But could he just up and leave this place? Sinch’ol started shaking his head. There was, however, precious little effort put in the gesture, and Sinch’ol realized that his head was moving side to side very, very slowly.
Fading in and out of range, Sinch’ol then caught the sound of a willow flute, and he jumped to his feet.
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Sinch’ol quickly turned away from the mihari hole. He tried to catch the sound of the guard’s footsteps, then moved in front of the window. The windowsill was just higher than jaw-level and came up even with his lips. He stared out at Mount Inwang. It was bathed in the warm rays of the sun and stood up crisply against the sky . . . Just then a bird called out from somewhere close by and Sinch’ol shifted his gaze.
There was a small pond outside the window, and beside that, a perfectly-sized weeping willow, whose branches draped softly down, one over the other, like a woman’s let-down hair. The willow’s leaves were a vivid bluish-green. Though the branches of the tree had been bare of leaves, and had been swept by the early spring winds when he’d first laid eyes upon them, in no time at all its leaves had turned into a beautiful color. How many times a day had he looked out onto that willow tree! And each time he looked, he met it with a new set of feelings. He would think of Wonso Pond in Yongyon and then, by association, of Sonbi. But his vision was somehow that of a different Sonbi than before—a Sonbi from whom he now felt distanced. What remained in his mind were his memories of Okchom. Oh, Okchom! he thought. Could she still be single? Still be waiting for me? Not likely! I bet she’s somebody’s wife by now! But I doubt she’ll ever forget me . . . He stared blankly out onto the pond. The shadows of the willow branches seem to cast themselves here and there deep into the blue water. Just like his scattered memories of Okchom’s face, which lay deeply buried within his heart.
Suddenly Sinch’ol heard the eerie sound of the willow flute again. It was a tune from his childhood, “The Widow’s Cry,” played with one hand over the tip of the flute so as to twist the sound of each note. He looked up to see where the sound was coming from: Mount Inwang in springtime . . . He could see children, and men and women in the flower of their youth carefully walking up the mountain shoulder to shoulder. He could hear the cheerful voices of the children, as clearly as the skylarks chirping beneath the blue sky. It seemed like just yesterday that he’d climbed that mountain with his own friends . . . Sinch’ol felt so sorry for himself that he was practically ready to stamp his feet on the ground. He deeply regretted not having listened to his father in the first place. He knew that it was dirty and vulgar for him to entertain these thoughts, but he couldn’t help it. It drove him to his wit’s end to think that because of these empty visions and idle dreams, the flower of his youth was going to rot behind these metal bars. And why should he alone make this sacrifice? It would be meaningless . . . As Sinch’ol looked out onto the men and women climbing Mount Inwang, in his heart he was deeply torn. For he knew full well that all this anguish and pain was not his alone—there were so, so many others locked up in here with him.
The sound of the flute gradually grew fainter. Should he compare it to the point of a needle, piercing in and out of his troubled mind with each twist and turn of his thoughts? Or a razor-sharp sword slicing effortlessly through the chambers of his heart? Oh, the sounds of that flute, drifting through the blue sky like so many wisps of smoke! Without thinking, he clutched his head in his arms. He scowled at the iron bars that crisscrossed darkly before his eyes. He longed for the world outside, just as his throat thirsted for water. He wanted to feel the air in his lungs beneath that blue sky.
Suddenly the sound of a metal clank took Sinch’ol by surprise, and he quickly sat down.
“What do you think you’re doing!”
His heart shuddered at the guard’s thundering voice.
“Get over here and sit down!”
Sinch’ol had no choice but to take a seat closer to the door.
“Don’t look outside! Next time that happens, you’ll pay a price for it!”
The anger was surging up at the base of his throat, and Sinch’ol just barely managed to hold it back. All he could do was to sit there in silent exasperation. The guard stayed for a moment glaring at him, then closed the peephole shut with a clank. Sinch’ol leaned against the wall, and let out his breath in sheer anguish. He opened his hand and found that the ant had disappeared. Having lost his friend the ant, he grabbed the Lotus Sutra, placed there beside him, and he opened it.
