The Curious Tale of Mandogi's Ghost

by Sok-pom Kim

  Back then, the police officers from the “Northwest” who were staying near Old Man O’s house at the time started sending lustful glances toward his beautiful, young daughter-in-law. The “Northwest” was originally a geographical name, referring to an area in P’yŏngan Province, but now it was short for the “Northwest Youth Group,” a name that struck fear into the hearts of those who heard it. An organization of anticommunist terrorists set up by President Syngman Rhee and made up of his bodyguards, they could be opposed under no circumstances. They could silence the tears of even the most unruly, disobedient children, so a woman with good judgment would never resist them, whether she wanted to or not. And so, the officer from the “Northwest” inquired first from the gap in the stone wall, across the courtyard from the main wing of the house, as to whether or not she was at home, then came inside and asked about her husband who was “away working.” Then, the owner of the boarding house, Mrs. Yun, showed up to act as a go-between, bringing a hen that he had killed for her. Of course, she had no choice but to accept it. It was from that point that the Colman mustache above his thick lips began to distinguish him from the forty other police officers. As the mustache grew, his passions rose, and things took a turn for the worse. Just as they expected, he became a menace. That is, a “yes” or a “no” from the family would be the difference between long life and security and being sent to a camp. And in this country, a “camp” was a waiting room for public execution. At first, the poor old man must have refused. He probably couldn’t shake the image of his son’s face. But as the arranged date drew near, he weighed the safety of the family as a whole against that of his daughter-in-law, and she was sacrificed. Since ancient times, in our Korea, which values virtue above all else, it must be said that the commands of your husband’s parents, especially his father, are higher than those of your husband. And filial piety is the highest virtue.

  “Hey, shouldn’t you have lent her out for a bit, just like the officer said? It’s not like you would have lost much anyway. That way she could have proven her filial piety… .” The local gossips made impudent remarks like these. “Hey, poor Simch’ŏn sacrificed herself to the sea god for her blind father, cast herself into the sea, didn’t she?1 If she just put on a little makeup and went out, maybe she could have saved us all! No one person can remain pure. Not in this twisted world. And it’s not just O Yŏnggam’s (the old man’s) house. Thanks to that girl, the village is in more and more danger. Pretty soon, they’ll burn down the whole village, see? They must be all set to burn it down.” The girl must have been expecting to hear about these things in the afterlife. By then, she had apparently cut up yellow silk from her bedding, twisted it into a rope, and attached it to a branch of the persimmon tree, and then she had committed suicide. The next morning (so yesterday, before dawn), her mother-in-law found her dead body swaying in midair, hanging by the neck.

  “You know, Mandogi, that police officer was awful mad. Now he’s calling everyone in the village a ‘red.’ Haha, who’s a red, huh? If we was red, would we be standing here at the sentry post? If I was, I’d carry a gun up the mountain, even at my old age. Hey, Mandogi, when people die in this world, they all just end up in a mass grave. Why do we even bother with funerals? What’s the use of having a funeral for a red, for someone who’s hung, who won’t even go to heaven? Bet they’ll burn down our village pretty soon. What’s that, is the village gonna burn? Must be, it smells that way, that’s what the bugs are telling me, and the temple too. The temple too? Guess so. I don’t know, if they burn the village, you think they’ll need the sentry post or the police station at the temple? Mandogi?”

  Mandogi stood up, chanting “Hail Mother Kannon” to himself as he did a thousand times a day and fingering his little rosary beads in his left hand. He started walking again in his lumbering, bowlegged gait. Soon, the road turned left and the broken-down temple gate came into view. His eyes must have noticed the gate, but his mind was fixed on his chanting. Today, the gloom showed on his face, which usually displayed no emotions. While we’re on the subject, Mandogi’s face, unlike his name, was certainly nothing handsome or elegant. Leaving his pointy, misshapen head aside, he had this nose that was too long and oddly shaped. It looked like it had plunked itself down in the middle of his face, so you could say it was taking up all the good real estate. Dangling from his face like a sausage, the nose seemed appropriate for its bowlegged owner. While he walked it swung back and forth, giving his whole face a slow, stupid impression. At the same time, his upper lip, which curved up and came to a point below his nose, made him look aloof from the world. His mouth looked like it would never open again if it ever bit down. His big, long eyes were unparalleled in their kindness. He had a habit of staring gently at people, his eyes glowing deeply like those of an innocent, unselfish child. People couldn’t stand his stare for very long, but he didn’t know how else to look at them.

  His bare head exposed to the morning dew, Mandogi entered the temple gate, never changing his lumbering pace. Across from the temple, on the white peak of S Hill, which was sparkling at the time, the ridge lines went blurry. A shot exploded from a gun not far away, and he thought the bullet had hit his face. Not being very quick to react, Mandogi didn’t think to stop walking immediately. He continued for a few steps and then stopped. Then the second shot came, stirring up the dust at his feet. Mandogi faced the direction the shot had come from and finally took out his spear, his posture awkward as he stood at attention. Then, he threw out his chest as far as he could, stretched his bowed legs to try to look dignified, and gave the salute he had forgotten. He said, his tone unhurried, “Situation normal!”

