He carefully pulls at the cobwebs. His arm has no strength and trembles too much to get a good grip. He only manages to shake the fence, and the dew falls off the cobwebs like rain. He tries to catch some but fails to palm a single one.
‘Damn it all!’
He has a habit of shouting this at the sky when things do not go his way. He is at it when he hears the sound of footsteps. He quickly looks through the fence. His eyes water as soon as his eyelashes rub against the fuzz of the squash vines. Big Girl! He forces himself to open his eyes wide despite the tickling.
Big Girl carries a large bucket of washing and lowers it to the ground with a thud. Her eyes are closed as if she were sleeping. She must have just finished the washing as her cheeks are flushed from the effort, and her sharp chin makes him think that she has been sick these past few days. Big Girl starts to unfurl each item of washing and hang them on the fence to dry, her hands feeling for the vines.
Chilsung can scarcely breathe. He holds his breath. His lungs are fit to burst, and his stomach flips. He lowers his head, wipes away his tears, and continues to stare. He cannot think of anything. He is full of Big Girl’s movements. Big Girl slowly makes her way towards where he stands. Chilsung wants to reach through the fence and grab her hand, but he slowly walks backwards instead, his entire body shaking uncontrollably.
As the sound of wet clothes being slapped over the fence rings in his ears, a bird seems to fly about inside his chest and his eyes become dark. He hears Big Girl’s footsteps as she walks away and finds himself able to move again. He lifts a vine leaf and looks in. Big Girl is carrying an empty bucket and walking towards the kitchen door. He wants to shout out to her so she will halt, but he cannot bear to say anything. He glimpses her bare legs through the holes in her worn skirt. He stares at the dark kitchen doorway, hoping she will reappear, but she does not. He sighs and steps back. The sunlight shines down and stings his skin. I should’ve given her some biscuits … or some money. Or I could gather the money and buy her a new skirt. He looks through the fence again. The creaking fence is the only thing making a sound, and the white of Big Girl’s washing shines as bright as the sun. He turns around. If I don’t get Big Girl a skirt, she’ll have to wear those torn rags forever.
‘Big Brother, give me some biscuits …?’
Chilwoon appears out of the kitchen with the baby on his back. Chilsung quickly steps back from the fence, surprised like a thief caught in the act. Chilwoon thinks his older brother is trying to hit him, so he quickly retreats, but then he peeks out of the kitchen doorway again.
‘Please, please, can’t I have just one …?’
He holds out his hand.
The baby tilts her head and holds out her hand as well. There are always boils on the baby’s head, bursting with pus. Thin, sickly yellow hairs grow here and there on her head, and a halo of flies refuses to leave her alone. The baby keeps pulling at her thin hairs with her skinny fingers, picking at the scabs of her pustules and nibbling on them.
The baby now holds out that hand to Chilsung. She does not know how to curl her fingers, but she knows how to beg. Chilsung scares them with his eyes again and tries to enter the room. Chilwoon blocks the door and huffs and puffs in frustration.
‘Big Brother, please, just one little bite?’ He noisily sucks in a drip from his nose.
‘G-go away!’
Chilwoon has no proper clothes, just some makeshift trousers, the sunburned skin flaking off his back. The baby does not even have that and is naked. The sight of his younger siblings inflames Chilsung with rage, his eyes almost turning into balls of fire. He turns away towards the wall and is reminded of the layers of fabric he saw in a store in town. His hand involuntarily rises to slap Chilwoon, but his arm drops listlessly to his side.
‘Then I’m not going to watch the baby!’ Chilwoon puts down his sister and runs away. The baby immediately begins to cry with all her might. Chilsung does not give her the time of day as he sits with his back to her.
