Chocolate Friend and Other Stories

Originally published in Korean as “Dulles Gonghangeul Ddeonamyeo” in 2008.

Copyright © 2008 Han Malsook Translation Copyright © 2007 Suzanne Crowder Han et al.

Edited by Romy Fursland

All rights reserved. All texts thus made available are for personal use only and may not be reproduced commercially without permission from both the original copyright holder and Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

Digitally published by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea in 2016.

LTI Korea, 112 Gil-32, Yeongdong-daero(Samseong-dong), Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 06083, Korea www.ltikorea.org

eISBN 9791187947349

Cover design by David Drummond

A Cliff in Myth

In the black street the line of headlights had thinned to a trickle.

Again the band switched to a waltz. The time dragged, but Chin-yŏng didn’t particularly care. At first she had thought it was a mistake to get a job as a dance hall hostess, but then it wouldn’t do to have to work a whole month to get paid. She needed money for dinner and a room to sleep tonight… Two thousand hwan would be enough but she needed it now, not in a month’s time.

I’ll stay here a bit longer. Last spring there were lots of latecomers. I’ll work for ten days like I did then, and earn enough for half a year. I’m cold. Her small nipples, shrunken and hardened against the cold, pressed against her sweater. And I’m hungry. Come to think of it, I haven’t had a thing to eat all day. I’m cold and starving… She became acutely aware of her own existence.

“I’m alive,” she said, and after some thought repeated, “alive.” She gazed out the window of the five-story building. Seoul looked warm and inviting.

“How about a dance?” Someone touched her shoulder. She turned around to find a fairskinned young man smiling at her.

The chandelier shone faintly through the thick cigarette smoke as the band swayed and the dancers drank and talked loudly. It was so crowded that they were bumped several times by other couples before they’d even taken a few steps. The man wasn’t very good at leading so the mambo was no fun. Still, Chin-yŏng followed the music and danced energetically, hoping only to shake off the cold. The man gradually tightened his hold, squeezing her closer. The smell of liquor hit her full in the face. His beard was scratchy. What rotten luck! Some tip this guy will give.

“I gotta catch me some draft dodgers.” His voice was slurred from the liquor.

“Why?” “That’s my job…”

“Your job?”

“Yeah, I’m a detective.”

“Is that so?” Chin-yŏng’s voice trailed off. She was certain such a green detective wouldn’t have any money.

Hell! I thought I’d finally hooked one! Chin-yŏng’s steps became even slower and more subdued than the mournful blues they were dancing to.

“The night the carnation petals fell…” sang a girl with snow-white breasts on the stage.

“I’m a draft dodger myself so I feel really guilty catching others. But what can I do—it’d be my neck otherwise.”

“Crying over fond memories…” wailed the singer.

“I’ve gotta catch one by tomorrow. I’ve got to… Hell! Everyone looks like one and then nobody does! Whew…”

The man’s liquored breath was unbearable. Taking a step backward, Chin-yŏng exclaimed, “Isn’t that one? Isn’t that a draft dodger?”

Jerking his face away from Chin-yŏng’s cheek, the detective looked around. “Where?”

Chin-yŏng pointed randomly with her chin. “Over there.” In the direction she’d indicated, a tall young man, who looked from behind as if he would be very handsome, was making a beautiful turn.

“You sure?”

“Um,” mumbled Chin-yŏng. Of course she didn’t know who the man was, nor whether he was a draft evader. She was just glad to be rid of the nasty smell of alcohol and the prickly beard.

The blues came to an end. Chin-yŏng drank some whiskey. It was cold going down her throat but it warmed her body. The closing song began but the detective still wasn’t back from the toilet. Chin-yŏng sat lost in thought in the thick cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Are you a part-timer?” A young man with burning eyes towered over her. Chin-yŏng nodded. “There’s not much time left, but…”

As they wove their way between the tables toward the middle of the dance floor, Chin-yŏng saw the man from behind, and her heart sank. He was the very man she had randomly pointed out as a draft dodger.

He danced well. His arm moved gradually down her back to her waist and held her tightly.

“You’ve got a lovely figure!” he said, his eyes passionate yet reflecting a certain coolness. “I noticed you earlier.”

“Hmm?” “When I’m dancing I like to check out the girls the other guys are squeezing!”

“Hmm.” “Are you a student? Are you single?”

Chin-yŏng just smiled at his questions. The young man took this as an affirmation of both.

“Shall we live together for a week?” he asked, smiling. “A hundred thousand hwan should do it. From tomorrow,” he added with foolish arrogance.

“Huh!” Chin-yŏng snorted in surprise. A hundred thousand hwan! A hundred hwan would be plenty for now, she told herself.

“You’re an expensive one. Two hundred thousand hwan then!” he exclaimed, misunderstanding her laugh.

“Huh?” exclaimed Chin-yŏng in amazement.

“Well then, three hundred thousand hwan.” He released her as the music stopped. Chinyŏng didn’t say a word. She didn’t know if she would even be alive a week from tomorrow. She didn’t even know how she was going to make it through the night.

Before she knew it, some paper bills were pressed into her hand—six hundred and ten hwan. “That’s all I have left,” said the young man as they quietly descended the stairs with all the other dancers.

The street was cold. A chill swept over Chin-yŏng’s body and she began to shiver.

“Come to the Hoshim tomorrow morning! Nine-thirty!” the man said suddenly, turning on his heel.

To get up and out, nine-thirty is perfect, thought Chin-yŏng. If he’d said afternoon or evening, she probably wouldn’t have kept the appointment; she wouldn’t have needed to if she’d found some money during the day to live on. Chin-yŏng turned to go as well. She was starving.

The pre-curfew siren had sounded so chances of finding a place to eat were nil. Besides, almost all of Myŏng-dong was dark. A crescent moon hung in the black sky. Chin-yŏng realized it

was late.

On the road leading up the hill to the cathedral, a vendor of baked sweet potatoes was busily preparing to leave. The vendor’s oil lamp spat and sputtered. Chin-yŏng bought all the potatoes that were left—there were only five or so—and began eating one as she walked away. She wondered if anything else could be so delicious.

Where should I go? No inn will put me up for five hundred hwan. Even if they did, it would be cold. No one would heat a room for that money. What a pity to let my body freeze on such a cold night! If I die, that will be the end. Every moment counts. There won’t be a second chance. Must I freeze at this moment, this precious time that can never be again? That would never do. I’ll go and sleep at Kyŏng-il’s. No doubt his room will be cold, but at least sleeping together we should be much warmer.

Books and paintbrushes were scattered all around the room, which felt no bigger than a cardboard box. Chin-yŏng hesitated; the floor was so messy there was nowhere to put her feet. Kyŏng-il didn’t often pay her much attention, and now—true to form—he didn’t even look up from his canvas.

Chin-yŏng put the leftover potatoes on the desk and slid her feet under the pallet. She was surprised to find that the floor was warm. Did he sell a painting?

“What’s this? The room’s warm.”

Kyŏng-il jerked around and punched her in the back.

“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

“You bitch! Chun-sŏp bought some firewood!”

“That’s nice! He’s such a good friend.”

“I heard it all last night! Chun-sŏp slept here, you bitch! He told me everything!”

“So what! So what if I did!” Chin-yŏng glared fiercely at Kyŏng-il.

He looked sullen. Without batting an eyelid, he started beating her on the back with his clenched fists.

The night before, she’d been kicked out of her boarding house and the landlady had taken her paints, brushes, books and everything else because she hadn’t paid her room and board. She’d

had nowhere to go but Chun-sŏp’s boarding house when the curfew sounded. She’d gone there only because it was closer than Kyŏng-il’s and certainly preferable to a police cell. Already half a year had passed since she’d lost her citizen’s card. Without that she could only prove her identity by showing the police her student ID. That would have been so embarrassing that she’d been desperate to avoid it.

“Please let me stay here tonight,” she’d said, looking squarely at the wide-eyed, pajamaclad Chun-sŏp.

“Uh—” Chun-sŏp fidgeted, his eyes darting back and forth.

“Hmm?” “Uh, Kyŏng-il, uh—” “What does he have to do with anything?”

“Uh—” Though he hesitated to say anything, the glint in Chun-sŏp’s eyes showed his extreme pleasure, disgusting and angering Chin-yŏng.

“You—you and me? You think I’m here to make love? Never! I’ve no place to sleep so I just thought I could spend the night here!” she snapped, drawing herself up to her full height.

“That’s not it. Uh, if Kyŏng-il finds out, he might misunderstand…”

“What does it matter if he doesn’t understand? I don’t have a place to go now, so what do I care who understands or not!”

Chun-sŏp stood there a moment and then, without a word, grabbed his overcoat from a nail in the wall and went out, throwing it across his shoulders.

Should I stop him? I’d better let him go.

A woman’s muffler was hanging on the nail where Chun-sŏp’s coat had been. Chin-yŏng thought it must belong to the woman who she’d heard came from time to time to sleep with him. She found the pink hue very sensual.

Chun-sŏp had sent her a letter only two days before. It had been just as puzzling as all the others: “I understand your relationship with Kyŏng-il. I won’t say anything more about it… I know this is pointless but I had to write… Just a short note.”

The content of his letters was always equally vague and confusing. She didn’t know what he was trying to say. If he wants to live with me why doesn’t he write it in a way that can be easily understood? And, if that’s the case, why did he leave without a word? He could do anything he wished with me tonight.

Chun-sŏp hadn’t come back in and Chin-yŏng had enjoyed a warm and comfortable night’s sleep. The idea that Chun-sŏp might go to Kyŏng-il’s had never crossed her mind.

“Stop hitting me! Stop! Stop!” she cried, but made no move to dodge Kyŏng-il’s fists. The beating didn’t hurt much; in fact, it massaged the frozen muscles of her aching shoulders. When the hitting stopped, she felt better. The floor was hot and her body was burning.

“Oh, that made me nice and warm.”

Chin-yŏng was just being honest but Kyŏng-il grimaced to think that his beating had warmed her instead of hurting her. As though discarding something disgusting, he pushed her with his feet toward the hottest part of the floor. Her body slid like a piece of paper.

Kyŏng-il took up his brush again. Chin-yŏng took off her skirt and sweater and folded them up neatly, as rumpled clothes would never do for a dancer. Tomorrow I have to get out early and earn some money, she vowed to herself.

As she relaxed, her back began to feel stiff and sore from the beating. Last spring she had received a similar beating when she’d said she was going to work as a dancer, and this time because she’d slept at Chun-sŏp’s boarding house. She wondered why she cared more for Kyŏng-il, who beat her without saying a word, than for Chun-sŏp who sent her letters professing his love.

Lying in the warm room, having fed her hunger with sweet potatoes, Chin-yŏng felt content.

I’m happy now. Now all she wanted was to sleep, but as usual when she had nothing else on her mind her thoughts turned to love and longing. Am I in love? Do I love Kyŏng-il? Kyŏng-il, she whispered his name. My boyfriend, I yearn for you, really yearn for you. This made her think that he really could be her boyfriend and she longed for him. She wanted to have the feeling of yearning and longing for someone.

“Shall we kiss?” she said, sliding under the coverlet.

“Shut up!” shouted Kyŏng-il.

Chin-yŏng turned to face the wall. What about the dance hall guy? Three hundred thousand hwan! That’s ten times thirty thousand. For Chin-yŏng who usually only ever lived from day to day, that was a lot of money. I can pay my room and board. I won’t have to worry about my registration fee… She could think no further, as Kyŏng-il had suddenly grabbed her.

Whenever Kyŏng-il took her in his arms she felt really good. Still, she couldn’t help thinking how gently the handsome young man had held her and how good it had made her feel.

From afar came the sound of nine o’clock. Kyŏng-il had already gone out. He was painting movie billboards in a warehouse behind X-Theater. It was a part-time job he had landed only yesterday.

A small round sweet potato lay on the desk. Chin-yŏng ate it as she left the boarding house.

As she walked past the cathedral, she felt the urge to pray. Though not a churchgoer, she thought it couldn’t hurt. “Holy Mother Maria, please give me a sweetheart, a man I can love forever,” she whispered reverently to herself. Noticing the poor workmanship of the statue, she felt bad and added, “Maria, be patient just a little longer, I’ll sculpt you.” Standing alone under the cold sky, the white Maria seemed to be weeping with the eternal agony she must endure. A virgin mother! Chin-yŏng thought. What a pity to suffer the pain of childbirth without having known the joy of love! What a pity! A real pity!

Although it was early, there were lots of people in the tea room. The oil stove was already glowing bright red.

“Good morning!” someone called. It was the young man from the night before. His white chin showed traces of a fresh shave.

“Here!” He put a small bundle on the table. “It’s cash. Three hundred thousand hwan. I thought you’d prefer cash instead of a bank note. It wasn’t easy to get so much cash. How do you like my thoughtfulness? Ha! Ha! Ha!” He laughed loudly. Chin-yŏng didn’t say a word. She just wanted a drink of water. Her throat was dry from the steamed sweet potato. She suggested they have some coffee or something before taking care of business. She gulped down two cups.

“Let’s go.” The man stood up. Chin-yŏng thought he looked younger and more handsome

than he had at the dance hall. She stood up. The people at the nearby tables watched them as they left the tea room.

They caught a taxi, and as soon as they got inside he wrapped his arm around her waist.

They pulled up at a hotel. The lobby was very grand. It had a dazzling red carpet and the columns and ceiling gave it a modern feel. At the front desk he checked in, paying for a week in advance.

“Room 309!” the desk clerk called out and a bellboy appeared to help them to the room.

As they walked up the stairs Chin-yŏng enjoyed the weight of the money in her hand, the smell of the man’s aftershave lotion, and the feel of the soft red carpet under her feet. When they were halfway up the stairs, someone called from below: “Hey, look here!”

The man said he was a detective. He examined the young man’s I.D. card and ordered him to come with him to the police station. He claimed the young man was a draft evader and must go with him right away.

The young man sneered at the detective. “Let’s go,” he said and strode confidently down the stairs. Even the back of his head looked charming.

Perplexed, Chin-yŏng ran after them. “Hey!” she called after him.

“Hmm?” “Here,” she said, holding out the bundle of money.

“No. That’s yours,” he said, smiling. “I’m the one who can’t keep the promise.”

“It’s too much.”

“Don’t worry about it. From the beginning the three hundred thousand hwan wasn’t just for your lovely figure. Can’t you see that death is following me? Even if I had enough money for a year, I would spend it in a day. I haven’t much time left to live. I’m in a hurry.” He smiled and turned to leave.

Chin-yŏng stepped closer to him and with a serious look said, “Don’t go!”

He smiled at her. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she parroted. But having said the words, she genuinely felt that she did love him. “Don’t go! Please don’t go!”

“When you have money, nothing is impossible. I’ll be back soon.” He patted her cheek and left the hotel. The detective followed him out. Then Chin-yŏng noticed a man standing at the front desk. He lit a cigarette and walked toward her. She wondered why his face looked familiar. Oh, yeah! The detective from last night! Then she realized that the scene she had just witnessed hadn’t happened by accident. She snapped at him impulsively, “It was you! You dirty bastard!”

“What’s the matter? Is he your husband?”

She shook her head vehemently.

“Then your sweetheart?”

“No!” “Then what?”

“A man!” She walked away.

“Since I’m about to leave for the Nonsan military training center, perhaps I’ll propose too,” he said as he trailed behind her.

“Don’t even think about it,” Chin-yŏng retorted, and walked haughtily up the stairs.

Chin-yŏng ate fried chicken at the hotel restaurant. She thought there would be little pleasure in life if one couldn’t enjoy delicious foods.

She bought an overcoat and a pair of shoes. She also bought a lipstick, thinking she would wear it the next time she went to the dance hall. She also bought a handbag. Still she had some money left.

She went to her boarding house. The landlady was knitting. She was a widow with three kids. Her husband had died in the war. The floor of the room was as cold as ice, and cold air was coming in through the cracked windows. Chin-yŏng paid her what she owed, but for some strange reason she didn’t feel comfortable, so she gave the woman an extra fifty thousand hwan. The landlady thanked her and began to cry. Chin-yŏng thought it was odd that she herself had barely felt anything when she’d acquired three hundred thousand hwan undeservingly, yet the landlady was moved to tears by a gift of fifty thousand hwan. It was not that she wanted to help the woman. She just wanted to rid her of the gloominess caused by her poverty.

She bought some art supplies. It came to forty thousand altogether. She had a sudden urge

to paint. She thought of Kyŏng-il and the Minister’s Award he had won at the National Art Exhibition some time ago. She recalled that his composition had been quite good. Her school grades were better, but her painting had not been accepted. A sort of jealousy coursed through her body.

“I must paint!” she exclaimed.

She stopped at a bookstore. She leafed through a book of Van Gogh’s sketches. There was a sketch of a flying crow, a bird of bad omen that lives off dead flesh. The smell of rotten flesh seemed to be hanging in the air. She felt as if she were a crow herself. Living off tips made her feel that way. She shivered. Her breasts trembled as her body shook, reassuring her of her own existence.

She bought a bottle of whiskey and went back to the hotel room. The double bed was too gorgeous for her to sleep alone. She could live there for a whole week free of charge. She could paint undisturbed. But what if he came back? He said money could do wonders. Well, let him come if he wants. I’ll worry about that when the time comes.

She downed a double shot of the whiskey, and instantly she felt elated. It felt good to lie down on the warm cushy bed. Energy surged through her. She felt so confident that she would even have flirted with ghosts. She had nothing to worry about and nothing to fear. Only what to paint!

She wrote a letter to Chun-sŏp. She told him the bed was so soft he should bring his lady friend to spend a night there. She wanted to pay him back for the warm bed of the night before. She began a letter to Kyŏng-il, but she could not think how to continue after opening with “I love you.”

Love! Love… She wanted to feel it, but it escaped her. In her head the abstract noun was arranged in a row like numbers with no meaning.

Love was not the word she needed. Right now she just wanted Kyŏng-il to hold her. So she concluded the letter by writing “Please come right away. I miss you and need you.”

She rose from the bed and sat down at the tall window, sketchbook in hand.

It was night. Numerous lights twinkled like stars amid the darkness.

(1957, Hyŏndae munhak) Translated by Suzanne Crowder Han

A Certain Death

Outside the window a lone star faintly flickered in the milky darkness of the waning moon. It must be nearly one o’clock.

Kǔn’s mother stood up quietly, mindful of Sŏk, the child sleeping beside her. It wasn’t that she feared disturbing him; she just couldn’t stand his sleepy whining. Even worse, if her husband woke up he would scream and shout and kick her and the children.

With hands accustomed to the dark, she felt about for the bundle at her feet. Opening it she pulled out some baggy pants and a coat, a donation from some American relief organization. Then she removed her gown and put on the pants. Tying a string around the waist and sleeves of the cumbersome tunic-coat, she began groping around for her bag, first at Kǔn’s feet and then at Tong’s. Stepping between the legs of the sleeping children, she tiptoed toward the door to search the kitchen.

The door wouldn’t open. She pulled again. It wouldn’t budge. It was jammed. Anxious not to make any noise, she labored cautiously, her fingers powerless. She tried again. She grew more and more irritated. What if the moon comes out, she fretted. Then she tugged at the door again and it swung open with a jerk.

“Who’s there?” shouted her husband, coughing and gasping. The four children were still fast asleep.

“Quiet. It’s only me,” she whispered as she headed out the door.

Grabbing her tightly around the waist he spun her around, pawing and pulling at the same time. She resisted, twisting this way and that. He forced her down on the bedding. With all her strength she struggled against him, writhing to get free. I’m already dressed… To have to undress and get dressed again… Damn, what a nuisance! Hell! What about the time… What if the moon comes out… She held onto her belt with all her might, but— Biting her lip, she frowned in the darkness. Damn! Damn you! You tuberculosis-ridden brute! Food and sex! Sex and food… She spat in disgust.

She loathed her husband, these days more than ever. Before Corporal Oh, life had been

nothing more than organized misery. Earning a pittance with a pick when there were road repairs, stealing coal by night—these were her only salvation. At least the six of them managed to eat. Her husband’s cough grew worse every day and, easily annoyed, he was quick to slap and curse. She could count on a beating every few days, and so could the children. Even worse, he demanded and took her whenever he wanted, day or night. She resented him, despised him. It was all she’d ever known. She’d simply accepted without question the unvarying drudgery of her dismal existence.

Damn you! You fat fucking bastard! Straightening her clothes and going through into the kitchen, she picked up a bag from the top of the coal pile, rolled it into a ball and tied it to her belt. Grabbing a small board that was leaning against the fire grate, she sighed heavily and went out. It was cool.

Damn it! Damn it! she thought again as she walked in the direction of the military coal yard.

Stars gleamed faintly in the cloudy sky. Familiar with the darkened road, she strode on without hesitating, kicking at the pebbles underfoot. She passed ten or more anonymous plank shacks without house numbers as she neared Cheongnyangni. Almost all the houses in the neighborhood were plank-board shacks occupied by others like her, people who stole coal to survive.

She walked across a furrowed field. The naked trees in the darkness at the edge looked like blackened corpses. I’m thirty-four already, she said to herself, as she realized that autumn had been and gone. Before Corporal Oh, the seasons had passed by without her even noticing.

She’d been married since she was eighteen. She’d never felt any love for her husband, not even at the beginning. But she had still borne him six children. The first had died aged four of a lingering illness. Measles had taken the second. The third was eight, the fourth six, the youngest two, and another was now growing inside her.

She hated having children. Not so much the childbirth but the struggle of raising them. As her time grew near she became increasingly troubled, worrying about who would work and how they would eat. More than that she resented her children—children she didn’t want, by a husband she disliked. She now hated her very being. Most of all she abhorred her swelling belly. Three months, four months, five months— She thought longingly of Corporal Oh. She pictured his manly face. Kicking a small stone,

she thought not of where she was going nor why, only of Corporal Oh. Ah, to be held, even just once. To have lived…

She arrived at the stream. There was no water in it. Crouching low, she crossed to the other side, threw her body on the ground and began crawling. If a guard fired, it meant death. Whether it was a warning shot or not, when a guard pulled the trigger he fired to kill.

Kǔn’s mother lay flat on the ground facing a pile of coal directly across from the guard. The sloping ground made crawling extremely painful. Her body was heavy and breathing was difficult, aggravated by her five months’ pregnancy. The faster she tried to go, the heavier her body seemed to get. If I wasn’t pregnant I’d have been at the fence by now.... She inched along. If only I’d had an abortion, she thought. If only we’d had the money to pay for one. If these harsh circumstances don’t cause it to abort, I’ve got no choice but to have this one, too. I can’t kill it… If only it could be born dead… For God’s sake die! Die! She had reached the barbed-wire fence. Lying flat on the ground, she looked around. She couldn’t see the guard. Beside a huge coal heap the size of a small mountain were two shadows resembling black ants. Though it was impossible to distinguish men from women, since everyone dressed uniformly in pants, she thought the shadows must be Myŏng-sun and her mother, one being small and the other fat.

Everyone stealing coal here was female. The guards fired mercilessly at men, but were more lenient and tolerant toward women. In fact, since the women gave them 100 hwan every time they stole and often invited them home for drinks and dinner, they didn’t even take aim when they fired.

Lifting up the barbed-wire, she went carefully inside. Her heart began to flutter. Myŏng-sun and her mother also pulled up the wire and rushed through. Lying flat on the coal, she spread open her bag and began scraping lumps of coal into it with the wooden board she’d brought. The scratch and scuff of the wood striking the sooty pebble-sized chunks of coal seemed exceptionally loud in the surrounding stillness, echoing her increasing anxiety. Scratch! Scratch! Her hands worked quickly. Soon the bag was chock-full. Tying it tightly with the attached cord, she grabbed it by the neck, returned to the hole in the fence and pushed it through.

She crawled along with the bag on her back. Her breathing was short. Her body felt heavier

than the coal. She became dizzy. Such labor was too much for her, five months heavy with child.

Gritting her teeth, she crept along.

“Who’s there?” A metallic shot rang out in the night sky.

Kǔn’s mother stopped short. Corporal Oh! she cried to herself.

The first day, she had fainted at that sound. Having labored on the roads all day in the sweltering sun and struggled against her husband’s advances that night, she had come to the coal yards to steal.

She’d opened her eyes to find herself lying in a man’s arms. Alarmed, she tried to get up, but her body didn’t respond. In her semi-conscious state she realized he was a guard. It terrified her.

She couldn’t move an inch.

Gradually coming to, she became dimly aware that the guard was a young man. The bag of coal lay off to one side, and her blouse was open—unbuttoned to ease her breathing, it appeared.

The sky was studded with stars. She got up. She didn’t know exactly what to do. Thinking to give him some money, she reached inside the inner pocket of her pants.

“Are you all right?” asked the guard, and he too stood up. He was tall. “Why do you do this?” he asked in a scolding tone of voice. Then he turned on his heel and left. She hadn’t given him any money.

The next night she was caught again. Her captor: Corporal Oh. “This certainly isn’t your first time! Why do you do this?” he demanded angrily. She tried to bribe him with 100 hwan, explaining that the other guards were given 100 hwan to turn a blind eye.

But Corporal Oh would not take the money. She told him of her home situation. “Stealing’s the only way.”

Corporal Oh scratched in the ground with a stick and remained quiet.

“Stealing coal is different from stealing somebody’s private property. To be honest, the only thing I’m afraid of is being caught. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s only coal.”

Corporal Oh just shook his head, seemingly disgusted by the whole business.

He soon became the main topic of conversation not only for herself and Myŏng-sun’s mother but in all the shanties in the area. It was difficult to know when he would be on duty. He

would always be there at the same time at least once a week. And occasionally he would do an extra shift to cover for a friend. But chances were that if he was there on the first trip and the second, by the third trip another man would be on duty.

