words.
The shipowner stood up and lit a cigarette. ‘But your ship, it’s destroyed … You can be a bit brash sometimes …’
He forcefully stubbed out his cigarette on an ashtray. Champion was tense.
The shipowner frowned. ‘You’re going to have to rest for a while before I buy a new boat. There’s nothing for you to do.’
‘Oh, but …’
‘I know, I know. A new man is taking the other boat.’
Champion was dismayed. The shipowner had never given him time off before, but he was choosing that day to break with precedent. What was he going to do now? More than anything else, the thought of poor Bawee brought tears to his eyes.
The shipowner observed him closely. ‘Don’t feel too bad,’ he said. ‘I am only saying you should get stronger and relax for a while. If we ever get a new boat we shall hire you again.’
Though he had no such intention and planned to be rid of Champion for sinking his ship.
Champion thought he heard reason in the shipowner’s words. ‘All right, then. I shall wait until you have a new boat.’
He ran out of the house. Far away on the western sea, he could see his fellow fishermen’s boats floating sleepily over the silky waters. He could not help exclaiming, ‘What good weather for sailing!’
How he missed the sea to the point of distraction, and how sensuous the calm waters were and how stirring the bravery of his fellow fishermen … He envied them no end.
His sigh as he gave the sea one last look was so heavy that his heart ached. When he closed his eyes, he thought he could feel the gentle waters lapping up to his forearms, which made him open his eyes again only to find himself on solid ground.
Champion believed the shipowner and visited him several times afterwards, but after a few days, the shipowner became curt and told him he was never being hired again. Champion thought he would lose his mind. He could not hold on to his pride when the little one was crying out for food. He took up a fishing rod and went to the sea all day, returning only late at night.
One evening, he came home to see Bawee asleep, holding on to his mother’s skirt. ‘Did he wait for me?’
‘Yes.’ His wife wiped her eyes on the long ribbon of her tunic. It broke Champion’s heart, and he thought his wife would have been better off if he had let her go in the beginning when she ran away.
‘I’ve caught some fish, let’s fry them up.’
Bawee, in his sleep, smacked his lips as if he was eating something good. They could see saliva pooling in the back of his open mouth. The two parents teared up. The darkness in the corners of the room threatened to swallow their family whole.
Bawee suddenly sat up, awake. ‘Mommy, I’m hungry!’
Wordlessly, Champion put Bawee on his back and left the house. He was going to beg for food somewhere.
He went to his blood brother Kim’s house. Kim was living under someone else’s roof, so while he understood Champion’s position, there was little he could do to help him.
‘Are you home, my brother?’
‘Is it Little Brother?’ Kim put down the hay he was braiding into rope and took Bawee from Champion, setting the boy down beside him. Kim’s forehead shone with oil and he burped often.
‘Daddy, I’m hungry, Daddy!’
Surprised, Kim looked at Champion. ‘Is his mother sick?’
‘Yes.’ He thought of how much better it would be if his wife really were sick instead of them being impoverished.
‘Too bad for little Bawee.’
Kim had suspected things were bad for Champion, but he had not known they were this dire. He went to the kitchen and came back with a bowl of rice and some kimchi.
Bawee grabbed the food as soon as he saw it and turned away from the two men.
‘You should eat some, too.’
Kim could see the smell of food was making Champion’s mouth water.
‘Oh no, it’s all right …’ Champion swallowed and turned his head. Tears flowed from his eyes. If Kim hadn’t been there, he would have shoved Bawee aside and eaten the food himself. His heart pounded with desire for it.
Champion cursed his fate more and more as time went on, and his thirst for rebellion and revenge grew by the day. He had to endure for young Bawee’s sake. He tried his hand at farming, but no one would lend him land because of the superstition that sailors were unlucky farmers.
He found himself with no choice but to become a bandit and wander at night with a cold knife concealed by his side. As he hid from valley to valley, he hoped and prayed, fervently, for the health of his boy and his wife.
One day, passing by a village, he saw a boy about Bawee’s age and was so caught up in a desire to see his son that he turned on his heels and began running towards the seaside village that was his home. It was a hundred li away, and by the time he had arrived, having run day and night, his feet were swollen and bleeding.
Despite having rushed all this way, he had to wait until night fell before entering his own house.
‘Mommy, let’s go to sleep …’
&nbs
p; Bawee’s voice! Champion could not wait anymore. He took a hard look around and opened the door to the house. His wife was so surprised she stood up. Recovering in the next moment, she quickly took his sack from him and hid it in the other room.
‘My baby, Bawee!’ Champion tried to embrace Bawee. The boy opened his eyes wide and hid behind his mother’s skirts.
‘It’s your father!’ said his mother. ‘The father you’ve yearned to see every day!’
Bawee was tearful and refused to approach Champion. The father was saddened. He had run all this way, imagining Bawee would come running to him the moment he saw him. The strong man felt tears well up in his eyes.
‘Would you like some dinner?’ his wife asked.
‘No, I won’t eat. Turn off the light.’
He blew out the lamp and gripped his wife’s hand. A wave of fear made her shudder from head to toe. But why? This was her husband, whom she should be glad to see!
After a while he said, ‘Was Bawee sick?’
‘He was fine.’
‘And you?’ he whispered. He absently stroked Bawee’s leg as the child slept.
‘Some police officers came today.’ Bawee’s mother immediately regretted saying this.
‘Hmm. How many?’
Champion tried to sound casual, but he was devastated inside. He had the feeling that soon, he would not be able to see his wife and son so easily.
Bawee’s mother guessed what he was feeling. She silently berated herself for being so careless with her words and making him worry. She felt like cutting off her own tongue.
After a silence, Champion said, ‘Bring my blood brother to me.’
Bawee’s mother quickly got up and left the house. Champion gently placed his cheek against Bawee’s and held it there for a long time.
His wife finally returned with Kim in tow.
‘Big Brother, how have you been?’
Kim received Champion’s bow in the dark. ‘Are you feeling stronger since I last saw you?’
‘It’s been a long time. Let’s have a drink.’ Champion knew Kim liked to drink.
The Underground Village Page 14