A swarm of flies catches his eye. It is the little meal table. His mother would prepare him a meal before going out to the fields, the food covered with a bit of cloth. He creeps up to the table and tosses the cloth aside. There are drowned flies floating in the stew, and the thicket of flies covering the rice bowl spring into the air in surprise. Chilsung picks out the flies in the stew and shoves a big spoonful of rice into his mouth. They call it rice, but it is mostly acorns with some rice mixed in. The rice he does manage to taste is extremely soft and sticky, the taste so sweet he almost coughs. But that taste is brief, and he soon chews another slippery bit of acorn, turning the sweet taste into bitterness. The acorns are hard to chew, and if he does not do a thorough job, he cannot swallow them, so he is left with a constant bitter taste at the tip of his tongue.
He looks up after a time. The baby has stopped crying and has crawled towards him. Her eyes are fixed on his rice bowl, with only occasional glances at his face. Chilsung, grateful that she has stopped her detestable crying, picks out a bite from his bowl. The baby grips his offering in her hands and eats it, lying on her stomach, licking the rice off the acorns. She only fondles the acorns in her hands and does not eat them.
‘Y-you won’t eat them?’
It enrages him that the ungrateful baby can tell the difference between rice and acorns. His shouting makes the baby cry loudly again.
‘Y-you’re crying!’
Chilsung kicks the baby. The baby closes her eyes and falls on her back. The swarm of flies briefly alight from her body and settle down again. As Chilsung makes to kick her once more, the baby’s crying fades to whimpers. Tears gather in her eyes. Chilsung ignores her and sits down again with his back to her. He hears a tiny cough, and he turns around.
The baby must have tried to swallow the acorn. She is coughing up its rough slices, which have not been chewed at all, slimed with saliva and what looks like blood. The baby’s face is red, and the tendons stick out on her neck.
The sight turns the acorns in Chilsung’s mouth into sand, and their bitter taste hits his nose like a blow. He drops his spoon, picks up the baby, and puts her down outside the door. He slaps the baby’s gaunt cheek to make her colour return. She starts to cry. He kicks his bowl, which clangs against the floor and rolls away. The baby’s cries make him shiver in disgust. He cannot be still. He remembers the biscuits under his bedding, so he fetches all of them and tosses them in front of her. He runs out to the backyard, walks a few circles, and spits.
When he goes back inside, the room is as silent as the inside of a kiln.
He fidgets, sitting and standing and tilting his head, until he sees the baby sleeping on the step outside the room, her hands for a pillow. She is teeming with flies, especially around her open mouth. Surprised, he looks for the biscuits. Not a crumb. The baby could not have eaten all of them, so Chilwoon must have been here. He should have left some for his little sister! Chilsung should not have given all of them away! He wants to find Chilwoon and beat him up. He runs out the room, kicking the baby on the way. It was the ugliness of her emaciated arms and legs that made him do it, along with the pitiful sight of her sleeping on her side.
Leaving her cries behind, he looks for Chilwoon. There are children gathered underneath the willow tree over there. He’s there! Chilsung huffs as he makes his way to them.
He had wanted to sneak up on him, but Chilwoon sees his older brother coming and runs away. The other children chew on millet stalks as they stare at him and grin. One of them imitates Chilsung’s walk.
Chilwoon must have run into the millet field. Chilsung trips on some weeds, and the children following him laugh. Chilsung gets up with great effort and glares at them. He was afraid they would gang up on him, but the children seem intimidated as they step away. They are more like a crazy pack of monkeys than children, always on the prowl for food. He watches them run off and thinks of how the children in these villa
ges are all hateful creatures. His forehead hurts and his toe stings, and now the millet stalks on the ground prick the bottom of his feet. The children look back as they run. Chilwoon will probably join them, he thinks, and he rests underneath the willow tree.
Its shade is littered with millet stalks. It must be where cows are occasionally tethered because there are cowpats everywhere. Chilsung leans against the tree, his gaze automatically at Big Girl’s house. How is he going to see her? I can go now, but if someone is there … He feels a stinging pain on his skin. Large ants are walking up his leg. He brushes them off and gazes at Big Girl’s house again.
He sees the white of her hung laundry as the corners flutter in the breeze like the wings of birds taking flight. What ‘someone’? No one is there, they’re all out in the fields …
He hears the sound of slippers dragging. Dog Poo’s mother passes by, breathing heavily, carrying a woman on her back.