They were glad, of course, that he didn’t take money and that he left them alone, but they also thought there must be some harsh punishment in store for them later. It was something all the women feared, and it made their night-time work all the more difficult.

No more than four trips could be made in a night. It was so grueling that by the second trip, a woman’s neck felt like it was breaking. Aside from the physical strain, time was a problem.

Moonlit nights provided little cover, and while the moon was waxing and waning runs could only be made before the crescent moon came out and after it disappeared. This meant their work could only be done between the hours of one and two, or sometimes three. At that time every house in the garrison was quiet and the guards were relaxing.

The trip to the garrison and back took about thirty minutes. It was an agonizing crawl of ten minutes from the stream to the barbed-wire fence, while the actual work took less than three. On the return trip, the bag of coal could be rolled down the hill, but to cross the stream the women had to carry it on their heads. After the stream it had to be carried too; the steepness of the rugged road made rolling impossible.

Each bag fetched no more than three or four hundred hwan, as the women couldn’t charge much for stolen goods. And even if they were able to make four trips a night, there wasn’t much left after giving the guards 100 hwan for each run: 1,000 hwan at the most. Excluding moonlit nights and rain, all the cloudy nights together provided only fifteen or sixteen chances to work.

After discussing the situation, the women finally decided to try giving Corporal Oh a treat at Myŏngsun’s house—although they were worried he might want the young girl. “If he does, I might as well give her to him. She’s lost it anyway,” replied Myŏng-sun’s mother, her face gloomy. The past winter Myŏng-sun had been caught by a guard and raped several times for stealing. The young thief was lucky not to have been turned over to the police.

Putting in 500 hwan each, the ten women bought liquor and meat and invited Corporal Oh

to join them. “For God’s sake, don’t steal!” said Corporal Oh as he ate his rice. “Right or wrong, forget it. Stop stealing! What would you do if you got shot? You’re being foolish,” he told them, eyeing each of them in turn. Surprisingly, he didn’t even give Myŏng-sun a second glance despite the powder her anxious mother had applied to her young face. To him, fourteen-year-old Myŏng-sun was a mere child.

After that day, the women pooled their funds every Sunday to treat Corporal Oh. Instead of entertaining a guard, they felt they were comforting a kindly wayfarer. His wife had died the year before, childless, and he had no other family. He was twenty-five. When asked if it wasn’t time for him to remarry, he just smiled sadly.

Once when he had two weeks’ vacation he stayed at Myŏng-sun’s house, hers being the only place with an empty room. During that time, for no particular reason, Kǔn’s mother began to visit Myŏng-sun’s house frequently. After Corporal Oh’s vacation ended, she began to anxiously await the Sundays and days off when she could see him.

At first she never thought it could be love. She was old, she had a husband and children, and to cap it all she was a thief. The coal dust had penetrated every pore of her blackened hands and face. How in the world could anyone love me, she would ask herself. She surprised herself by wanting to see Corporal Oh more and more, despite telling herself that she was only bringing him wine and meat to get him to turn a blind eye to their stealing. If that were the case, why do I have these feelings, she asked herself every time she saw him.

Whenever she had time to spare, she would heat water and bathe. But her face, hands and the tops of her feet were black with ingrained coal dust, and would not come clean at first. Rubbing soap on a towel, she scrubbed her skin raw—scrubbing and scrubbing till it burnt and stung. Still she couldn’t face Corporal Oh.

“Who’s there?”

Bang! Bang! The warning shots shook the sky. She wasn’t surprised or frightened, though she wished she had been—she wished the shock could have caused her to have a miscarriage. But this was a sound she heard every night; there was no way it would ever shock her enough for that.

Bang!

Throwing herself on the ground, she thought it might be Corporal Oh firing the shots.

Corporal Oh! Corporal Oh! If only to die by your gun… She felt suddenly weak. Fatigue consumed her whole body. Five months pregnant, overworked, malnourished… Kǔn’s mother lay on the ground where she’d fallen, unmoving.

The next day, after finishing the breakfast dishes, Kǔn’s mother headed to Myŏng-sun’s house.

Unexpectedly, Corporal Oh was there. She blushed, ashamed and embarrassed.

“Thanks for last night,” she said hesitatingly. Corporal Oh didn’t say a word. She was glad.

“Corporal Oh, is this your day off?”

“We won’t be seeing Corporal Oh from now on,” remarked Myŏng-sun’s mother, overhearing her.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I’ve been transferred to Hongch’ŏn. I leave the day after tomorrow.”

Something seemed to explode inside her chest and fall. Why? Why...? How can it be? Oh! What shall I do…? her heart cried in despair. She couldn’t say a word.

“Shall we play hwato or something?” asked Corporal Oh. She went into the room. Two bags, rolled and packed, lay ready inside.

For three hands, Kǔn’s mother lost badly.

“We should have bet,” joked Corporal Oh. Kǔn’s mother toyed with the hwato cards scattered on the floor. Sitting face-to-face with Corporal Oh, her yearning grew even stronger. For God’s sake, why was I even born? Dogs and cows bear children and exist on grass and little else! What kind of life is this? Corporal Oh is leaving and… Just once to be held by him, just once…

“I’ve got something nice for you,” said Corporal Oh, placing a newspaper-wrapped package in front of Kǔn’s mother as she stared at the floor. Only then did she come to herself.

“What is it?” she asked, raising her head.

“A nylon jacket.”

“Nylon?” she asked, her voice pregnant with surprise. Nylon... Corporal Oh gave this to me! To me! Corporal Oh… She wanted to fall to the floor and cry. She was overjoyed. It was like a dream. She wanted to put it on immediately. And yet, without a word, she wrapped it back up in the newspaper.

“Corporal Oh?” “Hmm?” Her eyes filled with tears. “Put this away until you find a girl and give it to her. I’d never have the chance to wear such a thing.”

“Oh! It’s nothing. It’s not that fancy.”

“I’ve got nowhere to wear it. During the day I don’t even get out in the neighborhood and at night I certainly can’t wear such a thing to work.” Having said this, she felt a sadness she had never known before. Her eyelids burned from holding back her tears.

“Well, then wear it tomorrow and let’s go sightseeing downtown.”

“Sightseeing?”

“Yeah, since I leave the morning after next, let’s do some sightseeing downtown tomorrow night. Let’s do something fun!”

Tomorrow night, something fun, tomorrow night…

To Kǔn’s mother, simply walking across the furrows of a plowed field with Corporal Oh would be fun, or even just sitting quietly by the roadside. Why did he buy this nylon jacket for me? Why would he want to spend tomorrow night with me, of all people? Could he possibly like me? Hmm… Maybe he does. What should I do if he wants me…? On the way home she thought only of that, her heart fluttering and her face flushed like a young girl. Of course I will! she told herself, thinking at the same time that it was the same body she’d given to a husband she felt no love for. But what then…? Corporal Oh’s leaving, I’ll be here with my husband and children and the coal…

Tears trickled down her smudged cheeks. She shook her head back and forth as her heart cried. It’s all right for him to go. It doesn’t matter if I remain here. Even if I die, it’s all right.

Don’t think about the inevitable, think of tomorrow, tomorrow with Corporal Oh… She pictured him again, painfully. Big with child, she contemplated her distended abdomen. Five months pregnant… How can I, with this belly? No! No! She cursed her fat sexless body, wanting to bash and bang her stomach on everything. Damn! Damn! her heart cried out over and over. I hate those skinny little kids. And I really hate that shriveled shaking skeleton of a husband. And even more than them, she hated her swelling gut. She grew sad. Five months pregnant… Even the pores of my skin are black....

She heated water and bathed her body. Thinking of the white nylon jacket, she washed her arms again and again, but still they looked black.

Her husband lay on his pallet coughing and spitting. Thinking her recent behavior very strange, he grumbled about the time she had been spending on bathing.

“Oh shut up! It’s my body! What’s it to you if I wash? Do you think I’m bathing to look pretty for you?” She scowled, no longer fearful of him.

Springing up from his pallet, he jumped down into the kitchen and kicked her. She fell to the floor with a thud, and he flung the basin of water at her. Kǔn, Tong and Yŏng shrieked. Hearing his brothers, little Sŏk began to cry. Like wildfire, they all burst into loud wailing. Her husband couldn’t stand it. He began hitting them with an enraged fist that knew no mercy. The oldest fled quickly. The youngest he seized by the neck and, with a loud smack of his poisoned fist, slammed the child to the floor. The boy didn’t even whimper, the breath knocked out of him.

I never wanted that one either, but he came anyway… She pitied her lifeless child.

Turning back, she started hurling lumps of coal at her husband. He was like a fierce animal poisoned with rage. She too burned with fury. Gritting her teeth she threw a poker at him, a washbowl, anything she could get her hands on. They crashed to the floor. He kicked her in the chest, the back, the stomach—anywhere he could. She dodged here and there. “Oh! Have mercy!

Have mercy!” she gasped, and her body became just another of the fallen objects scattered about the kitchen floor. In her semi-conscious state, she hoped it would cause a miscarriage. With this one thought in mind she withstood the pain until the neighbors came and pulled them apart.

She was not able to eat lunch or dinner. Goosebumps clothed her feverish body. She seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper. She hoped she was dying.

A distant star twinkled outside the window. “Tomorrow night I’ll spend with Corporal Oh…” She was happy. She forgot her aching body. She stood up. Tomorrow I won’t work but I must today, she told herself. Two days is bad enough but in five days the moon gets larger.

That’s trouble. Continuing to urge herself on, she dragged her trembling body outside.

The stars were silent. There was no wind. The late fall night grew cold. She walked to the stream. Her wobbly legs felt like rubber. Her body was like a burning torch. She felt as though she’d been beaten and battered with an oak rod. Her vision blurred. She began grabbing at the empty air.

She collapsed— “What if I can’t work…?” She tried over and over to get up but her tortured body wouldn’t budge, as her insides twisted and tore. Shouts of pain exploded from her throat. In the dark field her small body twisted and turned, wrenching and writhing, back and forth, in and out of consciousness.

As she came to, she knew it was a miscarriage. Again her belly was wracked with pain. She went into shock as the blood came gushing out. “Oh! It’s dying!” she shouted to herself as she regained consciousness. She had several hard contractions and her breathing became labored. Gritting her teeth, she bore the agonizing pain. Sweat dripped from her wet body. Finally! It’s gone… she thought happily, unmindful of the suffering.

The blood trickled out without stopping, soaking into the dry grass. With the increasing blood loss, she felt the pain less and less.

“Ah, Corporal Oh, I’m one now. I’m single. I’m free!” she shouted joyfully, delighting in this new knowledge.

Starting with her fingertips, her whole body began to turn icy. Still she was not aware of the death embracing her.

“Tomorrow night… Corporal Oh…” The blood continued to seep into the dry grass.

The stars dimmed in the distant sky and in the dark field Kǔn’s mother drifted further and further from consciousness.

(1957, HyĹ?ndae munhak) Translated by Suzanne Crowder Han

The Old Woman and the Cat

The window rattled against the wind and the driving rain. The room grew dark.

“It’s winter. It should be snowing. Why’s it raining? It rained all night and it’s still coming down.”

Shaking her head, she stuck her feet under the warm blanket. The damp air made her whole body feel clammy. It depressed her. She was bored. She rubbed her drooping eyelids with the backs of her hands. They felt like leather. With a groan, she sat up. Even the simplest action was difficult.

She opened the bedside chest near her head. It had been part of her dowry. Though the mother-of-pearl had fallen off in several places, exposing the black lacquered wood beneath, it was still a handsome piece. It had been her mother’s. For years her mother had pinched pennies, hiding her savings between the clothes inside the chest, out of sight of her husband. She used the money to buy pretty little things, luxuries like imported cosmetics and silk ribbons for her little daughter.

Instead of clothes and coins, the chest now stored cookies, candy, and other treats.

She took out a small pottery jar, scooped out some soft taffy with her finger, and licked it.

“Meow!” cried a dingy old yellow cat that had been sleeping against the woman’s lower back. With a yawn and a stretch, it resumed its nap.

“All right! All right!” the woman muttered after swallowing the taffy she had been sucking on, but she didn’t give it any of the candy. Her raspy voice sounded like the cat’s.

The cat was her only friend. The two aged creatures shared a room. Her son, her daughterin-law, her granddaughter, her grandson, the maid: not one of them spoke to her. If she happened to speak to any of them, they would frown as if they couldn’t be bothered. So she had taken to talking to the cat like she would a person.

The cat had borne many kittens, but most of them had been given away to her daughter-inlaw’s friends and friends of friends. Those left behind eventually left the house on their own, maybe in search of food or out of curiosity. None remained.

She put the jar back into the chest and left the room.

The adjoining room was the maid’s. She wanted to see inside it, but the door wasn’t open.

Has she locked it? Why? Why would she lock it in broad daylight? Could she have a man with her? Curiosity got the better of her. She grabbed the door handle. The door swung open with a crash, and she almost fell into the room. It startled her, but after a moment she regained her composure. It wasn’t the first time this had happened.

She was quite rotund and unsteady on her feet. The scars on her forehead were a constant reminder of her unwieldiness.

She was disappointed to find the maid ironing. Just to save face she asked, “Aren’t you going to cook dinner?” Her voice was screechy and a thick vein stood out on her flabby throat as she talked.

“It’s too early for dinner!” shouted the maid. She knew the woman couldn’t hear if she spoke in a normal voice, but that wasn’t the only reason she shouted. She hated the old woman’s constant snooping, the noisy dragging and scuffing of her heavy feet. She also hated the way the eyes in the wrinkled face looked when the woman stared at her, wide-eyed, and her screeching voice that sounded like a cat yowling. She was always saying the most ridiculous things. Almost every day she would break a glass or a flower vase as she moved noisily about the house—and when she wasn’t destroying things, she was falling over and needing a bandage put on her forehead.

The maid hated having to deal with it all.

The woman opened the toilet door. She didn’t need to go. She was just bored. She could see the bathroom was empty. She opened the door to the shower. The air inside was chilly. The tiles white. So cold! She went into her daughter-in-law’s room. It was empty. Where’s she gone in this rain? The television was on. Expecting to see some naked foreign women dancing, she stumbled closer. Instead, two muscular young white men with oversized gloves were exchanging punches…

“Body. Chin. Body. Body…Wow!” The roar of the spectators blasted from the speakers as the taller man went down, but she couldn’t understand a thing.

“They’re crazy!”

She hated all of it. She didn’t approve of fighting to begin with, but the fact that the men were practically naked made it even worse. The shame of showing one’s naked body in public! It

doesn’t matter that they’re men, they must be crazy! Running around in their underpants. It’s indecent! She hated the television. Why would anyone waste their money on a thing like that!

They could have bought me a hat instead. Do they think I’m dead just because I don’t go outside? She was not happy with her son. She wanted to turn off the television, but she didn’t know how.

She opened one of the doors of the huge, ornate wardrobe. As the large mirrored door swung open, the dresser, the fish bowl, the framed pictures, and everything else in the room reflected in the mirror spun around, making her dizzy. She closed her eyes and squeezed her head between her hands. When she opened her eyes, she saw a row of colorful silk skirts hanging in front of her.

She took out a gray silk skirt and looked at it in the mirror. Part of her dowry, it had been brought from China by her uncle when he’d returned from a mission there. She treasured it, and had previously worn it only for important occasions. But recently, realizing that her days were numbered, she had begun to wear it around the house. It was still precious to her, and she had decided to wear it as much as she could in the time she had left. Her daughter-in-law didn’t appreciate old things, and the old woman didn’t think it would get much use after her death. Nevertheless, she had decided to leave her daughter-in-law both the skirt and the bedside chest. She didn’t think any silk made today could compare with the silk of her skirt. Who in this day and age is fortunate enough to wear such fine silk? There’s nothing like it! It was brought from China! But for some reason she was not happy. She didn’t like anything in that room. Everything there disgusted her—the wardrobe, the television set, the abstract painting, the gaudy linoleum floor covering.

She stood in the middle of the room, biting her lower lip with her toothless gums. She wondered if it was about time to go upstairs to check on her granddaughter. Ever since she had come across a young man in the girl’s room some time ago, she’d been obsessed with knowing what went on in there. She was told the young man was her granddaughter’s fiancé. He came to visit her every afternoon, and she often went upstairs during his visits to check on them. It was hard to climb the stairs. It was hard to breathe and her back ached, but she didn’t mind. I’ve got to catch them, she told herself repeatedly. An unwed man and woman in a room together! She shook her head.

It’s just not right! Not right!

At first she’d simply wanted to prevent her granddaughter from making a disastrous mistake, but soon her curiosity had got the better of her and she’d wanted to catch them in the act. With each failed attempt she became increasingly agitated and frustrated.

One time she’d opened the door to find her granddaughter playing the piano and the young man reading. Another time she found them seated at the table facing each other. Never once had her granddaughter’s clothing been disheveled; never once had the young man been acting suspiciously.

Nothing was ever out of place in the room. Everything was always perfect. But to her, it seemed too perfect, which made her all the more suspicious and frustrated. There had to be something bad going on, something wrong. It’s just not right. Not right! But she didn’t know what to do. It was beyond her comprehension.

At dinner the night before last, she had asked her son, “Why do you let that boyfriend of hers come round here?”

He’d frowned. “Don’t worry about it!” he’d shouted, so loudly it had made her head ring.

But she couldn’t hear a word. She knew his angry words were directed at her. If they’d been meant for his daughter, he would have been looking at her.

“You’ll be sorry! Just wait! You’ll see!” she fumed and fretted.

If she went upstairs too often, they would take great care not to be caught. The timing had to be just right. She calculated when it would be best to go up. When she’d gone up a couple of hours ago, they’d been seated at the table facing each other. They were just sitting there. Yet she could sense something in the air between them, as if they were exchanging untold secrets only they could understand. That had made her even more uncomfortable.

She tried to go up quietly, but she made so much noise that even the maid on the floor below must have known she was climbing the stairs—no doubt the young couple would hear her coming.

She pulled open the door the moment she got upstairs. Her granddaughter, dressed in a red skirt, stopped playing the piano and snapped at her, “Now what?” The words were so sharp and shrill that she could neither hear nor understand them.

“Is he gone?” she asked, looking around the room.

“Of course! He left a while ago!” Her granddaughter stared at her defiantly.

The young man was not in the room. The woman was baffled. She opened the closet. It was empty except for some bedding and a pillow. She pulled down the sleeping mat and blanket, and the pillow tumbled out.

“Good grief! Grandma, you’ve got no idea. You’re just imagining all kinds of things…” The young woman banged on the piano keys with all her might.

As the old woman tried to fold the quilt and get it back in the closet, she took no notice of her granddaughter’s angry banging. It made no difference whether it was beautiful music or angry banging; it was all the same to her.

The floor was slick and her back hurt, so it was difficult to get up. She felt empty and melancholy. Not because she had failed to find what she was looking for, but because her mind turned to other thoughts. “That girl’s already grown up...!” In a way she felt proud that her granddaughter was old enough to marry. My own son has grown up and had a child and now that child… How happy he would have been! He longed for grandchildren. But he died. It was winter and raining.

She had wept by the window, her head buried in her arms and her teeth clenched. The rain had come beating down on the sauce jar terrace. She had spotted an old swayback cat that had borne so many kittens its sagging stomach nearly touched the ground as it made its way across the yard in the pouring rain. The next morning the cat was found dead in the neighbor’s yard, its matted fur wet and frozen. Rain! Rain! Why rain in winter?

She thought of that rainy day he’d died, back when she was young. His body lying in the next room. She wept.

And then… And then… Suddenly it all came back to her, but without the pain.

The rain came down without stopping. She felt damp and clammy from her head to her toes.

Her body was stiff and she felt miserable.

The old cat sleeping on the warmest spot on the floor stood up, and as it stretched, its sagging belly touched the floor and it let out a long “Me-ee-ow…”

That hoarse sound faded into the falling rain.

(1958, HyĹ?ndae munhak) Translated by Suzanne Crowder Han

Flood

For four days the rain had been pouring down, and the muddy water from the flooded river covered the rice fields. Three more days of such hard rain and Tae-shik’s house would be washed away.

Tae-shik stood on the porch and watched as the village that stood upstream was swept down the river by the raging water. Thatched roofs, moth-eaten pillars… all kinds of things came washing down.

Wooden cabinets, doors, pot lids...

Tae-shik watched them without a word.

His bride, sitting by the hearth in the kitchen, stared silently at his back.

They had just spent their first night together. And though they had eaten breakfast together, she had yet to see his face. She was too bashful to look at him. Perhaps he was also shy, for he hadn’t said a word either. However, he had added two spoons of his rice to her bowl. Her cheeks turned red as she thought of the saying that the giving of two spoonfuls brings a man and wife closer together.

Squealing loudly, several rats dashed out of the kitchen onto the porch, scurried up one post and down another and darted away. The bride could hear them squealing underneath the porch. They say rats are sensitive to floods; perhaps they’re afraid their holes will fill with water.

She continued to stare at her husband, too absorbed by him to worry about their house.

She had only met him once before they were married, and his feet were all she had seen then.

And she hadn’t seen him last night either. She did not know what he looked like, even though they had spent the night together. She knew that he was of medium height and that his body was strong. She had yet to see his eyes, nose and mouth. She only knew that the old matchmaker had said that such a “manly man” was hard to come by. Tae-shik had been a servant of Mr. Yi, a landowner in the upper village, since he was a young child. The landowner liked him because he was hardworking and honest.

She knew that with her dark complexion she was not very pretty. But the young men in the village claimed that her dark liquid eyes made them feel numb and their hearts pound.

Their simple wedding took place ten days after the match-making. Though he had never seen her and it was his first marriage proposal, Tae-shik couldn’t afford to be choosy. Her impoverished parents hastened the marriage, happy to reduce the number of mouths they had to feed.

“It seems like the young man wants to get married awful bad,” teased his landlord. He gave them a one-room thatched hut, which had been used by one of his groundskeepers, after having the walls papered with old newspapers.

Because of the heavy rain, no special wedding foods were prepared. There was only a plate of rice cakes, two bowls of cooked rice, and two bowls of soup, all placed on a table in the open hall of the landowner’s house. Across the table from each other, Tae-shik and the bride bowed to each other and became man and wife. There were no guests at the wedding, but Tae-shik was happy.

The bride had nothing to bring as a dowry, not even a piece of cloth. After the ceremony, Taeshik crossed the hill to the hut with two spoons, two pairs of chopsticks, two bowls, a jar of fish sauce, a jar of red-pepper paste, a jar of soy sauce, and a cooking pot, all of which he carried on his back. His bride bundled up the two blankets and a pillow the landlord had given them—their only bedding—and hoisted the bundle onto her head. Then, sharing an umbrella with the old matchmaker, she set off for her new home.

The rain let up for a moment, then it began falling harder and harder until it became a loud downpour. The woman was startled by the sound. She smiled to herself, glad her husband did not notice her fear.

A centipede fell to the floor and landed upside down. Its white belly shone brightly until it righted itself. When it started to scurry away, moving its scores of legs rapidly, she smacked it dead with her shoe.

Another one fell onto her shoulder. She brushed it off and stepped on it. The straw roof was swarming with them.

The surrounding hills were so bare of trees that one could hardly hear any cicadas, even in the middle of summer. There had always been floods, so no trees could grow. But at least there were no snakes. Floods are horrible, but snakes make them worse because they cling to men as they are being washed away. “It’s a good thing there’s no snakes,” the bride said to herself.

More squealing rats shot out of the kitchen and scurried under the porch.

The bride looked at her husband as he stood at the edge of the porch. His well-tanned legs seemed strong and sturdy. She blushed as she thought of their first night together. And her heart began to race as she thought about the evening ahead.

More and more things floated by in the muddy, rushing water. Ceramic jars drifted downriver and bobbed about until they sank. Bundles of clothing, pillows, rakes, pans, aluminum pots... silently and swiftly they floated past and disappeared down the river.

Tae-shik only noticed the things he wanted most. His eyes widened as he watched the debris float past. He would follow a floating object with his eyes until it was out of sight. Then he would turn his head and look upstream again, ready to follow another one.

Something white drifted by, and behind it came something bright and colorful. A mattress and a quilt! They must have been bound together, for bits of straw cord floated alongside them.

Bedding? Bedding… Bedding! he repeated to himself. That was something he really needed.

The mattress and quilt drifted closer to the hut. His eyes sparkled. Quickly he turned his head and looked back at his bride. Her dusky dark eyes met his. His body stiffened. She covered her burning face with her hands, and he realized that this was the first time she had seen his face.

He turned back to the water. Bedding, he said again. The mattress and quilt were far out of reach by now. They floated away, close together, then far apart. As soon as they were out of sight, Tae-shik looked upstream again.

For a moment the woman was overcome with embarrassment, but then she looked directly at his back and said softly, “My husband…”

“Oh!” cried Tae-shik in a shrill voice as he jumped down off the porch and dashed out into the rain. His bride leapt to her feet.

In no more than ten strides he reached the river and plunged in.

“Darling!” his wife cried, but no sound came out of her mouth as she watched him swimming wildly toward the middle of the river. She didn’t know what to do and her heart ached with anguish.

The rain began falling harder. It pelted down.

In the middle of the current, Tae-shik grabbed hold of a large pigpen. He clung to it, and knew now that his wife would understand what he was doing. Surely she remembered what Landlord Yi had said: “I’ll give you a little pig soon. Let’s see what you can do with it.”

In six months the pig would be ready to bear young. Pigs usually give birth to five or six babies.

And in half a year they too would be ready to have babies. Keep the females, sell the males…. Keep

the females, sell the males…. Even a small one will fetch ten or fifteen thousand yuan. And pig droppings make the best manure. He would only use pig manure on his rice fields.

