The Dwarf (Modern Korean Fiction)

by Cho Se-hui

  “Bastard!” He was no different from a rebel inciting a revolt.

  “Who?” asked my cousin.

  “That bastard defense witness.”

  “Don’t be narrow-minded.”

  “Are you out of your mind, hyŏng? There’s a guy on trial for doing something to somebody—remember?”

  “He’s only saying what he’s thinking. All these workers crammed into the gallery think he’s right. Why do you suppose that is?”

  It was just as well not to talk with him. I couldn’t forgive Chi-sŏp. He’d appeared in shabby clothes on purpose. He was extremely prejudiced, arrogant, evil-minded even. The truth was covered up while he lumped us together as criminals.

  At midday the midsummer sun poured heat over the buildings, the roadside trees, the crawl of cars. People dragged their squat one-thirty shadows along the street, hastening toward any shade that presented itself and mopping faces and throats with handkerchiefs already saturated with perspiration. Many had abandoned Seoul. Considerably fewer vehicles as well. I pulled up across from the holding room for those appearing in court, and as soon as I opened the car door I was hit by a suffocating blast of steamy air. People from our company’s secretariat emerged from the holding room and proceeded toward the courthouse. To their left, in the shade of a tree, stood some workers. My aunt and cousin weren’t to be seen. I hadn’t seen them for the last three days, ever since they had arrived at our house together at dawn and left separately. As I passed by, the workers in the shade stood motionless watching me. At the crest of the gentle slope to the courthouse was a long line exposed to the sun. Half of those people would fill the courtroom to overflowing, but as I continued on, the line kept growing. The majority of them were workers no older than twenty who had come up from the Ŭngang mill. There were also many factory kids who had given up hope of gaining admittance and instead had found shade at the concession or sat with their backs to the courthouse, waiting for court to commence. As I approached two girl workers standing near the concession stand’s pay phone I asked if it was true that the defendant’s father was a dwarf. They studied me with bloodshot eyes—our plant operated round the clock and they probably worked the night shift and hadn’t slept. One of the girls hesitated, then said she didn’t know. The girl next to her was different. All in a breath she said she didn’t want to tell me since she didn’t know who I was and didn’t know why I wanted to know, but she would anyway, since it seemed I really did want to know: The father of the defendant, who would shortly hear the verdict, was actually a huge giant of a man. As I listened to this, several factory boys left the line and approached me. As did some of the kids in the shade. One of the boys said, “Look here, mister.” I asked what he wanted. “They say you’re the son of our chairman—is it true?” he asked in an uppity tone. Something flared inside me, but I had to keep it there. Nothing to say, really. These kids surrounded me, only the eyes in their sallow, pointy faces seeming distinctly alive and moving. And then I heard a short song, the kind that expresses hostility, that’s meant to provoke:

  Our chairman’s

  a good-hearted man.

  He rakes in his change

  to pay us.

  A short song, yes, but unthinkable. I found it impossible to look at the worker singing this song. He would never grow up properly, I told myself, because of the rage and confusion crammed in a body too small for his age. Now the kids in front of me were peering at my expression and mouthing the words in all seriousness, softer than the chirping of the cicadas in the trees: Our-chair-man’s-a-good-heart-ed-man. He-rakes-in-his-change-to-pay-us. And so I was in a state of great fear. Those lined up before the courtroom notice board didn’t know what was happening behind them; but weren’t the people from our secretariat watching, wherever they were? This was a matter that involved our prestige. I couldn’t defend my prestige, not to mention Father. If it were my brothers, it would have been different. That thought put me in a wretched state of mind. My thoughts sped homeward. I imagined myself slipping Father’s twenty-two-caliber revolver into my pocket, loading his automatic rifle with exploding bullets, and running back. I took aim at them.

  But it wasn’t necessary to shoot. The workers surrounding me had flocked to the side of a woman who had just arrived—a woman who had come to hear her son’s verdict. The murderer who had killed Uncle was her oldest son. Her second son and her daughter stood beside her. The woman wasn’t small, and I tried to imagine the kind of sex life she had had with the dwarf. The workers escorted her to the courthouse door. My aunt and cousin were yet to be seen. There are differences from one case to the next, but an authoritarian father always makes his family suffer—and the more incapable of family responsibilities he becomes, the more he enjoys giving orders and demanding obedience. I thought about this dwarf I hadn’t known. He would never forgive his children for the slightest mistake. He would beat them frequently, would mete out harsh punishment. To his children he would be an autocrat who never slept. His power was not merited, though, because his constitutional shortcomings—his ignorance of love, respect, and trust—made him resort to terrible beatings and punishments. Because he was dead, his older son had lost the object of his aggression. But the uncertain aggressiveness of this son, who had grown accustomed to doing poorly in society at large, had remained within him, and ultimately he had killed Uncle. Just then my cousin arrived and walked up the slope to the courthouse. I drew him near and told him my thoughts, but he merely waved me off without listening.