Ordinarily, Dog Poo’s mother would have brightly greeted him joking, ‘Hey, you got a lot of matches lately? Give me some!’ But today she only walks by with a grimace on her face. Her forehead beads with sweat, her legs shake, and she is about to breathe in the whole sky. The woman on her back is like a dead body. Long hair loose, foaming at the mouth, bloodied clothes … Big Girl’s Mother! Chilsung is taken aback. He wants to ask her what happened, but Dog Poo’s mother quickly passes the willow tree. Did Big Girl’s mother fall? Did she get into a fight? Curiosity gets the better of him as he begins to follow them. If only he could move faster, he would catch up and ask what is going on, but he only stumbles and falls. He struggles for a while and picks himself up.
Smoke comes out of Big Girl’s house. What could be wrong with her mother? He reaches their yard, and his feet keep trying to make him go in. He hesitates, listening, but eventually goes back to his house.
There is a cloud of flies in their yard. The baby squats in the midst of it, trying to pass a stool. She is trying with all her might, but no stool appears, only red drops of blood. Her eyes bulge, and the tendons of her neck stand out like blades. Her little forehead is dripping with sweat. Chilsung turns his head in disgust and goes into the house. If he could, he would squash the baby like a bug or throw her out somewhere far away. That would rid him of this nuisance.
Chilsung picks up an acorn rolling around on the floor and chews on it. The sound of the baby straining is too much. He bolts out to the backyard. He is reminded of Big Girl’s mother. He creeps up to the fence again.
‘Ah, ah …’
This is not the sound of Young-ae, their own baby, crying; he realizes it is a newborn. Big Girl’s mother must have given birth to another baby. He is a little reassured, but just the thought of another baby makes him sick. It seems better to squash the baby to death now than to have it squatting in the yard passing bloody stools like some sick cat.
Did she give birth to another one like Big Girl, another blind one …? He lets out a bitter laugh. He wonders why the women of the village only give birth to cripples. Well, Big Girl wasn’t blind at birth, and even I wasn’t a cripple until I got measles when I was three and then convulsions after. His mother always said that.
His mother had carried his sick body to a clinic in the town, over snow so heavy the paths were buried. The doctor would not see her as she waited in the unheated corridor for hours. Desperate, she had slid open the door to his office, but the doctor had only given her an angry look, so she went back to waiting in the corridor until sundown. Then, a child who ran errands came to her with a bottle the size of a little finger and told her to be on her way.
His mother always got swept up in a rage when she told this story. She cursed doctors and cursed this world. Chilsung would shout at her and try to stop her from talking whenever this happened. The story sickened him.
If only I had some medicine, and Big Girl, too … No, we’re already cripples, medicine won’t make us better. But maybe it will. Maybe if I had good medicine, I’d have normal legs and arms like other people, and I wouldn’t have to go begging and I could work in the fields and go to the mountains and chop-chop for wood and those little bastards wouldn’t tease me … His heart soared. He opened his eyes from his imagining. I could go to the hospital and ask … But those bastards care about nothing except money. Mother always says so. The thought makes him listless again.
Big Girl’s house is silent. The baby has stopped crying. He begins to feel hungry. He looks up at where the sun was and imagines his mother coming in for lunch, her sweat-soaked hair escaping her bun and worries twisting her face. Why aren’t you out begging? What are we going to eat if you don’t?
His eyes go to the cypress tree growing nearby. He sniffs its cool scent. Maybe this cypress tree will be good for my sickness? He goes up to it and rips off a mouthful. He chews on it, gagging at the taste, but makes himself swallow. It hurts all the way down, and saliva runs down the corners of his mouth. He thinks this saliva might be medicine, too, so he tries to swallow it. Tears run down his cheeks.
He looks at the sky and begs. Please, at least let my hands be better, so I can gather kindling for mother. He had never thought this before and normally did not think much of his mother coming home carrying a stack of kindling on her back, but somehow this time, the prayer comes to mind.
