The wind died down a little, but the snow continued to fall. The snow came up to her knees now. She stared at the pillars and wondered what to do, but then gritted her teeth and thought, If I die, I die!
She began to walk again. Her vision was getting darker, and she kept stumbling on her own feet. She had lost her shoes long ago and was walking in her socks, which the snow kept sticking to, making her footsteps heavier and heavier. The clinging snow refused to budge no matter how hard she shook her feet. Her hair and eyebrows were coated with white powder, as were the edges of her lips. She ran. Or she thought she ran, but in truth she was standing in place.
She suddenly felt weak and she slipped, getting snow in her nose and mouth. She could not breathe! By the time she realized she had fallen into a ditch or a stream, she was already thinking she was going to die. She flailed and tried to grab something. All that she could grab was dry snow. She screamed and grunted as she sank deep into the cold whiteness. Finally, at the bottom of wherever it was she fell, she managed to get to her feet.
She shook her head and pushed the snow away from her face to make an air pocket. The more she pushed at the snow, however, the more of it fell in from above. She suddenly feared that Seungho would suffocate, so she held him close with one arm and pushed the snow away from his head. The snow melted on her head and the water snaked down into her collar. Worried that this freezing water would touch her baby, she turned her head this way and that, trying to get the collar to absorb most of it. But the water kept flowing.
She was ready to give up. This mother and son are going to die!
She thought about her husband’s death, her husband who had not died from any snow or drowning in the sea or slipping in a ditch or stream.
No matter how hard we try to live, they will never let us live in peace. We are all sure to be killed.
Her husband’s words were right! How hard he had tried to live! She used to think that despite her husband’s words, a person had to make a go of life anyway, but here she was, about to drown in the snow. The death of the mother and child was no better than the death of the father.
‘Oh, Seungho …’
She called her son’s name and vowed she would never make him into a person like her. She would finish what her husband started through this son!
Her heart swelled, and her son’s name escaped her lips. ‘Seungho!’
This snow… this snow is nothing!
January 1935
Tuition
It was morning. In the playground of the town’s school – the only school, despite the town having two thousand residences – the schoolchildren were running about playing games before class.
Except a little boy named Third, who was ten years old. He was sitting in the dim classroom where the curtains were drawn. The classroom had a stove for generating heat, and a kettle of water sat boiling on top of it.
The sound of children shouting and arguing could clearly be heard from outside. Then Third heard clapping and laughter. He lifted aside one of the curtains. The light stung his eyes.
A heavy snow was silently falling. It heaped on the branches of the bushy young pines and bare acacia trees planted along the fence on the far side of the playground.
A snowman stood in the middle of the playground, its horizontal twig for a mouth giving it a firm, serious expression. The children standing around it clapped and shrieked, their laughter escaping in wisps of steam from their lips.
A child put his hat on the snowman, and another made it a beard using more twigs. The children laughed even harder, stomping their feet. Third smiled, too. He wanted to go out and play with them, but just when he turned his head, he glimpsed the fearsome head of his teacher passing by the windows to the corridor.
The monthly tuition! He had forgotten about it for a moment.
The teacher told me that if I don’t bring my monthly tuition today, he’s going to kick me out of class …
With this thought, an inexplicable feeling started welling up from his throat, and he had to bury his face in his hands.
But that snowman! Those eyes! That mouth! That beard! Third could not help giggling as he peeked out between his fingers.
‘Kimu Sansai!’
Third jumped at the Japanese version of his name, thinking it was his teacher, and his eyes instantly filled with tears. But it was not his teacher; it was only Bongho, whom Third stared at wordlessly, relieved.
‘Look at this money! Daddy told me to save it. He said he was going to buy me a coat, too. He’s not going to give me his hand-me-downs, no sir!’
Bongho held up a silver coin for Third to see and tossed the coin into his desk, making a loud plunk! He then dashed outside. His arms and legs moved so fast that they were almost a blur. Third stared until Bongho was out of sight. He started biting his fingernails.
‘Why doesn’t Mother have any money?’ he muttered through his fingers. His eyes stung, and tears flowed down his face. He wiped his cheeks with a fist. ‘Mother said she would give me the monthly tuition tomorrow! She said she’d sell her potatoes and give me the money!’
But even as he mumbled these words into the emptiness, he could not help but remember his teacher’s harsh scolding. He did not believe that his teacher would wait until the next day. Once the bell rang and the teacher stood at the lectern and called his name, all that was left for him was to be banished into the snow in tears. He would not get to learn Japanese, he would not get to learn Korean …
He suddenly remembered the silver coin Bongho had flashed before him. If he had that, he would get to stay with the other children and learn how to read! The thought had struck him like a bolt of lightning, making him dizzy with hope.
Third breathed fast as he stared at Bongho’s desk. The day had been dark so far but here now was a strange light before his eyes! A joyful light! An urging light that was almost blinding.
The first bell of the day began to ring. At the sound of it, Third sprinted towards Bongho’s desk, as if possessed.
February 1933
Real and Unreal
Do you think such a thing might have really happened?
I still haven’t found an answer to his question.