  “No,” he simply said. “You’re wrong. You ought to believe what he said in court. I know what kind of work Father was helping Uncle with.”

  I made up my mind that if my brothers were to cook up a plot to disown my cousin even before Father died, then I’d be more than happy to take their side. Cousin mopped his perspiring face in the fiery sunshine. The courthouse door opened and the workers milled inside. We went in through another door. It was refreshingly cool inside.

  “What did he say your father and mine did?”

  “Made life miserable for them,” my cousin whispered as he turned to look at the workers in the gallery. “Said they claimed to work on behalf of human beings when actually they despised human beings.”

  “Wonderful words, coming from you,” I said. “The fact is, they built a plant, gave them work, paid them money. Those people right there are the ones who benefited the most.”

  My cousin smiled. At that moment, in that courthouse, there was no one else smiling. For the son of the murder victim to smile while awaiting the verdict, whatever the reason, was not a good thing. I saw a girl who seemed to be one of the union leaders at the Ŭngang mill. She was with the wife and children of the dwarf I hadn’t known, and she ushered them to a bench behind the defendant. Already the visitors gallery was filled to capacity and confusion reigned at the entrance, where others were still trying to enter. The court clerk waded through the crowd and closed the door to the gallery. My aunt hadn’t arrived. My cousin, who lived in the same house she did, said he hadn’t seen her face for three days. We sat among a group that included the directors from our group’s headquarters and people from the secretariat, who were present so they could report the results of the trial to Father. The air conditioner at the base of the back wall spewed cold air. The court clerk, irritated at having to admit spectators, asked the workers to straighten their clothing and be quiet.

  “You there in back, please button your shirt,” the court clerk said. “And the last time, several people were crying—for heaven’s sake don’t do that today.”

  “We can’t even cry?” asked a woman worker in a husky voice.

  “I don’t care if you cry. Just don’t do it out loud. This isn’t a movie theater, and if you start blubbering it doesn’t help anybody.”

  “You think we can afford to go to movies and such?”

  “So, you always cry like you did last time?”

  “Yes. Every day. Because we just can’t stand it.”

  With
a puzzled expression the court clerk walked away. I looked for the factory woman with the husky voice. A very ugly girl was standing there. Like most factory operatives, this girl was characterized by a flat face, a squat nose, jutting cheekbones, broad shoulders, thick arms, big hands; she was short from the waist down and had abnormally sallow skin. She could have been nineteen or maybe twenty, but she didn’t look like a woman. You could be sent with her to a desert island for a thousand days and still wouldn’t think of sleeping with her. Factory labor was this girl’s destiny, something she did for subsistence. All we needed from her was her muscle. If factory labor ever became enjoyable for these workers crammed into the visitors gallery, rather than miserable, then even Father would lose all his control over them.

  I was bored. Everything was ready in the courtroom, the time had arrived, but nothing was happening. There was no reason for me to fret, however. The first person to enter was the defense lawyer with his envelope of documents. He approached the wife of the dwarf I had never seen, said a few words, and squeezed her hand reassuringly. She rose and bowed to him. He surveyed the visitors gallery, then sat down at his place below and to the right of the bar. He was a young man who wore glasses. He seemed to believe he enjoyed the favor and respect of the spectators. Resentment seethed up from the pit of my stomach the instant I noticed him. I couldn’t understand how a legal system like this, where counsel insinuated themselves into a felony trial to protect criminals, could be left in place. From the beginning he had treated Uncle’s murder as if no crime were involved and had tried to misrepresent the nature of the incident completely. A different prosecutor might have been dragged into this scheme if he had misunderstood the chain of events. But this was an excellent prosecutor. As one who was absolutely qualified to represent the public interest, he gave the impression of spotlessness, even in his attire. After the judge had verified the identity of the dwarf’s elder son, Uncle’s murderer—his name, age, birthplace, address, occupation—the prosecutor presented a summary of the indictment. He listed the charges—murder, sedition, aggravated extortion, aggravated destruction of property, preparation of explosives, conspiracy, and so on—and outlined in detail the date, location, and method of the crimes. Before proceeding with the direct examination the judge advised the defendant of his rights, saying he could refuse to testify in response to any part of the examination. And yet the dwarf’s older son readily answered all the prosecutor’s questions.

