He put his backpack on the floor so she could sit on it.
“I heard that a few thousand railroad workers were arrested.”
He asked her once again, looking at the pocket edition in her hand.
“What are you reading?”
As if she was a little embarrassed, she flipped the book and showed him the cover. It was The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State by Engels. My father quickly realized what kind of person she was.
“Which . . . organization do you belong to?”
“The Coalition of Democratic Youth.”
“Ah, really? So glad to meet you. In the city of Daegu, a civilian resistance has begun. I’m sure it’ll soon spread throughout the country.”
“We’re also participating in the protest against the Seoul National University situation. It began within the campus, but now it is all over the country.”
“The liberation is still far away. We have to start from the beginning again.”
“And you . . . are you in school?”
“No, I gave that up a long time ago in Japan. At the moment, I’m working in other provinces.”
They didn’t talk too much, but they understood each other. They arrived at the Seoul central station at three o’clock in the morning, hours before dawn. The only public transportation available at the time was the streetcars, which were not running at that hour. Furthermore, in the city and the rest of country, a state of emergency had been declared, and a curfew was imposed for the hours before daybreak. The waiting room in the station was packed with people sleeping with a sheet of newspaper as a blanket. The two young people stood by the exit waiting for the sunrise, when a woman approached them.
“Come stay at our boardinghouse! The price is reasonable, and it’s very close.”
“I do think it’ll be better if we can rest a little.”
My father got up carrying her bag, and she followed silently. They followed the woman through little alleyways behind the station and arrived at a Japanese-style boardinghouse. She seemed to think that they were a couple, and showed them to a room without asking them any questions. It was a room divided into three sections, the floor covered with tatami mats and the bedding neatly folded on one side of the room. In the middle section was the sort of Japanese-style heater that looks like a table covered with a blanket. The two sat facing each other with the heater in between them and waited for the sunrise. It was tedious, but above all, they were starving. Since dinner the night before, they had eaten nothing, and had stayed up all night in a train. My father fumbled inside his backpack and found the sticky rice cake his grandmother had packed for him. He offered it to her.
“Try it. You must be hungry.”
“But this is for your family!”
“I think there’s water in that kettle, so eat slowly and don’t choke on it.”
So each of them ate three pieces of rice cake. But the sun still did not come up, so they sat there for a long time. This time, my father found persimmons from his backpack.
“I took it down from the tree in my hometown. Taste it.”
The girl accepted it as there was no other way to handle the situation, and she began nibbling the persimmon. My father told me he thought it was understandable that she was trying to be modest, but the way she was eating it didn’t look so pretty, because she was eating it like a mouse, holding it with two hands and taking tiny bites with her front teeth. He thought, maybe she’s savoring every bite, not wanting to finish it too quickly. Feeling a little sorry for her, he took another persimmon out of his backpack and offered it to her.
“Take one more.”
The girl accepted it and sat there holding the persimmon. At one point, my father dozed off, and when he woke up he was alone in the room and the sun was way up in the sky. He had no idea when she had left. In the place where she had sat was a note, folded like a ribbon.
Dear Sir, you were in such a deep slumber, so I decided not to awake you. Wishing you the best of luck in all your endeavors. I do hope to meet you again, wherever that may be . . .
When he got back home, my father took a bite of one of the persimmons, but he had to spit it out because it was too bitter. He and my mother were still in their newlywed phase, and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing when she saw his face distorted with pain.
“You can’t eat unripe persimmons just like that! You have to soak them in water with salt or rice for a few days.”
“What did you call this?”
“An unripe persimmon. It ripens and softens if you leave it under the sunlight for about three weeks, but you can eat it in a few days if you soak it in salt water.”
Only then did my father realize why the girl from the train nibbled on the persimmon he gave her. Isn’t that unbelievable? She finished the whole persimmon, something inedible, enduring it without once mentioning anything because she knew he was being nice. I don’t know if my father was telling me the truth, but he said she wasn’t so pretty. He didn’t say she was ugly, but he just described her as admirable.
He did meet her again the following spring. On March 1, 1947, there was the biggest clash yet between the Left and the Right since the liberation, followed by the Jeju Island incident in April and widespread strikes, uprisings, and violent clashes throughout the country. The leftist organizations held a celebration at Nam Mountain in Seoul, in memory of the peaceful uprising against the Japanese occupation on March 1, 1919. After the event was over, they walked from Nam Mountain to the South Gate market, while the rightist organizations who had their own event at the Seoul Sports Complex were marching past the Chosun Bank, and the Department of Police and Firefighters toward the South Gate. The opposing sides crashed into each other at the five-lane street in front of the South Gate. That day, my father was not among those marching in the crowd, but walking on a sidewalk, and he saw her, in the middle of the crowd, marching with a placard. My father rushed to her and walked fast alongside her.
“How are you? Do you remember me?”
“Of course I do.”