It all happened about a year ago. That night, I had just turned in, having washed up after another late dinner.
‘Ma’am!’ called out a deep voice. ‘Are you home?’
I got up and opened the door a crack, but it was too dark for me to see who it was. I couldn’t recognize the voice either.
‘Are you at the right house?’ I asked after some hesitation.
‘It’s me, ma’am. Boksoon’s father.’
I flung opened the door and ran out to greet him. ‘Boksoon’s father! What a surprise! Please, come in.’
I sat him down inside and ran to the store to buy some cigarettes. I presented them to him with the ashtray and took a good look at him. His clothes were threadbare and his face was more melancholy than ever. The eyes beneath his prominent forehead were so deeply set that it was hard to read them. Their occasional glimmer of blackness, however, made my blood run cold, which held me back from being too glad to see him again, even after all this time. I was also feeling more and more apprehensive as to his reason for coming to our house.
We live in a two-storey house. Boksoon’s father used to rent the room on the floor above us. He had no steady employment and lived as a day labourer. The family only got to eat when the father managed to find work, and starved when he didn’t. I liked him and his wife well enough, and their little Boksoon was a dear girl, but their presence in our lives made me uncomfortable. It was hard to eat and drink merrily when we knew there was a family starving upstairs.
From time to time, I’d bring up for them whatever rice and stew we had left over. Even as I did so, there always remained a selfish corner of my heart that wished they would just move away.
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On these occasions, their daughter Boksoon would come crawling towards me, knowing that I was bringing something to eat. She was so lovable that I pitied her and couldn’t help taking her in my arms.
‘And how old is Boksoon?’
The little girl was too young to speak. She was very clever, however, and she would stare into my face at this question before holding up two lean fingers.
‘Two years old … How can a baby who can’t speak know how old she is?’
Her mother, who normally went about with a worried expression, would beam at her daughter at such moments. I couldn’t tell if her smile was really a smile or more like another way of crying. Her eyes always seemed to be ready to cry. Whenever I sat with her, I wondered how a person with such a sad face could ever avoid hardship in life.
I visited their room often to play with little Boksoon, but I rarely saw Boksoon’s father. Whenever we had an occasion to sit down together, I made sure to get up as soon as it was polite to do so. Sitting with him felt strangely disagreeable. I realized back then that the wife’s sad face had been an unconscious response to her husband. Only Boksoon shone like a star between the two.
‘Boksoon’s father almost never speaks. It’ll be the death of me,’ the wife would often say.
Other times, she would mention, ‘Boksoon’s father goes somewhere every night, and when he returns, he’s like that … His clothes soaked in sweat.’
Then she would realize she had said this out loud and bade me not to tell anyone.
I began to have dark suspicions of Boksoon’s father and was not a little curious about him, so I asked his wife many questions whenever we sat together. I never got a straight answer from her about anything.
Then one day two years ago, I mixed some rice in tofu stew for little Boksoon, and carried it up the stairs, only to find the house a mess and no one home. I waited for a while, thinking they were only out to beg for rice somewhere. I eventually went to every house that they may have gone to visit, but no one knew where they were. In the end, they never came back. I was both sorry and relieved to see them go. At the same time, I felt a little angry with them. Even if they were so poor that they had to run away in the middle of the night, they could’ve at least said goodbye.
And a year after they vanished without a trace, as Boksoon’s beautiful smile was starting to fade from my memory, here was Boksoon’s father, come to see me in the night. As glad as I was, there was tension in the air. I wondered if he wanted something from me.
‘And how are Boksoon and her mother?’ I asked him.
I waited for his answer, but he only sat in silence. He looked so hungry that I got up and put on my apron. ‘I’ll make you some dinner. I don’t have many side dishes, but I hope you’ll eat some.’
He glanced at me and shifted in his seat. I couldn’t read his expression. I understood that this was just his nature, but there was something about his face that seemed to say that his life had taken a turn for the worse since I last saw him. The darkness from his eyes was making me more and more afraid. Wishing my husband would hurry up and come home, I went out to the kitchen, which was so dark and scary that my feet could barely stay still as I prepared the meal. As soon as I laid it down, he sat right in front of the low meal table and began to eat before I could say anything. I could tell how hungry he had been by the speed with which he put it away.
‘So why didn’t you say anything when you left?’ I said as soon as he laid down his spoon. Afraid that I’d offended him, I couldn’t ask him any more questions in this vein. The very air in the room seemed to have grown heavier.
But thinking I glimpsed a bit of Boksoon in his face, I had to ask after her. ‘Boksoon must be talking and walking now.’
I had said this before I could stop myself. He still had nothing to say. I bowed my head. A heavy silence surrounded us, whirling and spinning in the room. I was annoyed. If he had so little to say and he’d had his meal, why couldn’t he just leave? If he wanted something else, why couldn’t he just say it? I was anxious to know why he was here, and his silence was agitating me more with every moment, making me sweat and filling my small heart to the brim with worry. He looked as if he hadn’t cut his hair or shaved his beard in weeks, a fact that only served to make me more nervous. At the same time, a small part of me was curious as to why he was here.