Tae-shik had not been able to get a pigpen. They were expensive, for they needed to be strong and well-built otherwise the pigs would break out and get away. What if they get out? That mustn’t happen! What good are pigs if they escape, he thought as he grabbed one corner of the pigpen and tried to pull it ashore.

He pulled hard, but the current was too strong. The swift water carried the pigpen downstream.

The pigpen was made of thick logs fastened together with wire. It could probably hold ten pigs. It couldn’t be better, Tae-shik thought.

“Come here you, come here,” he shouted, pulling at the pen. Rainwater streamed down his face.

He wiped it from his nose and eyes with the back of one of his big, hardened hands. He managed to get the pen to a place where the water was up to his waist. The pelting rain made the muddy water look like it was boiling.

The waves pushed the pigpen to shore. “Hurrah!” cried Tae-shik with joy. He scrambled up onto the bank and pulled the pen toward him. But the next moment a wave carried it back into the muddy water.

“Hey, stop that!” he yelled, clinging to the pen as it began to float wildly down the river. He could not let go of it for fear he might drown in the deep water, but if he held on he would be carried away. He was scared. He wanted to cry out for help, but that would have been useless. There were no houses along the shore, and no one would be out in rain like this. Even his own house was now out of sight.

He looked for a raft. During the rainy season men would often ride along the swollen river on rafts, pulling things out of the water that they could sell. In a flood like this they could make a lot of money.

The pigpen rolled and tumbled down the flooded river. With each bounce and turn Tae-shik was splashed with muddy water. He closed his eyes and mouth tightly to keep the mud out. Whenever the water became still, he would turn his face to the rain to wash the mud off.

The low hills along the shore were unfamiliar to him. He didn’t know where he was or how far he had floated. He was too frightened to worry about the pigpen. All he could think of was getting back to shore somehow and going home. The water came up to his chest. A cold shiver shot through his body.

Being cold was the thing he dreaded the most, because he wouldn’t be able to swim if he got too cold. He was truly afraid.

He looked around again and cried out for help. His eyes lit up suddenly as he saw a raft not more than fifty meters away. There were two men on it.

He called out to them. But the men on the raft either did not hear him or pretended not to. They paid him no attention. He remembered hearing someone say that raft-men were heartless, and it angered him. Money might be precious, but how can they ignore someone in danger?

“Hey there!” he yelled. “Help me! Help!” He let go of the pigpen and began swimming for the raft. But he had to swim against the current, which made the going even harder. The muddy water splashed into his eyes and ears and nose. Tae-shik blew hard through his nose, raised his head out of the water as high as he could, and kept on swimming.

After struggling against the current for some time, he looked up and found the raft floating further and further away. He was hot with anger. He told himself that if he made it to the raft he would throw the bastards into the river.

Still he kept swimming toward the raft. He was only just able to control his direction. At last he caught sight of a sandbar shallowly covered with water. He stood up, relieved to be out of the muddy river. He breathed deeply for a while, swinging his arms back and forth to get warm. He moved his arms rapidly, shook his head, and wriggled his body to loosen up his muscles. From where he was standing he could see that the river had swelled to twice its normal width.

The rain had thinned to a drizzle. He yelled at the raft once more, “Save me! Save me!” and murmured to himself, May the water ghosts take you sorry bastards!

Neither man responded. One of them was pulling something out of the water with a hook.

“Help!” Tae-shik shouted.

Again there was no response. He choked with anger.

The rain started to pour again. At the same moment, the sand gave way under his feet and he tumbled into the water. Startled, he began swimming. He measured the distance by eye and decided that the raft was closer than either shore. He swam frantically toward the raft. He grabbed for it and hung on until one of the men pulled him aboard.

“Aren’t you the newlywed who works for Mr. Yi?” one of them asked.

“What happened?” asked the other. “Why are you out here?”

Tae-shik said nothing. He was out of breath and exhausted. He had even forgotten his vow to push the men into the water. He didn’t know them, but he assumed they were from the upper village.

For a while he lay with his eyes closed. At last he sat up and began to examine himself. Nothing was left of his shirt except a sleeve which hung from his right shoulder. The rest of it must have been torn away by the water. The same thing had happened to his trousers. His leather belt and the waistband were all that remained. He was naked. There were pots, pans, hoes, shovels, and all sorts of household utensils on the raft. But there was nothing with which to cover his naked body.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“A little past Tang Village,” one of the men answered.

So he wasn’t too far from home after all. He looked toward the shore and saw the hill that rose behind his house. His home was just the other side of it; he had followed the bend of the river that curved around the hill. He was relieved.

It was getting dark—it must be well past suppertime. He had been in the water nearly the whole afternoon.

“Say, young man,” one of the men remarked, “didn’t you get married yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“In this rain?”

“Yeah.”

The raft drew closer to shore. The men said they would let Tae-shik off before they picked up anything else from the flood.

When they were almost ashore, Tae-shik’s face lit up and he suddenly launched himself into the muddy water. He had spied the pigpen he’d been trying to salvage, washed up on the bank.

“Thank you,” he shouted to the astonished men as he ran out of the water.

He pulled at the pigpen but it was waterlogged and hard to move. He realized he could never carry it home this way. He looked for the place where the wire was knotted and loosened the knot. The pen fell apart instantly. Then he tied the wood neatly together with the wire. The precious bundle of wood

was still very heavy, but much easier to handle. Naked and shivering, he headed home, pulling the wood behind him. After his long hours in the water, the rain stung him like needles. But at least it washed the dirt off his body.

His bride burst into tears when he reached the house. She must have cried a great deal, for he saw that her eyes were quite swollen. He tried to smile but collapsed onto the floor.

His body shook violently. She put one of the blankets under him and covered him with the other.

But he kept shivering. There was nothing else to cover him with. She wanted to cry.

She tried to build a fire, but the wet wood would not burn. She came back to him. She watched the blanket rise and fall as his body shook. He seemed to be delirious. The bride knew her husband had to be warmed up somehow. She tried to think how she could warm him.

She took his hands in hers. She was embarrassed, but told herself it was not a time to be shy. His hands were icy cold. Shocked and afraid, she pressed her body against his as she massaged his hands.

Her heart pounded. Then she thought she could warm his body with her own. But he shook even more violently as she snuggled close to him.

Frantically, she rubbed his body all over. Then she took off her blouse and pressed her breast against his. His body kept shaking. In a panic she tore off her skirt and underclothes. She no longer felt bashful. All she could think of was how to make her husband warm. She pressed her naked body hard against the cold, naked body of her husband.

Gently, she covered his body with hers. She slid her arms under his icy armpits and hugged his frozen shoulders to her as she slid her legs under his thighs and squeezed tightly with her knees, wrapping his whole body with her own.

She pressed her mouth to his blue lips. They were ice-cold. His eyes were shut tight. He was unconscious. With her lips still upon his, she felt his upper lip stiffen. She had heard that the upper lip stiffens when someone is about to die. Her heart lurched.

To prevent his upper lip from growing stiff, she began to suck alternately the furrow above his lip and the tip of his nose, all the while rubbing his body with her hands. She had no other way to warm him.

She had nothing but her body. She had no medicine, no fire, no more blankets. And there was no neighbor to help her.

The night deepened and the rain came down.

“Don’t die. Please don’t die,” she repeated quietly, over and over, her dark eyes overflowing with tears.

Her arms ached, and her lips ached. But she kept on sucking.

Finally, his body began to grow warm. It became warmer and warmer till it was as hot as the popping flames of a fire. He began to cry out over and over again, making unintelligible sounds. His mouth was burning, and his lips became dry whenever she took her mouth away. She moistened his dry lips with her tongue.

All night the rain came down.

As dawn broke, Tae-shik’s fever began to subside and he woke up.

The bride made gruel. Tae-shik washed his face. It seemed to have grown thinner during the night. Still, it was a full, strong face.

As she placed the gruel before him she looked at him lovingly. He smiled timidly at her.

Outside the rain fell loudly.

A centipede fell from the ceiling into the sauce dish on the table. Before my husband’s even started eating, she thought, ready to weep.

But Tae-shik picked up the centipede with his thumb and forefinger and flung it out of the room.

Then he poured the sauce into the gruel and swallowed the whole bowlful in one long gulp. He pushed the table aside and grabbed her skirt as she was about to rise to get him more.

Her dark dewy eyes gazed into his as their lips met. Tae-shik could hardly breathe.

Several rats ran into the room, scampered up Tae-shik’s back and jumped out the window.

The rain poured down again.

(1959, Sasanggye) Translated by Kim Dong-sung Revised by Suzanne Crowder Han

Kim Sŏnsaeng, the Bohemian Minstrel

Chun pressed the bell to the kitchen twice and got up from his chair. A sheet of music manuscript paper fell from the desk to the carpet, but without stopping to pick it up he went to the piano and sat down.

The morning sky was ashen. It looked like it was going to snow or rain—unusual weather for late autumn turning to winter. It was about time for the steam heating. Chun slowly rolled up one sleeve of his open-necked shirt.

He rested his elbows on the keys, making a discordant, slow-dying sound, and sat with his hands joined under his chin. The Pukhan and Inwangsan mountains drew gentle lines across the cloudy sky.

Chun stared out of the window for a time and then struck the highest note on the piano with the little finger of his right hand. Its clear sound crackled.

“The first and second movements are good. I can’t throw it out...”

He got up abruptly and went over to the desk. In the first and second movements the kayagǔm and the orchestration were fine, but for some reason the cadenza in the third movement was wrong. If only this could be corrected, the concerto would be a success.

It’s easy to fail when writing for Korean classical instruments and Western instruments to play together. They are entirely different in nature. There are many pitfalls in trying to match the rational, individual, brick-like sounds of the Western instruments to the non-rational, natural, rock-like sounds of the old Korean instruments and make a single structure with them. Chun was struggling to create the atmosphere of Korean music.

He linked his fingers behind his neck, and then turned to press the bell on the side of the desk.

Before he could ring it a second time the maid came in from the kitchen with coffee. This was his third pot since breakfast.

Whenever composing became difficult, he drank coffee. It was not because he was thirsty or hungry, but because as he savored the fragrance and taste of each cup his mood changed and new ideas came to him.

Sometimes the work went well, but sometimes he needed five or six cups of coffee. At such

times he simply swallowed the coffee without savoring it, as though it were his grim duty to dispose of it.

But in fact coffee was absolutely essential to him. All he had to do was ring the bell twice, no need to explain what he wanted: the coffee was brought up from the kitchen automatically.

He went to the tea table and stood there, stirring the pot. Just as he was about to drink there was a knock on the door.

“Can I come in?” It was Won, his younger sister. Without waiting for his response, she turned the handle and came in. “Hey! How many cups is this?” She leaned backwards, batting her eyelashes. Her smart red dress made it feel as though the electric light had been switched on in the room. “They can’t keep up with you in the kitchen.”

The womenfolk have been whispering together again, he thought, but he said, “I’m glad you’ve come. Just listen to this.”

“I’m in a hurry.” She waved an aerogram. “I must type this and take it to the Foreign Ministry.”

Without asking permission, she sat down at the typewriter and started hitting the keys. She had learned well and she typed fast. She was all ready to leave for America as soon as she could get her visa.

They had started making arrangements to study abroad at the same time, and Won had even passed the examination for a full Fulbright scholarship. Her father could have paid her college fees, but she insisted that America was a rich country so they should save Korean money. She intended to get her travel expenses paid too.

Chun was far behind her in his preparations. Won always made quick decisions, and acted on them immediately. Chun, on the other hand, always seemed to be wandering around trying to find himself.

“You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. Won’t people think it’s funny, a Korean going over there to study English literature?” Chun was repeating what he’d said many times before.

Although he studied Western music and knew it well enough to compose it, he’d never had a chance to be among Westerners on an equal footing.

“Wait and see!” she said firmly, and went on striking the keys. Chun always felt as though she was trying to tease him when she clenched her teeth over her lower lip and said “Wait and see!”

“I’m not kidding!”

“How far should a Korean go to learn Western things, is that it? I do it because I’m good at it.

And it suits me. It’s not just to do what’s Western and avoid what’s Korean.” She stopped typing and talking all at once. She covered the typewriter, stood up and looked at her wristwatch. “I’ve a little time to spare, but not enough to stay and listen. I feel too uptight. I’ll want to criticize even though it’s fine. What is it this time?” She hummed a few bars of the melody. “Is this it? What I heard in my room? It’s better than it was before.”

She was only teasing, but Chun was envious. Even when she chattered away quickly and apparently thoughtlessly, when he thought later about what she’d said he would realize she had made good sense. Encouraged slightly by her saying that the composition was an improvement, he said: “What’s better about it? It’s neither gruel nor porridge. It’s neither Western nor Korean.”

Won’s voice became even clearer. “What of it? It isn’t a question of being Eastern or Western.

Shouldn’t it be a question of whether it’s a good work of art?” She walked stiffly to the door.

“Do you think I don’t know that? I’m upset because it hasn’t come out right.”

“If you write your own stuff it’ll be all right, won’t it? Talking Korean and drinking Western coffee, playing a piano on a carpet in a Korean house. Isn’t that you all over? You’ve got that look on your face you get when you’re trying to express something outside yourself. You’re frying your brain by drinking so much coffee.” Only her face was visible in the doorway as she said these last words. She banged the door shut and disappeared.

Chun stood nonplussed for a moment, staring at the door. Then he got up and threaded a tape into the recorder, getting it ready to record. He thought it might be better to make a recording than to listen to himself while he played. He would be able to listen more objectively that way. The first two movements for piano were all right, so he didn’t want to sacrifice them for the cadenza section. The cadenza looked weak in score and it might sound even worse.

He looked at the tape for a little while, then suddenly opened the cupboard, took out a spring coat and put it on. “It’s hot in here because of the steam heating, but...” He put a pullover on over his open-necked shirt.

The kitchen maid was coming up the stairs as he went down. “Shall I clean your room?” she asked.

“Yes.” He hurried on, preoccupied. “Oh, and call the school and tell them I have a fever so the

harmony lecture is cancelled,” he called back.

It was pretty cold outside. He pulled his coat tight across his chest as he walked down the alley.

He was going to see Kim Sŏnsaeng, the kayagǔm teacher. After walking quite some distance, he suddenly stopped. He wasn’t sure whether the teacher was still living where he had been six months earlier. Maybe it would be better to go to the Classical Music Institute first, to find out the correct address.

Moving is not easy, but Kim Sŏnsaeng had been known to do it twice in the space of a month.

He often had woman trouble. Sometimes he would settle down with a woman for a while, but only once in the course of his many affairs had he ever been happy with his lot.

When he became fed up with a woman he was liable to decamp quietly with nothing but his kayagǔm and the clothes he stood up in, and retire to some inn or lodging house. Since he usually did chŏnse rental, requiring a large deposit, he usually ended up penniless. He said he sometimes skipped meals but would rather starve than endure what he didn’t like.

He had been married at the age of eleven in a village in Chŏllanam-do Province, and his wife lived alone in Chŏngnǔng in the suburbs of Seoul. They had lived together like strangers for many years but, although he disliked her more than any other woman he knew, he had always given her a monthly living allowance. He earned money from broadcasts and performances and he had many students, so he was better off than most classical musicians.

It was miraculous that such dark fingers, withered like old tree bark, could make such marvelous music. His face was as unsightly as his hands, but whether it was because of his music or because he held some kind of irresistible fascination for women, he always seemed to be getting drawn into painful, pointless affairs with women he didn’t love. And all of them were kisaeng, professional entertainers.

To Chun’s knowledge, Kim Sŏnsaeng had moved thirteen or fourteen times, and every time he did his students had to spend ages traipsing around the city to find his new place. To avoid getting involved again with the previous woman, he would start a relationship with another as a kind of shield.

So it was only natural for Chun to hesitate. At first he hadn’t had a good opinion of Kim Sŏnsaeng, but gradually he had come to like him and he thought that perhaps if Kim Sŏnsaeng hadn’t been so tempted by women he would have devoted himself entirely to his music. The proof of this was the time he had lived alone for three years after parting from a kisaeng called Yŏ-ok. Even when he was

alone he never went to see his despised wife, which showed that he didn’t really want women.

It was falling into the hands of the notorious kisaeng that had got him back into the habit of changing his address.

He had seemed deeply affected by the parting from Yŏ-ok. It was around that time that Chun and Kim Sŏnsaeng had first met, on Chun’s second day at high school. Chun could still recall the occasion vividly. Kim Sŏnsaeng’s brown face had been stained even darker by the tears rolling down his cheeks.

He didn’t seem like a man to be affected by romance and yet, to Chun’s astonishment, he was weeping.

“This means she intends to break up with me,” he said, although Chun had not asked him why he was crying. Evidently Chun had just happened to enter the room at the precise moment the teacher had decided to give vent to his feelings.

Chun had gone to see Kim Sŏnsaeng because his tutor had said he should learn about Korean classical music if he wanted to compose, though in fact he did not particularly care for such music. He had put off going for a couple of months or so because he’d been preparing for the entrance examination, but after that he went frequently to Kim Sŏnsaeng’s house to listen and learn from him. During that time he came to like Korean classical music, and he also became increasingly attached to the charming Kim Sŏnsaeng.

“I’ve truly loved her for two years. I taught her all my skills. Now she hates me. Loves me but hates me. Last night, we played the kayagǔm together till dawn. I tell you we were like two people destined to live together for a hundred years. But after breakfast she just packed her bags and left me.”

That was the only time he hadn’t parted from a woman by stealing away with only the clothes he stood up in.

After walking a little further Chun hesitated again and then set off in the direction of Insadong. Kim Sŏnsaeng was getting on in years, and people said that this time he’d got involved with a strong-willed woman who kept him under the thumb, so it was unlikely they’d split up in the last six months. He turned into a narrow alleyway behind Nakwon Market and, a little further on, stopped in front of a small gate.

The name plate on the gate was unchanged.

As he opened the gate he heard jazz-style dance music coming from an inner room of the house.

“Who’s dancing?” he wondered.

Chun stepped up onto the verandah and into the wooden-floored hall that served as both reception room and classroom. The smallish room was heated by a double burner coal briquette stove.

But the stove didn’t seem to be producing much heat, and the room was very chilly. Two girl students who were playing the kayagǔm beside the stove stopped to glance at Chun and then resumed their playing.

There were several cushions on the floor, all with dirty covers. The room had an uncared-for feel about it.

Usually there were enough visitors—the housewives who made up the majority of Kim Sŏnsaeng’s students, and the notable musicians and wealthy men who came to consult with him—to make the place feel crowded. But today, for some reason, it was almost empty. It couldn’t be due to the cold; this profession wasn’t dependent on the seasons. During the last six months things must have changed considerably. Chun was not inclined to sit down.

“Is the teacher not in?” he asked.

“He’ll be here soon. We got here early.”

“Has he gone far?”

“No—he’s just next door, apparently.” The two girls looked at each other and giggled, then went on playing the kayagǔm, but soon they stopped again and started laughing uncontrollably, smacking their legs with their hands and doubling up with laughter.

Chun had no idea why they were laughing and felt uncomfortable. After a little while he too sat down by the stove. He wondered whether they were laughing because he had a smudge on his face, but suddenly the reason dawned on him: Kim Sŏnsaeng was in the inner room dancing.

It was hard to imagine him dancing, but if he were it would certainly be funny. With his bent back and crooked walk, how could he even attempt ballroom dancing?

“How could he have changed so much?” Chun asked himself. Was Kim Sŏnsaeng—the man who said he couldn’t drink tea or coffee and that Western music, especially jazz, was so noisy it made his head hurt—actually learning to dance? “What’s going on?” wondered Chun.

As he slipped his shoes off at the threshold of the verandah Kim Sŏnsaeng saw Chun and blushed, perhaps because of the dancing. Chun greeted him and said he had come to hear him play sanjo, a kayagǔm solo.

“Sure, sure.” Kim Sŏnsaeng glanced behind him as if looking for something, then took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow, even though he was not perspiring.

He didn’t seem to be himself. He seemed ashamed about the dancing but didn’t know what to do about it. Muttering something to himself, he went into the inner room and brought out his kayagǔm. It was over a hundred years old and he was proud and protective of it. It was made of sandalwood with a magnificent dragon design of inlaid jade. The grain of the wood, the color of the body, and the curves of the goosefeet all made it look more like a work of art than a musical instrument. Its sound, too, was of a quality you could not get from kayagǔm made these days.

Kim Sŏnsaeng held it lovingly in his arms, then set it on his knees and adjusted the strings. The two girls moved to sit very close to him, because it was not often anyone got the chance to hear him play a sanjo in full.

When other people asked him to play he would make excuses not to, but when Chun asked he never refused. He seemed to like Chun as much as Chun liked him. But not wanting to disturb the students’ lesson—since it takes between thirty and forty minutes to play a whole sanjo—Chun said, “Attend to your students first. I can wait.”

“It’s all right,” said the girls, moving closer to Kim Sŏnsaeng.

“How is it you’re not at school?”

Kim Sŏnsaeng’s color was almost back to normal.

“It’s mid-term exam time.”

“They’re model students,” said Kim Sŏnsaeng, laughing happily as he tuned the strings.

His music seemed to have reached a stage of near perfection.

“Thank you so much.” Chun thought applause would be out of place in this rare and solemn atmosphere.

Kim Sŏnsaeng knew nothing about musical theory. He’d only had three years of primary school.

Because his father had been a minstrel, his family had been very poor and his only option had been to follow his father into the profession, meaning he had no skills other than performing. It seemed his fingers simply played whatever came from inside him, transforming it into music. Chun didn’t think there was any other Korean musician on the current music scene, either in the Western genre or the classical Korean

tradition, who had such natural talent.

“Here’s something I composed just recently,” Kim Sŏnsaeng said and began to play again. Chun was very interested to hear something new, but as he listened he was dumbstruck; all he could do was stare at Kim Sŏnsaeng. He was also surprised at Kim Sŏnsaeng’s scarlet necktie. This was the man who had previously owned only two ties, one for winter and one for summer, both of a neutral color. The red color did not suit him, and the tie looked like some round object suspended in the air. His new composition was also very strange. He had changed, but...?

Chun mustered his manners and stuck it out till the end.

“What do you think? Doesn’t it have a modern feel?”

“Hmm?” Chun tried to gather his wits.

“Isn’t it modern?”

Chun refrained from blurting out, “It’s neither modern nor classical, and it’s not worthy of you.

It’s vulgar and silly.”

“These days it’s all about written music. Everybody wants teachers who use musical notation...”

He stared into Chun’s eyes, seemingly reading his thoughts.

Chun suddenly understood why the room was empty. Teaching with a score was considered more scientific and theoretical and thus a more modern way of teaching than Kim Sŏnsaeng’s way of teaching by ear and intuition. It was only natural that people who are only capable of appreciating what is physically visible should want sheet music.

“Isn’t there more to making music than just reading the notes?”

Chun felt himself growing even more melancholy. He stood up and shrugged his shoulders several times to shake off the feeling.

“Thank you. I’ll come around again some time.”

Kim Sŏnsaeng followed him. “I’m writing scores too.”

“What?”

“Yes, I’ve been drawing the bean sprouts on the staff. I have fewer and fewer students, so I have to try something. What else can I do?”

It was considered almost impossible to express the microtones of sanjo using conventional note

depiction methods.

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” He could have said more, but he went out of the door without another word.

Rain was falling gently. He did not hail a taxi, but walked slowly through the rain.

“I have fewer and fewer students...” Kim Sŏnsaeng had said. Could that be why he was taking up dancing and attempting a new kind of music? He wanted to get up to date? Were his living conditions so desperate that he would do all this just to get another student? Chun hung his head. And he sighed.

It had been raining for three or four days, and now it began to snow. Chun made no progress on his composition. He went to the university with his head empty and delivered his lectures in a mechanical fashion.

On Sunday he thought he would repay Kim Sŏnsaeng’s kayagǔm performance by taking him to dinner, and set out through the snow with an umbrella to his house. But the name plate on the door had been changed.

It seems Kim Sŏnsaeng is tired of his woman again, thought Chun. But in that case the woman would still be in the house, and the name on the door is unmistakably a man’s. Chun couldn’t bring himself to turn away. Suddenly the door creaked open and a little boy of about five came out with a piece of board. He started pushing the snow outside the door into a pile, grunting with the effort. He was obviously going to make a snowman.

“There’s no point in asking,” Chun told himself as he turned to go.

While he was eating dinner that night, the telephone rang.

“We must meet. I want to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“Shall we go to the Bouquet tearoom?”

“Eh? Do you go to tearooms now?”

“Ha, ha! Let’s just go see. Ha, ha!” Kim Sŏnsaeng laughed loudly for no reason at all.

Chun found Kim Sŏnsaeng sitting alone in a corner seat.

“What will you have?”

“Surprise me.”

Chun ordered ginseng tea and coffee. Kim Sŏnsaeng sat silently looking at the snow outside the window. Chun was surprised at his profile. His face was terribly gaunt. Beneath his prominent cheekbones his cheeks were not only sunken but looked as though they had been eaten away from the inside.

The drinks came. Chun spoke as he drank his coffee.

“I went to your house a little while ago.”

“Ha, ha! The woman ran off. And took all the key money.”

He laughed a little. But his lips trembled as he smiled. There was no more use for an old and penniless Kim Sŏnsaeng. Maybe the woman had run off to some young man who would teach with a music book.

“So now where are you living?”

“In an inn.”

Chun hesitated and then said, “How about letting me pay the inn bill for you?” He thought it best to be upfront about money matters.

“No. No. That’s not what I wanted to see you about. In fact, I...”