He is still. Slowly, he raises his hand. His heart races at the thought that it has worked. Then, his hand curls up again. Suddenly, he vomits, and his head hits the ground with a thud. He is crying.
His mother comes back when it is very dark. She had to go to the mountains for wood again.
‘Are you sick?’
Her mere shadow suggests how tired she is. Chilsung is lying in the room and does not say a word. A strong smell of grass and something like garlic emanates from the folds of her skirt.
‘Chilsung, why aren’t you answering?’ The twig-like hand that caresses her son is not without warmth.
Chilsung slaps her hand away and turns on his side. His mother steps back and mutters something to herself. ‘If you’re sick just tell me, you worthless …’
She leaves him alone. A long while later, she returns with some rice mixed into a stew with greens. She sits him up with the usual difficulty. Chilsung takes up the proffered spoon with a shaking hand.
‘You sick?’ His mother smells of soot now, and the savoury scent of the stew makes his heavy body feel lighter.
‘N-no.’
This reassures her. She watches her son eat. ‘Big Girl’s mother had a baby while she was out in the field. What use are more babies to someone so poor?’
This reminds him of seeing Big Girl’s mother as he stood underneath the willow tree, the cries of the newborn baby, and the pathetic sight of Young-ae. He makes a face.
‘Why have another baby? Sick of babies.’
His mother says this with a sigh and leaves with the empty bowl. It is too warm in the room, and Chilsung is also curious about what is going on at Big Girl’s, so he gets up and leaves.
The stack of kindling in the corner of the yard gives off a deep scent of mountain greenery, and the stars against the black sky blink like the pretty eyes of babies.
Chilsung waves away the buzzing mosquitoes and plops himself down on the kindling. The dried branches and leaves make a crackling sound, and his legs are warmed by a gust of hot air that is pushed out by the impact. His mother approaches.
‘Chilsung? Why are you out?’
She sits down next to him. She smells of dried sweat and Young-ae’s stool. Chilsung turns his head away.
His mother takes out a breast, latches Young-ae’s mouth on it, and sighs. Chilsung keeps expecting her to say something, but all she does is caress her sickly daughter.
She must be tired from working in the fields all day and gathering kindling in the mountain in the evening, but now she has to take care of her baby. She often says she feels as though if she slept now she would n
ever wake up. Something about his tired mother not taking care of herself makes Chilsung resentful of her.
‘Doesn’t that stupid girl ever sleep!’
At his shouting, Young-ae starts to cry with the breast in her mouth.
His mother almost scolds him. Of course she’s not sleepy. She’s sick and she’s starved all day, and now my milk won’t come. She clamps down on these words with a pain that brings tears to her eyes. ‘Don’t listen to him, he’s not talking to you, keep feeding.’
The tears overflow. If only these tears would be enough to sooth the baby’s thirst, then the mother would not feel so bitter in her heart.
After a while, she speaks again.
‘If that baby wasn’t going to live anyway, it shouldn’t have almost killed the mother. I just saw them. The baby’s dead, but the mother is alive … Poor thing. She must’ve wandered the tilled fields, the baby’s head had dirt all over it. The baby probably would’ve turned out a cripple, too, with all that earth filling her eyes and ears. It’s good that she died, good!’
His mother was vehement in her grumbling. Chilsung also took a deep breath in frustration. If he had died when he was a baby, he would not have turned out to be a cripple either.
‘And wouldn’t you know? Big Girl’s mother wants to go out into the fields tomorrow. She should rest for a day, but there is so much work to be done. She can’t afford to rest. Why should the poor have babies at all? Why?’
She remembers the awful period when she gave birth to Young-ae and the very next day went to help with the barley. The sky was yellow and spinning, the grains of barley tiny. As she flailed the barley stalks, she felt something creep out beneath her and hang from her. There were others with her, so she did nothing about it until she went to relieve herself, and found that her thigh was wet with blood, and a fist-like lump of flesh drooped from her privates. It frightened her, but she felt too shy to ask anyone about it and left it alone. To this day, the lump of flesh hung from her and refused to retract itself, and a strange liquid flowed from it.
The Underground Village Page 22