“I just got a letter from Okchom. She says she’s sick . . . It’s no wonder things like this happen to us with all the evil tricks you’re up to.”
He took the letter out of his pocket and tossed it to the floor. Okchom’s mother became very upset. She picked up the letter and stared at it.
“Read it to me word for word. I can’t understand these cursive letters. What does she say is wrong with her?”
Tokho took back the letter from his wife and read it out loud. Soon tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“Well, what should we do? You know, I’ve been having nightmares recently and I’m sure this is why. Do you think I should go see her?”
“And just what use would you be there? I’m the one who’s got to go. Now hurry up and get my things ready.”
In no time at all the the couple’s anger toward each other had subsided. Okchom’s mother went into the inner room.
“Sonbi,” she cried, “stop what you’re doing and start working on this. Granny, heat up some charcoal for the iron.”
Sonbi neatly folded the clothes she’d been working on and went into the inner room.
“Sew a collar onto this right away,” the woman barked. “When’s the next car leaving?” She looked to her husband, who was peering into the room.
“Car? What car? I’ve got to ride a bicycle into town, then hop on a train.”
As Sonbi stitched on the collar, she thought of Okchom’s big, round eyes. Though Sonbi didn’t know what was wrong with Okchom, she knew how lucky Okchom was to have a mother and father at home who worried so much about her.
She felt sorry for herself and lonely, for she had no one in the world who cared about her, even when she was sick.
“When I go to Seoul, I want you to have Sonbi sleep at the other house.”
“Wait, who’s going where? Why do you want Sonbi to . . . ?”
Okchom’s mother stopped mid-sentence, her face growing long.
“Here we go again. I’m trying to get ready to go, and all she wants to do is cause more trouble.” Tokho dropped his chin into the palm of his hand with a slap.
Sonbi glanced at him anxiously. Tokho looked over at Sonbi, then recrossed his legs.
“Where the hell is this woman’s common sense?”
Okchom’s mother was about to say something, but she held her tongue.
Just then Blackie, the dog, scampered into the courtyard, barking at someone behind him.
16
The middle gate swung open and in walked Okchom.
“Mother!”
Surprised to hear her daughter’s voice, Okchom’s mother rushed outside. She threw her arms around her daughter’s neck and burst into tears. A stranger in a Western-style suit, who had followed Okchom inside, stood there awkwardly staring at the mother and daughter.
“What’s all this about?” said Tokho from the breezeway. “When did you leave? And why didn’t you send us a telegram ? You said you were sick . . .”
Okchom ran over and grabbed her father’s hand.
“Father, this is the son of one of my teachers at school. He was on his way to Monggŭmp’o beach when we met on the train and I convinced him to stop by our house first.”
Who’s that in the suit? was the thought that had crossed Tokho’s mind upon seeing the young man, who had made him very uneasy. He was now quite relieved to hear that he was the son of his daughter’s teacher.
Okchom turned to the well-dressed young man. “This is my father,” she said with a sweet smile.
The man quickly lifted his head, removed his hat, and came forward. He bowed to Tokho.
“Glad you could stop by. Come on inside,” said Tokho.
Tokho started into the house, followed by the others. Okchom’s mother fixed her gaze on the man in the suit who walked in ahead of Okchom. If only she had a son like him, she thought.
“My baby, didn’t you say you were sick? Your father was just about to go visit you,” she said, stepping up into the breezeway.
Okchom felt her cheeks going red. “Oh, Mother! Why do you still call me your ‘baby’?”
All of them laughed at this. Okchom looked back and forth between her father and the man.
“Daddy, I’ve decided to go to Monggŭmp’o beach, too.”
Tokho carefully examined the expression on his daughter’s face.
“Well, are you feeling up to it? As long as you’re not sick, you can go anywhere as far as I’m concerned.”
Okchom smiled gleefully and then looked over at her visitor. But then she remembered something.
“Mother, didn’t you say that Sonbi moved in to my room?”
