In the summer the thing stank and made her feel hotter, and in the winter it made her shiver as if she was about to catch the flu. It felt like fire when she had to walk a long way and sometimes swelled up so badly she could barely walk at all. It eventually erupted in pustules, which were unbelievably painful as they burst one by one. But despite how awful the pain was, it was not the kind of disease she could tell anyone about.
She feels the lump again and sighs deeply. The dried kindling crackles. Young-ae bites down on her nipple.
She wants to shout out in pain, but she does not want to set Chilsung off again. She bites her lip. She silently presses down on Young-ae’s head, signalling that she hurt her. Then, thinking she pressed down too hard, she rubs the child’s head.
‘And with all that trouble at that house, they had a guest who waited for her but had to be turned away without seeing her.’
Chilsung raises his head. He can smell a mosquito fire burning somewhere.
‘He’s from that house they mentioned before. Maybe you don’t know about it. They own a shop in town. They’ve got some money, it looks like. But no children. Enough concubines, but they still have no children. She’ll be better off there.’
His mother looks down at Young-ae. Chilsung is annoyed at how his mother keeps thinking of the baby even when she is talking. But he sits silently because he wants to hear the rest of the story.
‘So, they got word of Big Girl, and the man seemed all excited to meet her. He visited today, and they were supposed to discuss a match. Big Girl’s luck is turning! She’s such a lovely girl. She may be blind, but is there anything she can’t do? Hard work or sitting work, she does it better than any person who can see. And now she’ll be married to that house and give birth to a son and spend her days in comfort. She deserves it …’
‘She’s going to do what!’
Chilsung’s shouting is unexpected. His heart fills with jealousy, and he is ready to kill anyone who dares to harm Big Girl. His head is hot enough to explode, and his legs and arms are shaking.
‘S-so she’s going t-to marry?’
His mother sees his distress and is reluctant to answer. She pities his affection for the girl, and at the same time, the future of her son looks dark as night.
‘She isn’t yet but …’
These words seem to calm him a little. Saddened, she stands up. ‘Go inside and sleep. I have to go into town early tomorrow. What can we do?’
Chilsung screams out in a rage and drags his feet out into the night.
His footsteps take him away from the scent of the mosquito fire and into the fresh air of the mountain. The sound of the breeze rubbing against the fields of grain is soothing, the breeze itself coiling around his body. His clothes become damp with dew, and the many songs of insects rise from near his feet …
He stands still. He is blocked by complete darkness, with only the outline of Bultasan Mountain delineating a jagged border between earth and stars. The stars sparkle and prickle his eyes, making him want to cry out into the night. That mountain, that sky seems so cruel to him …
He can hear the tired calling of his mother.
‘Son, come back!’
‘Wh-why are you following me!’ The resentment in his heart rears its head again.
‘Please come back. What are you going to do out here?’
His mother grabs his hand. He tries to shake it off, but he does not have the strength. The tall grasses of the path brush against their clothes and make a hissing sound. His mother begs him, almost in tears. As his mother leads him back home by the hand, he thinks about what he will do.
All right, tomorrow I’ll see her and ask if she’s getting married and if she’ll marry me.
His heart begins to thump, and he feels a distant, threadlike hope.
‘Think of me and think of your brother and sister …’
His mother tries comforting him with these words. Chilsung says nothing as they return home.
*
The next day, Chilsung deliberately wakes up late. He is determined to meet Big Girl and say something. If she really is to be married … Darkness falls in his mind. Then I’m going to kill myself, I’m going to die.
He goes towards the fence. Big Girl’s house is quiet, and there is only the buzzing of flies from the bucket of water left over from washing the rice. This is it!
He steps away from the fence and goes back into the room. He is out of breath from excitement. I can’t wear this to see her, he thinks, looking down at himself. His clothes are smeared with cowpat, ripped here and there, but she is blind anyway. What do I say? He looks up at the ceiling, thinking. He sucks back the saliva flowing down his chin a few times, but nothing comes to mind. His thoughts are as dim, as if he had never spoken a word in his life.