“I’m so sorry I forced you to eat that unripe persimmon. I really didn’t know.”
He said she laughed, her hand covering her mouth. The marching stopped right at a point where they could see the South Gate, and soon an attack from the right began and the line was demolished. There were gunshots, and the crowd scattered to the roads diverging in many directions, the wounded falling onto the streetcar rails covered with blood. It all happened so suddenly, and my father was separated from the girl from the train in an instant. He said he worried for a long time if she was safe. So I asked him, “So this is your story about one autumn. Did you meet her again later?”
“Of course I did, we were on the same side.”
“How many times?”
“She died . . .”
That was his answer, and he would not say anything more. Once he shut his mouth, he gave me the same answer no matter how many times I asked. Maybe the owner of these books, Kim Soon Im, is the girl from the train, and the memory behind the shell has something to do with her. But these are only my best guesses.
I think I have said everything I wanted to about my father. Several times I painted my father’s unripe persimmon, with a broken branch and dying leaves still attached to it.
10
Yoon Hee confessed to her sister about the baby, but she tried very hard for all those years not to have that piece of information reach me in any way. Perhaps she was determined not to lean on me, not even for psychological support, while I was imprisoned. I have a daughter. A child of Kalmae, brought into this world by Yoon Hee.
Ever since I came here, I have not been able to fall into that deep, death-like sleep, not for one night. Another day passed by. My sense of space was slowly recovering. As soon as I woke up, I got ready to cook. From the packed little refrigerator, I took out fish and vegetables and prepared them for a stew, and put rice into an electric rice cooker. I was keeping myself busy in front of the st
ovetop for a while when I heard a pair of shoes dragging on the ground. When I looked out, I saw the Soonchun lady walking in, carrying a big, round basket on her head.
“Good morning, ma’am.”
“Did you sleep well? I just brought this little bit over. Try it.”
The Soonchun lady sat on the little porch, put the basket down on the ground, and showed me what was under a sheet of newspaper.
“Some pickled garlic stems, some pickled sesame leaves, and this is young radish kimchi, really fresh. And I also brought you some bean paste and pepper paste, just to taste, not too much.”
“Really, you didn’t have to do this.”
“You should put the kimchi in the refrigerator. Garlic stems and sesame leaves are salty so they should be okay at room temperature. The pastes should be stored with other seasonings. By the way, this smells good!”
The Soonchun lady opened the pot lid and nodded in approval.
“So, you’re a chef! This looks good.”
“Would you like some?”
“No, no, I was just talking. I already had breakfast.”
I pulled a chair over and sat down facing her. Even a moment of silence was too awkward for her, and she hurriedly got up.
“Goodness, I forgot all about it! I have all these vegetables in salt and I forgot to prepare scallions. I should get going.”
“Wait, ma’am, just one second.”
The Soonchun lady gazed intently at my face and waited.
“I have something to ask you, please sit down.”
“What do you want to ask?”
I could no longer hesitate.
“After I left, the following year, Miss Han . . . she gave birth here?”
“Phew . . . I was so nervous, I’ve been wondering when you would bring that up. I delivered her, you know, since there’s no midwife in this town. She had a noble face, just like her mother. They came here together, maybe not every year, but at least every other summer vacation, and we didn’t see her for years while her mother was in Germany. I almost didn’t recognize her when she came back about three years ago! She was a big girl then, as tall as her mother.”
“I had no idea. My sister didn’t say anything, either.”
“I guessed that was the case, and since it was none of my business I kept quiet. You see . . . no matter what, legally she was unmarried, and I can’t imagine what Miss Han must have gone through. Only her immediate family members knew, and they kept it under wraps, I think.”
“It’s . . . all my fault.”
“What could you have done in your situation? As my late husband said, it’s because you were born in the wrong era.”
“Then, does she live with her grandmother now?”
“No, I heard that she was registered as the sister’s child.”
“You mean Han Jung Hee?”
“I think so.”
I had never met Jung Hee, but had heard so much about her from Yoon Hee that I could picture her face and personality.
“I heard she has her own practice in Seoul, I think her husband is also a doctor. I have their address and phone number written down somewhere. Would you like me to find out?”
“Yes, please, but no need to hurry.”
“Well, I really should get going.”
The Soonchun lady got up from the porch and walked out to the fence around the house, but I could not say a thing, and I sat on the chair blankly.
If Eun Gyul was born in 1982, she was almost eighteen now, a young woman. I thought there was nothing left for me in this world, but Yoon Hee gave me a child. Suddenly, I felt impatient and I wanted to run down to the main house and make the phone call. But I was worried about what, if anything, Eun Gyul knew about her father. What did Yoon Hee tell our daughter about me? Maybe I shouldn’t meet her, I thought, and my heart ached. I now realized why Yoon Hee insisted on writing down every little thing about her father’s youth and kept reminiscing. She was probably worried about the love-hate relationship between a father and a daughter that Eun Gyul and I might continue on this earth.