“Yes, she did . . .”
“Well, where am I supposed to go now?” she pouted.
Tokho looked at Okchom. At times like this, he thought, she was the spitting image of her mother.
“Now, don’t you worry about it, dear. We’ll just have Sonbi stay in here.”
Tokho smiled, and looked at the young man.
“Still acts like a child, that one, doesn’t she? Hah, ha!”
The man in the suit smiled back. After just a few minutes, he understood how preciously Okchom was treated in this family.
“Sonbi! Get lunch ready.”
At her mother’s words Okchom jumped to her feet.
“Is Sonbi really here? Right now?”
Rushing across the breezeway, Okchom ran into Sonbi coming out of her workroom.
“Sonbi! How have you been?”
Sonbi was about to take Okchom’s hand when she caught a strong whiff of perfume, and suddenly pulled back.
As she did so, she could feel the warmth rush into her cheeks.
“Oh, Sonbi, you’re so pretty now! How did you ever get to be so . . .”
Okchom unconsciously glanced over her shoulder. When she saw that all eyes in the inner room were fixed in their direction, she felt something forcing her eyes to twitch—the closest thing she’d ever felt to real jealousy. Now her own cheeks were burning.
Okchom spun around. Sonbi, her head down, went back into the kitchen, where Granny was busily preparing vegetables for a batch of kimchi.
“What is that man doing in there?” asked Granny, who found it offensive that an unmarried woman was traveling around with a man of no family relation.
“I have no idea,” she said, recalling that Okchom had introduced the man in the suit to her father. “Anyway, she wants us to cook some rice.”
“Cook more rice? We’ve got plenty leftover . . . She must want it for that man in there.”
As she washed one of the pots, Sonbi thought about Okchom’s powdered face and her pretty Western clothes. She looked at the charcoal glowing in the oven.
“Sonbi, I want you to fetch two chickens.” Okchom’s mother peered into the kitchen.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her message delivered, the woman went back inside. Then, at the sound of something fluttering above her, Sonbi lifted her head.
17
A single swallow swooped around the kitchen ceiling. Then out it went, like a black arrow soaring into that blue sky. Sonbi let out a faint sigh. It was as though she was looking out at that sky for the very first time.
“Did you hear that? She said to get two chickens!” Granny looked over at Sonbi as she lit a fire in the stove. Her smile was so wide that crow’s feet appeared at the corners of her eyes. Whenever they killed a chicken, she loved to suck on the leftover chicken bones from which the meat had been removed.
Bwock! Bwock! cried the chickens, startling Sonbi. She wiped her wet hands on her apron and ran out to the back gate. The chickens were squawking and walking in circles atop their nests as she approached the coop, but as soon as they noticed Sonbi, they began flapping their wings noisily to jump to the ground. The smell of manure hit Sonbi in the face. Chicken feathers floated lightly in the air.
Sonbi stood there for a moment, coughing, and once the chickens had moved out of the way, she peered into their nests. The eg
gs the chickens had laid only moments earlier seemed to be smiling sweetly at her. Breaking into a smile at the sight of them, Sonbi picked up the eggs from the nests. They still felt warm.
“This makes forty,” she said to herself, and made her way back to the kitchen.
Yu Sobang came inside clutching two young hens, blood still dripping from their necks. He looked over at Sonbi with a smile.
“Did they lay any more eggs?”
“Yes, they did.”
Sonbi was so excited to show off the warm eggs to somebody, anybody, that she thrust her hands right out in front of her.
“You sure have a thing for eggs,” said Granny, dropping the chickens into boiling water. “Counting these, Granny, I’ve got forty of them now.”
“Well good for you, dear! But what’s the use of saving them up like that?” she added softly.
Sonbi was a little hurt by her words. But only for a moment. When she looked down at the eggs again, they seemed prettier than ever.