  “Haha, thought you’d be scared by that gun. The third shot would have blown that nose of yours right off, I tell ya. Dimwit, quick, run after the shell! Go find it!” shouted the captain, holding his M1 in one hand. A few of the other officers burst out laughing.

  Saluting and reporting were the sentry’s duties, so it could be said that the captain’s joke wasn’t totally harsh. Mandogi had been beaten plenty of times to infuse in him this “fighting spirit.” But as he did his chanting along the road, every so often he would forget the salute. It was enough to make him a convenient target for the bored officers’ practical jokes. This sort of thing had happened before, too. Once, Mandogi had stupidly tried to dig out a bullet that had bored a hole into the ground. If it had been thrust into the ground, he thought he could reach down with one hand and take it out. Everyone at the temple couldn’t help but laugh at this display of extreme diligence. He couldn’t think of a reason for them to laugh at him, so Mandogi paid no attention and bent over, his fingers in the dirt. He was like a child playing in a garden, not even startled by the bullets they fired right above his head. The officers didn’t attribute his lack of surprise to his courage. Rather, they chalked it up to his dimwitted naïveté, like that of a baby, and got all the more haughty. But I don’t expect that the officers ever got that same sort of animosity out of Mandogi. He was just too stupid. So the officers would say things like “The bullet grew wings and flew away, so go to the other side of the mountain and get it!” or “I could go nuts looking at that face of yours!” and they would laugh and have a good time. Mandogi took it seriously and made the long journey across the mountain, only to end up smiling quietly to himself and laughing with those who laughed at him. A long time had passed since everyone had stopped laughing, but when they saw Mandogi smiling to himself, they starting laughing all over again.

  On the temple grounds, which acted as a barracks for the captain and some of his off-duty officers, there was a single zabuton on the sun-scorched grass.2 Scattered all over it were playing cards and matchsticks used in place of money.

  “All right, that should do it for training,” the captain said at last, pressing the edges of his mouth into a smile. “The men and I are going out soon, kongyangju, so you go and get lunch ready.”

  Though they said they were going out, they didn’t even get their guns ready
, and in a moment the captain and his men were squatting around the zabuton, which conveniently didn’t take a casino’s cut. They sat across from each other and began shuffling the cards, and before long it was as if they didn’t know each other. As the cards were shuffled and reshuffled, if someone pulled off some trick before they were dealt, the place would suddenly explode. “Cheater!” Their expressions changed, and the boos and jeers would fly out from beneath their police caps and uniforms.

  When he came near, Mandogi averted his eyes, standing still with his eyes shut. When he first discovered that the officers were gambling, Mandogi of course thought that the temple was no place for gambling. “This is no place for gambling,” he said. “If you want to gamble, why don’t you do it outside the temple?”

  “Idiot! Where do you think you are?” screamed one of the officers, on behalf of the rest. “You think this is a temple? Fuckin’ arrogant dimwit! This is a guard station for our country’s national defense, a police dispatch point for suppressing the commies. You people should be grateful we even allow you to stay here!” And at his signal, the rest of the officers ganged up on Mandogi and savagely attacked him like dogs attacking a bear. If he wanted to, if he had fought back with just his bare hands, he could have sent five or six of the officers flying through the air. But Mandogi was content to just squat on the ground, using both hands to shield his tonsured head from the blows. It was the same defense he used against Mother Seoul’s beatings. And it would have been OK if this was the only punishment, but she, the manager of the temple, also scolded Mandogi harshly in front of the officers.

  “What are you doing, kongyangju, meddling in the officers’ business?” Wasn’t that what the officers had just said? Mandogi stared into her face. A single word from her had been enough to convince him on the point. Mother Seoul’s words were an absolute that he could not disobey. All the same, even if it was shoved into a corner, as long as there was an altar in the temple, he couldn’t help but notice it. So if he came across an instance of gambling inside the temple, instead of turning up his nose, he had made up his mind to close his eyes and look away.

  “What are you standing around for? Quick, go make the rice!”

  “What rice?” asked Mandogi, his eyes still shut. The sun had just risen over the top of the hill to light up the grounds, so it was only about nine o’clock. Breakfast at the temple was early, of course, but this was still too early to be demanding lunch.

  “Little brat, what do you mean, ‘What rice’? When you open that big mouth of yours, your face looks like a goddamn pothole… . Huh? This guy’s still got his eyes shut! Bullshit!” They spat their words emphatically at Mandogi while one of them jumped up and slapped Mandogi without warning. The towering Mandogi jumped up and snapped his eyes open in order to look down and see who was slapping his face. “I hate it when I see your gambling,” he said, smiling with a face that knew no strain.

  “Shit!”

  “You got a big mouth, kongyangju,” said the captain, getting his subordinates under control. He may have been called a captain, but he only commanded a group of six or seven patrolmen, and he was only their superior by one level. “We’re going out. Out patrolling, you know? Making the rounds. Kongyangju, you can shut up and make the rice.”