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Sonbi had lost her appetite. She skipped dinner before coming onto the factory floor with several of her co-workers. It was Sonbi’s turn on the night shift. All the factory girls hated working at night, and whenever their turn came up, they twisted their faces and shook their heads back and forth. The factory girls on friendly terms with the male workers, however, liked the night shift. Of course there was always a supervisor on the job, but they worked on several different shifts throughout the night. And each time a shift change came around, the girls managed to exchange eye contact with the men who carried in the barrels of silk cocoons. The supervisors didn’t watch over them as vigilantly as they did during the day, so it was at night that these girls tried hardest to flirt with the male workers.
Recently there had been more than a few cases in which a male worker and a factory girl had illicit intercourse and then left the factory. Even though the supervisors were supposed to keep a close watch, this sort of thing went on quite frequently.
Sonbi came up to cauldron No. 603 and tapped lightly on her friend’s shoulder.
“I’m on now. You can go.”
Her friend was in the middle of cleaning out the cauldron.
“I’ll clean it up,” said Sonbi.
“Oh, you’re a dear . . . Hey, are you feeling any better now?”
Sonbi watched the girl pull off her reels of silk, place them into her pail, and turn to leave.
Sonbi picked up the brush, and after giving the cauldron a quick scrub, she dumped the stale water out and filled it up with fresh water again. Even as Sonbi cleaned out the machine, however, it remained in operation. All the girls in this factory came to understand that a machine was something that never stopped moving. In fact, they were all so afraid they might get their hair or clothing caught in the machines that they tied their hair up with towels and made black, full-length aprons for themselves that covered them from head to toe. They had never worn these sorts of things before, but last spring one of the girls had gotten her hair caught, and had died a gruesome death when she was twisted up into a machine. Inside the factory this was a closely guarded secret, and no one was allowed to talk about it. But since many of the girls had witnessed the horrible scene, the story had spread throughout the entire factory. After the accident they were all given strict orders from above to wear uniforms and kerchiefs. But of course the factory didn’t actually give them these clothes. They forced the girls to make them themselves.
Sonbi took the boiled cocoons the male worker had carried to her and poured them into her cauldron. The bubbling water started to fizz and froth and the cocoons in the cauldron each began spinning around on their sides. Sonbi felt a chill run through her shoulders, and she began shivering. She fell into a fit of coughing that lasted for some time. Try as she might to close her mouth firmly and hold her breath to stop the coughing, she felt an unbearable itch at the base of her throat, trying its hardest to work its way out. As Sonbi fought back the urge to cough, she picked up her little broom and pushed down on the boiling cocoons a few times. Then she pulled off the silk filaments that stuck to the broom and wrapped them around her left hand. She could feel her face flushing in the steam billowing from the cauldron and her fingers had already begun to sting. And yet, strangely, she still felt chills running through her body. Though Sonbi had felt like this ever since the spring, she’d figured it was just a case of fatigue that a little time would cure. But now that it was already well into summer, her symptoms had persisted and
she’d also developed this nasty cough. And while she had indeed become somewhat worried, by no means did she want to be seen by a doctor.
Sonbi put down her broom and with lightning speed fed the tip of each of the silk filaments in her left hand through a porcelain needle. If too many filaments were fed through the same needle the silk thread would be too thick, so she couldn’t use more that five per needle. Once the filaments passed through the porcelain needle—just like a thread fed through the needle of a sewing machine—they were twisted together and then drawn up above her, where the thread was spun onto one of many reels. Next to each reel was a glass hook suspended in the air, which moved back and forth guiding the thread so that each reel was wound evenly.
