by Junghyo Ahn
She smeared white cream on her face and wiped it off a while later with thin toilet paper. She painted her lips red with a stick of lip crayon. She drew black distinct crescents upon her eyebrows. Then she vacantly gazed at her reflection in the mirror, her face covered with thick painted lines and stains like an exaggerated portrait. Yonghi had said refined U. N. ladies were not supposed to paint their faces thickly like Japanese kabuki actors but to accentuate the outlines of the eyes and lips skillfully so that they would look sensually charming. That advice sounded quite simple and easy but Ollye could never master the makeup techniques Yonghi tried to teach her. Whenever she drew another face upon her own and stared at the new one in the mirror, Ollye felt it belonged to somebody else. Every afternoon she changed into a different person before the mirror.
She was gradually familiarizing herself with this new life. She wanted to lead her life, and she tried to. She bought a camera and took pictures of Mansik and Nanhi standing before the chestnut tree, standing before the house, standing by the kitchen door, standing on both sides of the rabbit cage, standing side by side on the footpath, standing everywhere. Mansik did not seem to be too excited about the photographs, but the camera was material evidence with which Ollye could prove to herself that she now belonged to a different world from the rustic village that had abandoned her. It was time for her to do her own casting off—of her past life. She tried to become a U.N. lady inside and out. She even wore the nylon stockings that covered her legs to the thighs like large condoms. She came to like the soft touch of the stockings. Her manners toward the soldier customers also underwent a change. Once, when she was very drunk, Ollye attempted a clumsy imitation of the striptease. She even learned to express her displeasure the Yankee way. If somebody tried to tie her down with a rope or tried to force her to do unmentionable things such as sticking a bottle in her crotch and sucking the beer in, she did not hesitate to shriek, “Goddamn fucking sonabech gerrary,” and in case her feelings had not been fully communicated by those Migook words, she went on screaming and cursing in Korean. If Korean swearing did not work either, she knew how to call the MPs and get the “sonabech” dragged away for punishment. She no longer felt uncomfortable in Western clothes, short skirts and sleeveless blouses, and nobody doubted that she was now a regular U.N. lady.
Ollye also knew how to dispose of the C-rations and other goods that Sister Serpent smuggled out of Camp Omaha at the town black market. Yonghi, who had many steady customers from Bichuku days, easily got hold of soap, cigarettes, cologne, whiskey and other items popular on the black market. Through black market deals Ollye made as much money for herself and Sister Serpent as by entertaining the soldiers. Ollye seemed to have become a success. But life was not as easy for her as others believed.
What Ollye found very difficult to get used to was walking in high-heeled shoes. She had worn flat rubber shoes all her life. It was impossible for her to balance herself upon precarious pointed heels, especially when she walked along the muddy rice paddy dike or sinking sand of Cucumber Island.
When she finished her make-up, Ollye put away the cosmetic bottles and sat closer to the mirror. She twitched her eyebrows up and down to see if they were drawn in the proper place, and pouted her lips to see if they were neatly painted. The woman in the mirror looked drowsy. Maybe it was because of the false eyelashes. Narrowing her eyes, she gazed into the mirror. She was not sure whose face she saw.
“Mother,” Mansik shouted. He was about to bring Nanhi down to the stream to wash her muddy knees. “Master Hwang is here to see you.”
Ollye, on her way out to the yard to fetch the firewood, froze by the kitchen door. This is it, she thought. Her feet would not budge. It was as if they had been welded to the threshold. With unseeing eyes she gazed at the old man waiting outside the twig gate; her vision suddenly blurred as her mind groped for something she was trying hard to remember. She had tried to prepare, to rehearse what to say and how to behave in this situation, but her mind was not working now. Although she had foreseen this moment, it was still happening too suddenly.
When he spotted Ollye at the kitchen door, the old man said to Mansik, “You go somewhere with Nanhi and leave us alone for a while. I want to talk to your mother in private.”
Nervous and suspicious, Mansik cast a questioning glance at his mother. Ollye nodded her head, saying, “It’s all right, Mansik. Do as Master Hwang told you to.”
Looking back at the Chestnut House over his shoulder, Mansik plodded down to the stream. Nanhi followed him, noisily sucking a handful of sweet Lifesavers she had stuffed into her mouth.
Shuffling out to the gate, Ollye could make a reasonable guess as to what the old man wanted to tell her, and was relieved by the fact that Yonghi had gone to Cucumber Island early in the morning to get a case of whiskey. She preferred to face the old man alone. She knew Master Hwang would not look away forever from what was going on. It had been merely a matter of time before the old man had to make a stand. This is it, she thought. She had to go through it sooner or later. Now was as good a time as any to make her own stand.
When she stood before Old Hwang, the doubt in her eyes had already been replaced by an air of challenge. “How do you do, Master Hwang,” she said, stepping aside from the gate. “Please come in.”
Old Hwang averted his eyes; he looked toward General’s Hill. “No,” he said. “I’d better not set foot in your house. I will stay out here.” After a short pause, he went on, “I am not here for a conversation. I came to give this to you.” He produced from inside the sagging sleeve of his robe a bundle neatly wrapped in rice paper. “Here.”