Sonbi quietly opened the door to the pantry and went inside. The smell of mildew greeted her. She took down the egg basket, placed it atop a jar, and peeked inside. The chock-full basket still held the same of number eggs as it had before. She carefully placed each new egg inside, and just as she repeated the words ‘this makes forty’, a beam of orange sunlight, streaking in through the crack in the doorsill, lit up her hand. After one last good look inside the basket, Sonbi came back out to the kitchen. She sat down next to Granny, who was plucking the feathers out of the chickens.
They finally finished preparing the lunch and had set their own bowls down on the stovetop to eat when Tokho came in.
“Sonbi, go eat in the inner room.”
Sonbi stood up. “No, thank you.”
“Now, do as you’re told. Come inside and eat with Okchom.”
Tokho was being so impatient that Sonbi placed her spoon down on her tray as though she were finished. Tokho realized that it was useless to insist.
“Have you always eaten in the kitchen?”
With this, he headed back inside, where he must have said something, for the shrill voice of Okchom’s mother then drifted outside.
“I have to put up with that stubborn girl night and day. She won’t do anything unless you insist on it. I’m telling you, she’s tougher than cowhide.”
Sonbi’s cheeks were burning. She felt the juices she’d just sucked off the chicken bones working themselves back up her throat.
After finishing the dishes, Sonbi was about to cross over to her room, when she ran into Okchom’s mother standing in the breezeway.
“Now that Okchom is back at home, you’ll have to sleep with Granny, or else in here with me.”
Okchom popped out of her room.
“Come and clean out this room. What is all this stuff in here anyway? You’ve got more bundles of junk than a Chinaman. Hah, ha . . .”
Okchom turned to look at the man in the suit as she laughed. Sonbi was so embarrassed that she blushed to the very tips of her ears. She went into the room and gathered all her bundles together. As she took in what Okchom had just said to her, she tried to decide just where she would move her things.
Moving into the inner room meant having to sleep with Okchom’s mother—she didn’t want to do that—but moving in with Granny meant sharing a tiny little space. She couldn’t decide what to do, and sat there lost in thought. Then she remembered the house in the lower village, where she and her mother had once lived. Though it was only a straw-roofed hut, it was still their very own home! She felt the urge to go see it now.
‘I wonder who’s living there?’ she thought.
Sonbi looked down again at her bundles again. Slowly she rose to her feet, and with both hands lifted up her things.
18
“Man, is it hot! Come on and sing something, will ya?”
So short and squat that they all called him Little Buddha, the young man had turned to a tall man behind him. He dug his hoe into the ground, pulled out a foxtail, and tossed it to the side.
As the young men exchanged small talk, they called each other by their nicknames.
“A song, a song!”
“Come on, Sourstem, just sing something! I can’t stand it any longer.”
Little Buddha slapped his tall friend Sourstem on the back. Next to him, Ch’otchae was working up a good sweat pulling out weeds.
“Come on, let’s hear a song!” he echoed, turning around.
Little Buddha shot a glance in his direction.
“What does an oaf like you want to hear singing for?”
Without a few drinks inside him, Ch’otchae hardly ever spoke a word to anyone. But once he was drunk he would jabber on and on, all night long, in words no one could really make out.
Ch’otchae looked over at Little Buddha and grinned at him. He had the habit of smiling like this instead of actually answering.
From the mountain in front of them then came the sound, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Sourstem looked over at the hillside.
“Hey, the cuckoos are the only ones singing!”
With this, he began his song, the blood vessels along the side of his neck slightly bulging.
All the dirt and all the stones
One by one I pick them out
To eat myself and to give to my love
I plant rice for the fall
He drew out the last note long and slow. Then the farmer nicknamed Earthworm softly closed his eyes.
That thorn in my side
The rich landowner
To fill his metal storehouse
Did I plant for the fall
The rising, twisting melody at times dropped in tone and then faded away.
“Now that’s more like it!” shouted Little Buddha, striking his hoe into the ground. But then an overwhelming feeling of sadness pressed on their hearts.
