The Old Garden

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  “Miss Han, what do you think of me?” he said.

  Under normal circumstances, I would have just sworn at him or taken it as a joke, but he looked too serious for me to take it lightly. I figured, why don’t I just smile back? For no reason, I looked at the dirty wall where the menu hung. “Well, what do you think?”

  He banged the table with one hand. “I asked you first, didn’t I?”

  Frowning at his tantrum, I turned my head away from him. “Are you drunk after one bottle?”

  “It’s been almost a year since we met.”

  He was mumbling, then said out loud, “I think I’m getting used to you, Miss Han.”

  “You sound like a cheesy pop song. And stop calling me Miss!”

  “I like you.”

  I could not say anything. I could not tell him that I felt nothing. I knew that without him, the past year would have been unfamiliar and endless. My reply was a bit harsh on purpose.

  “Look, I like you, too, but it’ll never be more than that, so forget about it. Do you understand that?”

  “I’m leaving now.”

  He jumped up, went to the cashier to pay for the meal, and left. I remained in my seat, finishing my cigarette. By the time I had stubbed it out in the porcelain dish and left the restaurant, the market was already opening up.

  I went back to my art studio. I walked into the unlit space of mine. There was a dim light coming through the drapes, and my furniture and other possessions appeared to be live animals holding their breath. Suddenly, I felt like the only dead thing in the room. The table was covered with an overflowing ashtray, scrunched-up cigarette packets, and coffee mugs, and the chairs around it were pulled back or turned around, still holding onto the shape of the people who had sat there before, carrying the now invisible past up into the empty air. I sat on the chair. I put my arms on the table. My right hand landed precisely on a coffee mug’s handle. I picked it up and sniffed, and I smelled my own perfume. There would be a reddish imprint of my lips on it, too. I vacantly sat in the twilight. I felt like I was sitting alone in the middle of a burnt-down house or a ghost town.

  I could not remember when I fell asleep. I was still sitting there on a chair with my head buried in my arms resting on the table. The daylight lit up the thick wine-colored drapes and came in through the gap. A ray of sunlight had landed directly on top of my head. I got up to adjust the drapes. Only after I shut the drapes did it occur to me that I should go inside and lie down.

  The sun had gone down; it was dark again. I was still half asleep and remained motionless under the blanket. I was coming down with something. My throat hurt, I was hot, and my whole body ached. I wanted to drink ice cold water, but that meant getting up, walking out of the room to the kitchenette, and opening the refrigerator. I felt my eyes welling up, then a tear rolling down from my eyes down my cheek to my earlobe. I thought of my daughter. I missed her, and for a moment I thought about going to my mother’s to see her, but then I thought about leaving her, turning my back to her and exiting the door as she watched me. I was tired of it. I thought of colorful laundry hanging from darkened windows on a white building. Then the few lines on a postcard from him. So he’s going to be one of the stars out the window, is he? What star? It is just a black hole, neither the retina nor the pupil remaining. Much later, after the Berlin Wall came down, someone was talking about stars at a little bar in Budapest. Something about getting rid of stars somehow.

  I must have dozed off again, still feverish. I dreamt of Hyun Woo. He is sitting there in my dark room, leaning against a wall. I stay in my bed, lying on my side, and look at him. For some reason, I cannot move one finger. He is smiling at me. When did you come? He does not answer. All of sudden, the room changes into the one in Kalmae. There is the paper-shaded window on the wall he is leaning against, and the low table and candles. Next to me is a small, rectangular futon for Eun Gyul, and our newborn baby is sleeping, her little fingers peeking from underneath her blanket, so thin and delicate like water. And there he is, sitting across from us and humming, I cannot remember which song. The room changes again; this time it is his tiny cell. So, this is where he lives. All I had seen before was a window from far away that looks like a hole punched through a wall. Eun Gyul is in there with us, too. He is lying right next to me, Eun Gyul sitting on his raised legs. He whispers to her, The lady rides the horse, the lady rides the ox, as he raises her up and down on his leg, and the baby giggles and laughs with every movement. He hands her back to me and quietly stands up. Where are you going? Hold on for a minute! I want to hold onto him, but I cannot move any part of my body. Eun Gyul crawls over to her father. All there is is a door, and there is no trace of him. Eun Gyul disappears, too, and I hear a baby crying from somewhere. I shuffle my body and look around, trying to find the child.

  I opened my eyes. The phone was ringing persistently. Without realizing what I was doing, I sat up. My whole body was moist with cold sweat, and wet hair clung to my forehead. I wiped my chin and neck, covered with little beads of sweat, as I opened the glass sliding door and walked toward the studio. Only then I remembered that I had been in bed dying of thirst. Yes, I should get the phone. I walked toward the old-fashioned rotary phone ringing loudly on the table.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me. I called you so many times, and you never answered. What’s going on?”

  My heart slowed down and the unknown fear vanished, but I was also dejected. Song Young Tae’s mumbling relieved me, but it also meant nothing had changed.

  “Do you know what time it is now?”

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s past eleven. I thought maybe I should go get you, but you didn’t answer the phone, so I’ve been working by myself.”