Does she know I’m a cripple? The thought depresses him. He can almost hear Big Girl saying, ‘I can’t marry a thing like you!’ Defeated, he looks outside.
He gazes at the squash and gourd vines, the stalks of corn beside them, the apricot tree, and the big and small cypress trees, their leaves fluttering in the slight breeze. They seem freer than he could ever be. He sighs.
A long while later, he makes up his mind and leaves his yard, hesitating before the low gate leading into Big Girl’s yard. He pushes it, and leaps in.
The door to their house is closed, and there is only a stack of kindling in the corner of the yard. The door creaks open, and a meowing cat runs out. He is so surprised that his heart almost jumps to the sky. He steps up on to the porch and, after more hesitating, opens the door to the house. Stale air pushes out the doorway, but there is no one there. Big Girl is not here. Is she already married? He goes to the kitchen and the backyard, but there is nobody anywhere. Just when he is about to leave, he hears the low gate open. He quickly hides behind a pillar in the kitchen, next to a rolled-up straw mat. Big Girl comes through the kitchen door, holding a bucket full of washing. His eyes grow dark. He feels faint. It looks like Big Girl recognizes him and is approaching him, that she has not been blind this whole time and is staring at him with the eyes he would gaze at through the slats of the fence. He can barely breathe. He tries to creep around the straw mat, but his breathing becomes rougher, and the smell from the mat is about to make him faint.
Big Girl goes out to the backyard. He listens to the dragging of her slippers and peers out when she seems far enough away. His body is twisting so much he can barely take a step. He thinks this is too much and he should go back home. His body feels like stone, but the sound of Big Girl slapping the laundry up on the fence to dry reminds him of why he is here. Big Girl is marrying in town! He takes a step.
Big Girl whirls around, almost stumbling. Chilsung cannot bring himself to look in her direction and simply stands.
‘Who is it?’
Chilsung is silent.
‘Who is there!’
Her voice shakes. Chilsung wants to say something, anything, but his jaw is locked in place. He takes a step forward.
‘Wh-who am I, I?’
Big Girl backs up against the fence, her head bowed. Her delicately-closed eyelids tremble. Chilsung realizes she recognizes him and this gives him courage. Now he is more worried about someone walking by, and he keeps looking towards the gate.
‘Get out, Mother is coming.’
Big Girl’s voice is firm. It is as high-pitched as a little girl’s.
‘Y-you’re getting married. Good for you!’
‘Bastard, what’s it to you? Get out!’
Big Girl nervously grips the washing and breathes lightly. Her white breasts rise through the tatters of her tunic. Chilsung unconsciously takes a step towards her.
‘Go away!’ Big Girl shouts as she grips the fence. Her shout frightens Chilsung, who takes a step back and thinks he should leave. The world seems to be going dark and spinning out of control.<
br />
‘Mother is coming!’
Chilsung briefly closes his eyes and opens them again at her shaking voice. He can smell the scent of her long hair, woven into a long braid down her back. He steps on her foot. Big Girl’s face turns red as she extricates her foot and moves away. The wet clothes she is holding flop down into the dirt.
Chilsung is afraid she is going to pick up a rock. She gropes the fence, her braid tossing wildly about. Her courageous words have abandoned her, and all she does is helplessly grab the fence.
‘I’ll give you biscuits, I’ll give you cloth, don’t get married!’
Big Girl calms down a little. She raises her head.
‘You … have biscuits …?’ She grins. Chilsung grins with her.
‘Yes, so don’t get married, alright?’
‘That’s not up to me. That’s up to Father.’
Chilsung is stumped. He stands there, not saying anything.
‘Get out. Come on. Go away.’
Big Girl turns her head towards him. Little beads of sweat are dotted above the black curves of her eyebrows.
