The Curious Tale of Mandogi's Ghost

by Sok-pom Kim

  Of course, they couldn’t condone Mandogi’s insubordination, which could induce the Korean laborers to rebel. By order of the Japanese superintendents and their Korean managers, the “gophers,” he was taken to the other torture room. But Mandogi had value; the mine officials knew very well that he was a strong, hard worker. They couldn’t easily kill such a valuable worker. Even if his head didn’t know Japanese, his body could still work. If it weren’t for that value that the mine officials saw in him, they would have kept beating Mandogi until they smashed in his windpipe. And the next year, when Korea was liberated on August 15, he would have stayed under the hard soil in Hokkaido or inside a straw bag at the bottom of the muddy pond near the mine.

  And here, back in his homeland, which was supposedly liberated, from the point when the captain with the flashy mustache whispered something in the station chief’s ear, the situation seemed exactly like the one in Japan several years before. To confirm once again, the station chief stretched his small ear over to the captain’s face and finally gave one big nod. Then the room, where time had been standing still, started moving again. “Mmhmm, mmhmm!” Things started to move at the orders coming out of the station chief’s mouth, his foul mood completely washed away, his face shining like a washed potato.

  Sticking out his belly and squaring his shoulders, he ordered the officers to make Mandogi take the gun.

  “Now it’s your turn, priest!”

  Mandogi was dragged out in front of the desk. Rubbing his hands, which had been released from the handcuffs so he could take the gun, he stood silently, pressed his hands together, and bowed to the station chief. The station chief ignored the bow, and his face twitched oddly. Mandogi stared for a bit at the map of Korea that hung on the wall behind the station chief, from which the portrait of President Syngman Rhee had fallen. In front of it, the station chief and the captain with the flashy mustache. Next to Mandogi, two police officers. Behind him, one police officer, a prisoner, and one corpse. Mandogi felt shining eyes embedded in all four walls closing in on him. Even as he held the gun that had been cruelly pushed upon him, he stood with his back to the prisoner.

  Except for by its weight, the gun in Mandogi’s hands, with which Old Man O had shot himself, wouldn’t grip to his fists. It felt even less real than the iron spear in the shape of an M1 that he used as a sentry. It just wasn’t coming, that grave feeling that the gun was an extension of his hands, that it would carry a deadly bullet into someone else’s body. In other words, you could say that Mandogi wasn’t overwhelmed by the gun. He was already stricken with the revelation that he did not have the power to pull the trigger of this gun, which had no doubt seen so much blood. This revelation gave Mandogi power from within. It was just like that moment, that night on Hokkaido in Japan. It wasn’t a gun that he held in his hands, which is why he could look at it. He could look at it with an expression that said, “What on earth am I going to do with this?”

  Finally, with that expression, he faced all those shining eyes embedded in the walls that surrounded him and said, “I ain’t doing this!”

  His words stabbed like iron knives. These iron knives swelled the tension, adding new drama to the room, cutting off sharply this moment in which the room had been frozen, floating off in some different space. Or, I guess you could say it was like a balloon being pricked by a pin and exploding. Mandogi offered up the gun with both hands and gave it back. The officer to which he gave it was in shock. Turning to the officer who had fallen into confusion, Mandogi added, “I’m giving this gun back.”

  Would it be far-fetched to say that behind this attitude, which enabled Mandogi to outright refuse, without a tinge of regret, lay his experience in Hokkaido? In fact, in Mandogi’s head, the bright red drops of blood were quickly spreading, turning into a sea, taking over even the horizon, and the figure of his poor, naked, young countryman was floating in it. It seems that once an idea takes root in such a simple person, it won’t be torn out easily.

  “Ohoho!” A rather shocked voice was laughing at Mandogi, and then, as he looked at the twisted, ugly face of the station chief, he was asked, “Why’s that?” to which he answered, “Because murder is bad.”

  “Murder is bad? He’s a red. Reds aren’t human!”

  “But, to my eyes, he looks like a human.”

