89
“Me? I’m Ch’otchae.”
“Ch’otchae! Now, that’s a fine name. And what about your hometown?”
Ch’otchae wasn’t sure if he should tell Sinch’ol the name of his hometown or not. In the end, he decided there was no need to mention it.
“I don’t have a hometown,” said Ch’otchae, his eyes shifting down to the floor.
“No hometown,” said Sinch’ol under his breath, oddly touched by what Ch’otchae had said. Coming from someone like Ch’otchae, the words were most likely sincere.
Talk of his hometown reminded Ch’otchae of Yi Sobang and his mother. Were they dead by now? Or were they still hanging on, waiting for him to come back with the money he’d earned? The more he thought about them, the more these dormant feelings started to stir again inside of him. Back when he’d left home, he’d planned on coming back for Yi Sobang and his mother after making some money, but he’d never been able to make as much as he’d expected, and as time passed by, with him being so busy at work and all, his thoughts of Yi Sobang and his mother gradually faded from his mind.
“Why don’t you just lie back for a while. You must have worked awfully hard today.”
Sinch’ol stared for a while at Ch’otchae’s hands, comparing them with his own. He felt ashamed of himself, but he was also incredibly envious of Ch’otchae, who seemed to have forearms made of cast iron. And at the same time, it seemed like everything he’d ever learned up until then had served no other purpose than to make him into a weakling—both in body and mind.
“The work isn’t too hard for you, my friend?”
“Well, the morning’s fine, but I do get a bit worn out come sunset.”
“I can imagine. Have you been working as a laborer ever since you were young?”
“No. I started out weeding in the fields, before doing this . . .”
Sinch’ol was completely taken by Ch’otchae’s deep voice and unpretentious words. He didn’t know why, but he felt more and more like he could really trust him.
“I don’t know a thing about what goes on out there. Do you think you could come over every now and then to teach me a thing or two about the work?”
“What’s there to teach about work? You just do it, that’s all.” He let out a chuckle.
Ch’otchae found it amusing that Sinch’ol was asking him to be the teacher. But he also remembered how hard Sinch’ol had struggled carrying bricks. Sinch’ol, meanwhile, felt even more attracted to Ch’otchae when he saw him laugh.
“ Well . . . I was just wondering, for example, how they calculate your pay when you carry those sacks of rice and stuff down on the wharf.”
“Oh, that? It all depends on how heavy the load is. You get about five or six li for a sack of rice, four li for a cake of pressed soybeans, and then five li for just about anything else.”
“So, you mean to tell me you’ve got to carry a hundred sacks of rice just to make fifty or sixty chon?”
Sinch’ol grimaced at the thought of carrying a hundred sacks of rice. But then he also thought of the thousands of laborers he’d actually seen slaving away on the dusty wharf. He let out a long sigh. His mission was now clearer to him than ever before.
“How much did you make the other day, my friend? The day I was out there.”
“No idea. Don’t remember.”
“Oh, you know. The day you got into that fight. Weren’t you guys fighting over the same package? ”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, I don’t think you should fight any more. You’ll only end up hurting each other in a fight, you know. I mean, a good fight you’ve got to fight to the bitter end, but what’s the sense of fighting with your friends? You’ll just end up hurting each other.”
“Yeah, but what do you expect me to do when someone is trying to take away the load I’m supposed to be carrying? . . . Anyway, what are you doing manual labor for?”
“Me? Well, I’ve got to feed myself somehow . . .”
“Seems to me a fellow like you could easily get a job as a town clerk or policeman.”
When Ch’otchae had first come into the room, he had seen Sinch’ol writing, and judging from the clothes hanging up on the wall and the books placed under the lamp, Sinch’ol didn’t seem like someone who normally did manual labor.
Sinch’ol tried not to smile.
“Does being a town clerk or a policeman appeal to you?”
“Sure it does.”
“Well, I tell you, I wish I could become a laborer like you.”