‘Th-then you’re getting married!’
Big Girl drops her head and rolls a stone about with one foot. Chilsung is so sad he is about to cry.
‘D-don’t, don’t marry! All right?’
Big Girl only answers this with a sigh and turns away from him. Suddenly, he hears the sound of a baby crying. Chilsung gives a start and runs back home.
The baby is rolling about on the kitchen floor with Chilwoon trying to tie her up. The baby struggles and screams. Chilwoon treats her roughly, as if he is trussing a piece of meat, and knocks his knuckles painfully against her skull.
‘This stupid girl, will you sleep or not! I’ll kill you!’
His nose running, he waves his fists at her. The baby shudders. Tears run from her eyes.
‘Sleep, you stupid girl!’
Chilwoon falls next to her and pinches his side. ‘It hurts here, I can’t watch the baby anymore …’
Licking at the snot running from his nose, he mumbles these complaints before falling into an exhausted sleep.
Chilsung dispassionately takes in this scene and turns to go into the main room.
‘Mama?’
The baby he thought was asleep has opened her eyes wide and is staring at her brother. Chilsung’s hair stands on end. He raises his leg as if to give a kick, but when he looks, the baby has pursed her tiny lips and closed her eyes.
‘Mama! Mama!’
The baby begins to cry. Chilsung goes back to the room and paces around. He goes out to the backyard in the hopes of seeing Big Girl, but there’s only the washing drying on the fence.
He goes back to the room and stares at his begging sack. He thinks of how he can get her fabric. Then Big Girl and her mother and father might prefer me to him, who knows? He grabs his sack and puts on his straw hat and goes out the door. From the corner of his eye, he sees the baby drinking something off the floor. He takes a closer look. She had wriggled out of her bonds, crawled towards the furnace opening and urinated next to it. She is lapping up the urine.
‘Y-you stupid girl!’ Chilsung shouts at her and goes out the gate.
It is so hot that he feels as if he is submerged in soup. Once on the road, he adjusts his clothes and his hat and tries to be as grown-up and calm as possible. Somehow, he thinks this is how he should act from now on. He gives a dignified cough. He tries to walk in a more leisurely manner. Children would then not attack him, and the adults would not make fun of him either. He thinks of Big Girl. When he turns around, his village is far off in the distance, hidden behind the rise of the millet field. The field gives off a fresh scent, and his back is hot and sweaty from the sun. He takes a couple of steps more and looks out.
The blue wall of Bultasan Mountain looms above the millet field, so close it looks mere steps away. He sometimes lays down on the millet and stares up at the mountain. No matter how scattered his thoughts are, he can always centre himself by gazing at the mountain’s grandeur, and sometimes remember one or two things he has forgotten.
One spring day long ago, he had woken up and opened the window, and looked out at the children with their carrying racks on their backs as they went to the mountain to collect kindling. He had thought, When I’m an adult, I’m going to that mountain and chopping down the biggest tree there and carrying it down …
He scoffs at his younger self. His heart aches at the memory. He shakes his head and carries on along his way. The only thing that matters now is Big Girl.
*
Two days later, Chilsung is standing six li from the village, at the entrance of the small town of Songhwa. The begging has not been good outside the town, which has brought him all the way out here. He has just about managed to get a length of rayon for Big Girl and is about to go home.
But home is far away. He is not sure where he is going to spend the night, but he wants to give the cloth to Big Girl as soon as possible, and he is worried that she still wants to marry. He starts walking homewards.
The night has no stars and is black as animal fur. But somehow, his heart is light and his eyes are filled with hope. He can sense the blue of the mountain and water, and the little stones by the path are perfect for kicking around when he gets bored. The road at night is peaceful because there are no people to harass him or cars churning up clouds of dust. He walks, forgetting the pain in his legs.
When he rests, he can fill his lungs with the sweet mountain air and hear the babble of the streams. The fields give off their smell, and the calls of birds echo back and forth. The lights of the villages shine in the distance and seem to be floating in the darkness.