  “Why you…” The captain with the flashy mustache was about to lose his temper, but the station chief cut him off, laughing heartily. In shock, the police officers crowded around Mandogi, first taking the gun away. The station chief spread his arms wide and dispersed the officers. He was a station chief for a reason, so he quickly got his composure back. But behind that big smile, the blades that Mandogi’s refusal had thrust into his heart were no doubt chilling him to the bone.

  “Hmph. There are some funny faces in this world,” said the station chief, acting as calm as he could, even as his voice was shaking. Mandogi’s expression was as meek as a child’s. Even with that odd, overly long nose like a sausage in the center of it, it wasn’t a dimwitted expression. As if it had just jumped off his face and walked away, the nose didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the face. No, on the contrary, that blunt nose may have been an expression in and of itself. So this was one reason the station chief started talking about Mandogi’s face. “Hmph, that face of yours, I don’t know what about it. But when I look at your expression, I feel oddly pleased. Such a pleasant face. Mmhmm, I bet there’s not a soul who could look at your face without laughing.”

  If, by some chance, there was any room in the station chief’s heart, he should have at least given Mandogi some praise, something like, “You’re a brave guy.” But by then, the chief didn’t even have room to notice anyone else. They say that speech about the face was something that came out when he was overwhelmed. As proof of that, the chief eventually announced that he would give him ten minutes to think it over. Though this announcement showed some leniency, it was probably coming from his own need for some time.

  Meanwhile, the meek expression with which Mandogi had been staring at the chief fell away, changing over to a smile that covered his whole face. When Mandogi suddenly took two or three steps away from the desk, about to leave, a very strange voice started laughing. A lively laugh flew out from the strained smile, the voice booming through the air, “Oh hoh hoh hoh.” The laughing voice sounded vaguely obscene.

  “Hail Mother Kannon. Thank you, Station Chief, sir,” said Mandogi, who had finally stopped laughing, facing the station chief who was bending over backward. And, without asking for pity, in a completely flat tone, he added, “But even if you give me more time, I still won’t do it.”

  The slow, whispering voice turned into knives, which stabbed out to all four corners of the room.

  1 Isshi dōjin means “impartiality and equal favor.” This slogan was used by the Japanese to justify the assimilation of their colonial subjects into the empire.

  2 The translation of the “Oath as Subjects of the Imperial Nation” is borrowed from Wan-yao Chou, “The Kōminka Movement in Taiwan and Korea: Comparisons and Interpretations,” in The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931–1945, ed. Peter Duus et al. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 43.

  3 Fumie were pictures of Christian images, especially of Christ, that suspected Christians in Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868) were required to step on in order to prove that they did not belong to the outlawed religion.

  The rumor that the ghost of Mandogi had appeared at the temple started around the same time as the rumor that Mrs. Yun, as she was on her way back from Sŏngnae, had met the ghost of the girl who had killed herself. Because the two rumors collided, they became one and spread wider and wider.

  They say there have always been “spirits” or ghosts on this island. They can be any size, from about the size of a human, down to the “sparrow spirits” that are about as big as a child, and all the way up to the kwishinge that are as big as juggernauts, towering so high in the night sky that they can’t lift their heads any high
er.

  Some of the humanlike ones are spirits who come up on land from the water. Now and then they show themselves to humans who are walking alone at night near the seashore. Lonely midnight travelers will suddenly notice another human figure up ahead. This figure skillfully stays a fixed distance ahead and walks quickly toward the sea. The living human, who thinks he has found a traveling companion, is subconsciously beckoned forward and can’t see the human-shaped ghost’s true form until the moment his two feet splash into the cool water on the shore. And if you’re drunk, and the spirit takes on the form of a woman, you’ll follow your companion all the way out to the middle of the sea. The small, childlike ones are nimble, like the sparrows from their name. They like to gather in the very center of a field bathed in pale moonlight and carry around a coffin, shouting, “Whoosh! Whoosh!”—the sound of a brewing rainstorm. And as for the enormous juggernaut ones, they stand before travelers, parting their legs that reach the heavens, and when the travelers try to go through the enormous gate, a clap of thunder sounds, and they are killed instantly.