Ch’otchae got a good laugh out of that. But then as the words ‘town clerk’ and ‘policeman’ sank into his mind, he thought back to the town clerks and policemen in his own hometown. For some reason he now felt a burning impulse to ask Sinch’ol a question.
“Hey . . . I was just thinking about the police, and . . .”
Ch’otchae didn’t finish his sentence. Sinch’ol looked at him, “Okay, what about the police?”
“ Well . . . I mean, I just wanted to know how you avoid getting caught by the law. Can you teach me something about that?”
90
Kannan had come home late that night. She smiled as she watched Sonbi wake up from her nap.
“Bedbugs not biting?”
“They sure are! Where have you been?”
“I, ah . . . someone I know wanted to meet with me.”
Kannan slipped out of her best set of clothes and hung them on the wall. She sat at Sonbi’s side.
“Listen, Sonbi, have you heard of Inchon? Well, they’ve just built this huge spinning mill there, and it’s got way more factory girls than the place I work now . . . I hear they’re going to hire something like a thousand girls . . .”
Sonbi was wide-awake now, her eyes sparkling with unusual luster.
“Do you think maybe I could work there?”
“Sure you can . . . I’m planning to go there, too! We can go together, Sonbi. How about that?”
Kannan was all smiles. She adjusted her hair and reinserted a hairpin that was about to fall out. Sonbi, meanwhile, was lost in thought, and the color rose in her cheeks. An image of the spinning machines she’d heard about from Kannan flashed before her eyes.
“But I don’t know if I can do it . . . They’ll kick me out if I don’t work good enough, won’t they?”
Gazing into Sonbi’s face, Kannan remembered how clueless she herself had been, and how frightened and embarrassed she was when she first came to Seoul.
“Why shouldn’t you be able to do the work? You’ve just got to learn how, that’s all . . . I know lots of new girls who came in knowing a lot less than you, but they were just fine once they got the hang of things. Don’t you worry about it.”
Sonbi sighed softly. Then she smiled.
“So listen, Sonbi! I decided to quit my job at the mill today . . .”
“Well, when do we leave then?”
“Right away, I guess . . . but I’ve got a few things to take care of first, which means we’ll have to wait a couple of days.”
Kannan thought for a moment about the secret mission T’aesu had just given her. Yu Sinch’ol . . . No. 5 Sa-jong in Inch’on, she said to herself, setting the address to memory.
“Is this place called Inch’on somewhere in Seoul?”
Kannan glanced at Sonbi and giggled.
“No, it’s about twenty-five miles away by train, from what I hear.”
Sonbi felt the color again rise in her cheeks. Kannan was always learning new things from other people and saying smart things that she didn’t understand. It really seemed like Kannan knew just about everything. Sonbi wondered if she’d be like that someday.
Then they heard a roar of laughter come from the room across the way. They stopped talking and glanced at the door.
“Looks like they’re not going hungry today if they’re laughing up a storm like that . . .”
Sonbi got up and began spreading out the bedding.
“What do those people d
o for a living?”
Sonbi usually felt too uncomfortable to leave her door open, and often wondered what those men actually did for a living, cooped up in that room of theirs all day long. Whenever Kannan went off to the factory, Sonbi was sure to keep her door shut and locked.
“Well, they’re unemployed . . . What are they supposed to do?”
What does ‘unemployed’ mean? wondered Sonbi, holding back her desire to ask Kannan yet another question.
“They’re a good-looking bunch, don’t you think? But no one in today’s world is going to give them jobs, so what else can they do?”
Kannan stared blankly into the flame of the oil lamp. Yu Sinch’ol, No. 5 Sa-jong, she repeated, worried she might forget his name and address. Then very carefully she went over everything that T’aesu had told her. Sonbi thought it suspicious that Kannan retreated into her thoughts like this, whenever she came back late at night. It reminded her of what Tokho had done to her night after night when she’d lived in the countryside, which made her shudder. As she studied the expression on Kannan’s face, she feared that Kannan was doing something she shouldn’t be doing.