The electric lights made it as bright as day and the glare from the glass windows and glass ceiling above was almost blinding. The noise from the generator seemed to block her ears, muffling her hearing. Cough after cough, Sonbi struggled to keep up the pace, hardly able to sit for a moment in her chair. For she alone was operating twenty reels, and without such an effort the task would have been simply impossible. What had earlier been chills, however, now turned into a burning fever, and she began sweating so heavily that her clothes seemed to cling to her body. Beads of sweat were dripping from her forehead like rain-drops, but she had no idea what to do about it. She was frightfully short of breath, almost gasping. And her fingers were now so scalding hot that she gradually lost all feeling in them. Whether those hands in front of her belonged to her or to somebody else she couldn’t even tell.
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Sonbi’s threads started to cut off in several places. She pressed down on the pedal to stop the machine, and then quickly started picking up the ends of the threads. The supervisor beside her shouted, “Hurry up and tie those! What’s gotten into you, Sonbi?”
The supervisor cracked his whip at the reels, making the machine spin back into operation again. This sent the reels spinning round again, even though the threads hadn’t been tied back into place. Sonbi now wanted to cry. All the work she’d done throughout the night was basically wasted. When a supervisor spun your reels like this, it meant a twenty-chon penalty. Sonbi was at a loss as to what to do, and after staring at the spinning reels for a while, she tried her best to find the loose ends of the threads. Everything in front of her was a blur now and she couldn’t even control her coughing.
“What’s gotten into that head of yours? How about taking your work a bit more seriously, huh?”
Sonbi’s heart was suddenly gripped by fear, and she tried her best to gather her wits together. Had they found out about her? she wondered. Maybe that was why they’d been picking on her almost every day now. Sonbi’s heart shuddered with ever greater intensity, and she frantically set her limbs into action.
Within a few minutes she finally managed to tie together all the loose ends. But the supervisor was already writing something down in his notebook. He stole a few glances at her out of the corner of his eye, stuffed his notebook inside his pocket, and walked away. Sonbi finally let out a sigh of relief. Then she heaved a violent cough. She quickly turned around to see if the supervisor had heard her. He was standing in front of one of the new girls, chatting her up with a smile. Then he gave her a slap on her firm backside.
“Keep up the good work! That’s how you’ll make your bonus.”
The girl twisted her body flirtatiously and when she caught the man’s eye she smiled at him with half-lowered lids. She had this habit of closing her eyes whenever she smiled. Sonbi was glad that the supervisor left her alone now that he had shifted his attentions to this new girl. But she was afraid that the secret mission entrusted to her might come to light because of this change. The supervisor had from time to time given her a bonus, but never had he whipped her reels or chewed her out like this before. And ever since this new girl had begun to curry the supervisor’s favors, his attitude toward Sonbi had become quite cold. Today was the third time she’d been hit with a fine. Sonbi quickly set her fingers back into motion and let out a deep sigh. Her body ached more than ever, her coughing never let up, and now she felt a tightness in her chest. While earlier she’d at least held out the hope of earning a few dozen chon, now that faint hope had vanished, and all that welled up inside her was pain and sorrow. She remembered again what Kannan had told her, and regretted not having made at least something of an effort to kiss up to her supervisors.
Sonbi couldn’t bear the coughing any longer, and in an effort to stop she quickly grabbed her broom and tried concentrating on fishing out the silk cocoons. In the light of the electric lamps, the water in the cauldron glistened like gold, and out of it, drawn up endlessly into the air, was all that silk thread! Tens of thousands of reels of that thread were spun in a single day.
Sonbi fished out a cocoon and held it between her lips; then she lifted up her head to take a look at the reels. They were spinning furiously, drawing up the thread like a white rainbow through those porcelain needles, then whirling it round and round! The first time she’d ever set her eyes on those reels, they had somehow captured a piece of her heart. And nothing could have described the feeling of satisfaction she’d once experienced upon taking those reels out, loading them into the box she kept at her station, and carrying them into the appraisal office. But as she looked at those reels now, they seemed like giant insects slowly gnawing away at her very existence.