Kim Sŏnsaeng drew a music manuscript notebook out of a big envelope on the table and pushed it toward Chun. Chun picked it up, looked through it page by page and bowed his head. He guessed it was notes for kayagǔm music but the dots on the staff were all crooked and clumsily formed.

It was a bit like a sanjo but the intervals were all wrong. Chun put the book down and looked out the window. It was snowing heavily.

“How is it?” asked Kim Sŏnsaeng.

Chun hesitated and finally said, “I’ll have to give it some thought.”

A heavy silence descended upon them. They both watched the falling snow. After a while Chun said, “Let’s wait and see.”

He thought about Won’s habit of saying “it has nothing to do with me” when something was unsatisfactory or out of her control. But he didn’t have the slightest inclination to apply it to his own way of life.

“She’ll not come back,” replied Kim Sŏnsaeng. Chun thought the old man must have

understood his words as a suggestion that he wait for the woman who had run away to return to him. His voice was weak and trembling. Even though he had voiced his dislike of her, he seemed to be missing her and desperately hoping she would come back. Chun didn’t have any desire to explain what he had really meant.

They stood up without finishing the conversation. The street looked empty. It was getting late.

The snow was falling more heavily than before. Chun asked, “Where are you going? I’ll take you there.”

“No, no. You don’t need to,” Kim Sŏnsaeng said firmly and turned to go. Wherever he was going he was going alone. The umbrella looked too heavy for his bent back. Chun watched him through the flickering snowflakes until he disappeared into the distance. Only then did Chun raise his hand to hail a taxi.

(1963, Sinjak sipo inseon) Translated by the Rev. Richard Rutt Revised by Suzanne Crowder Han

Happiness

The grandfather finally passed away a little after ten o’clock at night, after groaning for three hours, and when he died his daughter broke into a brief wail. His son, daughter-in-law and grandson all hung their heads and tears filled their eyes, but there was not much wailing to be heard. The thoughts of everyone in the room turned immediately to the question of how to tell his wife, who occupied Room 301 just across the hall.

On first receiving the telegram from the countryside saying he was going into hospital, they’d worried that he might be seriously ill. But when they’d brought him to Seoul, it had turned out he was not suffering from any particular ailment, only the natural infirmities of old age (he was eighty-three and his wife was three years older), and the younger ones had laughed amongst themselves at how greedily the old couple clung to life.

The doctor had seen no real need for hospitalization, but the old man had insisted. There was no specific treatment for him. All they could do was give him injections of Ringer’s solution and try to prepare his meals as much to his liking as possible. The toughness of his skin gave the nurses no end of trouble whenever they tried to stick a needle into him, and once they got one in, the IV drip would take well over three and half hours instead of the usual two.

His wife worried herself sick lest he should die, and ended up being hospitalized in the room across the hall. She said there was no need for her to stay in hospital but that she would do so just in case, because “it would be cruel to Grandpa if I should die before him.” Similarly, the old man had said when he was first admitted to hospital, “It will be cruel to Grandma if I go first...” The younger ones, especially the grandchildren Hong-gi and Hong-sook, could not help laughing at the way the old couple feared for each other, as if they were alone in the world and everybody was bent on doing them harm. But the patients themselves seemed to feel a certain solemnity in the occasion, paid no heed to what others thought of them, and did not hesitate to display their mutual tenderness for each other.

When the old man’s condition became serious, the doctor, nurses and family all agreed to keep the old woman from making her daily visit to his room. Her own condition was none too good, and they lied to her that she needed strict bed rest for a few days.

“Of course, I’ll rest,” she said. “What will happen to him if I die first?” But she didn’t fail to add: “If he dies, I’ll die too.” Her tone suggested something of a grim resolve, so when the old man did die everybody felt more anxiety for her than grief for him.

Because he passed away at the ripe old age of eighty-three, most of the family considered it “a propitious death”. They were even a little ashamed that they felt not so much sorrow as a sense of relief, as if they had just accomplished a difficult mission.

Hong-gi’s father and aunt argued over whether to tell their mother about their father’s death. He said that a man’s final journey should not be withheld from his own wife, while she insisted that they should let their mother live at least a little while longer: if she were to die as a result of them telling her, it would be as though they had cut short their mother’s life. They still hadn’t decided by the time they had to take their father’s corpse home that evening.

The burial was set for five days later. They had to rush to get the shroud and the food ready as well as make the arrangements for the vigil and the obituaries. In the hustle and bustle everybody forgot about going to see the old woman. It was not till late the next morning that Hong-gi and Hong-sook’s mother started to think someone ought to go and visit the old woman, and that only Hong-gi or Hongsook could be spared from the various tasks. But she worried that Hong-gi did not have the patience to sit long with his grandmother and might even let the cat out of the bag from sheer boredom. Hong-sook, his younger sister, was better qualified, but then her coming might arouse the old woman’s suspicions.

When she had been used to more than a dozen people visiting her every day—her son, daughter, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren on both her son’s and daughter’s sides—would she not think it a bit strange if all of a sudden only her granddaughter showed up? But Hong-gi’s father and mother, being the chief mourners, could not go, and nor could his aunt since she was in charge of getting the food, shroud, mourning clothes and everything else ready. Engrossed in their discussions, they even missed the old woman’s lunch hour. Hong-gi’s father became very frustrated. He said he couldn’t be bothered with mourners and such things and hurried off to the hospital in a taxi with his wife.

As soon as he had left, some executives from his firm arrived to express their condolences and were surprised to find that the chief mourner, their president, was not there. Hong-gi had to come out instead and sit in front of the funeral altar and receive their bows. Sitting there with such a solemn air made

him feel as if his body were bound up with rope. At last he got up, went into the next room and flopped down on the floor, saying “I can’t play the chief mourner any longer!”

“What a thing to say!” snapped his aunt in her high-pitched voice. “If your father weren’t around, you’d have to do it as a matter of course.” Then, as she turned the wheel of the sewing machine, she said to the woman beside her, “Isn’t the back line too low?” as if she had not been speaking to Hong-gi at all.

1

From the kitchen someone called to her, “Would you come look at this yakshik ?”

Hong-gi saw that this was not the place for him either. He went into his sister’s room. Hong-sook was loudly cracking walnuts with a pair of nutcrackers and grumbling to herself about her upcoming exams.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” he said.

“What’s funny?” She didn’t even turn to look at him.

“I mean all these formalities.”

“What formalities?”

“Why, all the food, the clothes, the bowing, the wailing even when the tears don’t come, and stuff like that.”

“What’s so funny about them?”

“Well, you’re the same even at a time like this, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean by ‘a time like this’?” Still she didn’t take her eyes off the walnuts.

Hong-gi grew impatient. “I mean Grandpa just died!”

“You’re the funny one.”

“What’s funny about me?”

“Saying they’re funny.”

“Why is that funny?”

“Don’t you know?”

Crack-crack! Another walnut cracked. Hong-sook seemed to think there was nothing funny about having special things to do for a special occasion. But then why on earth didn’t she say so outright?

Hong-gi had to admit that she was right, but it made him feel as if he had taken a beating, so he was contemplating a plan of counterattack when the phone rang. He picked it up, relieved. It was one of his

friends.

“The movie playing at Tansungsa Theater is supposed to be good. You want to go?”

“Er—just a minute.” Hong-gi covered the receiver with his hand and said to Hong-sook, “He wants me to go to a movie with him. Better not, I guess?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Crack!

“Um… I don’t think I can.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“My grandfather died last night...”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you cry?”

“Well, I couldn’t get the tears to come that easily—” “What on earth are you doing?” said his mother sharply, flinging open the door. Hong-gi hung up in confusion and snickered foolishly.

“What are you children doing here? Your great-aunt has come up from the countryside. You should be out in the other room welcoming her.” She practically shoved them out of the room.

From the central hall came the sound of wailing—this time a real, true-to-form wailing. Dressed in white mourning clothes, their great-aunt (their grandfather’s sister) was kneeling and wailing. Their father sat there blinking his bloodshot eyes behind his spectacles. The wailing lasted a good ten minutes, after which the great-aunt came out from behind the folding screen and started crying again; not a wailing this time, but a silent weeping that made her shoulders heave. Hong-gi was so moved that he had to blow his nose. The great-aunt still had smooth pink skin even though she was in her seventies. When she was done with crying, she started talking. “He passed away at such a propitious hour, and on such a propitious day!

There are sure to be blessings on his descendants. Not only in birth,” she went on, “but also in death, it’s a rare blessing for things to happen at the right moment.”

“Yes, indeed.” Hong-gi’s father mumbled something suitably affirmative.

“It’s certainly a propitious death. Living past eighty, he certainly enjoyed a long life. And he was fortunate to have a son and a grandson. And he died before any of his descendants. What blessing could be greater?” Then, as if she was not yet fully satisfied, her tone even became slightly wistful: “He had no problems with urinating or any other bodily functions, no long illness, and he suffered very little pain... To

die like that, with no regrets…”

Then she changed the subject. “It’s a pity that the eldest grandson isn’t here.”

“We sent him a cable,” Hong-gi’s father said. “But since I’m here, it doesn’t really matter too much.

Besides, it’s not easy to come from America on such short notice.” He spoke slowly, almost apologetically. With his father gone, his aunt was now the member of their family who warranted the greatest deference.

“How’s your mother holding up?” she asked next. She seemed to do everything in its proper order: first, praise of the deceased’s good fortune, then regret at the absence of the eldest grandson, and now a question about the old woman’s health.

“I’m afraid Mother may not be with us long either.”

“My, my. Heaven forbid that these things should occur together. I must go and see her.” She got up. Hong-gi, being the most dispensable out of everyone, was chosen to escort her.

2

“Have some shikke before you go,” said Hong-gi’s mother, hurrying into the kitchen to get some.

“No. I’ll wait till I get back.”

Everything in its proper order, Hong-gi thought again as the shikke was brought in. The greataunt kept refusing at first but eventually they got her to drink some.

More guests swarmed in through the gate. The family car had just arrived, so Hong-gi and his great-aunt got in and asked to be driven to the hospital.

“Auntie, Auntie, please come out here for a second!” someone called from the kitchen.

“What is it? I’m busy!” Hong-gi’s aunt shouted back from the inner room where she was directing the making of the shroud. As they were to put the body in the coffin that night, there were nine people helping to finish it. From the wooden terrace at the back of the house, Hong-gi’s mother stepped into the kitchen. An old lady she didn’t know had squeezed in between the women doing the cooking.

“I’ve come to ask if you could give us the chilsungpan?” the old lady said. She was asking for the piece of board on which the old man’s corpse was lying. They would have no further use for it after the body was put in the coffin.

“It’s such a propitious death your family is mourning,” said the old lady. “So we’d like to keep the board. Could we have it please? I’ve elbowed my way in here quite shamelessly for fear someone else would get here first.”

“Sure, you can have it,” Hong-gi’s mother replied, thinking to herself: How strange... the board the corpse is lying on. Don’t they find it repulsive?

Still, it made her happy somehow as she returned to the back terrace to look after the food.

There was not a moment to stand idle. In the central hall the guests kept coming and going, and all the rooms, the kitchen, the terraces, even the courtyard, were bustling with working hands. “There’s so many guests! It’s a propitious death indeed.” She felt warm and happy, and she said aloud to herself, “It’s not too cold, it’s not too hot, even the season is just right.”

Hong-sook’s aunt saw her carrying the walnuts to the kitchen, and called out, “Come here a minute, Hong-sook.”

“Once the obituary appears in the papers, there will be even more guests. You must welcome them. And you must keep the house clean, and check outside the gate to make sure it’s tidy, and arrange the shoes on the stepping stone neatly... You’re a senior in college so you should know these things without my telling you. And soon the coffin—” she paused briefly at the word, “the coffin will be brought in, so we need to be ready for it. The top of the coffin has to be covered with fresh flowers. I want you to go out and buy a whole lot of them.”

Hong-sook thought she would go out of her mind, what with receiving the guests, cleaning the house and buying the flowers.

“When you hear them nailing the coffin,” someone sighed, making a stitch in the shroud, “that’s when it really hits you.”

Perhaps her aunt had had a similar thought, because she fell silent for a moment.

“And when you hear the dirt falling on top of it...” another woman said.

“Ah!” sighed a third.

Hong-sook hung around to see if there was anything else she had to do.

“No, don’t fold it there. Like this, you see.” Her aunt had already forgotten about her. Hong-sook thought she had been better off cracking walnuts.

“While we’re at it, shouldn’t we make a shroud for Grandma as well?” a distant cousin asked.

“No! What a thing to say.” The aunt’s voice trembled. She was clearly upset at the idea of her mother dying.

“Can you pick up the other phone?” Hong-gi’s father shouted from the central hall. His wife went over to him quickly and whispered in his ear, “You’re not supposed to shout while you’re in mourning.”

Then she went into Hong-sook’s room and picked up the other handset.

“Hello, is this Chogyesa Temple? I sent someone over a while ago... Yes, yes, that’s right. Tonight at eight o’clock. Yes, we’ll be waiting for you.”

Apparently some Buddhist monks were coming.

“Chop the incense wood, Hong-sook. Hasn’t Hong-gi come back yet?”

“Please! I told you not to shout.”

“It doesn’t matter when there are no guests.”

Hong-sook’s head was spinning. All her tasks were thankless ones. She wished she knew how to make the mourning clothes or to prepare the sweet persimmon punch sujunggwa. She sat down on the floor near the kitchen and started chopping the incense wood.

Suddenly a hubbub arose in the front yard as somebody started driving stakes into the ground.

They were erecting a tent.... Tonight I guess there’ll be a lot more people keeping the vigil. Oh, in that case we’ll have to get more meat. And liquor too. What kind should we get? Beer is too expensive. Ouch!

Stop pushing, I almost burnt my fingers. Look, hand me that seasoned meat over there. Quickly! How about rice-wine? Who says rice-wine will be any cheaper? It isn’t just one or two bottles we have to get.

Hand me the eggs—the eggs, I said! Ah, what a noise! Makkolli is cheaper. Stop arguing and just tell her we’ll get rice-wine. Tell who? Why, the mistress of course, or the aunt. Do I have to spell everything out for you? Oh, just a second, you need to get some dried squid too. And peanuts! And dried pollack! Yes, we’d better get a lot of stuff to go with the drinks! One at a time, please, I can’t hear a thing when you all talk at once. Write it down, write it down. Why does it need to be written down? Can’t a young girl even remember that? Come here, Song-ja. You go with her. Take the car if it’s come back. Aren’t we giving the women guests anything to drink? They’re guests too. Get some soft drinks as well. Careful though, or we’ll bankrupt ourselves. Mind your own business and just hand me the rice-cake mold. Is that all you’ve

done so far? Where’s the pine-needle flour? It’s on the shelf. What about the stuff for the sesame-cake?

On the shelf too! The kitchen was like a beehive that had been stirred up.

“Hong-sook, prepare the bedding in your room. Your great-aunt has come back.” Her mother, with her sleeves rolled up, came over from where she was seasoning the meat to tell her this and then went back to the meat.

Hong-sook put down the knife and the incense wood and went up to her room. Her great-aunt was sitting there, looking tired. She was worn out, she said, not having had any rest after her long trip. She would not use the bed and wanted the bedding spread out on the floor. As Hong-sook laid out the mattress, her brother watched her in amusement and said, “You’re a great help.”

“Same to you,” she retorted coldly.

“You must be joking. I had quite a time, I can tell you. I don’t think Grandma will last long either.

The nurse says she’s not eating much. She asked me how Grandpa was, so I told her he was okay. Boy, it made my back sweat to say that. ‘Go tell him I’m all right too,’ she said. Then she said, ‘Actually I can’t move a muscle,’ and started the whole business over again about how he mustn’t die first. ‘I don’t want our Grandpa to die first,’ she said. Then again, ‘The happiest thing would be to die without seeing him die.’ She sounded pretty sincere, you know. So I said, ‘Unfortunately you’ll never know that happiness, Grandma—” “What?”

“To myself, I mean. Oh, all this fuss about dying! In the end it will come to you any way it wants.”

“Sounds like poetry, doesn’t it?”

“Shut up,” Hong-gi said. “Our turn will come.”

“Oh, I don’t care. Anytime is fine with me.”

“Stop that crazy talk!” Their great-aunt’s words made them start; they’d thought she was asleep.

They went out of the room in a hurry.

Several of Hong-gi’s friends came to pay their respects. It meant more work for Hong-sook. She made tea for them. They were saying they would stay for the vigil—not only that night but every night until the day of the burial. But they were all bookish types, who didn’t look strong enough to go long without sleep. While Hong-sook was laughing to herself they finished their tea, took off their jackets, went out to

the yard in their dress shirts and started helping spread mats on the ground beneath the tent. All the guests had to do their bit to help out. About a dozen people from the firm were expected for the vigil.

“Where’s Hong-sook?” her aunt called in her high-pitched voice. “Stop what you’re doing and go buy the flowers. If you wait till later, the market will be crowded with people on their way home from work. Get lots of lilies even though they’re expensive. They have a nice fragrance. And adjirangi flowers, they’re really cheap and pretty. I wonder if they have any roses or dahlias. Go in the car, since you’ll have lots to carry. You know we have to cover the whole top of the coffin. Oh, and get lots of daisies too, and…”

Hong-sook walked out to call the driver, hardly waiting for her aunt to finish speaking. As the car was going out of the gate, several people from the undertaker’s arrived to dress the corpse. A long black coffin without a wrap or cover was being carried behind them. The men all looked so rough and uncouth that the aunt cried out in horror, “I’ll do the dressing myself!”

“Do you know how?” asked Hong-gi’s father dubiously, a little subdued by her determined tone.

“What is there to know? He’s our father, so we’re going to do it. You and me, Brother.”

“But how?”

“Go wash your hands first. Does there have to be a special way? If we do it with a sincere heart, it should be fine. And as for you gentlemen from the undertaker’s, you may go.”

She rolled up her sleeves and went into the bathroom. “Good heavens, what a bunch of ruffians they sent. Disgusting!” she muttered to herself indignantly. Hong-gi’s father also stood up to go and wash his hands.

At this rate everything will turn out the way Aunt wanted, Hong-gi thought. Grandma will never be told. But who knows. He even began to feel interested.

The firm telephoned to say that the people for the vigil would not be coming till nine o’clock. A cry of joy went up in the kitchen: That’s a big help, not having to make supper for them, you know.

Feeding a dozen people is not easy. And, they’re not the only guests we have to feed. Of course not, of course not. Anyway, at least now we can have a bit of a break. At least now we’re not going to keel over and die. Why, what a thing to say...

In the central hall Hong-gi’s father and aunt were arguing again. “We’ll have to bring her home

before we put the body in the coffin,” he said.

“No, no, we can’t. What if she dies too?”

“But it’s his final journey. We can’t keep her from having a last look at him.”

“No,” she insisted. “If Mother passes away, how will we ever forgive ourselves?”

“Do we have to wrong her just to spare ourselves?”

“So you’ll feel relieved when Mother’s dead too?”

“What is this woman saying?”

“What do you mean, what am I saying? As her children, it’s our duty to let her live as long as possible.”

“That’s what you think. But think how grieved Mother will be when she finds out.”

“You’re right, Father,” Hong-gi interjected. “When the time comes, we’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Child, do you think this is some kind of joke?” snapped his aunt, with Hong-gi now the target of her anger.

“Who said it was a joke?”

“If it wasn’t a joke, why were you about to laugh?”

“When was I about to laugh?”

Their voices grew louder.

The great-aunt came out of Hong-sook’s room. “It’s only because you are all so devoted to Grandma and Grandpa that such words have come to be uttered among you. I don’t know whose way is best.”

“What would be the best thing to do? We have three hours before the body has to be put in the coffin.” Hong-gi’s father seemed ready to let her decide.

But she quickly got up from her seat. “How should I know? It’s for you children to decide. I’ve no say in the matter.” She went back into Hong-sook’s room.

Hong-gi’s father and aunt sat down and stared at each other. After a while Hong-gi’s father stood up suddenly and said with resolve, “I’m going to do as I think best!”

“No! No! I tell you Mother will die the minute she hears.” She clung to his hand.

“What’s wrong with that, Auntie?” asked Hong-gi. “It’s a fine thing when one of a loving couple follows the other to the grave.”

His aunt’s large eyes opened wide. “What? Do you have the heart to be joking at such a sad time?” Then she broke into wild weeping. Hong-gi’s father also began to weep. At once the sound of weeping went up from all corners of the house.

“Joking! No, why, I—” Hong-gi was utterly confused.

“Oh my goodness! I can’t believe this is happening...”

(1962, Hyŏndae nunhak) Translated by Paik Nak-chung; Revised by Suzanne Crowder Han

A Promise to God

The nurse shook her head as she read the thermometer. Yŏng-hǔi’s heart raced. “How many degrees is it?” she asked quickly.

“Thirty-eight point four,” answered the nurse and left the room, shaking her head again.

Thinking that her temperature was a lot lower than the forty degrees it had been an hour earlier, Yŏng-hǔi felt Kyŏng-ok’s small forehead. It was very hot. The child’s face and lips were still a dirty brown color. Surely the thermometer is more precise than my hand, she told herself, and called aloud, “Kyŏng-ok!”

The child’s long eyelashes did not move. Her temperature had suddenly spiked at 38.8 degrees at four o’ clock that morning, and though it was now well past four in the afternoon, it was still high. She hadn’t opened her eyes since she’d been admitted to the hospital at 11 a.m. It was impossible to tell whether she was sleeping or had fallen into a coma. The doctor had said it was food poisoning and then left the treatment room. After that a nurse had administered some medicine, and since then had come back in at regular intervals throughout the day to take her temperature.

Because the hospital was so crowded, the doctor couldn’t be at her side constantly.

Yŏng-hǔi had tried and failed to eat breakfast; lunchtime was long gone and dinnertime was approaching, but she hadn’t even thought about food. And though she’d been standing for five or six hours, she gave no thought to her aching feet.

After hearing that Kyŏng-ok’s temperature had come down to 38.4 degrees, Yŏng-hǔi relaxed a little and told Sun-bok to eat the apple one of the hospital staff had brought in earlier as a snack. Although Sun-bok was so worried about Kyŏng-ok that she had hardly eaten anything for lunch, she said she wasn’t hungry.

“Eat something. And try to get some rest. We’ll have to take turns watching her all night.

Okay?” Yŏng-hǔi warned her. Sun-bok didn’t eat the apple but she did stretch out on the sofa for a lie down.

To make sure the IV drip was releasing no more than fifteen drops of Ringer’s solution per minute, Yŏng-hǔi counted the drops while looking at her watch. Children could have an adverse

reaction, such as a heart attack, if the IV fluid went in too quickly. She was watching the drops so intently her pupils hurt.

All of a sudden Kyŏng-ok opened her eyes and looked at the apple on the table near her head. “Kyŏng-ok, the doctor said you can’t even have water. Even though you want to eat, you’ll have to wait,” Yŏng-hǔi said and blocked the view of the table with her body. Kyŏng-ok said nothing and her eyes rolled back inside her head. “Don’t roll your eyes like that! Your head will hurt!” said Yŏng-hǔi. Kyŏng-ok’s eyes rolled even farther back and her head jerked backward. Her face changed from a dirty brown color to a dark bronze.

“Kyŏng-ok, what’s happening? Sun-bok, call the doctor!” Sun-bok ran out, her shoes clattering down the hall. Kyŏng-ok’s dark eyes disappeared into her head, which was still tilted back, and her face turned dark again.

“Kyŏng-ok! Kyŏng-ok!” Yŏng-hǔi held the small body in her arms and rocked back and forth.

A woman doctor and several nurses rushed into the room. “Be quiet!” were the first words out of the doctor’s mouth.

“Why is this happening?” asked Yŏng-hǔi, holding Kyŏng-ok tight. She didn’t want to let go of her. She felt Kyŏng-ok would die if she released her.

“Go wait outside,” the doctor said coldly. “Or do you think you can cure the child?” The words pierced Yŏng-hǔi’s heart. She’s right. What can I do to cure her? Yŏng-hǔi told herself.

Three more nurses came in with an oxygen tank and suction machine, making the room feel even smaller. The doctor put a small stick wrapped in gauze into Kyŏng-ok’s mouth. To keep her from biting her tongue, it seemed.

“Kyŏng-ok,” said Yŏng-hǔi and a nurse shushed her from behind. There were so many nurses around the bed she couldn’t see Kyŏng-ok clearly. Yŏng-hǔi went out into the corridor and stood with her face against the window. The nurses were bathing Kyŏng-ok with alcohol. The doctor was taking Kyŏng-ok’s pulse, her stethoscope pressed to the child’s chest. The IV needle had been taken out of Kyŏng-ok’s arm. A nurse was giving her an injection in her shoulder. Will it be too strong for her heart? Will she even feel the needle going in?

3

“Hanǔnim ! Hanǔnim!” Yŏng-hǔi clasped her hands together on her chest and then pressed them against her forehead. “Jesus! No, Holy Mother Mary!”

Though she followed no religion, Yŏng-hǔi frantically searched the pantheon of gods for someone to call on. Because she usually saw no need for gods, she was ashamed of herself. “Could there be any more dire circumstances in which to seek out God?” she said, to justify her actions.

“Almighty God, save my daughter and I’ll believe in you. I promise. Please let Kyŏng-ok live. Just once show me you exist and I’ll believe in you. No matter how arbitrary your will may seem, I’ll never question you. I will trust you. I will obey you. I will give myself to you. Just once show me you exist,” she pleaded and vowed, and then, afraid she was being impertinent, added, “Please forgive me and save my daughter.” She said all of this silently, her hands clasped at her furrowed brow.