“What is this?” she asked.
“Money. Give this to—to that woman you’re associating with. This is the exact amount I believe she paid the snake hunter for that shack. Deliver this to her with my words. I want her to vacate the hut immediately.”
For a moment Ollye looked down at the money. “I think you’d better give it to her yourself, Master Hwang,” she said. “And you have to tell her about vacating the house yourself, too.”
“I brought this to you because I don’t like talking to her,” he said. It was obvious that he had observed from the Paulownia House that Yonghi was not home. “I want you to do it for me.”
“No,” she said tersely. “I can’t.”
“You can’t?” he said, offended. “You mean you won’t do what I tell you to?”
“I won’t.”
“You have become not only shameless but impudent as well.”
Kijun’s mother, carrying sweet potatoes in a large wicker basket on her head, and a woman from Castle village with two puppies to sell at Central Market, were on their way to the ferry when they saw Rich Hwang and Mansik’s mother discussing something at the gate of the Chestnut House. Out of curiosity they stopped on the road to watch. Mansik was also watching from the stream.
Giving in to the old man’s gaze Ollye finally lowered her eyes but she was far from being apologetic.
“Tell me why you can’t do it,” he said.
“Your order to her to vacate the house—I understand it means she has to leave the village. And that order applies to me, too, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said. “In a way.”
“Then you must know the reason why I won’t accept that money for her.”
“What reason?”
“I won’t leave.”
“But you are not welcome here any longer.”
“What do you mean I am not welcome here?”
The old man frowned. He groped for words to say next, but he found it difficult to find the right ones which would make this conversation brief and final. “What you have done here so far …,” he began. Then he began again, “Aren’t you ashamed of what you’re doing with the Western soldiers?”
“Ashamed? No,” she said. “I am not ashamed. I used to be ashamed of many things, but not any more.”
“Let’s go inside,” the old man said when he noticed that several wo
men had gathered on the road to watch them. “We can discuss this matter more comfortably alone.”
Without stepping aside, Ollye glanced at the old man, the cluster of villagers on the road, and Mansik and Nanhi down at the stream. “No,” she said resolutely. “You won’t set foot in my house. You said that yourself just a minute ago.”
The old man gasped in astonishment and exasperation. Turning to the onlookers, he gestured for them to go away. Kijun’s mother and the other women picked up their things from the ground, but stopped again after a few paces as soon as the old man turned back to Ollye.
Thrusting the bundle of money back into his sleeve, the old man said, “All right, since you deny my wishes outright in this way, I’d better be frank about my own feelings, too. I won’t tolerate or forgive your behavior any longer. I want you either to stop what you’re doing immediately or leave this county. Consider what has happened to us since the bengkos first came here. And consider what may still happen in the future. How could you do this to the village? I don’t understand how you could do this with the foreign soldiers whom you should hate more than anybody else in the village because you were their first victim. I cannot allow it any longer. I won’t sit back and watch my village trampled and disgraced by the soldiers and by you.”
“You really want me out of this village,” she said. It was a declaration, to convince herself, rather than a question addressed to the old man.
“I think this is best for both of us.”
“For both of us, Master Hwang?” she said in a low voice, almost in a whisper. “How can it be desirable for both of us? I am to be expelled from this village. What benefit is there in that for me?”
“I don’t want to hear any argument from you!” he flared up. “Just make your choice. The choice that is necessary to allow Kumsan to return to its peaceful past.”
Ollye shook her head. “I can’t,” she said.
“You can’t what?”
“I cannot make that choice.”
Faced with Ollye’s refusal, he felt the earth collapsing under his feet. Even Ollye was fighting him. Even Ollye.
“Why?” he said. He could not think of anything else to say.
“I cannot leave here because this is my home,” she replied without any hesitation. It seemed she had all her answers ready now. “And I cannot stop bringing soldiers here because that is the only way I can make my living.”
“Do you think that is the only way you can make your living?”
“What other way is there? What other way can I make my living, Master Hwang?”
“There are other decent ways for people to make their living,” he said. The more belligerent Ollye’s attitude grew the more his face stiffened, his complexion turning sickly pale. “Why do you have to bring shame to yourself as well as to my village by—”
“Decent ways, Master Hwang?” she cut in. Her voice sounded almost scornful. “Where can I find decent work in this village?” She turned to the villagers assembled on the road and asked them, “Is there anybody among you who would offer me a decent job?” Then back to the old man, “Who would give me work, any work, decent or not? If I ask you, would you give me any chore at your home?”
“I used to.”
“You used to, yes,” she said. “But not any more. I’m not talking about what you used to do. I’m asking what you would do now. What work did you give me after the—accident?”
“Are you accusing me?” he said, almost stuttering in irritation.
“I, accusing you? Do you think that’s what I’m doing?” she said. “No. I am not accusing you. I am merely trying to explain what this village did to me. And what you did to me. Or what you did not do. After the accident, nobody in this village treated me as before, as you know perfectly well. Not even you, Master Hwang. You didn’t even bother to wonder if I might by any chance starve to death with my children—”
“So you will keep bringing bengko soldiers to this village,” the old man interrupted her, his mind made up. “Well, if you insist upon it, I will have to handle this matter my own way to keep this village clean.”