  “I see. Well, I need to rest.”

  “You sound weird. Miss Han, are you sick?”

  “I’m not well. I think I have a flu.”

  “Oh no! That’s too bad. Should I get you some medicine?”

  “It’s not a big deal. I think I’ll go to my mother’s.”

  “That’s a good idea. You want me to stop by early tomorrow morning?”

  “No, I was about to leave. I’ll see you later.”

  “Well, take care of yourself. I’ll call you again.”

  Song Young Tae’s voice went away. I stood there with the phone still on my ear, and the dial tone echoing from somewhere deep in the receiver sounded so hollow. I would not see Young Tae for a long time. Shouldn’t I stay with my mother? I thought about it as I put a kettle on the stovetop so I could drink hot green tea. I changed my mind, because I did not want her to think that I was living alone and needed her pity. And I did not want Eun Gyul to catch whatever I had. I turned off the light and lay down in darkness again.

  I was sick. No, it was more like the poisonous remnants of my twenties were being washed away with clean water. I did not move, I did not eat, but I did not despair, I just lay there like a piece of discarded clothing. When I finally got out of the house, it was a blooming spring day. The magnolia flowers were already falling, the yellowed leaves drooping like corpses. I stood under the shower at the public bath in the neighborhood and vacantly stared at my naked body reflected in the mirror. Maybe there still was the trace of a baby around my waist. Water poured down on my body, and I soaped myself and stood under the falling water again. I asked the masseuse to scrub me. The muscular woman nudged me once in a while to signal that it was time to turn my body around. I remained on the table after she was done, blankly staring at the ceiling.

  That night, I cooked dinner and ate by myself in the studio. I poured water onto rice and ate it with braised cutlass fish, kimchi, and a couple of other side dishes my mother had sent over. Like other people do, I turned the television on. It was so easy to slurp down the soupy rice. Something appeared on the television screen. Wait, what was that? A reporter was almost screaming. Protesters had broken into the American Cultural Center, condemning the American response to the Kwangju Incid
ent. The protesters appeared on the screen. Each of them was wearing a headband with slogans on it, and they waved placards and hastily-written signs out the window. The leaflets they threw fluttered and fell like leaves from a tree. Their assertion that the US was responsible for the Kwangju Incident was something I was familiar with, I had seen it on numerous posters around the campus. On the screen, I recognized a few faces as those who had come to my studio with Song Young Tae. Those pamphlets we had made had been the beginning.

  Song Young Tae vanished. It was more than two weeks after the American Cultural Center incident that I finally realized that. There had been periods when he did not contact me for a long time, but someone at school had always told me what he was up to and I was able to figure out where he was. But this time, there were endless demonstrations on campus and no one seemed to care where someone named Song had gone to. While I headed to the Mapo neighborhood in a bus, I saw the office-tel building that I had been to with him. I think it was on the eleventh floor. I walked down the corridor and turned a corner based on my guessing, and found a door with a little note attached with tape. It said Translations. I hesitated, then knocked. When the door opened, the face that appeared behind it was that of Kim, the man I met that night. When he saw me, he opened the door wider. Somehow, the studio apartment looked narrower than before.

  “Come in.”

  He stood aside, as if he was waiting for me to enter. The office machines were organized differently, and there were a couple more desks, but the sofa was gone. I presumed that Kim’s desk was the one closest to the window. Someone was sitting by the desk pushed to the left wall and scribbling. Before he sat down, Kim pointed to a folding chair right next to his.

  “Have a seat, please,” he said.

  We were sitting side by side facing the door. I took another glance at the stranger and tried to sound as matter-of-fact as possible.

  “It looks different.”

  “I’m sorry? Ah, yeah, we had to. I had to take over, not that I was planning to.”

  Kim turned to the stranger bent over the other desk.

  “Mr. Chung, let me introduce you. This is a friend of Young Tae.”

  He nodded without saying anything.

  “I’m saddled with it now since he disappeared. We couldn’t just waste the rent, so we turned it into our workplace. We take turns coming here with work to make a little money.”

  “Something happened to Song?”

  “Ah, you didn’t know? He’s wanted. After the American Cultural Center incident, even those who stayed in the background had to run.”

  I guess there is no way to contact him, and I have no desire to look for him either, I thought. Kim opened a drawer and took out an envelope. It was not the usual white one, it was an airmail envelope with blue and red stripes.

  “I saw him here the day before he went underground. It’ll be impossible to find him now. That pamphlet on Kwangju has been distributed in universities and factories all over the country, and the book has been published, too. It had been planned since last winter.”

  I put what I guessed was Song Young Tae’s letter in my bag and began to leave, when Kim added, “Don’t worry too much about him. He’s a Little Lord Fauntleroy, I’m sure he’s reading books somewhere with a view.”

  I was not too surprised. I did not take the bus again, but decided to walk slowly. The trees were turning greener every day; there were not too many people on the sidewalk at midday, and it was pleasant walking.