  “Is it true that while working as an assistant mechanic in the Maintenance Department at Ŭngang Textile you organized fifteen discussion groups?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And the members of these groups numbered approximately one hundred fifty? And they all worked at the same mill?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Those one hundred fifty could each try to recruit ten co-workers. And if you gave each group leader something to announce, then fifteen hundred plant employees would know of it within a short time. Correct?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “All right. On the X day of the month of X, 197X, didn’t you issue instructions for all the employees to stop work and gather outside?”

  “I did.”

  “And all of them did so, did they not?”

  “Yes.”

  “You advised all the employees to go on a fast. And later you and some radical workers entered your workplace and destroyed machinery—is that true?”

  “No, it is not. When the president of our local told me some people had gotten worked up and gone to the Weaving Section intending to damage the machines, I ran there and stopped them. One of them had damaged a loom slightly, but it’s my understanding it was easily repaired and is back in operation.”

  “Sodium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal were found in your room. Who obtained these?”

  “I did.”

  “Why did you need them?”

  “I was going to make explosives.”

  “And did you?”

  “I started to, but I gave up.”

  “And so you were aware, were you not, that a combination of sodium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal is powerful, that it has absorptive properties, that you can make an explosive device with it and use it immediately?”

  “Yes, I was. But I didn’t have a suitable testing spot, and I was afraid that even if I did succeed in manufacturing it, innocent people would be injured. So I gave it up.”

  “So you gave up the idea of manufacturing an explosive device and purchased a knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this the knife?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Now, could you tell us what you did at six-thirteen p.m. on the X day of X, 197X, at the Ŭngang Group headquarters.”

  “I killed a man.”

  “With this knife?”

  “Yes.”

  The trial needn’t have continued. The dwarf’s elder son, this terrible criminal, had told all with no sign of remorse. He had come here with the intention of killing Father, he testified, but had mistaken Uncle for him—Uncle who so resembled Father. At that hour Father had been in his office going over sales figures for each of the companies and Uncle had taken the elevator downstairs for a meeting with some business people. The criminal, taking advantage of a moment of negligence on the part of the security people, sprang out from behind a marble pillar where he’d hidden himself, and Uncle had taken the knife in his heart and collapsed. My cousin wanted to know if Uncle had felt pain, but there hadn’t been time—because of the location, the stab was quite lethal. Here, however, was the point of departure for the trial. We had liberal laws even for the most vicious felons. If I had my way, the instant the confession was found to be consistent with the evidence, I would have hung the murderer before a large crowd. If we didn’t render such treatment to one who had broken another’s bones, then everyone in the world would end up with broken bones and carry their deformities to the grave. Uncle was already buried. And yet the dwarf’s older son, who should have been hung at the site of the Ŭngang plant for all the workers to see on their way to work, continued to appear in court, protected by the prison guards. To judge from the defendant’s testimony during the defense lawyer’s cross-examination, the people who wrung sweat from the Ŭngang workers’ brows, who exhausted them body and soul, who ultimately saddled them with tribulation, were none other than us. It sounded to me as if each of the defense lawyer’s questions was posed in order to justify the defendant’s actions. The way the two of them harped on details that had no direct bearing on the criminal action at hand, the one with his cross-examination and the other with his testimony, in spite of the prosecutor’s objections and the judge’s rulings, you might have thought they had uncovered a corrupt society and dissected it to shreds. As far as he could tell, the lawyer said, at home the defendant was an elder son who led the family, a good brother to his younger siblings. And at the plant he was an industrial warrior with a strong sense of responsibility, a considerate co-worker, a loyal comrade who shared the suffering of those in difficulty and was the first to help them, a student and leader who at meetings to thrash out labor issues always advocated mutual understanding, reconciliation, and love. And yet he saw that there was a reason, for better or worse, why such a person had come to the point of thinking one day of committing that terrible murder. And so he had raised the questions of pay, vacation, and reinstatement of workers dismissed without just cause. And although he had tried to find areas on which he could work with the company for improvements, he was unable to obtain its agreement—apart from which the employers’ unilateral breach of worker/management harmony by trampling on the efforts of trade union members to hold peaceful elections of union representatives and officials had, not surprisingly, shattered industrial harmony to the detriment of both labor and management. And the instant the defendant witnessed this, was it not the case, the lawyer asked, that he had resolved upon a misguided mission to kill the person with primary responsibility for leading
the Ŭngang Group—namely, its chairman? The dwarf’s older son was bent over coughing. This was the first time I had seen his head bowed. His sister had pressed a handkerchief over her mouth to stifle her weeping. She was successful but several people weeping behind her couldn’t silence themselves. The court clerk told the women workers to stop.