“Sonbi! It’s been ages since you came to Seoul, but I’ve been too busy even to show you the sights. Want to walk to Namsan Park tomorrow?”
“Namsan Park? What do you do there?”
“You know how back home we have the ridge up over Wonso Pond? Well, it’s a mountain just like that. Remember how we always used to climb up there and chew on sourstem? Oh . . . I wish I could go home and see my mother!”
What came to Sonbi’s mind just then was that dirty hand of Ch’otchae’s that had poked her so sharply in the brow long ago. She wanted desperately to ask Kannan if by any chance she’d seen Ch’otchae. But she suffered in silence, without letting Kannan know what was on her mind. Ch’otchae might even be right here in Seoul, she thought. Then she hung her head.
91
The next day they took a spin through Ch’anggyong Park, then made their way up Namsan.
“That’s what they call the Choson Sin’gung.”
Kannan pointed up to the Shrine of Korea. Sonbi simply nodded in reply—she didn’t understand the words Kannan was using. Then, feeling somewhat woozy, she looked back down at the steep flight of steps they had just climbed.
“ We’re not going back down that way, are we?” asked Sonbi.
“ W hy?”
“Isn’t there another way back down?”
Kannan caught on and smiled sweetly.
“Oh, Sonbi, you’re such a country girl! Are you scared of falling down and breaking your neck? All right then, we’ll take a different way back down.”
Laughing, they passed by the front of the shrine, then walked down into a grove of pines, where they sat down side by side.
As they rustled in the wind, the trees slowly showered the two girls with pine needles that gently grazed the hems of their skirts. Sonbi, lost in thought, clenched some of the needles in her hand.
“I can’t believe it’s already fall. Time passes so quickly,” said Kannan, glancing at the needles gripped in Sonbi’s hand.
Sonbi looked at Kannan with a start and smiled. Kannan had taken the words right out of her mouth.
They looked at the view in front of them. There were red and white brick buildings soaring boastfully up into the sky, and off in the distance, at the base of Mount Pugak sat the White House, as though it were showing off the eternal nature of its might.e Between them, like so many tiny crabs driven this way and that, crept all the lowly houses.
At the sound of the streetcars and taxis zooming to and fro, they shifted their gaze down to Namdaemun, which loomed darkly, as though whispering to itself the secrets of yesteryear. This was the center of a spider web of electrical wires that spun outward, lighting up the signs on the storefronts to a dizzying effect.
“Do people actually live in all those houses?”
Kannan turned to Sonbi.
“Sure they do. What else do you think lives in them?” she giggled.
When she’d first run into Sonbi, quite out of the blue, Kannan had been taken aback by her beauty. But now that several months had passed Kannan could tell that Sonbi had actually been quite pale at the time. Even though she had few side dishes to eat with her rice, Sonbi had put on weight since coming to Seoul, and Kannan was glad to see it. It was about time to start teaching her, thought Kannan, and to bring her into the light of class consciousness.
“Sonbi, don’t you just hate Tokho?”
The color rushed into Sonbi’s face. Kannan, it seemed, had guessed that something had gone on between her and Tokho, even though she hadn’t until now said a word about it. It was for this reason that whenever Kannan even mentioned their hometown, Sonbi felt awkward, even afraid, and always seemed somewhat depressed.
“There’s so much I want to tell you, Sonbi, now that I’ve got the time to talk. Things have been so hectic up until now that we haven’t had the chance . . . For starters, what do you think of Tokho? Let’s start with him.”