Looking over the nurses’ shoulders, she saw them placing a rubber suction tube in Kyŏngok’s little mouth. She guessed her lungs must have been filling up with mucus—she’d heard that if it got into a person’s throat, they could die.

“Almighty God, are you so powerless?” Yŏng-hǔi stamped her feet on the floor and wanted to cry, but no tears came to her aching eyes.

“Sun-bok, go and fetch the head doctor, and telephone my husband at work and tell him to come quickly.” As soon as she’d said this she felt dizzy. Calling Un-gyu made her feel as if the end were near. She thought Kyŏng-ok’s last moments should be in the arms of the people she loved most—her father and mother.

This was what she was thinking as Kyŏng-ok lost consciousness, her little body twisted with pain. Yŏng-hǔi felt the room start to spin around her. She didn’t know if she was giving up hope, but she did know she wasn’t happy with the nurses and the woman doctor. That was why she had called for the head doctor.

She could see one of the nurses taking Kyŏng-ok’s blood pressure. Kyŏng-ok’s head jerked back toward Yŏng-hǔi for a moment.

“Is this the end?” She’d heard people stretch out their limbs when they are about to die.

“Kyŏng-ok! Kyŏng-ok!” Yŏng-hǔi ran into the room, screaming. Her voice seemed to tear into pieces.

“Be quiet!” The woman doctor said and all was silent again.

Even if I scream it won’t bring Kyŏng-ok back to life, Yŏng-hǔi told herself.

Sun-bok hadn’t come back and neither had the head doctor she had gone to fetch. Yŏnghǔi wanted to go for him herself, but she didn’t want to leave Kyŏng-ok’s side for fear that any moment could be her last. The woman doctor kept listening to Kyong-ok’s heart with the stethoscope and the nurses kept rubbing Kyŏng-ok’s body with cotton dipped in alcohol. Her face remained a dark brown color. Suddenly Yŏng-hǔi could bear it no longer—she ran out of the room and down to the pediatrics examination room on the first floor.

“There’s something seriously wrong with my baby!” she cried, panting as she spoke. The head of the department, who was examining a boy of about five or six years old with a stethoscope, stood up and rushed out of the room without saying a word. Running behind him, Yŏng-hǔi said, “I called for you a while ago. Why didn’t you come? What is the world coming to if food poisoning…”

She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She was afraid her words could cause the worst to happen, so she bit her lip to keep from saying the word “death.”

As soon as he entered the room, the head doctor shone a light into Kyŏng-ok’s eyes. There was no reaction.

Is she already gone? thought Yŏng-hǔi. They say it’s possible to revive someone for up to ten minutes after they die. Is she already a child of the other world? Please save her, she begged the doctor silently as she began to search for God again. She didn’t know who to pray to if neither God nor the doctor could save Kyŏng-ok. If God was higher than man, and there was no more perfect being than God… It was 32.5 degrees Celsius that day, without a breath of wind, so the door of every room on the third floor was wide open. Some patients and their aides had congregated in the next room.

Their concern was written all over their faces. Since the hospital specialized in obstetrics and pediatrics, they probably had children of their own. Standing among them, Yŏng-hǔi kept her eyes on Kyŏng-ok. Lying there completely naked, the child looked pitiful as the nurses continued to sponge her with alcohol.

From the far window came a sudden gust of wind.

“Will she catch a cold… But the doctor should know…”

The stick in Kyŏng-ok’s mouth was falling out and one of the nurses put it back in place.

Kyŏng-ok’s round face, which had been a deadly black color, was turning the color of mud. Not knowing whether this was a good or a bad sign, Yŏng-hǔi was so overcome with anxiety that she went inside the room.

“Doctor, how is she doing?”

“Don’t worry. Please leave the room.”

He didn’t say she was getting better. Yŏng-hǔi was terrified Kyŏng-ok would not recover.

But her questions seemed only to annoy the doctor. She was sure that love was powerless. All she could do was cry and fast. The nurses were injecting something into both of Kyŏng-ok’s arms. The head doctor was shining a flashlight in her eyes. There was no reaction. Yŏng-hǔi was utterly exhausted.

“Almighty God, you’re no more powerful than me. If you truly exist and are all powerful, then it’s at times like this that you should show your strength!” She spoke from her heart.

“Kyŏng-ok, you pitiful little thing. I shouldn’t have had you. Why were you born only to live in this world for four years and eight months? When you were born your father and I were so happy.

You gave me such joy when you came into this world—how can you leave it, and bring me such sorrow? Kyŏng-ok, my child, my baby, when you were born you sucked my breasts for two days, but you couldn’t open your little mouth wide enough to nurse properly, so you could only drink the milk that seeped out of my breasts. When you turned over, crawled, stood up, clapped your hands and acted cute, all you had to do was make a sound and the house filled with laughter. When you were a pretty little three-year-old and sometimes wet your pants, I would slap you on the back of your legs. I’m so sorry. How could I have slapped your pretty little body? I gave birth to you so that you could have such a short life in this world…” Like a sad song, the words flowed silently out of Yŏng-hǔi’s heart. As she composed herself, she abandoned herself to resignation.

To start the IV fluid again, the woman doctor was searching Kyŏng-ok’s body for a vein to insert the IV needle. She was having a hard time finding one. The head doctor took the IV needle and tried himself, but he couldn’t insert it either. He tightened the two rubber bands that were tied

around Kyŏng-ok’s arms and slapped her arms with the palm of his hand. Over and over he stuck the needle into her arms, the back of her hand and even the instep of her foot. Yŏng-hǔi didn’t know whether Kyŏng-ok could feel pain but there was no reaction. The head doctor looked puzzled. Why could he not find a vein? Yŏng-hǔi went back into the room and stood behind the doctor.

“What’s going on? Why can’t you insert the needle?” she asked in a calm, low voice. The doctor didn’t say a word and continued looking for a vein.

Is this the end? This is a real emergency. Why hasn’t he come yet? And why hasn’t Sunbok come back from making the phone call? What can she be doing? Yŏng-hǔi’s heart began to race again. Finally, the doctor was able to insert the IV needle into Kyŏng-ok’s arm. Drops of sweat dripped from his forehead. The Ringer’s solution dripped drop by drop.

“Her heart is beating!”

Yŏng-hǔi sighed deeply. The head doctor shone a flashlight into Kyŏng-ok’s eyes one by one; each pupil seemed to move a little. Am I seeing things? Yŏng-hǔi wondered. Her heart pounded with joy.

“Are they moving?”

“Yes.” The head doctor answered, but he didn’t say the child was okay or anything else to ease her fear. With the sudden thought that a candle flickers brightly just before it goes out, Yŏnghǔi’s chest ached to think the worst was still to come.

“Lord Almighty…”

Returning from her errand, Sun-bok rushed into the room, panting. “Kyŏng-ok’s father wasn’t in the office, so I left a message for him to contact you as soon as he comes in,” she said from behind Yŏng-hǔi, and continued to explain that she was late because there had been so many people waiting at the pay phone, someone had been using the telephone at the nurse’s station, and she hadn’t been able to use the telephone in the office since it was only for staff use.

How lucky he is! He doesn’t know the pain and sorrow I’m going through… He’s probably whiling away the time in some coffee shop, or maybe he’s chatting or laughing with some women or with some of his male friends. Or maybe he’s in a meeting? Yŏng-hǔi thought.

On the one hand she resented the fact that Un-gyu felt able to leave the office without providing a

number where he could be contacted, and that he hadn’t phoned the hospital once all day. On the other hand she regarded it as fortunate. He had come to the hospital all the other times and he probably thought today would be no different and wasn’t too concerned. But still she felt resentful.

Whenever one of the children was sick and she had to stay up all night, she would envy her husband his sound sleep. Whenever she said things like, “You’re so lucky. You don’t even know if the baby is sick or getting better,” he would immediately reply, “If you weren’t here, I would take care of everything.” It was naturally assumed that a woman would raise the children and tend to the house so that her husband could concentrate on his work, in order to support his family and ensure their wellbeing.

The head doctor shone the flashlight in Kyŏng-ok’s eyes again. This time her pupils definitely moved two or three times.

“Kyŏng-ok, my pretty little baby!” Yŏng-hǔi was so thankful that Kyŏng-ok’s pupils were moving that her own eyes burned with tears. It seemed the crisis was over.

“Will she be okay now?” Yŏng-hǔi asked.

“Yes. Though with a high fever, there’s always a risk of convulsions.” The doctor’s voice sounded confident. The nurses went out, and the doctor removed the thermometer from under Kyŏng-ok’s arm.

“Thirty-nine degrees. It’s come down a lot.”

“But just now the nurse said it was thirty-eight point four degrees.”

“The nurse probably said that so as not to upset you.”

The doctor wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel. It seemed he had been so anxious he had only just realized he was sweating.

“We’ll keep up the alcohol baths until her temperature drops to thirty-eight point five degrees,” the doctor said as he felt Kyŏng-ok’s pulse and placed the stethoscope on her chest.

Yŏng-hǔi dipped some gauze into the alcohol and water mixture and rubbed Kyŏng-ok’s naked body all over. As the mixture evaporated, it took away her fever.

“Such a cute forehead, such cute hands, such cute shoulders... Do you know how much your mother loves you?” Yŏng-hǔi mused.

The doctor lifted Kyŏng-ok’s eyelids and shone the flashlight into her eyes. The fact that her pupils were moving was a sign she was recovering. Kyŏng-ok squinted and her eyes moved from left to right.

“It’s over now!”

Yŏng-hǔi spun around, surprised to hear Un-gyu’s voice behind her. She didn’t know how long he’d been there. His face was flushed—perhaps from the heat or perhaps because he’d rushed to the hospital as soon as he’d got her message.

“She could have another convulsion, so call me if there’s anything wrong,” the doctor said and left the room. It was 6 p.m., the end of his shift.

“Thank you,” Yŏng-hǔi called after him. Even though she had said “thank you” many times, it was the first time she had said it so truly from the heart. Yŏng-hǔi looked Un-gyu in the face for the first time as she sat down. She was so relieved that all she wanted to do was hug him and cry.

But instead she said, “Something terrible almost happened.”

Un-gyu stared at Kyŏng-ok and said, “Yes.” After a while he called, “Kyŏng-ok!” He took hold of the child’s hand and said, “It’s Daddy.”

Kyŏng-ok’s expressionless eyes closed again. She didn’t seem to be fully conscious yet.

Un-gyu sat down again and asked, “What caused all this?”

“They’re saying it’s food poisoning.”

“What did she have to eat?”

“What she always has… Perhaps the peaches and watermelon were bad.”

The day before, Yŏng-hǔi had attended a literature seminar and had been asked to stay for a group lunch. Now she regretted it. Perhaps if she’d gone home instead and tended to her children’s lunch, none of this would have happened. She’d been reproaching herself ever since.

After all, food poisoning meant the food must have been unclean. Some sixth sense had told her to phone home before lunch to check on the children. She’d asked if they were playing nicely and had repeatedly stressed that they should be made to wash their hands before eating. These seminars, whether they were about trends in world literature or some aspect of Korean literature, didn’t help her creativity all that much. And attending seminars and the like was basically just a way of getting

more exposure to the outside world. The outside world... She thought that perhaps she should refuse to go to such events in future. Looking at Kyŏng-ok’s exhausted little face made her feel even more guilty.

“It’s not always something you’ve eaten. If you’re unlucky, it can just happen.” Although Un-gyu didn’t know what was on Yŏng-hǔi’s mind, his words were comforting.

A nurse came in and took Kyŏng-ok’s temperature. “It’s thirty-eight point eight degrees.”

After so many hours, the color was finally returning to Kyŏng-ok’s face.

“Kyŏng-ok!” Yŏng-hǔi called. Kyŏng-ok’s eyes opened wide. “Do you recognize Mommy?” Kyŏng-ok nodded. “Do you see Daddy?” Kyŏng-ok nodded again and closed her eyes.

“It’s okay now.” Un-gyu got up from the chair and rubbed Kyŏng-ok’s cheeks. “I’d better go back to the office.” As soon as he got back to the office, it would be time to go home. Yŏng-hǔi told Sun-bok to keep an eye on the IV fluid and accompanied Un-gyu as far as the second floor.

“Take care of Ki-jun and Chŏng-ok,” Yŏng-hǔi said, referring to their four-year-old and two-year-old. As she passed the nurses’ station on the way back, she stopped to phone home.

“Ajuma? Are the children playing nicely?” she asked the housekeeper. “Before you put them to bed, give them a warm bath and powder them well so that they don’t get heat rash.” She also asked her to spray the house with mosquito killer and air it well before closing the windows, because the mosquito killer was so strong that it was bad for the children. Without Sun-bok to help her prepare the meals and take care of the children, the housekeeper would be very tired. “Thanks. You’ve really worked hard today,” said Yŏng-hǔi as she hung up the phone.

When she got back to the room, supper had already arrived. Kyŏng-ok was asleep with a towel covering her stomach. Yŏng-hǔi felt her forehead. It still felt a little hot. Her temperature seemed to be 38.5 degrees. Her fingers and toes, which had been black, had returned to their normal color. Yŏng-hǔi told Sun-bok to eat and get some sleep. Because the Ringer’s solution was so critical to Kyŏng-ok’s survival, the doctor had put a splint on her arm to keep her from knocking the needle out when she moved her arm. This made her look even more pitiful. Her arm was already swollen and bruised where the needle had been inserted. With her daughter’s temperature going down and her condition improving, Yŏng-hǔi felt thankful for the medicine and the help of the

doctors and nurses.

The head doctor came in on his way home. “Tonight, take her temperature every thirty minutes and call the woman doctor who’s on duty if it goes above thirty-eight point five degrees.”

“Doctor, can you not come?” Yŏng-hǔi had no faith in the woman doctor, who seemed to her to be no better than an intern. Even as a woman herself, Yŏng-hǔi had no interest in sparing the woman’s reputation or self-esteem, especially when her daughter’s life was at stake.

The doctor smiled. “The woman doctor is quite capable of taking care of her. I’ve left instructions for the child to be given an injection so her temperature won’t go up again.”

If there’s an injection that can keep her temperature from going up, why didn’t she give it to her before? thought Yŏng-hǔi. Then she wouldn’t have gone into convulsions. She tried to stay calm despite her doubts and pent-up anger. More than anybody else, doctors were subject to relentless censure if they made a mistake. That was why a doctor’s job was considered so difficult. Ordinarily she understood this and was sympathetic, but lately she had been questioning many things.

After the doctor left, Yŏng-hǔi drank coffee instead of eating dinner. This was to help her stay up all night to look after Kyŏng-ok. It felt good to sit down in the armchair and rest her back and prop up her legs, which were swollen from standing all day, on the radiator. Her body felt more relaxed. She could see the sun setting outside the window.

“It’s been a dreadful day. But thank you.”

She closed her eyes. Her eyeballs hurt. And the rest of her body ached too. As she closed her eyes, she repeated to herself, “Thank you with all my heart.” She was grateful for the help of the Almighty, the doctors who had revived Kyŏng-ok, and the nameless scholars who had invented the medicine used to treat her.

A nurse came in and took Kyŏng-ok’s temperature. “It’s thirty-eight point seven degrees.

It’s come down a lot. You must have been really frightened earlier?”

Hearing this, Yŏng-hǔi blushed. She remembered running down the descending corridor from the third floor to the first floor. She thought how crazy she must have looked; she’d been completely oblivious to everything and everyone around her. She had absolutely no memory of those

few seconds. She couldn’t remember whether she’d pushed other patients or attendants out of the way, or whether people had been so surprised to see her charging through that they’d made way for her. It wasn’t good for adults to act in such a manner.

“Doctor Kim said he was shocked when he saw you making a phone call earlier. He said he’s read most of your books and was surprised to see a person of your caliber acting in such an ordinary way. He said he’d like to have a chance to talk to you…” The nurse looked as though she was wondering whether Yŏng-hǔi would ever make time to speak to the doctor.

“I wouldn’t know what to say to him.”

“Don’t worry about it now. But next time the opportunity presents itself…” the nurse said and walked out.

“Acting in such an ordinary way? That’s only natural.” Yŏng-hǔi had never thought that being a writer made her any different from other people. When she was anxiously trying to finish a manuscript to meet a deadline, the children would scribble all over her writing paper, climb up on her shoulders, and sing and dance around her until she couldn’t stand it anymore and would eventually scream “I’m a person too. I’m trying to write. Now get out of here!”

To which the children would retort, “What are you doing writing?”

Yŏng-hǔi had no intention of answering their question. Whenever she received her manuscript fees, she would ask the children what they wanted her to buy them. But before they had a chance to say candy she would say, “I’ll buy you some cookies.” And then they would reply, “We don’t eat cookies.”

“Shall I buy you a toy?”

“Daddy buys us better ones.”

“Shall I read you a storybook?”

The one thing the children wanted was for Yŏng-hǔi not to spend time writing. However, the very thought of having to give up her creative work until they were grown up caused her inner being to scream out in rebellion. On the other hand, she couldn’t neglect the children’s health, their emotional development, and the other things that were important to their wellbeing. She had yet to find anything more meaningful in life than giving love to the people she cared for. Of course there

were times when she wanted to scream and cry because the tedious trivialities of everyday life got in the way of her writing. Like the lone man screaming silently in Munch’s painting “The Scream,” Yŏng-hǔi could not scream aloud. But from deep inside she screamed screams that were even more stifling and suffocating.

A nurse came in and took Kyŏng-ok’s temperature. It was 38.9 degrees. It had gone up since last time. This made Yŏng-hǔi very nervous. Another nurse came and gave Kyŏng-ok an injection to bring her temperature down. The Ringer’s solution was dripping, drop by drop. It would take another two hours or so to finish the bottle, and then there would be other bottles to follow. It made Yŏng-hǔi’s heart ache to see Kyŏng-ok’s little arm tied to a splint.

“Kyŏng-ok!” she called softly. Kyŏng-ok didn’t answer but her eyelids fluttered faintly. It seemed she wasn’t asleep, but so exhausted that she couldn’t answer or even open her eyes. Yŏnghǔi didn’t care how much pain adults had to endure, she just wished children didn’t have to suffer.

“If only I had gone home and seen what the children were eating, this might not have happened…”

She again regretted having gone out to lunch the day before.

The nurses came every 30 minutes with a thermometer to check Kyŏng-ok’s temperature.

They kept a record of her temperature on a paper graph. Sun-bok propped her thick legs up on the chair and fell fast asleep. Un-gyu arrived sometime after nine o’clock.

“Has her temperature come down?”

“Yes, a little.”

Un-gyu sat down, careful not to make any noise.

“Have you been home?” Yŏng-hǔi asked and Un-gyu said he had. He knew Yŏng-hǔi was anxious about the other children. He told her Ki-jun had kept shouting that he wanted to see his older sister, and two-year-old Chŏng-ok had been so hot that she’d only had panties and a singlet on. She’d gone to Yŏng-hǔi’s room to find Mommy. She looked under the wardrobe and behind the dressing table and when she couldn’t find her, she exclaimed, “Mommy’s gone! Mommy’s gone!” and kept rubbing her chest around her heart with the palm of her hand.

“Do you think there could be something wrong with her heart?” asked Un-gyu, and Yŏnghǔi’s eyes began to fill with tears.

“Look at you. You’re crying again,” said Un-gyu, laughing and teasing her. Yŏng-hǔi was often moved to tears and almost always fell for Un-gyu’s tricks. Un-gyu was trying hard to cheer her up.

“Who’s crying,” said Yŏng-hǔi, trying to be flippant, but the tears filling her eyes began to flow.

“Look! Look! A grown-up’s crying!”

“Your teasing just makes me cry more.”

Yŏng-hǔi insisted that her tears were Un-gyu’s fault. The thought that Chŏng-ok’s little heart might be filled with sorrow already, at the tender age of two, brought even more tears to Yŏng-hǔi’s eyes, but she bit her lip and quelled her emotions. You don’t become sad because you hate somebody. It’s only when there’s love in your heart that you feel sadness. When you can’t love someone with all your heart, then you’re sad. Love is both frustrating and sad because there’s no limit to love but there is a limit to our ability to express love. To hide her tears from Un-gyu, Yŏnghǔi turned away from him and began bathing Kyŏng-ok’s forehead, arms and legs with alcohol.

Kyŏng-ok’s temperature dropped and remained at 38.5 degrees.

It was after 11 p.m. by the time Un-gyu got up to leave. Yŏng-hǔi couldn’t go far because Sun-bok was asleep, but she went with Un-gyu as far as the door of the ward.

“Goodbye,” she said, and watched his departing figure get smaller and smaller until he was out of sight. When she remembered he was going to be sleeping alone that night, she was overcome with a sudden wave of tenderness towards him. But she also wondered whether the idea of a night without her might make him feel relieved, almost liberated, rather than lonely and worried.

Whether Kyŏng-ok was exhausted or just asleep, her eyes stayed closed and she didn’t move at all until after 2 a.m., when she turned onto her side. Yŏng-hǔi was so startled that she jumped up out of her seat. There was no problem with the IV needle or with the Ringer’s solution and tubing. Kyŏng-ok’s movement didn’t disturb anything. Her temperature went up to 39 degrees, but after 3 a.m. it began gradually dropping until it settled at 38.7 degrees. Yŏng-hǔi was relieved because she’d heard it was not good for someone’s temperature to drop too quickly, and Kyŏngok’s temperature was dropping in stages.

She had made it through the night without sleeping a wink. Outside the window the faraway neon sign that had been flashing on and off all night suddenly went out, and the south-facing window took on an ashen hue.

“Ah! This dreadful day is finally over!” Without addressing anybody in particular, Yŏng-hǔi bowed her head and gave heartfelt thanks for Kyŏng-ok’s recovery.

She made up her mind that she wouldn’t go out anymore—although she imagined that if she simply stayed at home looking after her husband and children all the time she would become like an ascetic in the mountains, sitting motionless under a tree and contemplating the right way to achieve spiritual understanding. Yŏng-hǔi didn’t know if ascetics ever attained enlightenment, but she thought such a life seemed suffocating. “How devoted should a person be out of love for another? How much time do I have to give to my husband and children?” she wondered.

At six o’clock, a nurse came in to give Kyŏng-ok some medicine and take her temperature.

It was 37.5 degrees. All through the night the nurses had recorded the temperature on Kyŏng-ok’s chart. “She’s gotten a lot better. Her signs are good,” the nurse said.

“Thank you. It’s all because of your hard work.” said Yŏng-hǔi.

Kyŏng-ok’s eyes opened wide and she said: “Mommy, feed me.” A good appetite is always a sign that someone is getting better.

“Oh, sweetheart! Do you want something to eat? You’ll have to wait a little while until the doctor comes and says it’s okay for you to eat something.”

Yŏng-hǔi wanted to wrap her arms around Kyŏng-ok and hug her, but she held back and kissed her on the cheek instead. If she hugged her it might upset the IV fluid. The head doctor stopped in while making his rounds and said it was fine for Kyŏng-ok to drink some water and have a little boiled rice to eat.

Kyŏng-ok continued to improve. Yŏng-hǔi wanted to keep her in the hospital for one more night, but because she was also concerned about Ki-jun and Chŏng-ok, she decided they should go home.

Before leaving the hospital, she went to the nurses’ station to thank them. She also thanked the head doctor. Taking with her enough medicine for two days, Yŏng-hǔi led Kyŏng-ok and Sun-

bok out to the front of the hospital and hailed a taxi. Although the sun had set, the sky was still bright and inside the car it was as hot as a sauna.

As she looked back at the main entrance, she said a silent thank you to the hospital. Once she’d got them all settled inside the car, she was overcome by a feeling of uneasiness, as if she’d forgotten something. She looked around to see what she might have forgotten. She had the towel and the basin she had brought from home, and the medicine was in her handbag. She had also said goodbye to everyone.

There was nothing she had forgotten. But she still felt uneasy. The taxi began to move. It passed the hospital entrance, made a loop around the hospital grounds and went out through the main gate. Suddenly Yŏng-hǔi remembered what she had forgotten. It was her promise to God. It was her promise to believe in and praise God unconditionally if Kyŏng-ok lived. She had not thought about the Almighty since Kyŏng-ok had come out of the critical stage. The car pulled out onto the road and picked up speed.

“Tell me something before you leave. What happened?” Yŏng-hǔi thought she heard someone say from behind her.

God... thank you. But I’m more thankful to people... No, it’s better to give even greater thanks to God. It’s fine if it’s not God. She just wanted to thank something. However, to believe only in God... It’ll have to wait. It seems I still have a lingering attachment to people.

A cool, refreshing breeze blew in through the window. Kyŏng-ok was resting quietly beside her mother. Yŏng-hǔi moved the child to her lap and kissed her on the cheek.

“Thank you. My beautiful child. You got better!”

The car stopped for a traffic light and then picked up speed again. On both sides of the shopping street, neon signs flashed on an off. Yŏng-hǔi was thankful to both the medical establishment and its people. She felt such great affinity with and gratitude to the whole world that she was moved to tears.

(1968, Hyŏndae munhak) Translated by Paul Mooney and Park Soon-duk Revised by Suzanne Crowder Han

Tired of Love

“For heaven’s sake! A Western devil must have cursed the Yi family. Really cursed it.... Damn it!

Everything is ruined! Just ruined!” Auntie grumbled as she lowered her stout body onto the sofa.

Although she was over eighty her complexion was clear, her skin smooth, and her eyes innocent like a child’s.

So who’s having an affair with an American now? Yŏ-ok wondered. She put on her green jade necklace over a black dress. The love may have gone but I’ve still got this, she told herself, as she did every time she wore the necklace. It had been an engagement gift from her second husband.

“A Wes-Western devil has cursed it. Good grief! What a disgrace!” Auntie pounded her chest and scowled. She looked as if she would burst into tears any moment. And when Yŏ-ok remained silent she became even more distraught.