Until the fall of 1980, Choi Dong Woo and I spent time confined to a small room we rented in a slum. Once in a while, Kun came by to inform us what was going on around us. Suk Joon left for Japan before the new semester began, and Kun seemed to be overburdened by managing the members by himself. One day, Kun came over and told us, “This neighborhood is no longer safe. I heard that there’s going to be a major shakedown.”
“There’s nowhere else to go! They are holding community meetings to inform people about the wanted list, there are checkpoints just to cross the Han River, and they are even searching Buddhist temples.”
“That Gymnasium President?9 He announced that he has formed something called the national security committee, and that it will arrest all criminals who commit harm against society.”
“Harm against society? What the hell is that?”
“They say people prone to commit crimes, like gang members, but I bet they will include anyone antigovernment, like us.”
“Isn’t massacring innocent civilians the biggest harm against society?”
Dong Woo was being cynical, but Kun was seriously concerned. He sighed.
“We need to find a new place as soon as possible. Any ideas?”
“How about you? You should take care of yourself first.”
“I’m fine. I’m with Jung Ja.”
Hearing this, Dong Woo, who was lying on the floor leisurely with his arms crossed under his head, sprang up.
“What? What did you say?”
“Why are you so surprised? Hae Soon already gave us her blessing.”
“Who said that dating between members is allowed?”
Listening to Dong Woo flaring up, Kun simply smiled as he looked into space.
“Hmm, this is not dating, this is life, everyday life. We are going to get married. You should congratulate us. I actually came here today to tell you that. I also started a knitting factory. I’m the manager.”
“You think people collected money to buy knitting machines for you? That was for those who lost their jobs!”
“There are four workers, and I run around getting business.”
I was listening to their conversation, and I wanted to encourage Kun.
“Good for you. Good luck, too! But you’ll be very busy because of our work.”
“It’s not a problem, the gatherings are usually after business hours. Anyhow, that’s my problem, but you still have to move . . .”
“We should talk about it. Let’s say we’ll leave here by sometime next week. Why don’t we ask our sponsors?”
It was exactly two days after Kun came to see us. Dong Woo had gone down to the main street to buy groceries, but he came running back out of breath. He banged shut the door in the kitchen that led directly out to the alleyway, then he put the lock on and secured it with a long spoon. He was still standing there with his ear attached to the thin plywood door, trying to figure out what was going on outside. I opened the door from the room to the kitchen and asked, “What happened, were you followed?”
“Shhh, be quiet. And turn the light off.”
I became nervous hearing his frozen voice, so I turned the fluorescent light off as quickly as I could. He was still standing by the door in the same posture. Soon, we heard the footsteps of several people, and voices talking. The voices got louder.
“This way!”
“There are so many little alleys, who knows where he hopped to?”
There were sounds of footsteps. Flashlights wavered. They slowly walked away. Someone was calling from far away, “Detective Yi, come over here.”
Police! Only then I was truly shocked and scared. I sat in the darkness without moving, as if my back was glued to the wall. Dong Woo sneaked into the room and sat next to me, his knees touching his mouth and his back straight against the wall. His breathing was even now.
“What happened?”
As I whispered, Dong Woo answered in a whisp
er, too.
“Phew . . . I almost got caught. You know the little market by the street down there, right?”
I knew it well. It was more like a gathering place for street vendors at the entrance to the neighborhood. Throughout the summer, I walked there to buy watermelons and melons and vegetables, and it was the place where the men in this neighborhood bought special treats for their families when they had money left over from the pubs and bars.
“I was walking down there when I saw both plainclothes and uniformed policemen, a lot of them, inspecting everyone, I mean everyone. So I just stopped there. They even had those chicken coop buses parked by the street.”
“Kun was right. It’s a crackdown. The police and the military are working together to round up as many people as possible, and didn’t he say that they send the criminals for some sort of purification or reeducation?”
“That’s it. If they find us, it would be like catching lobsters while looking for anchovies. I was trying to be inconspicuous, but my eyes met those of a plainclothes officer. Hey, you over there, come here, he said. Me? Yes, you, come here, and he walked fast toward me. So what else could I do? I ran!”
“And he’s thinking, why would he run unless he had to? You’re busted!”
“I know, I know. It doesn’t look good. Think about it, they’ll soon go around the neighborhood and ask everyone about renters and tenants, and somebody could rat us out by saying something like, over there in that house are two young men.”
“Let’s stay up through the night and leave early tomorrow morning. We might lose time, but they’ll have to change guards at some point and dispatch from various points downtown.”
Dong Woo and I waited in darkness for things to quiet down. Far into the night, there was no signs of people walking around, and the sound of whistles in the distance had died down, too. It seemed they had all returned to the local police station with the chicken coop bus. Dong Woo opened his mouth first.
“I’m hungry.”
“Shall we make some ramen?”
“Yeah, turn the light on.”
The Old Garden Page 14