After a long silence, I felt as hostess that I needed to say something, even though I knew he wouldn’t answer.
‘So, tell me about what you’ve been up to this past year.’
Surprisingly, he laughed. It was a kind of laugh that I had never heard the likes of in my life, cold like the blade of a knife. A laugh heavy with frost. Intimidated, I bowed my head.
He coughed loudly. And then he said something completely unexpected.
‘Ma’am! I don’t know where Boksoon and her mother are!’
I was so surprised to get an answer at all, let alone such a strange one, that I raised my head and checked to see if his lips really were moving. And what strange, dream-like words! I wanted to ask him again what had happened, but I was afraid he would stop talking again. I kept quiet and waited for him to speak.
‘What is the point of me saying such things? If I thought you were like the other women, I would not say anything. But I’ve heard, ma’am, that you are a writer … I don’t know what it is you write, but …’
He glanced at me. I found his gaze uncomfortable, and his words, they almost sounded like a threat. But what had crossed my mind in that moment was: has anything of real life ever been produced from the flourishes of my pen? I had the feeling that the answer was ‘not really’, and this man’s honest words stabbed barbs of guilt into my heart.
‘I have nightmares every night. I’ve tried everything to avoid this dream but it’s only getting worse. I can’t tell anymore, whether it’s a nightmare or my life is a dream. I’m afraid to go to sleep. In the dream, a group of monstrous men appear before me and drag me to a dark place. They are human, but they are not human like me. The place they take me to is in our world, but it is as dark as a cave.’
I had only thought of him as an uneducated labourer until now. His articulate way of speaking was surprising to me. The leaden weight of his words pressed down my heart.
‘There are many people like me in that darkness. They were dragged there, too. It’s a dream, so I can’t be sure.
‘I’ll call the men who dragged me there the B’s. Every night, the B’s appear and take some of us from the darkness with them. The people taken out we never see again. We wonder what happened to them, and even though no one tells us, soon we all know their fate. We do not want to be summoned by the B’s. So every night, we lie as silent and still as dead bodies.
‘One night, I can hear the footsteps of the B’s approach, their shoe heels knocking against the concrete floor. A door opens with a clang. We all lie there, every hair standing up in fear. The B’s call for someone. No one moves. The B’s rush in, kicking us and whipping us. I hear one of us shout, “Let’s take it as far as we can!” Others shout back, “Let’s go!” The shout of people making their last stand. People who are not yet ready to die. We shivered as we heard them charge. But we didn’t move a muscle.’
Boksoon’s father breathed deeply and stared into the flame of the lamp. His eyes blazed. I felt as if my body had shrunk to the size of a fist. I trembled, ever so slightly.
‘I dreamt that dream again. That night, the B’s appeared. They called my name. I was numb as numb can be by then. I heard them call other names, but I stopped listening. I was just stroking the ground, looking for something – something I could grab hold of when they tried to drag me away. When I felt a whip crack against me, I realized then that I had no flesh on my body, only bone. We seemed to have been taken out some door. I stumbled at every step.
‘The moon was bright. The snow that reflected the moonlight was also
very bright. But that moon resembled a grinning skull. We reached a mountain path somehow, whether we walked there or were dragged there. I didn’t think of pain or fainting or what was going to happen to me. I couldn’t. All I did was what they made me do.
‘I think I was holding on to the trunk of a pine tree. Then I heard a scream. When I looked, a B had pierced a baby with a knife and was holding the baby up with the blade. The baby’s arms and legs flailed in the air. “Mommy! Mommy!” The baby kept calling for its mommy. The woman who was its mother just gazed at the scene. The baby began to choke. Even then I didn’t think I would die. Even in that moment, I thought I would be spared somehow. I will live, I thought, whatever happens in this world.
‘Then, somehow, from somewhere, a car appeared.
‘“Come here!” someone shouted, and I looked around. One of the other prisoners beside me jumped up. I thought he must have had the same foolish thought that I had, that he was trying to escape to the car. I jumped up, too. “Sit down!” the voice commanded. I ignored it and tried to make a run for it. But I had heavy chains tied around my ankles. The B's had tied a chain around the other prisoner’s neck. They hitched the end of the chain to the car. One of them said, “If you can follow the car, we will spare your life!”
‘I realized what was happening; I tried to escape again. But they just laughed. “Follow the car! Follow the car!”
‘The B’s, who had got in the car, gestured towards us to follow. They turned on the engine. The car began to move. The other prisoner ran as fast as he could, his arms pumping so fast they were a blur. But soon, he collapsed. At the sound of him collapsing, the car disappeared in a cloud of dust.
‘I was next. One of the B’s attached a bayonet to a rifle and came up to me. I wondered, even, whether they were truly going to kill me. He brought the bayonet to my chest. My hopes, my life left me in that moment. But then, it happened. Ma’am, it happened then! I felt a strength at that very edge of my despair. I knew what I had to do. I knew that I was about to receive my death from someone else. I looked the B in the eye. He pierced my heart with the bayonet. I screamed. I woke up. That was the dream.’
The Underground Village Page 16