Although she was aware of her aunt’s feelings, Yŏ-ok feigned ignorance as she put on her coat. Chŏng-ok had said she would send the car over at half past. Although they were sisters, Chŏng-ok and Yŏ-ok did not visit each other very often. But Chŏng-ok had telephoned an hour before. “Sis, could you come over?” she’d asked in a melancholy voice. “There’s something I want to talk about.” She’d said she was lying down because her blood pressure was up, otherwise she would have come to Yŏ-ok. Yŏ-ok thought there must be some connection between Chŏng-ok’s phone call and Auntie showing up unexpectedly with her laments about the family being ruined.

“Your mother died a good death—she doesn’t have to face all this. If you’re going to live a long life, you have to expect disgrace… Oh, damn!” She sighed deeply.

Yŏ-ok thought her aunt bothersome and childish. She put some lemon in the woman’s tea.

“Calm down. Drink your tea.”

Auntie took a few sips and frowned. “Haven’t you heard? There’s all sorts of talk going around. Your bloodline is being ruined… You may have a different surname but it’s your bloodline just the same, since she’s your niece. That’s for sure!”

“What do you mean my bloodline? Have you or any of the rest of the family ever treated

me like a human being?”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” asked Auntie, a little taken aback at Yŏ-ok’s words.

“Why, surely you must know what I’m talking about.” Recalling how coldly even her own mother had treated her after her second marriage, Yŏ-ok suddenly felt as if something was boiling in her chest. I’m too old to let such things bother me, she told herself as she cut some bananas into bite-sized pieces and pushed a plate of them over to her aunt.

“You’re too naive.” They were getting closer to what Auntie had wanted to say from the beginning. But she was irritated by Yŏ-ok’s lack of curiosity. She ate three pieces of banana in quick succession and gulped down the last of her tea. “Well, don’t you know Myŏng-yŏn’s in love with some German bastard? Or so they say.” Having finally revealed what was on her mind, she waited for Yŏ-ok’s reaction.

“Really?” Yŏ-ok was too surprised to say anything else, though inwardly she exclaimed, A German? She remembered going to a graduation party for Myŏng-yŏn—Chŏng-ok’s oldest daughter—early the previous spring. It seemed like only yesterday she had heard the news of Myŏng-yŏn’s birth and gone to see her with a gift of baby clothes, and now she’d graduated from college and fallen in love.... How time flies! She nodded without realizing it.

“How is it that you don’t know? The whole town is talking about it.”

“Come on, Auntie. The whole town? It’s not as if it’s world news.”

Auntie didn’t even pretend to be listening. “Kǔn-u married a Western bitch, and now Myŏng-yŏn’s marrying a Western bastard. And I thought I’d seen everything…”

Auntie wouldn’t listen to anyone once she got into her stride. When Yŏ-ok had fallen in love the first time, Auntie had been so indignant she’d actually slapped her. She’d called her a disgrace to the Yi clan and said she deserved to be disowned because her willful behavior had destroyed the marriage prospects of her brothers and sisters and damaged the lives of many people.

That had been thirty years ago. Despite Yŏ-ok’s affair, the siblings for whom Auntie had been so concerned had married well and were still happily married. But Yŏ-ok, slapped and upbraided by her relatives, was divorced within two years. Although Auntie had been against the

marriage from the start, when Yŏ-ok told her she was getting divorced she ranted and raved and was adamant that it would never do. Divorce was an unprecedented disaster, she shouted; once a woman was married she had to die in her husband’s family and become its ghost.

Yŏ-ok had married again after another very passionate but equally sordid love affair. The man was married at the time and ended up getting a divorce in order to marry her. But she divorced him within a year. When she’d heard the news Auntie had barged into Yŏ-ok’s house and wailed at the top of her voice that it was bad enough for a woman to be divorced but to marry and get divorced twice was just too shameful, and how was she going to face the world? Yŏ-ok had been the one who’d wanted a divorce, although no amount of explanation could convince Auntie that this was the case. She had even scolded Yŏ-ok’s parents. “Why would anyone send a girl to college?” she’d exclaimed. “Didn’t I warn you when you were putting her on the ferry to Japan?” But what Auntie didn’t know was that Yŏ-ok had threatened to kill herself if they did not send her abroad to study. Yŏ-ok had fallen in love in her second year of college and quit school to get married.

Yŏ-ok looked at her watch. Thirty minutes had passed. She had an appointment with Professor Chŏng Chi-jun at six o’clock, so she’d planned to spend from three-thirty to five-thirty with Chŏng-ok. If the car came late, she would have that much less time to spend with her.

“Just last year Kǔn-u married that American bitch and—” “How about dropping that word bitch,” Yŏ-ok interrupted. “Helen is Kǔn-u’s lawful wife.”

“Ah, yes, you’re absolutely right. She is my nephew’s wife. And doesn’t that make her the eldest daughter-in-law and possible heir of a family that goes back twelve generations?”

“If you know all this, then what’s the problem?” Yŏ-ok was beginning to lose her temper.

“It’s worse because I know. I’m going to say everything I have to say so I can get it off my chest before I die. They bragged so much about Kǔn-u going to America to get a doctorate and how much money he was making. But what good is all that money when it just goes to feed that bitch? Even if he made a ton of gold, what good would it be? Who would send their child to America just to support some American bitch? Don’t say I’m a meddlesome old woman. But say something!”

The tendons in Auntie’s neck bulged as if she were spoiling for a fight. Yŏ-ok was shocked

to see her aunt in this new light. She herself had never looked at international marriage from an economic point of view.

“Love must be a good thing. Otherwise how could a poor Korean support a rich foreigner?”

“Is that all you can say? You can’t call someone family if you don’t speak the same language. Is she a daughter-in-law or a stranger?”

Kǔn-u had come home last summer for the first time in seven years and brought Helen with him. Auntie took to patting her on the back, and whenever they were in the same room she would pull her by the hand and make her sit beside her. No matter whether Helen understood or not, Auntie was constantly telling her “You must be tired,” or “It must be hard for you,” and she treated her kindly and affectionately. Everyone thought that actually meeting Helen had changed Auntie’s way of thinking. But on the way back from seeing Kǔn-u and Helen off at the airport, she grumbled over and over, “What a waste of a fine boy!” and “That’s some way for the eldest grandson of twelve generations to behave!” Perhaps because no one said a word, she became angry and shouted at Yŏ-ok and Myŏng-yŏn, “Why don’t you say something? Do you think I’m senile and you don’t have to treat me like a human being anymore?” Shocked by her sudden change in attitude, Yŏ-ok had let out a sigh of relief that Auntie had not acted that way in front of Helen. It seemed that Auntie, who always treated guests better than was necessary, had looked upon Helen as a guest.

The driver telephoned. He said he would be about thirty minutes late because of an urgent errand. Yŏ-ok wished she could practice the piano while she waited but, deciding it would be rude to ignore Auntie, she took off her coat, draped it over the armrest, settled herself in the chair and had some tea. Although she lived alone, she had a fairly comfortable life because the jewelry store she had opened with the little money she had was thriving. Wanting to lose herself in something, she had taken up the piano, but even after three years she played poorly.

Showing no concern for Yŏ-ok’s feelings, Auntie said, “What’s happening to the Yi family certainly isn’t normal!”

“Myŏng-yŏn isn’t a Yi. She’s a Kim.” “But her mother is a Yi.”

“Now that’s enough. If they like each other, that’s all that matters.”

“Ha, if they like each other, that’s all that matters. Well, at least he’s not a Japanese bastard.”

Once Auntie said the word Japanese things invariably took a nasty turn, so Yŏ-ok quickly said, “Chŏng-ok is sending the car—let’s go together. After all, don’t you think we should find out exactly what’s going on with Myŏng-yŏn?” But Auntie wasn’t listening.

“Do you know why America dropped the atom bomb? It was to make the Japs suffer for slaughtering our people. That’s how revenge works. They should have wiped them all out, but America’s always too soft.” Auntie looked Yŏ-ok straight in the eye and spoke with great deliberation, as if giving advice.

Auntie hated the Communists, Japan and the Syngman Rhee faction, in that order. Her oldest grandson had wanted to marry a girl who was 90 percent perfect in terms of education, looks and personality, but Auntie had flatly rejected her without the slightest hesitation for no other reason than that her father had been a high-ranking official in Syngman Rhee’s government around the time of the Student Revolution of April 19th , 1960. She said that people might forgive Rhee but heaven never would, because even though it was the law of nature and of heaven and earth for flowers to last only ten days, he had ignored the will of heaven by running for election a fourth time. And then, even though the people’s will was heaven’s will, he’d had the students gunned down simply for opposing him. Of this she was wholly convinced, and nothing would ever persuade her otherwise.

Despite what Auntie had said, Yŏ-ok didn’t dare venture an explanation about the atomic bomb; once before when they’d been talking about Japan and the bomb, and Yŏ-ok had mentioned how destructive it had been, Auntie had cried, “So you’re pro-Japanese?” and, shaking her fist at Yŏ-ok, had jumped up and screamed at everyone over and over again, “Are you pro-Japanese?

Are you? Are you pro-Japanese?” This time though, perhaps because she was caught up in the business of Myŏng-yŏn’s love affair, she said nothing more about the Japanese. Instead she asked, “What’s that? Find out if it’s true or not about Myŏng-yŏn? Do you think Kye-dong would spread rumors?”

“Sister Kye-dong?” Kye-dong was Yŏ-ok’s sister-in-law and Kǔn-u’s mother, and was

usually called by the name of the wealthy area where she lived. Yŏ-ok laughed; she could guess what had probably happened.

When they’d first heard Kǔn-u was going to marry Helen, not only Auntie but the entire family had claimed that Kǔn-u had been addicted to Western things since childhood because his mother, a great fan of anything Western, always had to have Western books, Western music, even Western cookies and candies. The whole family scorned Kǔn-u and his mother. Because she felt as though she had committed some kind of sin against them, Kye-dong could not face her in-laws and began to visit them less and less frequently. When Kǔn-u and Helen had come home—when he’d called to make arrangements to formally introduce his wife—instead of expressing happiness at hearing from him or thanking him for calling, the first thing anyone had said was, “But I can’t speak English.” Although true, the words were hurtful. Even Yŏ-ok, who had studied English literature for two years before quitting school and who still read English books, was nervous and frustrated because she could not speak English fast enough when she tried to talk to Helen. Helen tried very hard to use her rudimentary Korean, but it only made everyone even more aware that she was a foreigner.

Kye-dong probably hadn’t come right out and said Myŏng-yŏn was having a love affair with a German, thought Yŏ-ok. Kye-dong’s son had brought a Western daughter-in-law into the family, and now Chŏng-ok’s daughter was bringing a Western son-in-law into it: Kye-dong had probably said something snide like, “Myŏng-yŏn must be very keen on Germany,” enjoying a little revenge for the hostility she had endured for so long.

Chŏng-ok’s car finally arrived. Yŏ-ok wondered what to do with Auntie and eventually said, “Let’s go together.” It seemed like the best thing to do, otherwise she would have had to get her a taxi.

Auntie said, “Why should I go when I wasn’t invited?”

“Then stay here. You can have dinner before you leave,” replied Yŏ-ok, standing on the shoe-ledge.

“I’ll go too. There’s no reason I shouldn’t,” Auntie said, hurriedly putting on her 4 turumagi. * She always did everything on a whim, but despite her capriciousness she somehow

got along well with all the family, including Yŏ-ok.

The wind was cold but the sunlight made it feel like spring. Yŏ-ok turned up the heater. The car went over the Changch’ung-dong Pass, and the alley leading to Chŏng-ok’s house came into view. “It’s so embarrassing!” Auntie exclaimed all of a sudden. “It’s so embarrassing! How can we hold up our heads?”

Not knowing whether Chŏng-ok was keeping the relationship a secret or not, Yŏ-ok poked Auntie’s hand to make her stop talking in case the driver overheard. Because she was always talking about things being embarrassing, she often brought unnecessary trouble on herself. The daughter of a wealthy aristocratic family, as a young woman Auntie had been clever and beautiful.

She’d had a doting husband and enjoyed a trouble-free life; she’d known no financial problems and been lucky in love. Yŏ-ok felt that although she herself was only in her early fifties, she’d been through just as much as her aunt who was now over eighty. Although Yŏ-ok had no crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes, her heart bore deep grooves. Quickly understanding the poke on her hand, Auntie bit her lip and stared straight ahead.

The car stopped. Yŏ-ok gave the driver a two hundred won tip and got out. She extended a hand to Auntie, but the older woman growled, “I don’t even want to set eyes on that girl! I’m going home!” and jerked her body away.

Thinking this would actually be a very good idea, Yŏ-ok quickly told the driver, “I’m sorry.

Please take her to Ch’ŏngun-dong.” With a nod the driver sped away, probably thinking it was best to get the elderly woman home before she could change her mind.

Chŏng-ok welcomed Yŏ-ok and showed her to the parlor. Yŏ-ok didn’t know when it had been redecorated, but the curtains, carpet, everything in the room was different shades of green, making it feel like spring. Everything had been cool shades of blue when she’d visited the previous summer.

Despite what she’d said about her blood pressure, Chŏng-ok didn’t look as if she needed to lie down. She looked a little thinner but Yŏ-ok thought that was a good thing; she’d heard it was better for a person with high blood pressure to be thin than fat. Her color was not good but her skin looked well taken care of and, clad in a long greenish dress, she looked like a woman in her prime.

But the high blood pressure, the glasses she wore for her deteriorating vision, and one or two white hairs on her head were all undeniable signs of the menopause.

“Sis, I have a favor to ask,” Chŏng-ok said apologetically as she sat down on the sofa.

Yŏ-ok could guess what that favor was. Several years ago, when Kǔn-u had written that he was going to marry Helen even if it meant cutting all ties with his parents, Kye-dong had visited Yŏ-ok—something she rarely did—and implored her to talk to Kǔn-u, thinking he might listen to her. As the family had always kept their distance from her before, Yŏ-ok knew they did not really value her advice and that their true motive was to use her and her failed marriages as an example.

Even though she knew she was a failure when it came to love, she was hurt by the way they were trying to use her. Nevertheless, she eventually did as requested and sent a letter to Kǔn-u saying that love was nothing when it was over, that not loving was better than having loved and failed. She had written what she’d been told to write, yes, but it was also something she knew from experience to be true. She often regretted that she knew only the kind of love that meant nothing when it was over.

“Well, Sis, Myŏng-yŏn—” Chŏng-ok paused and lowered her head. Her cheeks became flushed.

“What about Myŏng-yŏn?” Yŏ-ok said, as if she didn’t know what was coming next.

“Well, it’s like this. There’s this German engineer—” “Did the man jilt her?” Yŏ-ok interrupted, playing ignorant.

“No. It would be better if he had.”

Yŏ-ok couldn’t think how to reply; in her view it was ridiculous to say that being jilted was preferable to being loved by a foreigner.

“Sis, I’m sorry, but please tell her to forget him. Her father has been scolding her like crazy but I can see it isn’t doing any good… I’d be truly grateful if you’d say something to her.”

“Well… why do you think she would listen to me when she won’t listen to her own parents?”

“It just seems like she would…”

Knowing what Chŏng-ok meant, Yŏ-ok laughed to herself. “I said all I possibly could to Kǔn-u but it didn’t do any good. Instead of scolding her so much, why don’t you try something

different and change your way of thinking?”

Chŏng-ok’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Sis, you mean you’re...” She stopped midsentence.

“Yes, I’m still interested in love. I’d have a fling now if only I could find someone. I really mean it,” Yŏ-ok said, and lit a cigarette. The face of Professor Chŏng Chi-jun floated through her mind and vanished. It was a wide, clean, composed, determined face.

“You’re not going to add fuel to the fire are you, Sis?” Chŏng-ok handed Yŏ-ok a glass of orange juice and said, “What do you find so enjoyable about smoking? It’s supposed to be very bad for your health.”

“I don’t know. I just like it.”

“You’ve always been like that.”

Does she think that’s why I keep falling in love? Yŏ-ok wondered, and smiled because she did not have to ask to know what Chŏng-ok meant.

“I’m serious. Please speak to Myŏng-yŏn. Just think of it as saving my life.”

“All right. Whatever you say. But what in the world am I supposed to tell her?”

“You’re very persuasive, Sis,” said Chŏng-ok. (She didn’t dare tell her sister to say: “Look at my life. What is love? If you split up, it’s nothing, it’s over, he’ll never look at you again.”)

“Whenever I scold Myŏng-yŏn, she just complains that her friends date lots of men and get money and gifts and do all kinds of filthy things, while all she does is love Stern and Stern only and that she didn’t take another woman’s husband or—” Chŏng-ok stopped, remembering that Yŏ-ok’s second husband had been a married man.

“That’s right. It’s not like she took another woman’s husband, or did it for money. Her way of thinking is healthier than yours,” Yŏ-ok cut in, cleverly saving her sister any further embarrassment.

“What’s the point in living if your children turn out like this once you’ve raised them? You don’t have kids, so you don’t know how I feel.”

“But that isn’t just true of children. It’s the same with anything that falls short of your expectations.”

“Sis, I’m not in the right frame of mind to think about such generalities. My only concern is what to do with Myŏng-yŏn… He’s a German but I don’t know what kind. Just some loser who quit school to come be an engineer at a construction company here. He couldn’t even finish university, so you can imagine how bad things must be. I’m so ashamed and embarrassed. I’m only telling you this because you’re my sister. I don’t want anyone else to know.” Chŏng-ok sighed.

“No one cares about a person’s ancestry these days. The main thing is to graduate from college, right? So he must be very talented, otherwise how could he have got a job working overseas when he didn’t finish university…”

Chŏng-ok shook her head. “You just don’t understand, Sis.” “How can I when I haven’t even met him? Have you met him?”

“Yes. Twice.” “...”

“He’s not bad looking. But what good is that?” Chŏng-ok squeezed her temples with her fingertips.

“How much in love are they?”

“Well, when I told him to give her up because she had to go to the United States to study, he said he would follow her not only to the United States but to the ends of the earth to marry her.

That kind of talk made Myŏng-yŏn fall even more head over heels in love with him. I might be punished for saying it, but I wish he would drop dead. I really do.”

“Oh my!” Yŏ-ok sighed, and lit a cigarette.

“She’d got her visa and everything, and now because of that bastard her future has been turned completely upside down. I’m so mad. I could just die!” Chŏng-ok’s voice shook and her face flushed.

Yŏ-ok said, “You’d feel the same if Stern wasn’t German. You’d feel the same about any young man if he didn’t have money, a good education or a good family background. Even a Korean.

Right?”

Chŏng-ok tore her hands away from her forehead and stared at Yŏ-ok. “Well, you’re probably right,” she said in a shaky voice, throwing up her arms as if in surrender. “But he is a

foreigner. It’s just one bad thing on top of another. No matter what I do, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give my permission. So please, Sis, give her some advice.”

“I’ll try.”

Chŏng-ok pushed the call-button and said to tell Myŏng-yŏn to come in. A young maid came into the room. “Sissy is taking a bath,” she said and went out.

“If Myŏng-yŏn goes to the United States, won’t Stern go there?” asked Yŏ-ok.

“He can’t. He has to stay here two more years. It’s in his contract.”

“What if he goes when he finishes his contract?”

Chŏng-ok let out a long sigh. “By then she should be a better judge of character and more discerning, and who knows, maybe she’ll have found someone else. But in any case, we have to put out the fire that’s raging now.”

Chŏng-ok’s plan seemed to be to give her daughter’s passion time to cool. That could be one solution. The trouble was that Myŏng-yŏn was trying to avoid going to the States altogether.

Even though she had always wanted to study there, she was refusing to go so that she could see Stern every day.

“We tried to send her quickly, but she keeps putting it off so she can spend time with that bastard and—” There was a knock at the door and Myŏng-yŏn came in. “So it’s you, Auntie!” she said cheerily and sat down beside Chŏng-ok. Her hair was still wet and looked even blacker and shinier than usual. “What’s going on, Mother?” She cocked her head to one side and stared at Chŏng-ok.

Yŏ-ok looked at Myŏng-yŏn’s intelligent eyes, her shapely, pretty nose and her pouting lips and thought it was only natural that even a German would find her attractive. She said, “I came to tell you something.”

Myŏng-yŏn looked suspiciously at Yŏ-ok, and understanding flickered in her eyes.

“I hear you’re in love...” Yŏ-ok began, then bit down on her cigarette.

“Are you against it too, Auntie?” Myŏng-yŏn asked outright.

“Why should I be against it? I just want you to look at me and realize that love is nothing special.” Once she’d started talking, Yŏ-ok felt she had to do all she could to protect Myŏng-yŏn

from any future misfortune. “Give it a lot of thought, Myŏng-yŏn. I got married because I loved a man so much I could die. Twice, even.”

Myŏng-yŏn covered her face with her hands and crumpled over the arm of her chair, sobbing.

“Why are you crying?” Chŏng-ok shrieked as if something had exploded inside her.

Myŏng-yŏn ran out of the room.

Chŏng-ok got up, slammed the door and flopped down on the sofa.

“Don’t just scream at her!” Yŏ-ok exclaimed. “Don’t you think she’s trying to decide what’s best? She’s probably thinking she should give him up, but that only makes her want him even more, and telling her that love is nothing special makes her even sadder. You have no idea.”

Chŏng-ok flew into a rage. “Do you think someone who hasn’t had a love affair doesn’t know anything? Just because someone hasn’t had an affair doesn’t mean they don’t know how to love. Some people are just more discreet, and don’t go around causing scandals. It’s all a question of whether one is emotional or rational. By being rational, one can reach a higher plateau in life.” Her disdain for Yŏ-ok, who ended up in a mess every time she had an affair, had returned.

Yŏ-ok had also had a change of heart. She thought she had something worth saying.

“What do you mean by a higher plateau? When I was young, having an affair was considered sinful. But now you think it’s all right as long as the person is rich or famous. If Stern was the German president’s son you wouldn’t scold her, would you?”

“I know what you mean. But, Sis, having a foreign spouse is not all sunshine and roses.

Even people of the same nationality have their differences after living together for a while. And who’s to say what might happen to the relationship between our countries. A friend today could be an enemy tomorrow. Love’s one thing, but there’s also the matter of national pride and racism. It’s bad enough being a small, weak people but we’re also an underdeveloped country. What if they ostracize her? Call her a hopeless barbarian? It’s not just a simple problem that begins and ends with a man and a woman.”

There was a bone of truth in Chŏng-ok’s words.

“Well, if she doesn’t like it, she can quit.” Yŏ-ok spoke recklessly, knowing she would

never be able to dissuade either Chŏng-ok or Myŏng-yŏn.

“Oh, Sis, in this short life, if you quit something every time you feel like it, you’ll never accomplish anything. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t change their mind after asserting that love was the most important thing in the world. Everyone falls in love sometime. But life is so much more beautiful when you cherish those feelings in your heart for a long time, instead of having a tumultuous affair which ends with a denial of love and then falling passionately in love with someone else.”

“Why does it feel like you’re talking about me?” Yŏ-ok asked, reminded of her own stupidity.

“Ah, Sis, I’m not talking about you. It’s just that you’re provoking me when Myŏng-yŏn already has me at the end of my tether.” Chŏng-ok laughed and looked reproachfully at Yŏ-ok.

“I’m sorry I’ve done nothing but fuss. It’s been such a long time since you’ve been here but, well, I haven’t been myself recently.” Chŏng-ok’s face suddenly took on an apologetic look and she went quiet. Yŏ-ok understood how her sister felt and was overwhelmed by a desire to help her as best she could. Chŏng-ok had a knack for manipulating Yŏ-ok. She said, “Stay for dinner. I’ve made your favorite—fried shrimp.”

Yŏ-ok almost replied that she had a dinner appointment with Professor Chŏng, but instead she said, “No, I don’t have time. I have to go check on the store, and I need to do a bit of practice because I’ve got my piano lesson tomorrow.”

“Oh, I see,” said Chŏng-ok, and did not try to detain her. They went out of the parlor.

“How well do you play the piano?” asked Chŏng-ok.

“Dreadfully.”

“Sis, there’s something good in your character,” Chŏng-ok said, turning Yŏ-ok’s shoes for her so that she could step into them easily.

Something good? Yŏ-ok repeated to herself, wondering if this meant her belated decision to learn the piano, her frankness in admitting her lack of musical ability, or her way of never getting angry at hurtful words. “Thanks,” she said, and got into Chŏng-ok’s waiting car.

When Yŏ-ok was in love she suffered, and when she was not she felt empty. All her life she had felt like that. But now, after talking with Chŏng-ok, she felt there was something more valuable

in life than having love affairs.

On returning home, after Professor Chŏng had made a rather indirect confession of love, Yŏ-ok slumped down on the sofa and cried for a long time before changing her clothes. She cried with uncontrollable happiness and yearning. Professor Chŏng, four years her junior, had lost his wife three years before. He had two sons in college. They could have married but, though passionately in love, Yŏ-ok had never given it any thought. These days they telephoned each other and met every day. They would meet in a coffee shop and chat, or have dinner, or see a movie and then sit and talk, parting only when it was almost curfew.

About ten days later, Yŏ-ok had a telephone call from Chŏng-ok.

“Sis—” Chŏng-ok began, but was so choked up that she couldn’t continue.

Yŏ-ok’s heart lurched. She was afraid something bad had happened to Myŏng-yŏn.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Myŏng-yŏn says she’ll go to the United States,” Chŏng-ok said when she’d finally managed to stop crying.

“What?” Anger quickly followed the relief Yŏ-ok felt. “Then why are you crying?” she shouted.