  For a long time, the people of this island have lived with the threat of these different kinds of ghosts. From the time they are small children, they are already memorizing spells for dispelling spirits. But in any case, most of the spirits are humanlike, and sometimes they even exchange words with humans that they meet. And if they can tell you’re a weakling, they’ll pick a fight, but if they see that you’re unafraid, they will admit defeat and slowly fade away.

  Mrs. Yun was traveling before curfew, and at eight o’clock, while it was still early for spirits to be around, she met a spirit or, rather, a ghost. On her way back from Sŏngnae, she somehow made it safely down the New Road and through K Pass, which was close to a public cemetery that was famous for being infested with spirits. Now that I’m through the pass, I’ll be fine, she thought. She felt relieved, her tension and cold sweat falling away all at once. But now she had to cross the long, concrete bridge that stretched out and faded into the night. It was out in the country, so of course there were no street lights or houses. She trudged along under the light of the stars. The night wind blew over boulders and through the dried-out riverbed and howled past Mrs. Yun’s cheeks. She wouldn’t really feel secure until she had finished crossing the long, white bridge. When she had come to about the middle of the bridge, she could see a young woman walking toward her from the other side. Even in the dark, she could see that the woman was covered from head to toe in a bright red cloak and a bright blue skirt, and she seemed to glide above the ground as she came closer. Before long, when Mrs. Yun recognized those colors as the red and blue that clothed the body in the coffin, she was stunned. This wasn’t some spirit taking the form of just any dead person. No doubt this was a ghost, the ghost of the girl who had hanged herself on the persimmon tree. Right then and there, Mrs. Yun’s back went out, and she couldn’t stand anymore. Still prostrate on the ground, she hurried across the bridge, crawling on all fours like a dog. Not far from the bridge, there stood a big elm tree at an entrance to a village on a corner of the New Road, and in its shadow, a house with two or three eaves, like a chumak (a cheap inn that sells food and liquor). When she finally crawled up to it, her body covered with rough scrapes and bruises, they say she only said one word: “Gh—gh—ghost!” Right after that, she got a bad fever and she couldn’t move anymore.

  A medium was called for Mrs. Yun, who had been transferred to her home in Shimomura. The medium beat her bronze drum, chanted spells, and sang shaman’s songs. She danced the sword dance and continued to pray for three days and two nights to drive away the spirits. Before long, Mrs. Yun was fully possessed by the girl’s ghost.

  “Oh, my sorrow! It’s as if a great sorrow has been locked up in my heart for hundreds of years, and it won’t clear up. Mrs. Yun, she boarded that evil policeman at her house and went along with his evil scheme. She tempted me, even though I had a husband. I was pretty as a flower, and she tried to take me to the policeman, that foul worm of a man. Mrs. Yun is a bad person. I refused in the end, but he kept trying to seduce me, even though I had a husband. But I feel so sorry for the old woman. I’ve known her since I was a child, and I know she is kind and gentle. How great my sorrow, but I hold no grudge against anyone, not Mrs. Yun, not my father-in-law, not my mother-in-law. I want this grudge against the policeman to clear away. I want to stop this grudge against the policeman, who murdered my precious, precious husband and my father-in-law. Oh, my sorrow, my sorrow that runs deeper than the ocean, please, Great Medium, cry, and cry, and cry, and cry, and somehow clear it away,” said Mrs. Yun, crying out along with the medium and finally getting up and starting to dance. Her back, which should have been out, stretched out and righted itself. In the voice of Old Man O’s daughter-in-law, she condemned herself while she danced ecstatically, stomping on the changp’an floor. Her eyes went topsy-turvy, her lips dried up and curled inside out, and the shining sweat dripping from her face washed the blood out of her complexion, leaving it blue. At the end of it, she turned around two or three times and then fell. Her frenzied dance was nothing more than an omen of her coming death. When they finished the three days of prayer, she was completely dead.

  People made a big deal out of the girl’s ghost. On this island, the ghosts were quite benevolent and rarely came out to haunt a specific person. But the ghost of Old Man O’s daughter-in-law had used Mrs. Yun’s voice to curse the policeman and to declare war on him. Could it be said that the ghosts had changed? Or could it be said that the world itself had changed and had then changed the ghosts? On this island, where the victims of untimely deaths are piled high, all the way to the heavens, perhaps it could be said that the ghosts have had to reevaluate how they go about haunting.