He carries the roll of rayon fabric underneath his tunic, right on his chest, and it is as silky as a young woman’s skin. The sensation makes his injured toe jolt. He smiles with his mouth open as he imagines what it will be like when he sees Big Girl. She will be so overjoyed her smile will reach the very curls of her eyelashes. He can feel his heart beating fast.
The eastern sky is beginning to light up above him, wide as an ocean, when raindrops begin to fall. He begins to walk faster, but the rain starts to come down harder, disturbing the sparrows. He hesitates. There’s a hamlet nearby. If it were not for Big Girl’s fabric getting wet, he would simply walk through the rain. But now he heads for shelter.
When he looks back, he can clearly see the road toward home. His eagerness to return home makes his steps away from the road reluctant.
Once he reaches the hamlet, the smell of hay and manure crawls up to his nose. He ducks underneath the overhang of a roof of a house nearby. When he closes his eyes, he sees visions of Big Girl and the locust tree at the entrance of his village …
He opens his eyes. It is daylight now but still raining. He sees a mountain far away and groups of rooftops in the distance. He also hears the loud sound of falling water. He gathers his courage and looks around him.
He seems to be standing next to a rich man’s house. The walls are built with cement and the roof with black tiles, the main gate made of thick planks and large nails. His spirits lift.
The family name is engraved on a white stone that hangs by the gate. Chilsung stares at this white stone, lost in thought, until his eyebrows are studded with rain.
Ha, today is my lucky day. I’m going to get breakfast from this house and an armful of money or rice. Should I close my eyes and pretend to be blind, too? They might take pity on me and give me extra.
He tries to keep his eyes closed but the insides of his eyelids tickle too much, and his eyelashes keep trembling. Oh no, my clothes are too clean, as well. He rushes to a puddle and sits down in it. He comes up to the gate again. He is colder now, and his lips are shivering. He leans forward, trying to see between the two doors of the gate when he hears plodding footsteps. He jumps back.
The gate cre
aks loudly as it swings open. As he has done countless times before, Chilsung bows his head low and feels the uncomfortable gaze of a stranger.
‘What do you want?’
A heavy voice. Chilsung looks up and sees a man with narrowed eyes. He wears the black clothes of a servant.
‘Can you spare a spoonful?’
‘At this early hour?’
The man turns away and goes back inside. How generous this house is; most other houses would ask him to leave. Chilsung feels hopeful, and he takes a look inside.
He glimpses what must be a guest room straight ahead across the courtyard, a door leading elsewhere besides it, and part of the main hall. To the left of the guest room is something that must be a storage room. There’s a large stack of rice stalks before it. Raindrops drip from the slightly yellowed stalks.
The courtyard is wide, and rivulets of rainwater flow by.
He has to make it in there for food. He sees the door to the inner compound and makes his way towards it. Once he enters, a dog comes running out from the kitchen. It growls at him as he clucks his tongue, trying to pacify it. The dog shows its teeth and then lunges at his begging sack. Chilsung shouts and goes out the door, hoping that someone from the guest room will see him and call the dog off, but all is quiet in the house. The dog jumps up at him. Chilsung holds his begging sack in his mouth and tries to fight off the dog, but he gives up and moves towards the main gate. When he hesitates, the dog lunges at him once more and takes a bite of his trouser leg. He screams and runs outside. The servant from before comes out from the house.
‘Come here, dog …’
The dog ignores him and keeps barking at Chilsung. Chilsung is furious and looks back at it, wondering if there is a way to kill it. The servant gestures to the dog to come inside. The dog finally complies but keeps looking back at Chilsung.
Chilsung walks. A sudden feeling of terror makes him look back, but there is no dog behind him, only the hateful sight of the closed door. He considers going back, but the mere thought of the dog disgusts him. He gives up and continues to walk.
The Underground Village Page 23