“Because I feel sorry for having scolded her so much for seeing that no-good guy and—” “That’s stupid!”

“But she’d never been scolded in her life. She’d always been a good child—” “All right! All right! So when is she leaving?”

“The day after tomorrow. The three-thirty plane. Thanks, Sis. She said she made up her mind because of what you said to her. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us.”

“Why? What

did I say to influence her?” Yŏ-ok’s heart skipped a beat as if she had done something very bad.

“I’ll send over my spare car. Please bring Auntie Chongun-dong. Thanks again,” said Chŏng-ok and hung up.

Although there’d been nothing more to add, Yŏ-ok was hurt and disappointed that Chŏngok had hung up as soon as she’d said what she wanted to say. She reflected that perhaps she had wasted her youth on useless love affairs because it was in her nature to dwell on such useless things

as the way her sister hung up the telephone. She smiled wryly and slowly replaced the receiver.

She felt guilty that Myŏng-yŏn had given up her lover at her behest. She consoled herself with the thought that it was worth feeling guilty if Myŏng-yŏn was able to find happiness by forsaking love. But she could not shake off the guilty feeling completely.

She wanted to take Myŏng-yŏn shopping to choose a going-away gift, but there wasn’t time. So she gift-wrapped an amethyst pendant and ring from her own shop, in very pretty paper.

Then, feeling that these were not enough, she also wrapped up a topaz tiepin set. When the clerk questioned her about giving a tiepin to a girl, she said, “If she gets a boyfriend, she can give it to him.” Then she said a silent prayer that Myŏng-yŏn would get a very good boyfriend.

Chŏng-ok’s spare car arrived with Auntie and her granddaughter Kyŏng-hǔi. Yŏ-ok grimaced at the prospect of having to listen to Auntie’s long list of complaints, but she had no choice, not having a car of her own.

The sky was clear and the weather was hot. Summer had arrived. It was excellent weather for traveling.

Yŏ-ok stopped the car in front of a florist’s shop to have a corsage made. At first she’d wanted red carnations but then, thinking the deep color might make the face of the girl who had forsaken love look sadder, she decided pink ones would be better. She had a ribbon tied to the corsage so she could write a few words on it, but nothing came to mind. She decided to think about it on the way and got back into the car.

By the time they reached the Second Han River Bridge she still hadn’t thought of anything to write. Finally, she decided on “Be healthy and successful.” Although trite, it seemed appropriate because good health was the most important thing when studying abroad and one ought to be successful after going such a long way to study. The car jolted so much she couldn’t write, so she decided to do it at the airport.

Auntie, who had been dozing since Sejongro Street, woke up when they got across the bridge. She gazed out of the window at the sun-dappled Han River. “Oh my,” she sighed, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. “When will I ever see Myŏng-yŏn again?”

The words pierced Yŏ-ok’s heart, making her wonder how much longer Auntie would live.

Auntie sighed deeply. “I won’t be around when...”

“What are you talking about?” Yŏ-ok interrupted. “She’s not going away forever. She’ll be back in about five years.”

“Five years?” Auntie wiped away the tears streaming down her face.

Yŏ-ok felt hot tears welling up in her eyes. She gritted her teeth to keep them from spilling out for Auntie to see. It was not only because of Auntie. The thought of how Myŏng-yŏn must feel to be deserting the man she loved also made her sad. She knew that once she began to weep there would be no keeping back the tears.

When Yŏ-ok’s group arrived at the airport, Myŏng-yŏn was posing for a picture with her family. Chŏng-ok appeared to be trying to hide her tear-swollen eyes, and did not remove her dark glasses even for the picture-taking. She was still crying a little, and kept dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief.

After taking several pictures with her family, Myŏng-yŏn posed for pictures with her friends. At first Yŏ-ok thought Myŏng-yŏn’s bright smiles were fake but then, to her dismay, she realized they were genuine. Myŏng-yŏn looked happy as she walked briskly about, her legs shapely under her short skirt and her face brimming with freshness and joy. It certainly wasn’t how someone whose heart was aching at the thought of leaving her lover might be expected to look. And it was then that Yŏ-ok knew instinctively that Myŏng-yŏn had not forsaken Stern. They must have made a promise to meet somewhere outside the country. Having been passionately in love as well as loved passionately, Yŏ-ok was sure her intuition was correct. You can’t recognize it if you haven’t experienced it, she told herself.

Being a foreigner, Stern could travel at will so perhaps they had arranged to meet in Tokyo in a few days, or perhaps he was already waiting for her there. The thought made Yŏ-ok feel as though a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. But she also felt like advising Myŏng-yŏn that it wasn’t too late to change her mind.

With mixed feelings Yŏ-ok wrote on the corsage ribbon “Be happy! And don’t forget your motherland!” While writing “motherland,” she suddenly felt her chest swell with something like patriotism. This is absurd at a time like this… What’s come over me? She pinned the corsage on

Myŏng-yŏn as she was preparing to go through the departure gate. Without a word, she gave her a hug.

After bidding farewell to her family, Myŏng-yŏn passed through the departure gate, each step lighter than the last. Yŏ-ok felt empty watching her go, abandoning her parents and her studies for the sake of a man she trusted like the sun.

“Come home with me, Sis,” Chŏng-ok said through her tears. Yŏ-ok refused the offer and went straight home.

After taking a shower, she telephoned Professor Chŏng. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to see you for a while…What? No. That’s not it. I love you. It’s just that, well, for several reasons I’m going to the countryside… Tonight… No. No. You don’t have to see me off. There’s a number of people going. Good-bye.”

It was all a lie. She just wanted to do something more important and meaningful than loving Professor Chŏng. With a great feeling of peace, she lay back on the sofa and waited for sleep to come.

(1970, Wŏlgan chungang) Translated by Suzanne Crowder Han

Chocolate Friend Kim Ch’an was skinny and over 180 centimeters tall. As he could comfortably prop his elbows on Yŏng-hǔi’s windowsill, he often stood outside her window when they talked.

Yŏng-hǔi’s room was only about two meters from the gate and it had a large window set into a brick wall about one and a half meters from the ground. Being so close to the gate, she could easily hear Ch’an call “Yŏng-hǔi,” even when he used a soft voice. “You’re here!” she would call and, going out through the foyer, open the gate.

One evening in 1950, toward the end of March, Ch’an came by with a gift for Yŏng-hǔi.

After the gate was closed he walked straight over to the house and stood with his elbows resting on the windowsill. Yŏng-hǔi closed the foyer door, went into her room and sat down on the desk chair beside the window.

“Here.” Ch’an handed her a pretty square box. Yŏng-hǔi knew without opening it that it contained chocolates. Every time Ch’an came to her house, he brought chocolate in all kinds of flavors, shapes and colors.

Yŏng-hǔi opened the box to find twelve glittering, neatly arranged bottle-shaped chocolates wrapped in different colored paper. “Wow! They’re pretty! They’re too pretty to eat!” she exclaimed. Ch’an’s unusually large eyes twinkled in a smile, for even as Yŏng-hǔi was saying the chocolates were too pretty to eat, she was unwrapping a piece wrapped in red foil. She put the whole thing in her mouth and bit down. Something came squirting out.

“It’s bitter!” she said, making a face.

“Sure it’s bitter. They’re liqueur chocolates. Made in Belgium, apparently. They’re very high class.”

“Belgium? Where do you find these things? I prefer those other ones you brought, those thick German milk chocolates,” Yŏng-hǔi said, taking one from her desk drawer.

“You still have some?” Ch’an said with surprise.

“I ate them all. Mother bought me these.”

“Well, I thought you’d like these because they’re such high quality, but maybe you don’t like the liqueur taste.”

“Yes, the liqueur is too bitter,” agreed Yŏng-hǔi and, opening another and putting it in her mouth, said, “Ch’an, aren’t you going to have any?”

Ch’an shook his head.

“You don’t like chocolate, do you?”

He shook his head again.

“So you’re giving me your share because you don’t like them, huh?” giggled Yŏng-hǔi.

At that time, amid the chaos that followed the liberation, there was no such thing as Koreanmade chocolate. And just about the only biscuits worth eating were foreign–made. Yŏng-hǔi, who knew nothing about the development of national industries and had zero interest in such things, led a peaceful, sheltered life within the safe confines of home and school.

With his arms resting on the windowsill, Ch’an looked around Yŏng-hǔi’s room. “Your room is certainly nicer than mine,” he remarked as if to himself.

“Why do you say that all of a sudden? You’ve been here several times before.”

“Well, I didn’t get a good look at it before,” replied Ch’an, blushing a little. Though they’d been close friends for some six months, it was only about three months ago that he’d started visiting her house. The first time he’d come round, Ch’an had simply handed her some chocolate and rushed off as if fleeing from something. Every time he came he stayed a little longer, but he never stayed longer than twenty minutes.

Ch’an looked at the gramophone and asked, “What music do you like?”

“I like Beethoven—his piano sonata, Moonlight, and his violin concerto. And I like Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody number six.”

“Liszt’s number six? I’ve never heard it, only his Hungarian Rhapsody number two.”

“Do you want to listen to it now? It’s really good.”

“No, maybe next time,” said Ch’an. “Are all those books yours?”

“Yes, my father bought them for me.”

“And the doll?”

“That’s my friend. I’ve had her for fifteen years.”

“I can see how a doll like that could be a friend. I’ve never seen such a big one before.”

Three years later, after Yŏng-hǔi had fled to Busan, Ch’an returned to the evacuated capital city and walked the long road to her house to retrieve that doll for her. The gate to the house was wide open. He looked into Yŏng-hǔi’s room over the windowsill he had leaned on every time he’d been there, but the phonograph, the desk and shelves, and Yŏng-hǔi’s doll friend of fifteen years were all gone. Only the glass case that had contained the doll lay shattered on the floor. Ch’an closed his eyes, heartbroken by this scene of merciless plunder. On hearing the news, Yŏng-hǔi cried, “Who stole my friend? Who?” A pained look passed across her face.

“Yeah, who the hell would have stolen that?” Ch’an wondered. But his feelings on the matter were very different from Yŏng-hǔi’s. In this life and death situation, he thought, what kind of idiot would steal a stupid doll!

This had happened just before the truce was signed, when the fighting was very fierce at the front. They had not met in the thirty years since they’d last talked about the doll. It hadn’t been intentional; perhaps it was because they’d been caught up in the winds of war and the winds of truce, or because they’d been at that age when they were busy building a life for themselves?

But to return to the time when they were chocolate friends…

Turning his gaze from the doll to Yŏng-hǔi’s desk, Ch’an was surprised to see a book of poems on her desk. “What are you doing reading Baudelaire when you said you got a zero in math?”

“Well, I’ve given up on math. I just can’t understand the questions, even when they’re written in Korean. Besides, if I’m going to major in literature what’s the point of learning about differentials and integrals? I reckon the people who write the entrance exams have heads full of rocks. Pure and simple.”

Ch’an laughed out loud. “Don’t you find mathematics fun? I find it quite interesting.”

“Mathematics? You must be joking!”

“Interesting or not—if you fail math, you won’t be able to get into S University.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve got to get more points in the liberal arts section.”

“Yes, but some of the math questions are worth as much as ten or twenty points. For just

one question. Just think how many questions you’d have to answer correctly to get ten or twenty points in the other subjects. That’s a lot tougher.”

“Well if you ask me, the so-called geniuses of S University are distinctly average. They’re jacks of all trades… I’m more impressed by a genius who is very good at one subject.”

“Everybody appreciates a genius. But there aren’t many of them. That’s the problem. That’s why S University has that policy. The day you become president of the university, you can change it.”

“Ugh…” groaned Yŏng-hǔi. “Only a university president?”

“Sorry.” Ch’an grinned.

“Remember I told you I want to become like a tree that people visit when they are happy or sad—even after my death, Doctor Kimstein!” Because Ch’an admired Einstein so much, Yŏng-hǔi used to tease him by calling him “Kimstein,” pronouncing his family name Kim with a heavy Western accent.

In their tiny universe of one square meter they talked big, without any inhibitions: about Kimstein, college presidents, objects of adoration that people seek out in times of happiness or sorrow, and other such things.

“That sounds like Müller’s ‘Linden Tree,’” said Ch’an.

“You think I’m just imitating Müller?” Yŏng-hǔi rolled her eyes and looked askance at him.

“They say it’s okay for teenagers to imitate others.”

“You talk as if you’re not a teenager yourself. You’re my age, aren’t you? I’m not an imitator. But you go ahead, Kimstein, and keep copying others.”

Ch’an idolized Einstein, and in his quest to be like the great scientist, he took great pleasure in being able to draw a bow across violin strings. He had a large picture hanging in his room of a young Einstein with expressionless eyes and a pointed chin.

The first time Yŏng-hǔi saw Ch’an’s room was when he invited her and some other friends to his house for dinner. She’d thought there would be lots of science books on his bookshelves, but was surprised to see many philosophical works by Aristotle, Hegel and Kant as well as Eastern and Western literary works including Silence of My Beloved. For Yŏng-hǔi, science consisted of just

three books—an advanced math book, a physics book, and a chemistry book—and they were all textbooks. She remembered thinking Ch’an’s room seemed a lot smaller than hers. But now she wasn’t sure whether it had just looked small because of all the packed bookshelves.

On the top shelf of the bookcase, below the picture of Einstein, was a violin case. All the dinner guests urged Ch’an to play but he stubbornly refused, saying they wouldn’t be able to stand the unbearable noise. He said he would not subject ears accustomed to the music of Heifetz and Beethoven (whose recordings Yŏng-hǔi listened to at home) to his playing.

But his friends didn’t give up. And eventually, worn down by their entreaties, he picked up the violin and played the American folksong “Oh Susanna.” The rhythm and pitch were accurate, but the sound was so bad that when he came to the line “Oh Susanna, don’t you cry for me,” they could hardly keep from bursting out laughing, and when he came to the end of the first stanza they laughed out loud, applauding and calling “Encore! Encore!”

Hyŏn-t’ae, who was hoping to go medical school, said encouragingly, “You know, it’s not easy to make that kind of sound on a violin.” He himself could play Beethoven’s piano piece “Emperor” quite well.

One evening, when the date of the college entrance exam was drawing near, Ch’an came by with five basic math problems he had selected at random to help Yŏng-hǔi overcome her weakness in math. As usual he leaned on her windowsill, propping himself up on his elbows, and said, “If you can understand all of these, I think you’ll do okay in the math section of the exam for liberal arts.”

He insisted she learn each of the problems off by heart.

That year, the entrance exam for S University was held in April. The forsythia flowers were in full bloom. Yŏng-hǔi was waiting for a street car in Kwanghwamun when she spotted Ch’an coming down the road. He was on his way to take the entrance exam for the same university. At that moment, Yŏng-hǔi felt that he was a strong competitor. She quickly looked the other way and ran to get on the tram that was just arriving.

The exam that day was divided into three sections: first English, then Yŏng-hǔi’s nemesis, mathematics, and finally Korean, which she always maintained was a “pain in the butt”. At that time there were two different theories about Korean grammar and they each used different terms. This

created a lot of confusion, annoyance and unnecessary stress for students. What was more, modern Korean poetry was taught in a very one-sided way and was always interpreted from a nationalist, anti-Japanese perspective. Yŏng-hǔi felt stifled by the arrogance and narrow-mindedness of such a limited interpretation. That was why she called Korean a pain in the butt.

To Yŏng-hǔi’s surprise, two out of the five math questions on the paper were unexpectedly easy. As for the other three, she found them so incomprehensible that they might as well have been written in a foreign language. Not holding out much hope, she read through the questions over and over again—but to no avail. She couldn’t write a single word, and by the time the bell rang her head was aching.

Then she remembered that her homeroom teacher had said anyone who got even half the questions on the entrance exam right would be successful. She was so pleased with herself for having solved two math questions, when she had previously given up on math entirely, that she felt as though she was walking on air.

As she left the exam room, feeling very relieved, Ch’an came running up to her. “They were there! All of them!” He beamed. He seemed to be referring to the questions he had given her to practice.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t recognize any of them.”

“Good grief! They were the same questions, just with different numbers!” Ch’an exclaimed, stamping his foot. Yŏng-hǔi hadn’t realized the math problems followed exactly the same pattern as the ones he had given her to practice.

“Well, I solved two of them,” said Yŏng-hǔi. She confidently solved the math problems on a piece of paper and showed her calculations to Ch’an.

“Oh my God!” cried Ch’an. “You were supposed to multiply, not add!” So Yŏng-hǔi got a zero on the math section of the entrance exam.

But in the end Yŏng-hǔi and Ch’an both passed the exam and in the month of June, with all its greenery and freshness, they were admitted to S University. The freshmen started their semester very late that year because of construction work to the seminar rooms. Since the science and engineering department was located in Ch’ŏngryangni, Ch’an had to leave his house early in the

morning and return home late in the evening.

Very late one night, Ch’an came to see Yŏng-hǔi. He handed her a chocolate bar and rested his elbows on her windowsill. The bar was made of thick milk chocolate, the kind Yŏng-hǔi had said was her favorite.

Yŏng-hǔi said, “I no longer care for this kind of chocolate.”

“Didn’t you say just the other day that you prefer this kind to the higher quality ones?”

“Yes, I did say that. But now I’m a college student, I have to go for quality rather than quantity. Like that thinner, creamier one, you know? Or the one with the almonds.” Nevertheless, Yŏng-hǔi took several bites of the chocolate Ch’an had brought and chewed it happily.

Ch’an asked, “How many days have you been a college student?”

“Four.”

“You mean to say your taste buds have changed already? Gosh, that’s fast!”

Ch’an laughed loudly. Who would have thought that this would be the last time Ch’an would ever give her chocolate…

Ch’an told Yŏng-hǔi that living so far from school meant he had a very long commute, but that he enjoyed doing experiments and even going to the college of liberal arts to hear lectures on cultural topics. As they were both taking Philosophy 101, they made a promise that whoever got to the classroom first would save a seat for the other. He looked full of hope and joy as he told Yŏnghǔi how much he had enjoyed attending a senior seminar, something most freshmen never dreamed of doing.

Yŏng-hǔi, on the other hand, was not quite so enchanted with the university: she had found the lectures by her professors, who were well known for their books, rather disappointing.

“This one professor just told us a story about a tiger for an hour and twenty minutes. That was Professor L. ‘Ppang-dŏk’s mother was climbing over a mountain with a container full of rice cakes and a tiger appeared from the forest and roared…’ For heaven’s sake!”

She didn’t understand the importance of folklore. English 101 was not so different from her English classes at high school: all they did was read and translate texts. It was the same with French.

She said an upperclassman had told her that the freshman year was just general courses, but

that the higher level courses tended to be more interesting. He’d said some of the professors occasionally managed to cobble together something worth listening to, but warned her not to expect too much from them on the whole. Listening to the lively, self-confident upperclassman, she hadn’t been able to help thinking he might actually be smarter than her professors.

Though it was a rather confusing and disappointing start to college life, those first few days seemed full of eager anticipation, the prospect of going on to do great things. But the war that broke out on the first weekend after the matriculation ceremony shattered all that.

The citizens of Seoul came under enemy control, an occupying force that choked the city.

The Communists ruled with terrifying cruelty. The killing, starvation, plundering, spying and surveillance, kidnappings, forced labor, personal vendettas, and people’s courts with summary convictions and instantaneous punishments were more extreme than anyone could have imagined, worse than anything they had read about in the history books.

Yŏng-hǔi went every night to the Han River to dig sand. It was cruel, hard, exploitative work with not a penny paid in wages, let alone any water to drink. At six o’clock every evening the laborers, with spades over their shoulders, set out on foot from the district hall for the river, which was about ten kilometers away. If anyone said they were sick, a guard would point a gun at them and ask if they were ready to die, so that even those with a nosebleed or nearly fainting from stomach pain dared not step out of the line of slave laborers marching to the river.

Thanks to a woman living in her neighborhood, Yŏng-hǔi did not have to work as hard as the others. When Yŏng-hǔi sprained her wrist, the woman begged the supervisor to let her carry the sand instead of digging it. So Yŏng-hǔi just had to help several other people haul a straw bag, which others poured sand into, back and forth a distance of about a hundred yards two or three times a night. Because it was so dark, and the sandy beach was covered with so many people that it seemed as though the entire population of Seoul was gathered there, it was impossible for the few People’s Army guards to check how many times she and her co-workers had hauled the sand. That kind woman spread her skirt to make a curtain for Yŏng-hǔi when she had to relieve herself, and on the way home she even used to stop at strangers’ houses to get water for Yŏng-hǔi to drink. Yŏnghǔi’s mother was too old to be called up for forced labor so she stayed at home. She was in awe of

the neighbor’s kindness and said that the woman and Yŏng-hǔi must have had some kind of close relationship in a former life.

Around that time a scholar and a literary figure were kidnapped, and a company director and a teacher were gunned down trying to escape. According to the whispered rumors, these incidents had happened in broad daylight in a certain alley in Seoul. Yŏng-hǔi’s older brother and his family were in England, and her father went down to his branch office in Busan by the last train on the night of June 24. Six hours later, the North Korean soldiers came over the 38th parallel. With the male members of the family out of the way, a huge burden of anxiety was lifted from Yŏng-hǔi, her mother, and the maid who had been with them for many years.

“It’s by the grace of heaven that your father had to go to his branch office that day,” Yŏnghǔi’s mother exclaimed, unwavering in her belief that a divine power had saved her husband’s life.

She knew that if he and her son had stayed in Seoul they would likely have been subject to the same tragic fate as so many others.

Two weeks after the attack, the Communists began to round up men for the “volunteer army.” At first this conscription was limited to men between the ages of fifteen and fifty, but soon they just started seizing anyone that looked roughly the right age. Some men hid in chimneys, cellars and ceilings. People caught hiding were shot on the spot or dragged away.

A friend of Yŏng-hǔi’s mother wailed so loudly when her only daughter, who was nine months pregnant, was dragged off in her husband’s stead that her voice cracked and stayed hoarse until her death ten years later. Perhaps she would have gone to heaven with her beautiful voice restored if her daughter had returned, dead or alive.

Hundreds of people were buried alive by the Communists in wells and pits all over the city.

There was no way for people to know whether their loved ones were living or dead, and the torture and horror of not knowing was worse than death. Anywhere people were taken to by force— whether the yard of a government building or a school playground—there would be people wailing outside the walls, crying and sobbing and calling the names of their loved ones. It was like something out of hell.

Then they started to round up women for forced service in the women’s league. Yŏng-hǔi

was warned by a neighbor that the soldiers were coming, and evaded capture by staying at a relative’s house for three days. Just as the neighbor had predicted, Yŏng-hǔi’s neighborhood was raided in the middle of the night by Red Army soldiers wielding rifles with bayonets, but they didn’t find a single woman who met their criteria. All the women had had prior warning of the raid. People said it would be difficult to find a fiercer unity in history than that demonstrated by the citizens of Seoul during the three months the city was occupied by the Red Army. The population displayed remarkable resolve and solidarity in resisting their captors.

During the three days she spent in her relative’s attic, Yŏng-hǔi’s whole body came out in bumps the size of hulled millet, which were unbearably itchy. Saying it wasn’t a skin disease but flea bites, her mother cleaned her body with ammonia. “Thank you, fleas!” she said over and over as she dabbed her daughter’s skin; she thought it was a small price to pay for escaping the horrible fate that might have befallen Yŏng-hǔi had she been caught by the soldiers. She was so thankful she could almost have bowed to the fleas.

Several times a night people were startled awake by the sound of gunfire. It became more frequent with every passing day. It was the sound of innocent people being executed by the Reds— no trials, no convictions, just random killings.

Yŏng-hǔi’s family ran short of food. They made bran cakes with wheat chaff, and had rice gruel as thin as water twice a day. They only cooked rice once a day. Yŏng-hǔi’s mother was furious that the Reds had taken away their rice. She said they’d had more than enough to sustain them until the winter solstice, even if they’d shared it with their neighbors. The maid claimed that even though the Reds had taken that rice, the other rice they’d kept hidden in the basement would have lasted them a good three months if Yŏng-hǔi’s mother hadn’t shared it with the refugees. But there was nothing they could do about it now, and no point crying over spilt milk. Yŏng-hǔi’s mother and the maid had this same conversation again and again. In all their long lives they had never experienced anything like this before. They didn’t know how to cope. At first they’d thought that after all the Reds were human beings just like them and their mentality could not really be so very different. But they’d soon realized they were wrong: there was nothing remotely humane about the Reds’ world view. In those chaotic times, Yŏng-hǔi forgot about Ch’an completely.

Two days after the September 28th liberation of Seoul, Yŏng-hǔi’s father returned from Busan. He had worried so much about his wife and daughter during the three months he’d been away that he had developed high blood pressure and asthma. During the day he hadn’t been able to work—he’d kept imagining what his wife and daughter must be going through—and at night he’d suffered from insomnia and nightmares.

Yŏng-hǔi walked with her father through the streets and alleyways of Seoul. The central districts of Ch’ungmuro and Jongno were in ruins, having been bombed and set on fire by the North Korean People’s Army. There were appalling scenes. Many of the alleys were strewn with dead bodies. S University was being used as a temporary base for U.S. troops.

Throughout October, the Student National Defense Corps carried out investigations to determine whether students were qualified to remain at the university. Any student who was found to have helped the Reds, and even those students who had attended lectures while Seoul was occupied, were prohibited from re-entering the university. The hostility towards these students was at its peak during the first few months after September 28th , the day Seoul was liberated, and not even the slightest fault was tolerated. Even after the truce was signed, it was a long time before those students who hadn’t broken the law were re-investigated and allowed back in.

