From Wonso Pond

by Kang Kyong-ae

  Tokho had given him this rice when he took away his fields, saying that he was doing him a favor. He had subtracted from his final settlement only his loans and the cost of the high-interest grain that Ch’otchae had owed him. He had waived the cost of fertilizer and the rice that Ch’otchae had borrowed to eat on occasion. At the time Ch’otchae had thought that all this rice would last for months, but they had eaten it day after day ever since then, and now less than two months later, not a trace remained. Hoping to find a few grains by chance stuck to the side of the jar, he carried it to the door and examined it closely, twisting it around. When he saw there wasn’t a single grain to be found, he let out a deep sigh. He laid his head on the side of the jar and glanced at the door. Tears slowly rolled down his face. But then he heard footsteps outside, and he jumped to his feet.

  49

  The door slid open and his mother came in.

  “Oh, I thought you were Yi Sobang . . .”

  “A poor man’s born with hungry belly,” said his mother, putting down the gourd bowl and pushing it toward him. Ch’otchae quickly looked inside it and saw it held some acorns and some rice. To the wolf in his stomach, even his mother looked edible at this point. He snatched up the bowl and dug into the food with his bare hands. To amuse oneself by lifting a spoon or a pair of chopsticks was the sport of a man who knew no hunger, and as far as Ch’otchae was concerned, he needed nothing of the sort.

  “Hey, hey, slow down, will you!”

  Ch’otchae’s mother had planned on taking a few mouthfuls herself, but with her son gobbling down the food like that, she wasn’t able to taste a single acorn. On the one hand, it was heartbreaking to watch him eat like this, but on the other hand, she was terribly hurt that he was being so inconsiderate.

  “There’s nothing else?”

  There was a wild look in Ch’otchae’s eyes, and clearly the only thing in his mind was that maybe his mother hadn’t handed over all the food she’d collected. The mother glared at her son.

  “The nerve of you! Gobbling it all down yourself . . . What more do you want?”

  She couldn’t help but get this off her chest, for she felt her heart was being pierced by a needle. Why hadn’t she just eaten some of it on the way back here! From Ch’otchae’s perspective, however, she’d hardly given him anything worth eating, and here she was talking as if he’d eaten his fill, which made him furious.

  “And just how much do you actually think you gave me!” he shot back at her.

  A fire now seemed to be flickering in his eyes. His mother was at a complete loss for words, and refused to look at him. She turned to face the wall and lay down on the floor. Staring at his mother’s silhouette, Ch’otchae imagined what a feast he’d have, if only his mother had been edible . . .

  “Where did you get the rice from?”

  For the life of him he had to find out where that food had come from so he could get some more. The pangs in his stomach were simply unbearable. His mother lay there as still as a picture and refused to answer him. Ch’otchae wanted to give her a kick, but he held himself back and stared up at the ceiling, engrossed in his thoughts. Where could he go to get some more food? Maybe he could go to Kaettong’s? When Ch’otchae rose to his feet to go outside, a long belch worked its way out of his throat, to his own surprise. Suddenly his mother pounded her fist on the floor.

  “You see, you selfish pig! You stuffed yourself so full you burped!”

  She knew that if only he had shared a few spoonfuls, her feelings wouldn’t have been hurt. Ch’otchae ran to her side and gave her a shove in the backside with his foot.

  “How much rice do you actually think you gave me? A whole basketful? A whole bowlful? Well, how much then, huh?”

  His mother was furious, and she jumped to her feet.

  “You selfish little bastard! You just burped, didn’t you! You eat up all our food and then have the nerve to burp right in front of me. You don’t give a rat’s ass if I die, do you? So long as you can go and stuff your own face . . . Here I go out to get us something to eat and you gobble the whole thing down all by yourself. Well, the nerve of you! And how dare you treat your own mother like that? Oh, you wait, you just wait, Ch’otchae, because let me tell you, Heaven is watching you! Ahh . . . Ahh . . .”