  The sudden death of Mrs. Yun struck both fear and shock into the heart of the captain with the flashy mustache, who had tried to have an affair with the girl. The morning after Mrs. Yun died, he left Shimomura immediately, moving his temporary residence to the police substation. The fear and shock that had joined together in his heart soon gave birth to a guilty conscience. And so, the captain thought to have a prayer service, though it was not meant to benefit the girl as much as it was to chase away her ghost.

  It’s tradition in Korea to abhor suicide, and hanging oneself is considered especially deplorable. If it happened, you should call a medium right away. The mediums, who were relegated to a lower class in society, were called into the spotlight, and the people would kneel before them. Day after day, night after night, the bells would chime, and they would mumble spells and call to the deceased with shaman’s songs. And before long, the spectators, all seated in a row, would all be drawn in, intoxicated by the strange, delicate world opening before them. And they would listen well to the voice of the ghost who had appeared in public, and they would come to understand the bitterness that drove it to suicide. But nowadays it’s not like that anymore. Now both heaven and earth are full of bitter spirits who keep screaming and searching for something, appearing and wandering the earth without waiting for the medium.

  Anyway, while the captain with the flashy mustache sought to have a service for the girl it became clear that the medium, who had been unable to help Mrs. Yun, was not effective. Right around that time, he heard that Mother Seoul was holding a prayer service at S Hill Temple to chase away the ghost of Mandogi. He thought that it would be proper if, instead of going to the shameful medium type, this time he went to the upstanding Mother Seoul and asked her to include the girl in her prayer ceremony. Having come up with the plan in advance, the captain waited for the appropriate day and drove the jeep to S Hill Temple himself.

  Well, Mandogi’s ghost was more aggressive. When he got to the temple, the ghost made it a point to greet people with, “Good evening,” so he certainly had Mandogi’s manners. The ghost first appeared in the priest’s room, that is, the room of Mother Seoul, who had been away from the temple. In the warm ondol room, which must have been a very comfortable place to sleep, th
e captain of the dispatching station, the one who loved gambling and patrolling for pheasants, was sleeping. But of course, the ghost didn’t know as much. Believing that only Mother Seoul could be sleeping there, he carefully opened the sliding door. Perhaps in his dreams he was caressing a woman’s body, but no, at least for today, he was snoring oppressively, so maybe he had slipped into a bad dream. Right, it must have been about ghosts, not about women. With so much howling in his nightmare, his eyes snapped open and he jerked awake, shining his flashlight, only to see the ghost of Mandogi, smiling derisively, saying, “Good evening,” or something like that. This must be the kind of thing that makes hearts freeze. Could it be that the ghost, which could change at will, had come from the dream? Could it have crossed the mysterious barrier between dreaming and reality and slipped into the real, warm, human room? Before he could reply to the greeting, his vocal chords were sticking in his throat, and his legs were contorted like bent wires, but somehow he managed to escape from the room.

  He was completely awake, as if he had fallen into a pond, but he was a captain, so he couldn’t tell anyone that he had just run away from a ghost. So he decided to head out and encourage his charges at the sentry post, at the fortress on the edge of the small hill in the back. He was fine until he got there, when he startled the soldier who came out to meet him. He had been on his guard in case the ghost returned, and he had been so nervous, or so afraid, that he had completely forgotten to put his gun down. Just then it was time for the patrolman to go back to the temple and wake up his relief. He saluted the captain, who sounded rattled as he said, “Good work, good work,” and then he returned to the temple. The young patrolman had been suppressing his hunger, so it’s understandable that when he got to the temple gate, he headed straight for the kitchen. He muttered, “Even if you’re the master who’s so proud of his mustache, you can’t stay standing if you don’t eat,” and he made up his mind to find something, even if it was just leftovers. In a good mood since the moment he finished his sentry duties, he hummed to himself as he opened the kitchen’s creaking double doors.