“Hey, what are you waiting for? It’s your turn again!” Yu Sobang looked at Sourstem with a smile.
“You old raccoon dog,” said Sourstem. “How about you buy me a drink if I sing?”
“You got it.”
Ch’otchae was more thirsty than ever at this mention of alcohol. His mouth started to water as though he could see a bowl of milky-white brew right there before his eyes.
“No, I quit. My voice is worth more than a cup of booze.”
“Oh, come on. Let’s just do it.”
Several of the men cried out at the same time. Yu Sobang then took off his straw hat and began fanning himself with it.
“It’s hot as hell out here. Just sing something, will you? If you don’t want brew, I’ll buy you some hard stuff.”
“Don’t go getting a big head, Sourstem, just ’cause you can sing.” Little Buddha knocked Sourstem’s hat off his head with a tap of his hand.
“Hey, stop it . . . Whose place are you going to weed tomorrow, anyway?”
“I’m going over to help in Samch’i Village, why?”
“Those fields are packed with rocks. They must be hell to weed.”
“Yeah, and the tenant pays five sacks of rice for them, too.”
“Well, he must not pay the land taxes, right? With the rent so high . . .”
“He pays everything, the taxes, too.”
“Out of his own pocket? You’ve got to be kidding! He’s going to starve working those fields.”
Sourstem cast a sidelong glance at Yu Sobang. Since the man worked for Tokho, the rest of them always kept their distance from him. Little Buddha spit on the ground.
“I don’t know what the hell he thinks he’s up to lately,” he replied under his breath.
He wrapped his hand around a millet plant, so as not to damage it with his hoe, and he chopped into the ground, loosening the soil around it. The wind just then picked up, and the blades of the millet plants swayed softly in the breeze.
A calf lowed somewhere off in the distant. Sourstem lifted his own chin into the air: The grains of millet I pay to him
Are round as chestnuts, round as d
ates
And they roll around, roll around
On the lips of my love
Earthworm cleared his throat and took a firm grip onto his hoe: The landlord lends me millet
That is nothing more than chaff
Which scrapes the grudge in my heart
Each time I swallow
Each of them let out a deep sigh.
19
“Alright listen, if we’re going to sing, I want something uplifting. Enough of these sad songs!” Little Buddha, flushed with anger, grabbed his hoe and flung it to the side. Like a whirlwind, a memory had swept through his mind—the memory of borrowing grain from Tokho on outrageous terms.
Tokho’s barnyard that spring day had been crowded with tenant farmers who had come for loans of millet.
After they’d all waited for some time, Tokho finally came out with a long pipe between his lips.
“Why so many of you?”
This is what Tokho always said when he handed out his loan shark grain.
Tokho scanned the crowd standing in a circle around him. Each of the farmers who happened to catch Tokho’s eye felt his heart stop and quickly bowed his head, afraid of being the unlucky one sent home empty-handed.
The lines set in Tokho’s face tightened. In the crowd were people who hadn’t even paid back their grain from the previous year.
“Humph! So what happened to everything you grew last year, huh? And you! Don’t tell me you don’t have anything left either?”
Tokho stared at Sourstem. The young man scratched his head. “Well, yes . . .”
“I wonder why . . . Looks to me like none of you boys know how to economize when it comes to food. If you keep on borrowing in the spring, things will be tough for you all come fall. Am I wrong?”
The farmers listened with their heads hung low.
Tokho was ready, pen in hand, to write down the names of each farmer into his notebook and note exactly how many bushels and scoops of grain they took away.
They all turned their heads toward the creaking sound of the granary door, which Yu Sobang was opening. Several of the men ran over to help him drag out sacks of millet. With a long swishing sound, they poured the millet onto straw mats spread out on the ground. Oh, that familiar sound of flowing grain! And all that chaff that flew up into white clouds of dust!
From Wonso Pond Page 7