  The woman began weeping out loud. Ch’otchae, loath to watch her cry, quickly left the room.

  In the blanket of snow covering the yard the traces of footsteps were still clearly visible. He stared vacantly upon them, wondering if Yi Sobang might come back today, and then shifted his gaze to the horizon.

  His mother was still inside wailing, but Ch’otchae was far more worried that Yi Sobang might never come home. He stepped out the front gate, figuring he might as well try to get a handout from somebody. When he walked through Kaettong’s front gate, Kaettong’s mother opened her front door and peered out at him. There was a time when she would have welcomed him inside her home, but today she offered him no such invitation.

  “What are you doing here?” asked the woman with a mean look in her eye.

  “Is Kaettong here?”

  “He went to work over at the mayor’s place . . . Why?”

  “I just wanted to see him,” said Ch’otchae, for he couldn’t come up with anything else to say.

  He left Kaettong’s house and wandered around for a while, trying to figure out whose house he could go to next, but then he stopped short.

  Puffing away on their cigarettes, Tokho and a man in a suit were headed straight towards him. Ch’otchae ducked his head and turned into an alley close by. The two men, engrossed in their conversation, passed right by him. Tokho gave his cane a twirl. When Ch’otchae caught sight of the other man’s face, all the blood in his body rushed to his head, and a shiver shot down his spine.

  50

  Late, very late that night, Ch’otchae came back home.

  “Mom!” he called out excitedly. His mother had gotten out of bed, mistaking him for Yi Sobang, but when she saw it was Ch’otchae, she lay back down without a word in reply. Ch’otchae put something into his mother’s hand. She sprang upright, catching the smell of rice in the air, and realized that in her hand was a bag of rice.

  “Come out and light a fire!” she said, heading straight to the kitchen.

  Ch’otchae followed his mother. He began making a fire in the fire-place while his mother cleaned the rice with a sieve. She happened to glance over and see the lower half of her son’s body, which was lit up by the fire. For a moment she was stunned, but she quickly turned away, as though she’d been looking at something she shouldn’t have seen. His clothes had been torn to sheds. Ch’otchae, for his part, was overjoyed to hear the sound of rice being cleaned. And as he stared at what in the dim light he could just make out to be white rice under water, his mouth began to water. After swallowing several times he went to the water jar and took a drink with the ladle.

  Just as they had finished cooking the rice and had brought it inside, they heard the front gate bang shut. Ch’otchae threw open the back door and slipped outside. His mother quickly hid the rice bowl and remained completely still to see if she could hear who it was.

  “You sleeping? Ch’otchae! You asleep?”

  At the sound of the voice, Ch’otchae’s mother dashed to the door.

  “Open the door, will you?” Yi Sobang cried.

  Ch’otchae’s mother heard the gasping of someone short of breath. She stepped into the dirt-floored hallway, but her hands were shaking so much she could hardly bring herself to open the door. Maybe someone was just pretending to be Yi Sobang, she wondered.

  “Open up . . . for crying out loud . . . Aach . . .”

  “Is that really you, Yi Sobang?” she asked, her mouth at the crack of the door.

  Yi Sobang must have been upset now, for he knocked his head against the door in reply.

  “Oh, heavens, it really is you! Well, come in, come in.”

  Only then did Ch’otchae’s mother open the door in relief. Yi
Sobang slowly crawled inside.

  “What happened to your walking stick?”

  “Aach . . .”

  Yi Sobang could only moan in reply as he climbed up into the inner room and collapsed onto the floor. He made the frightful groans of a very sick man. Ch’otchae’s mother took out the bowl of rice she had just hidden. Only after eating the whole bowl was she able to regain her senses and try to help Yi Sobang.

  “Are you hurt, Yi Sobang?”

  The man didn’t reply. Apprehensively, Ch’otchae’s mother slid to his side to put her hand on his forehead.

  “I wish I could turn a light on,” said the woman softly. “But we don’t have any oil . . .”

  Yi Sobang let out another groan, and then turned onto his side.