  Nodding his head silently in assent, Mandogi opened his eyes and looked at the sanctuary, and went in that direction. “Patrolling” was what they called it, but that didn’t mean there were enemies out in the woods on the hill. The patrolmen knew that there was no way the partisans, who were practically nocturnal, would come down this far at this time of day. So the “patrol” just meant that the officers would go out and gun down some lucky pheasant and brag about their war spoils as they brought it back. Moreover, Mother Seoul welcomed the gift.

  Before going up into the sanctuary, Mandogi always stopped and waited until he let out a long fart. His staple food was potatoes, and he didn’t want to let one slip in the middle of his chanting. He set down his spear and quietly entered the sanctuary. Though I call it a sanctuary, the majority of it was being used as office space for the police, and the altar had been pushed aside into a corner. The floor was covered in mud where the police went in and out the front door of the sanctuary with their shoes on. Mandogi always took off his sandals on the stoop and stepped up into the sanctuary, his hands pressed together in reverence. And every morning, he swept all the mud off the floor and mopped it many times over. I say he mopped it, but on this island, which isn’t rich in water, unless you were on the coast where they have groundwater, water wasn’t something you could use lavishly. There was one small spring in the valley of S Hill, and before the women of Shimomura at the bottom of the hill would come up to draw water, so water wasn’t so scarce that you couldn’t mop the floor.

  At any rate, the floor where the office desks were lined up was full of scratches, so it was no longer glossy from the polish. Only the floor in the very corner of the room always sparkled and reflected the light. Mandogi would stand in that corner and offer incense, light the candles, and worship. Then he would sit cross-legged on the zabuton, beat the temple drum, and recite his chants. While he chanted he would ring the big, bowl-shaped, copper service bell. “Dong—dong—,” it rang out its brief salutation. Of course, he was there for the morning and evening services, but also whenever he had to leave the temple on an errand, whenever he came back, even whenever he had any free time, he secluded himself in that corner of the sanctuary. So anytime you couldn’t see Mandogi, if you just faced the sanctuary and called, “Kongyangju!” you could count on him to emerge, lumbering out like a bear from his den.

  Just then, Mother Seoul’s voice called out, “Kongyangju! Mandogi!” from inside the building in the priest’s room. She probably knew that he had returned from the sentry post by the sound of the bell and the drum. Whether he was in the middle of chanting, whether he was asleep, whether he was squatting down with his backside over the toilet, Mother Seoul didn’t care one bit. Her disposition was like a dry leaf that could catch fire in an instant, and she never had time to spare. By the time Mandogi’s slow response came, “Yes—,” he could already hear her shrill voice calling again, “Mandogi! Kongyangju!” He started convulsing, as if he were being electrocuted. He stood up as soon as her voice called him, and turned toward the voice and crossed the room as he answered, “Yes, coming!” He hadn’t lifted an eyebrow when the captain had shot at him before, but now he raised them in shock. He was afraid of Mother Seoul. He felt as if she had the power to control him. As soon as she called, our Mandogi would lose control over his mind and body, as if she had cast some kind of spell on him. His response was like that of a dog being called by his master, or even a physical response, as if he were run by remote control.

  Mandogi timidly approached the door to the priest’s room.

  “Mother Seoul? It’s Mandogi …”

  “Hmm, you just get back?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Open the door and come in. It’s all right.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  As he answered he put his hand on the frame of the sliding door. In the place of the priest, who hardly ever visited the temple, Mother Seoul was lying stretched out, her head on her arms, on the ondol’s warm, shimmering changp’an (oil paper–covered floor of an ondol room).3 She smiled as she always did, with her eyes narrow and her long, thin face coming to a point at her chin, and she told him to rub her back and shoulders. Her alarm clock, called a sabal (bowl) clock because of its shape, was ticking on the desk behind her.

  “Mother Seoul, I gotta go make the rice now,” said Mandogi, glaring at the clock, which pointed to ten past eight. Judging by how far the sun had risen against the top of the hill, it could not have been ten past eight. They didn’t have a radio, and the clock said whatever it wanted, so Mandogi’s guess was the most accurate way to tell time. He could tell by how high the sun was, by how long the trees’ shadows were, and by what the birds were doing. He knew that lunchtime was
still far away.

  “Rice?” Doubting her ears, Mother Seoul lifted her upper body off the floor. “Rice? What just came out of your mouth? I thought I heard you say ‘rice.’ ”

  “Right. I’m gonna go cook the rice now.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Rice, what rice? What, did the Buddha in the sanctuary tell you he got hungry all of a sudden?”

  “It wasn’t the Buddha. The Buddha wouldn’t say something like that. Before, you said yourself, ‘you’re a police station kitchen hand.’ ”

  “You’re a kongyangju, a temple kitchen hand. Who the hell is a kitchen hand for the police? What the hell is going on?”

  “It’s the lunch rice. I’m cooking the lunch rice.”

  “Have you lost it? Can’t you see the clock hands? What, don’t you believe the clock? It’s just like breaking your teeth on cold water.4 What do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know there are people starving in villages all over the place? Just because, thanks to the Buddha, you eat your fill every day …”