  There was a brand new building with a bank on the first floor, and around the corner from it was a small acrylic sign. I found a shiny marble staircase leading to the lower level. Despite its appearance from the outside, inside was an old-fashioned tea room. I was a little disconcerted, but also relieved. If it was a new place with tacky decorations, I would have felt more uncomfortable. There were just a couple of old men who looked like real estate agents, and the interior was ridiculously large. There was a small aquarium and plastic plants and grapes, and the television no one was watching was showing a Hong Kong kung fu movie. I sat in the farthest corner near a wall. I waited patiently until the middle-aged waitress brought me the cup of coffee I ordered, then I finally took the envelope from my purse. I need to see what nonsense he has written.

  Dear Miss Han,

  I should have visited you the day you were sick.

  I had to laugh a little at his first sentence. It just sounded so classic. I mean, he decided to leave behind a letter. So antiquated. Even my old father was more elegant; all he did was tell you a story about unripe persimmons and leave it at that.

  But I could not go to your studio that night because I had to send everything nationwide the next morning. I know why you were sick, you were working too much. I think they started to look for us. I know more than anyone else so I need to go deep underground. Telephone calls are the most dangerous, so I’m not even going to attempt to call you. And too many people know that I frequented your studio, so I don’t think I’ll see you for a while, I don’t know for how long.

  I just want to reiterate that I truly admire Mr. Oh. Compared to what he’s done, I’m just someone hanging around, trying to figure things out. I haven’t seen the stars yet, all I’ve discovered so far is a vague horizon. I have fantasized about raising his precious daughter with you. I knew about her from the very beginning, Jung Hee’s fiancé had told me. Don’t you think that we’ve worked together very well over the last few months? Before we knew it, we became comrades. I am writing this most sincerely.

  Really, you like being sincere, don’t you? I did not feel anything toward you, you know that. But one thing is certain. I felt comfortable with you. We were like brother and sister. I liked your naïveté, but unfortunately, I sometimes did not like that you were a little wanting when it came to things like appreciating people and nature, or beauty and sensitivity, things like that, the way I cannot do math. I know it is not a big deal. But still, a little disappointing.

  I know this sounds like a cliché, but I was always happy and exhilarated when I was with you. That night at the restaurant, trying to express myself was harder than performing on a stage. Still, that is just a tiny speck of dirt. From today, I need to submerge myself deep underwater. I will have to hold my breath and close my mouth and eyes and fight my solitude. And I do think that I should never say these things out loud again, not until Mr. Oh is released. I’ll always be near you. When we are able to see each other again, I will not mention this.

  When you have a solo exhibition, I’ll be there early in the morning when there aren’t too many people to praise your brush strokes. If Mr. Oh is released, I may be a little bolder. For our little wishes to come true, we have to bring down the government. No matter how dark the night is, no matter how stormy, the sun comes up and the day brightens again. Just like that, the moment for revolution will come.

  Revolution. What then? I think it’s only possible in a no man’s land, somewhere deep in the mountains where only ox-driven carts and donkeys pass by, or in a scene out of a Western movie where a rifle is the deadliest weapon. I remember a picture of a female guerrilla warrior in Nicaragua, carrying an automatic rifle and wearing a cartridge belt.

  The mighty army parade sweeps through the plaza. A mountain of weapons is unloaded on the docks. The supersonic jets cut through the sky, a nightless city of radars and aircraft carriers, glass and steel sky-scrapers. A group of executives touring the facility slowly walks by machines. Marching down the street arm in arm and falling down when the shots are fired. Such an innocent scene may still exist, but it is not the one of the revolutionaries taking over government offices and guarding their organization with arms; that scene does not happen anymore. And the possibility of it ever happening is becoming slimmer each day.

  There will be endless debates and numerous arguments that will always need to begin from square one; compromises that no one’s happy with will be made, and after a long wait will come some slight progress, which will most likely be d
istorted after a while. All there can be is a partnership or an election. It will be impossible to figure out how the threads got so entangled, you will be lucky to find the one you just missed. And everyone will resemble everyone else while holding onto the end of that one thread and arguing over it, never again able to go back to the starting point. While trying to destroy the system, they will form another system in order to destroy it. No one can remain a warrior forever. Even the revolutionary committee goes home after a day’s work. At home, the wife takes care of the kids and complains that his paycheck is late again and nags that he is never home and whines that there is no more money. Again and again, they eat and drink and fight and have sex and sleep and wake up the next morning and change clothes and go to work and begin debating again. In between the land he had left and the sky of the far future there is an infinite black hole with its mouth wide open. A revolution? That is a frozen scintillation. If you are not banished like Oh Hyun Woo or murdered by bullets in front of a barricade like his brothers, you will have to live an exhausting life as an activist who has to commute to work. Still, even if that is the case, how beautiful a revolution is. Even if it makes your mouth dry, even if you end up quivering with disillusionment, it still electrifies you and reminds you that you are alive.

  I tore his note into tiny little pieces until only a handful of letters were left. I will never work for you, no, I will never go near you all again. I decided to live quietly and simply, enjoying my work, even more so than my sister did. If the tear gas on campus makes me cry, I’ll shed a tear then, but nothing more. Like the trees around the campus, I’ll drop a few leaves and remain standing there, silent and unaffected.