  “Where’s Ch’otchae . . . where’s Ch’otchae . . . ?”

  Now that she’d heard him speak, her apprehension subsided.

  “Where does it hurt, Yi Sobang? What’s the matter?”

  “I caught a cold.”

  “A cold? So that’s why you didn’t come home?”

  The back door gently slid open.

  “You’re back, Yi Sobang?” asked Ch’otchae.

  “Yes, I . . .” The man seemed to melt into tears, and could say no more. Ch’otchae was relieved and came inside.

  “Mom, give me some of that rice!”

  His mother placed a bowl into his hands.

  “There’s rice in my bag! ” said Yi Sobang, wiping away his tears.

  Ch’otchae’s mother went back to the kitchen and threw another log into the fire.

  The next day they finally awoke. The sunlight was shining brightly through the paper door. Ch’otchae craned his neck to look at Yi Sobang. Though the man had never been much more than skin and bones, he now looked like a living skeleton to Ch’otchae.

  “Yi Sobang!”

  “What?”

  The man opened his eyes with a start. He didn’t appear to be in so much pain today, perhaps because he’d had a warm bed to sleep in.

  “Why were you gone for so long?” snapped Ch’otchae. He looked at Yi Sobang as though he harbored a grudge against him.

  51

  “I was so sick, I almost died . . . I knew well enough that you’d all be waiting for me, but hell, I couldn’t even move. And then those bastards stole my walking stick . . .”

  As he let out a deep sigh and shifted his gaze to Ch’otchae, the look in the old man’s eyes told of the grudge he held against the world. Ch’otchae could feel his heart tearing to pieces. He thought of everything that had happened to him while Yi Sobang was away. Though it had only been a few days in total, to Ch’otchae it had felt like a lifetime.

  Ch’otchae’s mother carried in a brazier, into which she had placed some burning wood. They could all feel the room growing nice and warm. Yi Sobang glanced at his beggar’s bag.

  “Why don’t you toast some rice cakes for Ch’otchae?”

  The very sound of the words ‘rice cakes’ whetted Ch’otchae’s appetite something terrible, so he jumped up and sat down next to the fire. His mother took out the cakes one by one from the dirty bag. Ch’otchae snatched one away and began to snap off bits of it to chew on.

  “Wait till they’re toasted!”

  Ch’otchae’s mother placed some of the cakes onto the fire.

  Just watching the two of them sitting there, Yi Sobang felt relieved of a heavy burden. As he had crawled home last night through the snow, with the bag of rice cakes hanging around his neck, he’d felt as though head might fall off, and was on the point of throwing that bag away on more than one occasion. But each time he thought about how Ch’otchae and his mother were going hungry at home—waiting desperately for those very rice cakes!—he felt more and more determined to carry them home, even if it meant risking his own life. Oh, the very sight of them sitting there! Mother and son, with their rice cakes placed inside the brazier, now peering into the fire at the soft, warm cakes they’d soon be eating! Yi Sobang felt he would have no regrets were he to die right then and there. In fact, he could think of no better way to die than to see the two of them with food in front of them. It was simply too hard for the old man to go on begging any longer.

  As these thoughts ran through his mind, Yi Sobang unconsciously reached for his walking stick.

  “Oh, those bastards! Why the hell would anyone go and take somebody’s walking stick?”

  “Who took it from you?”

  “Well, I was laying in a millhouse, you see, when a bunch of kids came running in and then just up and took off with it. The damn lot of them!”

  “Why’d you let the bastards get away with it?” asked Ch’otchae, glaring at Yi Sobang. “You should’ve killed them!”

  Ch’otchae’s mother stared at him sharply.

  “It’s high time you quit running off your mouth like that. What sort of nonsense is that anyway—killing people for no good reason at all!”

  “So it’s all right to let the idiots go free?”

  “Yeah, well, who says you get to decide what’s right and what’s wrong? And, besides, some nerve you have . . .”

  Mother and son were suddenly reminded of what had happened the night before, and Ch’otchae quickly hung his head. After staring into the brazier for a while, he looked up again and asked, “Yi Sobang, do you know what the law is?”