Sonbi sensed that the supervisor was coming her way again, and she looked back down. She picked off a thread from one of the cocoons and fastened it to a porcelain needle. This time the supervisor passed by without giving her a second glance. Sonbi was so relieved that she again let her thoughts wander.
But then she heard the loud voice of the supervisor and looked out the corner of her eye: he was whipping the reels of the girl beside her. The girl’s face went a deep red as she frantically tried to tie her loose threads . . . Those arms! And those fingers! For all the world Sonbi couldn’t bear to watch. She wiped the sweat from her brow and then looked at her own fingers again. That scalded, red hand! And those five white fingers, swollen by the boiling water! They seemed like dead fingers dangling from a living hand. She felt goosebumps at the thought of how many more dead fingers were gathered inside this factory alone!
Spin reels, spin reels
Round and round. . . .
The song rose and fell amid the clamor of the generators.
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Sonbi soon joined in the singing.
Spin reels, spin reels
Round and round
Spin real good, that bonus is mine.
Spin real bad, I pay that fine.
But it was barely even a whisper that crossed Sonbi’s lips as her eyes grew hot and tears began to roll down her cheeks. This song they sang to forget their suffering! It was supposed to make their work more fun, but to Sonbi it meant nothing. Her whole body was roasting over the intense heat of the cauldron. Her throat was parched, her heart was throbbing, even her sinuses and the sockets of her eyes felt like they were on fire. If she had her way she would have lain down right there and rested for a few minutes. Several times already Sonbi had heard the supervisor’s footsteps behind her, and each time she’d wanted to tell him that she just couldn’t work any longer because of the pain. But her lips had always remained tightly sealed, and the words simply never came out. In the past, Sonbi had found herself somewhat tongue-tied when she’d met face to face with one of the supervisors, but now that she was in such physical pain it was even harder.
Sonbi hadn’t thought her condition very serious until recently. But it was the blood she coughed up, the little red threads of it mixed in with her phlegm that made her more and more concerned. Tomorrow I’ll go to the infirmary for sure! she’d say to herself. But then she’d calculate how much money would be subtracted from what was written in her savings passbook. It had already been a full year since she’d entered the factory. And over that period of time they’d subtracted her board, as well the cost of her shoes and h
er toiletries, so that now there was only about three won fifty left in her account. If she went to the infirmary at this point, it actually meant having to go into debt. And who in their right mind would pay three won each time they were sick? Give me a won’s worth of the best medicine out there and I’ll be fine, she figured.
She looked over at the giant clock mounted to the wall to the far side of her. It was already ten past two. As anxious as she was to get out of there, this gave her at least a modicum of pleasure, even a glimmer of hope.
Then one of her threads broke and floated up into the air, so Sonbi quickly set herself to refastening it. But when she looked up to see if the supervisor had noticed, she grew dizzy and almost fainted. In her confusion, she let her right hand slip into the cauldron.
“Ah!” she cried, and with a jerk pulled out her hand. She hadn’t been alert enough to feel the pain at first when it had fallen into the boiling water, but before long her whole arm began to sting so much that she thought she might die.
“Burn yourself badly?”
Sonbi looked up. When she realized the person speaking to her was one of the men carrying over a barrel of cocoons, it was the image of Ch’otchae’s face that immediately flashed in her mind. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she turned away. The man stood there staring at her for a while, but then turned around to leave. Normally she would have died of embarrassment from this sort of encounter, but today with her whole body aching and her hand scalded up to her wrist, she wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest and instead felt a strong urge to call out to the man. If this man had only been Ch’otchae, Sonbi wouldn’t have hesitated even for an instant to entrust her frail body into his arms. She couldn’t bear the pain any longer. She held her wrist against her tongue. Then she stole a glance back at the man who’d just walked away—through her tears she could only faintly make out his face. At this rate there was no way she would make it through the night shift. She looked up at the clock and decided to tell the supervisor that she had to stop the next time he came by.
From Wonso Pond Page 34