Sonbi’s ears were bright red now and she hung her head. The only sound she made was with the pine needles, which she crunched between her tightly pressed fingers. Kannan, judging from her own experience, sensed that Sonbi still was having trouble getting Tokho out of her mind. Before meeting T’aesu and benefiting from his guidance, Kannan herself had had a hard time forgetting Tokho. She used to see him in her dreams: Oh, Master, I missed my period! I know I must be pregnant. She would cry out loud and then wake up in tears. But that wasn’t all! She remembered how jealous she’d been before coming to Seoul when Tokho’s affections had shifted toward Sonbi. Once, she’d been out walking in the middle of the night, and was so petrified by a man she thought was chasing her that she actually ran right inside Kaettong’s house. What an utter fool she had once been! And this was why she felt so sorry for Sonbi. Sonbi simply sat there silently, her head down, far too ashamed even to show her face. Tokho’s scary, disgusting face had flashed into Sonbi’s mind, and all she could do was pray that Kannan would soon change the subject.
Kannan, too, felt distressed at the thought of Tokho. She shifted her gaze from Sonbi onto the view down below. But then another thought struck her: How many Tokhos were out there in that bustling city?
Suddenly they were startled by a loud, unpleasant sound, and they turned around. Below the pine trees they could hear two sets of geta, one big and one small, clamorously making their way up the stone stairs. As they turned, they saw above the pine grove, crafted out of solid granite, the massive torii gateway looming against the sky.
92
Two days later Kannan and Sonbi went to Inch’on, at first staying with a friend of Kannan’s whom she had gotten to know in a factory. With the help of this friend, they found jobs in the Taedong Spinning Mill and easily got guarantees of identity at the police station. They also learned that the Taedong Spinning Mill didn’t allow its employees to commute to work. It was a strict regulation that all female employees live in the dormitory. The three of them decided to enter the dormitory together the following day, and they wandered around Wolmido Island and Man’guk Park until the sun went down.
After eating a nice supper, they pushed aside their dinner table and chatted about this, that and the other. Then Kannan stood up.
“Insuk, I’m just going to make a quick trip over there.”
“Where?” asked Insuk. You’re not going to go look for that man again, are you?”
On their way to Man’guk Park, Kannan had mentioned that she had to pay a visit to the older brother of a friend who had asked her to check up on him. After walking through Sa-jong, Kannan had figured out where Sinch’ol was living, but she’d pretended to have lost her way and said she’d have to come back later that night to find him.
“You’re going all alone? Do you actually think you’ll find him without the right address?”
“Well . . . might as well give it one more try. At least I can say I tried my best, righ
t? I’ve really messed this up, though, haven’t I? What was that damn number again?”
“Oh, Kannan! What are you thinking? How do you expect to find the place when you don’t even know the right street number? You’ll never find him.”
“Look, if I don’t come right back, just assume I’ve found the place. And if I’m back soon, well, I’ll just have to eat my words.”
Kannan smiled, then went outside. After making sure the coast was clear, she headed towards Sa-jong.
Having arrived at No. 5, Kannan again looked to either side of her and went through the main gate. She looked around the place, wondering where Sinch’ol’s room might be, but there didn’t appear to be any rooms separate from the inner quarters. Assuming she’d entered the wrong house, she went back outside. Then she had a change of heart and went back to try again.
“Hello? Could I bother you for a moment?”
The door to the inner quarters opened and a woman peeked outside. Kannan hesitated.
“I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t happen to have a boarder staying here?”
Before Kannan had finished speaking, the woman came out onto the breezeway.
“Yes, yes, please go on back this way and see if he’s in.”
She pointed to the small path leading behind the kitchen. Kannan entered the dark passageway and then stopped in front of a small door. Her heart started pounding and she was almost breathless. She could tell somebody was inside. A shadow flashed across the doorway and she heard the sound of somebody flipping the pages of a newspaper.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
The door opened and a man appeared. She felt she’d met him several times before.
“Are you Yu Sinch’ol?”
Sinch’ol was surprised to see a young woman standing in front of his door at this time of night, addressing him by name. Then he remembered the message he’d received from Ch’olsu.
“Yes, that’s right. Please come inside . . .”
It wasn’t until Kannan had entered the room that she realized that Sinch’ol was one of the struggling young men who cooked their own meals in the room opposite hers in Seoul. Sinch’ol, too, recognized Kannan as soon as he’d taken a good look at her.
From Wonso Pond Page 27