  Yi Sobang was caught off guard by the question, and had no idea what Ch’otchae meant by this.

  “The law?”

  Ch’otchae knew that Yi Sobang hadn’t understood, and he wanted to explain what he meant, but he just sat staring into space, unsure of what to say.

  “What do you mean by the law?” asked Yi Sobang again impatiently.

  “Come on, you know, this thing they call the law.”

  “Huh? Speak some sense, boy! What do you mean?”

  His mother stared at him, too. Ch’otchae knit his brow and raised his voice slightly.

  “If you don’t know, let’s just forget about it!”

  He poked at the fire in the brazier, fished out a rice cake and then began chewing on a piece of it. Ch’otchae’s mother picked out one that was well done and gave it to Yi Sobang. When Yi Sobang took a bite of the warm cake, tears started to roll down his cheeks. Seeing this, Ch’otchae’s mother began to cry also. Ch’otchae turned around to face the opposite direction.

  “Why are you crying? I don’t need to watch this, that’s for sure,” he grumbled.

  Ch’otchae stared vacantly at the door, which was glowing in the sunshine. The image of Sonbi doing laundry at Wonso Pond popped into his mind. And then everything that had just happened to him flashed before his eyes—what the county magistrate had said to them that day, how he had gone to beg for food at Kaettong’s, and how, finally, he had run into Tokho on the path.

  “What do you mean by the law?” asked Yi Sobang again.

  Ch’otchae spun to face him.

  “Why don’t you get it? They drag you to the police station, don’t they, if you break the law?”

  52

  When Ch’otchae started explaining what he meant by the law, it suddenly struck him quite viscerally that what he had done the night before was to break the law. Once again, that knot of confusion rose into his mind. He remembered what his mother had said to him earlier: “I was starving and I did what I did because I had no choice!” Indeed, he too had been starving, and he did what he did because he’d had no choice. However, what he’d done was against the law. He’d been starving and had gone off to find something to eat without even thinking about what he was doing. But now that he’d eaten his fill of these soft cakes and this white rice, it finally dawned on him that he had, once again, broken the law.

  Yi Sobang seemed to understand what Ch’otchae was getting at, but to him, the issue needed no further explanation.

  “Look, the law is the law, and that’s all there is to it. We’ve always had it.”

  “That’s all you can say?”

  “Well, I guess so. It�
��s just the law.”

  It had never crossed his mind that people might have actually created the law. Indeed, Yi Sobang seemed to think that the law had existed in the world well before people ever did. Hearing what Yi Sobang had to say about the matter, Ch’otchae’s sense of grief grew even more acute. Here was this inescapable, ironclad rule called the law! And yet why was it that he alone—or rather he, his mother, and Yi Sobang, this old man moaning in front of him—were the only ones forced to break it?

  As he mulled this over, his heart began racing. Right about now, some family would discover that their rice was missing. And of course they’d go off to the police station and report the theft . . . A policeman might already have headed out to investigate. There might even be someone standing right outside our front gate, thought Ch’otchae, stealing a glance toward the door.

  Each time the wind blew, he feared it might be a policeman coming. Each time Yi Sobang rolled onto his side, he thought someone might be opening the door, about to walk in. He kept glancing at the door in alarm.

  And yet, despite the anxiety that plagued him, Ch’otchae couldn’t stop stealing. He made a habit of going out each night to find food. And while his mother and Yi Sobang were in no position to tell him not to, they too, were increasingly on edge as the days went by.

  One night just after Ch’otchae had come home, Yi Sobang sat down beside him.

  “Ch’otchae! You’ve got to get out of here now.”

  “Why?” said Ch’otchae, his nostrils flaring.

  “What do you mean why? You’ve just got to leave. This isn’t the only place people can make a living . . . I hear they’ve got these places in Seoul and P’yongyang they call factories, where poor folk like us can go to work and make money—earn a decent living. You should go find one.”