Ollye suddenly laughed a hysterical laugh. “Oh, you’re going to drive me out of here by force, is that it?” she said. She laughed again. “But that won’t work, Master Hwang, I assure you. You can no longer tell me to do this and that. I have decided not to leave this place, and there is no way you can make me go. I will live here as long as I want, and if somebody burns this house down, I will bake mud bricks and cut trees to make roof beams and build the house again by myself and live and live and live on here until the last day of my life.”
“Don’t you care what will happen to the villagers on account of you?”
“The villagers? Why should I care about them? I feel sick to my stomach at the mere sight of these noble villagers who treated me like dirt. They held me in contempt and considered me a whore even before I actually became one. That’s fine. You can despise me and laugh at me as much as you want. I don’t care. But don’t ever tell me what I am supposed to do for the sake of the villagers. I don’t have any reason to be grateful to them or consider their welfare when I decide what I will do. I don’t have any favor to return them. I don’t think they have been fair to me. Think. I never wanted the soldiers to rape me. It was an accident. They happened to pick my house and violated me. If I had not been there, they must have done the same thing to some other woman. But people preferred to believe that I was a filthy slut who had chosen to be raped. Did any one of you decent folk come to see me to offer a word of consolation after my misfortune? No. Why not? Did anyone offer me even a gourdful of rice when I was suffering from hunger and misery? No one did. Did any one of you try to help me? Master Hwang, why do you think nobody did any of these things for me? I know why. They ceased to consider me as one of them. They thought I ceased to belong to this village, to exist. That is fine with me, too. I won’t blame you. In return, you must not blame me for what I am doing—for what I had to do—because you cast me out of your world. Just don’t ever tell me to leave. I will stay here as long as I live, hating every single one of you.”
Old Hwang flushed again, his clenched fists trembling. “This can’t be true,” he said, his voice choking with anger and disbelief. “This can’t really be happening. You must not do this to me, and to the villagers of Kumsan.”
“Yes, this can be true,” she said. “This is really happening. This has been happening among us all the time.”
He turned back to go to his house, still muttering, “This can’t be true. This can’t be true.”
To his back Ollye screamed, “And don’t give that money to Yonghi either. She has also made up her mind to stay here for good. Even if all the villagers get killed in this war or by an earthquake, we wdl stay here and go on living, forever!”
THREE
Squatting in the dark, Mansik hated Yonghi. His bare feet felt cold, but he would not leave the walnut stump. He sat, staring at the Imugi House where Aunt Yonghi was turning his mother into a bad woman at this very moment. He used to hate the bengkos and then he hated his mother. Now he hated Yonghi.
Crusty patches of frost glistened in the moonlit field. Along the skyline of the hills in the west, leafless trees fringed the rising mass of dark earth. An orange rectangle of lamplight trickled out of the tiny windows of the lone mud house at the foot of General’s Hill. Mansik heard a crooning male voice on the cold breeze, coming from the radio at Imugi House.
Nanhi was babbling something to herself. Mother had given her a yo-yo that afternoon and she was hitting it with a cloth whip to make it spin because she thought it was a top. Mansik would not bother to show her how to play with the bengko toy. He did not care about anything but hating Yonghi these days. He hated the very sight of her and he hated to call her “Aunt.” She behaved as if she was proud to be a U. N. lady. She laughed too often and too loudly. She had a particular way of roaring with shrill laughter which he loathed.
Yonghi rarely came for break
fast but she had her lunch and supper at the Chestnut House every day. Sometimes she would make up her face there with Ollye’s cosmetics, sitting carelessly before the mirror, exposing most of her breasts and thighs to Mansik’s view. It was embarrassing for him to see the tangled patch of black hair in her armpits when she powdered under her arms to remove the musty odor of sweat. She looked messy and sleazy until she was finally made up and fully dressed for the night.
Without paying any attention to Mansik’s presence, Yonghi said vile things often and openly. The boy could not help blushing at hearing her shameless bawdy jokes about sleeping with the bengkos. Then she would burst into laughter, saying, “Look at your boy blushing, Ollye! His face is as red as a monkey’s ass.”
Aunt Imugi had many bad habits and Ollye was learning those habits. Aunt Imugi not only drank beer and whiskey with men but smoked like a man, too. It was a matter of great shame for a woman to smoke; he had never seen a woman smoke before except for Old Lady Hwang, who had learned to smoke homemade tobacco as a child to get rid of roundworms and cure her frequent bellyaches. When she married, she could not drop the habit. She smoked secretly, in the privy, until her death. Old Hwang had been terribly ashamed of her on this account.
Mansik hoped that this serpent woman would go. But he knew she would not leave as long as the bengkos were stationed on Cucumber Island.
Bored with whipping the yo-yo, Nanhi began to call, “Mommy, sleepy, sleepy.” Mansik went into the bedroom, spread the quilt, changed Nanhi’s clothes, tucked her in and softly patted her on the chest to put her to sleep. He was responsible for looking after her when Ollye was not home, and she was not home most nights. When she did come, she was usually reeling and her breath stank of wine.