There were no regular lectures even by November. Too many professors had been forcibly transported to the North, and too many students had been kidnapped or drafted into the volunteer army. Their fate was unknown.

Yŏng-hǔi and her family left Seoul for Busan with the intention of spending the winter in their straw-roofed cottage at Haeundae Beach, eating abalone to their heart’s content and returning to Seoul for the start of the new semester. Yŏng-hǔi put only a handful of books in her bag. They never dreamt that a month later, Seoul would be facing the January Fourth Retreat.

They spent four days driving down to Busan, stopping along the way at different places the Reds had occupied. Yŏng-hǔi ate so much that it was a miracle she didn’t get indigestion: at one meal she put away ten beef ribs and five grilled abalone in one sitting. It seemed that after having been starved for almost three months, the young cells of her body were crying out to be fed. As the rice slid down her throat like oil, she felt sorry for her father who had no appetite and a dark, sickly

appearance. Her parents shed tears and said, “She must have suffered terribly from starvation….”

They weren’t able to go back to Seoul until 1953, when a truce agreement was signed and the government returned to the capital city. During their long absence, their house in Seoul was plundered along with every other house in the city. The looters took their dishes, clothes, chests, desk, books, records, gramophone, and even Yŏng-hǔi’s doll.

In 1951 Busan opened a university, and in 1952 S University started holding lectures on a temporary campus of tents and Quonset huts on Mount Kudŏksan. The students who had managed to flee the fierce battles being fought in Seoul looked wretched. Some students wore jackets stamped POW—which was what they all were, really. There were extreme shortages of food, clothing and lodgings. Many of the students dozed off during lectures because they had been laboring all night at the docks. It was common to see students staring absentmindedly into the sky, utterly exhausted. It was a miracle they were still alive when you thought of all their classmates who were dead or missing, their whereabouts unknown. The number of female students had shrunk dramatically.

One day Yŏng-hǔi ran into Ch’an outside a classroom tent. Yŏng-hǔi shouted with joy, but Ch’an did not. His tall body seemed bent and his face had the brown hue of a sick person. There was no strength in his voice. His eyes were expressionless and seemed to see straight through her.

“What’s the matter? Why do you look… like that? Are you sick?”

Ch’an replied to this barrage of questions with a bitter smile. “I fought in the war. I was dragged off to fight for the Reds and almost died. I escaped, and to get revenge I enlisted in our army. I almost starved and froze to death thanks to the high-ranking officers who stole our military supplies to sell.”

“Good grief! How could they do that? To our own soldiers!”

“Do you remember that medical student Hyŏn-t’ae? Who played the piano? He died. You know about the Defense Corps incident, don’t you?”

The news of Hyŏn-t’ae’s death hit Yŏng-hǔi hard. “What Defense Corps incident?”

“Don’t you ever read the paper or listen to the radio?”

“Yes I do, but I didn’t read about that.”

“Maybe it’s better you didn’t. It wouldn’t change anything. My stomach is ruined from eating rice mixed with dirt. And my feet—I almost had to have my feet amputated from frostbite.”

Ch’an looked down as he dragged the edge of his foot back and forth along the ground. His feet looked heavy in his worn-out shoes.

“How could it happen, Kimstein…?” Yŏng-hǔi frowned.

“There is so much to be angry about. This is an era of satanic tyrants. By the way, I’m going up to Seoul. Is there anything I can do for you while I’m there?”

Yŏng-hǔi had heard some people were already going back and forth to Seoul even though the government had not yet officially returned.

“My doll! Can you bring me my doll? Please.”

“The doll? A college girl wants a doll?” Ch’an looked at Yŏng-hǔi incredulously.

“I’m sorry, but that doll is my friend. I’ve had her for fifteen years…”

“Who knows—I’ll try,” said Ch’an, and he turned and left.

But Ch’an had returned from Seoul empty-handed. Yŏng-hǔi had never met him again after that, nor had she thought about him. She’d just been too busy. There’d been the ceasefire, the return of the government to Seoul, the April 19th student uprising, the May 16th military coup, marriage, children… Time marched on.

Yŏng-hǔi had been very surprised to see Kim Ch’an’s picture in the newspaper a few days before. There was an article about him having returned to Korea to attend a science conference.

Though she knew very little about science, she could guess from his exalted title that he must be a highly respected physicist. It was hard to tell how he had aged as the picture in the newspaper was somewhat blurry.

Yŏng-hǔi called the newspaper to find out where he was staying. As the telephone in his hotel room rang, she wondered how to address him. Her head was swimming. Should she say, “Is that Ch’an?” Maybe she shouldn’t call him by his given name, since he must be over fifty now and a distinguished scholar. What if he said he didn’t know who she was?

Finally, Ch’an’s voice came down the line. “Hello.”

“Hello, well…well…” Yŏng-hǔi stammered. She couldn’t decide whether to call him Ch’an or Dr. Kim. “Yŏng-hǔi? It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Dr. Kim. It’s been a long time,” she replied, using the honorific.

It was just over thirty-one years since their last meeting. Waiting in the hotel lobby where they had agreed to meet, Yŏng-hǔi wondered what he would look like. He’d looked so sickly and haggard the last time they’d met, ravaged by the war. A tall Ch’an walked out of the elevator. He looked quite old. He walked toward her with outstretched arms, and then clasped her hands very tightly.

“Oh my, you’re so old,” Yŏng-hǔi blurted out. She felt the same as she had when they were students, and spoke to him in the same way.

“Yŏng-hǔi, you look the same. I’m so thankful. Truly grateful…” Though Ch’an’s face was deeply wrinkled, he looked healthy and energetic, quite different from the gaunt refugee student of the war years.

They sat facing each other at a table. Up close, she could see thirty years of hardship etched into Ch’an’s face. The only thing that had not changed was his large bright eyes.

“Well, Ch’an, your eyes are still the same.”

“No, they’re not the same. There’s a film behind my eyes that plays all sorts of scenes.

Scenes of killing, suffering, despair, starvation. They make my eyes hurt. When I close my eyes I see each scene quite vividly. Sometimes I even see them when my eyes are wide open. They appear suddenly as if they are happening that very moment.”

Yŏng-hǔi didn’t know what to say. With every word he spoke, she felt a stabbing pain in her heart as if she were being rebuked for not having suffered the way he had.

“I’m so sorry, Ch’an. I had no idea of the hardships you endured.”

“Sorry? There’s no need to be sorry. It was just as much a part of your life as it was mine.

We were all in it together. Are you still happy? You don’t have to say. I can tell just by looking at you. I’m so glad you’re happy. If you were miserable too, I would be depressed.”

“I didn’t know you were such a good talker. You were so quiet when we were younger…”

Yŏng-hǔi tried to remember what he had looked like back then.

“Well, I was embarrassed around girls in those days.”

Yŏng-hǔi laughed out loud.

“Your laugh is still the same!” exclaimed Ch’an.

Even though she hadn’t seen him or even thought of him for so long, once they started talking that long period of time seemed very brief. It was as if they saw each other all the time.

Yŏng-hǔi found it fascinating, and Ch’an said the same.

“Tell me all about yourself. Tell me everything that’s happened since our last meeting at the refugee school.”

“Well—I’d developed a severe stomach ulcer around that time, and I had to work to pay for my food and university fees. That’s why I didn’t have a spare moment to come see you. I went to America right after graduation and worked my way through school. Then I went to England, India, Japan, France and many other countries to do research. If it hadn’t been for the war, my academic career would have been much better…”

“The scars of war are deep. I’ve been watching a special TV program recently that helps people find family members they’ve been separated from since the war. I have this indebted feeling, like I owe so many people.”

“Yŏng-hǔi, you’re fortunate. There are many people who have never experienced war. But there are some people more miserable than me. Hyŏn-t’ae died. From time to time I too feel indebted to them.” He stopped talking abruptly.

Yŏng-hǔi also felt heavy-hearted. They were silent for a while.

Then Ch’an said, “I like that phrase: ‘indebted feeling’. Here’s to eternal happiness!” and picked up his wine glass. Yŏng-hǔi picked up hers too and they clinked glasses.

Ch’an said, “Let’s change the subject.”

“Yes, let’s talk about something different. How many children do you have?”

“I don’t have any. During the war I made up my mind not to have children. I made the decision to not create any more human beings. So I don’t actually have a family.”

Yŏng-hǔi didn’t grasp what he meant straightaway. “What about your wife? Didn’t she

come with you? Is she a Korean or a foreigner?”

Ch’an stared at Yŏng-hǔi and then said, “I never got married.”

Yŏng-hǔi was speechless. But after a moment, wanting to make light of what he’d said, she ventured, “A confirmed bachelor! That’s great!”

“No, it’s not all that great really…” Ch’an spoke vaguely. It crossed Yŏng-hǔi’s mind that he might be impotent. She recalled that he had almost lost his feet to frostbite, and remembered his bent body as he’d drawn lines in the ground with his foot, in that worn-out shoe, at their last meeting.

Although she had started to choke up with emotion, she feigned cheerfulness: “Bachelorhood is cool!” She didn’t want him to tell her his painful story.

He said he was staying ten days for the conference but because of his tight schedule he could only meet her the following Monday night for dinner. They promised to meet then and stood up to leave.

“I didn’t realize how nice it is to see old friends. You made me forget the past.”

“Ch’an, it seems that reading so much literature has improved your way of speaking. Do you still read lots of poetry?”

“Not much.”

They walked out to the hotel lobby.

“How’s your violin playing?” asked Yŏng-hǔi, and they both laughed as they thought of their younger days.

“I can play much better than I did back then.”

“I’d like to hear you.”

“Next time I’m here, I’ll try to arrange it.”

“When will you come again?”

“Probably next spring. When the forsythia is in full bloom, I should think.”

Yŏng-hǔi thought about the university entrance exam. The wall surrounding S University had been covered with forsythia flowers.

It was getting dark as they stepped outside the lobby. Cars were coming and going, with passengers getting in and out. They all seemed to be in a great hurry. “Oh! Just a minute. I’ll buy you

some chocolate,” Ch’an said and turned to go back inside. He must have noticed the bakery.

Yŏng-hǔi shook her head. “No, I no longer eat chocolate.”

“How come?” Ch’an’s eyes twinkled brightly like they had when he was a college freshman.

“I’m old, too!” Yŏng-hǔi said, offering him her hand.

“You’re not old!” said Ch’an with a serene smile.

They shook hands firmly.

“Goodbye.”

“Take care.”

They waved to each other as they parted.

For some reason, when she got inside the car, Yŏng-hǔi let out a long, deep sigh. It wasn’t just because of Ch’an’s suffering during the war. The car wound its way out of the hotel and glided slowly into the dark street.

(1983, Munhak sasang) Translated by Hyon O’Brien and Suzanne Crowder Han

LEAVING DULLES AIRPO RT

It was 11:15 in the morning when Chŏng-suk and her family arrived at Dulles Airport. Because security procedures had been tightened following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th , they had arrived early to allow ample time to check in for their Korean Air Lines flight. Takeoff was at 2 o’clock that afternoon.

As soon as they got out of the car, Chŏng-suk waved at her daughter and son-in-law in a gesture of farewell. “We can manage by ourselves from here. You go on home. Go!” But Yŏng-hǔi and Pŏm-u were having none of it. “No, no, it’s okay,” they said as they walked on ahead, wheeling the suitcases.

“Come on—if you stay you won’t get to work till it’s time to go home. It’s all right, really.

Please go.”

“Don’t worry. We at least need to see you get checked in.”

This exchange continued as they made their way through the airport departure hall to the KAL check-in desks. The desk for economy class had a queue about 200 meters long. Everyone in the line looked exhausted; they must have been waiting a very long time.

“Look at that line,” exclaimed Chŏng-suk. “Please go. You won’t get to work till after the office closes at this rate.”

Pŏm-u was speechless. He gaped at the long line of people.

With a worried look, Yŏng-hǔi said, “It’s going to be a difficult flight for you with so many passengers. You shouldn’t have changed to economy class. There are only a few people in business class.”

“Business class doesn’t fly any faster than economy class. Why pay twice as much for business class?” replied Chŏng-suk. “On the way here there were 140 empty seats in economy class. I wonder what happened? Perhaps we shouldn’t have put Pŏm-u to the trouble of changing our tickets.”

“No, it wasn’t any trouble at all,” said Pŏm-u. “Luckily there were two seats available

because of cancellations in economy class, so it was easy to swap them. Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Of course we’ll be all right. Your mother only weighs fifty kilograms. Look at that enormous woman getting on the same flight as us,” Ki-jun remarked. They all turned to look at a tall brown-haired Caucasian woman, who must have weighed about 100 kilograms, standing in the line ahead of them.

Chŏng-suk said, “Don’t worry. I tend to fall asleep the minute the plane takes off. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s first class, business class or economy. We can use the money we saved to visit you again.”

“That’s true. You should come again. You should come as often as you can while we’re here,” said Pŏm-u. The words made Chŏng-suk feel better. They were going to come again; they were not going to die in a terrorist attack. Words are like seeds—the ones spoken without any particular thought are always prophetic. Historically, in fact, Koreans used to warn against speaking negative or harsh words, believing that words were seeds that would germinate into being.

Chŏng-suk told herself it didn’t matter whether they traveled in economy or business class or even lying down in the aisle—all that mattered was that their return trip was as safe as their trip out had been. Their ten-day stay had not been entirely free of anxiety, given that powdered anthrax of unknown origin had been found in a number of places and the U.S. Air Force was dropping bombs on Afghanistan every day.

“We had no problems on the way here. Do you think we’ll have a safe return flight?”

“Of course you will. I’m sure you’ll have a safe trip home, Mom,” Yŏng-hǔi said with conviction, her face bright and sincere.

Pŏm-u had managed to change their tickets to economy class at Chŏng-suk’s request, and she’d been looking forward to traveling home cheaply and with plenty of room to spread out. But now, seeing the 200-meter-long queue for economy class, she regretted it.

Yŏng-hǔi said to Pŏm-u, “Why don’t you go back? I’ll stay and see them off and then get a taxi—”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” declared Ki-jun before she’d even finished her sentence.

“You should both go. Our plane doesn’t leave for another two hours, and it’ll take you at least an hour to get back to D.C. Please go. You’ve done a marvelous job taking care of us. We’ve had a lovely trip. Thank you so much.” He extended his hands to his son-in-law.

“I wish you could stay longer.” Yŏng-hǔi’s eyes filled with tears as she spoke.

Chŏng-suk kissed her daughter’s cheek and hugged her, promising to visit again soon.

“We’ll come again next spring. We want to visit at least two or three times while you’re here.”

“Take care of yourselves. You’ve done a great job entertaining us. Tell the grandchildren we love them. And give them a kiss from us.” Chŏng-suk gently touched her son-in-law’s hands and patted him on the shoulder. Yŏng-hǔi and Pŏm-u left them reluctantly, looking back several times before leaving the departure hall hand in hand.

The terrorist attack had happened the month before an international symposium which Kijun had been planning to attend for about a year. The event was scheduled for October 20th , and he’d planned for them to stay with Yŏng-hǔi for about ten days, four days before the symposium and a few days afterwards.

From the beginning Chŏng-suk had been less interested in her husband’s symposium than in her own plans for the trip. She couldn’t wait to do what they’d done the previous summer: enjoy delicious food with her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, drive around with them, buy books and toys for the kids, and, although she wasn’t a Christian, go to church with them and sing hymns loudly to please them. She’d been looking forward to the trip with great excitement ever since the flight reservations had been made. And what had made it even more exciting was the fact that her son-in-law, who made good money working for a Western company he’d been headhunted by, had sent them round-trip business class tickets for her birthday.

But as they watched the TV news on September 11th , Chŏng-suk and her husband had looked at each other with the same thought: “We can’t go, can we?” Chŏng-suk felt like a popped balloon as she realized the trip to Washington she’d been anticipating with such pleasure was to be abruptly cancelled. She sighed deeply. “Why did this have to happen now of all times?”

All the international telephone lines were busy, and it was not until two days after 9/11 that Chŏng-suk was able to get through to Yŏng-hǔi. Yŏng-hǔi told her their house was quite far away from the Pentagon and had suffered no damage.

A week later Ki-jun received an email from the symposium organizer informing him that there was no change in the schedule, and urging him to attend. It also said that Washington was as peaceful as ever and that there was no cause for alarm.

“They’re going ahead with the symposium?” Chŏng-suk exclaimed. “With Al Qaeda issuing threats of more terrorism… and Bush on TV seeming bent on retaliation? It’s insane! No symposium is worth holding in these chaotic times. Surely you’re not thinking of going?”

“I’ll wait and see how the situation develops,” Ki-jun replied.

“There’s no point in waiting,” Chŏng-suk retorted. “Things are only going to get worse. Just look at what the Islamic fundamentalists are saying. It’s frightening. It feels like we’re on the verge of World War Three.” She’d already given up on going to Washington. But a few days later she started to question her own attitude. Wasn’t it ridiculous for the whole world to come to a standstill because of a few terrorists? And how long could this go on? As time passed, she realized that not every plane was going to come under attack.

As October approached, Chŏng-suk told Ki-jun, “Yŏng-hǔi says things are back to normal where she is. So do you think we should go? What will be will be, after all…”

“Stop agonizing about it and just go to sleep.”

Ki-jun remained non-committal. So one morning, the moment she woke up, Chŏng-suk said to him, “It’s not as if this symposium is keeping us in rice. Let’s cancel our flights and return the travel expenses. All this uncertainty about our trip is driving me crazy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ki-jun said and nodded, not very decisively.

Chŏng-suk said: “There’s no need for us to keep umming and ahhing about it. Why travel to a battlefield? I’m going to tell Yŏng-hǔi and her family to come home too. Pŏm-u can get a job somewhere else, he’ll still be able to make a living. It’s better for them to be here than in that war zone. How the tables have turned. I can’t believe the United States is now a battleground. A month ago it was the furthest place on the planet from any kind of war zone. And to think not a single

bomb fell there during either of the world wars, even though America fought in both. Except at Pearl Harbor, that is,” Chŏng-suk corrected herself.

“You’re so knowledgeable,” said Ki-jun. “Good thing you were only a lecturer. I can’t imagine what you’d be like if you’d been a full professor.”

“Enough of your sarcasm! All this indecision is driving me up the wall.”

“You certainly are making a song and dance about it.”

“Oh—I know what this is about. You want to go, don’t you? You’d risk your life just to give a one-hour presentation on your thesis? Can’t somebody else present it? There’s no reason you have to have to do it yourself just because you’re the author. It’s not like giving a music or dance performance or something. Or running a marathon,” said Chŏng-suk, pressing him to make a decision.

Ki-jun gave himself a few more days to think, and then he emailed the organizer to say he would not be attending the symposium. An email came back promptly saying the same thing as the previous one: it was safe to travel to the United States, and Prof. Yoon’s absence would threaten the success of the symposium.

As Ki-jun seemed swayed by the email, Chŏng-suk tried to change his mind. “They’ve got some gall claiming it’s safe for us to go there. How can they be so ridiculous? Haven’t they heard the things Bush is coming out with on TV every day? It sounds like war is about to break out any minute.”

But after a couple of telephone conversations with her daughter, Chŏng-suk herself started to have second thoughts about cancelling their trip. Yŏng-hǔi said the same thing as the symposium organizer. But she also said, “Mom, you don’t have to come if you’re worried.”

“It’s not that we don’t want to come. And it’s not that I’ve got a bad feeling about it. It’s just so difficult to make a rational decision. I want to go. I do!” Chŏng-suk shouted down the phone.

Then four–year-old Chi-ho came on the line and coaxed her with childish charm. “Grandma, I miss you. Let’s go eat fish casserole at the Greek restaurant.”

Chŏng-suk had liked the fish dish so much when they’d visited the previous summer that she’d asked Yŏng-hǔi to find out how to make it. “Okay, we’ll go there again,” she replied.

“Burger King too?”

“Of course, let’s eat at the Burger King too. And let’s buy some books at that shop across the street.”

These conversations left Chŏng-suk with a strong urge to visit her daughter and grandchildren. But every time they talked about the trip, Yŏng-hǔi told her mother not to come if she felt there was something holding her back. Yŏng-hǔi had inherited her mother’s “sixth sense”, and seemed to understand how Chŏng-suk was feeling.

The symposium organizer sent a note to Ki-jun asking him to confirm his attendance, as there were already over 80 people on the waiting list hoping to attend the symposium. Chŏng-suk was amazed at the size of the United States; she wondered how ordinary people could just carry on as normal when one corner of their country—including the Pentagon itself—had just been attacked, and almost five thousand of their fellow citizens had lost their lives.

Yŏng-hǔi and the organizer kept maintaining that it was safe, and it was true that there had been no further terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11. Chŏng-suk was relieved about this, but she couldn’t help worrying that more attacks were imminent. Yet she knew a plane crash was more likely than a terrorist attack, and the chance of dying in a road accident was much higher than either.

And she’d never heard of people hesitating to get into their cars because they were scared of having a crash.

As time went by, Chŏng-suk started to lean toward making the trip. And then, at one o’clock in the morning on October 8th , American B2 bombers started bombing Kabul. War had begun in earnest.

That day, Ki-jun made up his mind and sent an email confirming that he would not be attending the symposium. Chŏng-suk maintained that no one would even think of hosting a symposium with the United States now at war, and said: “I’m sure they’ll either postpone it or cancel it. Luckily the fact that we won’t be attending is due to a situation of their own making and not ours.”

But the organizer immediately replied that the bombing in Afghanistan had no bearing on the scheduled symposium, and again strongly encouraged Ki-jun to attend. Ki-jun did not respond. Two or three days later another email came. Again he did not respond. He paid close attention to the

news. The bombing in Afghanistan appeared to be one-sided, with only the United States on the offensive. Chŏng-suk prayed for a quick end to the fighting.

Time passed and the deadline for free cancellation of their flights was fast approaching.

Another email arrived from the organizer.

“Are you planning to go?” Chŏng-suk asked Ki-jun.

“I can’t say.”

“That means you’re not going?”

“Um…” was Ki-jun’s answer.

The evening before the cancellation deadline, as he was leaving home to attend a meeting, Ki-jun told Chŏng-suk: “Today we have to make a final decision so that tomorrow we can let Korean Air Lines know and tell the symposium organizer what we’ve decided. Give some it some thought while I’m out.”

Ki-jun was usually the one who made the decisions when Chŏng-suk found it difficult to make her mind up, which was fine by her. But this time it seemed he was relying on her to make the final decision, and it made her very anxious.

She thought hard for a while but could not come to a decision. In her frustration, she thought of tossing a coin. Going through to her bedroom, she placed a cushion on the floor and sat on it in a posture of heightened seriousness as if a god, a ghost or some other supernatural being were in the room with her. She decided that if heads came up three times in a row when she tossed the coin, she would go to the States. She tossed a 100-won coin ten times, but heads didn’t come up three times in a row. Eventually she told herself that the next toss would be the last and heads would mean yes to the trip. And heads came up.

“Wow—it says go! And go we shall. Enough dilly-dallying. All that soul-searching didn’t get us anywhere. We’re going. Yes indeed, we’re going,” she told herself loudly.

When Ki-jun returned home, she said, “Let’s go to the States.”

“Why?” “I flipped a coin and it said go.”

“You mean you think we should go because you tossed a coin?”

“How else are we going to make the decision? I thought about it for so long and still I couldn’t make my mind up.”

Ki-jun pondered for a moment, then said, “If you want to go, let’s go. Like you said—what will be will be.”

“I can’t believe we’ve made such a fuss about a simple thing like getting on a plane. It’s absurd.”

“And all this time I thought you were rather enjoying thinking about it…”

“What do you mean by that? You seem to think I’ve had nothing else to think about.”

“It’s true! In the forty years we’ve lived together, I’ve never seen you give so much thought to anything.”

“Well, why not? It’s a matter of life and death, after all. The main reason for this trip is your symposium, but you don’t actually have to go. Another reason is to visit the grandchildren. That could wait, too. It’s not like we have to do it right now. Should we really be gambling with our lives for things that can wait? I’ve got myself into quite a state thinking about it all. I really do want to go, but I just keep thinking: “What if terrorists attack the plane?” I feel dizzy. I’m sure this business is putting my blood pressure up.”

“What’s the point in going if you’re going to be worried about your blood pressure the whole time? Let’s just forget about it. Just forget it. I’m sick of hearing about your blood pressure.”

Chŏng-suk was taken aback by Ki-jun’s harsh words. “Are you really suggesting we cancel the trip? I’ll be okay as long as I take my blood pressure medicine. It always helps. The coin I tossed said to go, and my intuition tells me it’ll be okay.”

“In that case, I don’t want to hear another word about your blood pressure.”

“Fine!”

“Good—that’s settled then. We’re going. No more chopping and changing. No more discussion. Just start getting ready to go!” With these words, Ki-jun disappeared into his study.

On her way to fetch a suitcase from another room, Chŏng-suk suddenly remembered her college classmate, Sun-ae, who not long ago had fallen ill with the so-called “possession sickness”.

In an effort to avoid succumbing to the spirits that had descended on her and thus becoming a

shaman, she had been baptized as a Catholic. Yet she still seemed to have the shaman’s gift of divination, and her predictions were very accurate. Chŏng-suk had heard through the grapevine that her friends had been visiting the charismatic Sun-ae for advice when they were sick or their businesses weren’t doing well.

Chŏng-suk telephoned her friend. Sun-ae answered the phone herself.

“Hey, Sun-ae, how have you been?”

“I knew you’d call,” replied Sun-ae. Her voice was different, huskier. Is that what happens when the spirits descend on you? wondered Chŏng-suk.

“You have something to ask me, don’t you?”

Oh, she must really have acquired the shaman’s gift, thought Chŏng-suk as she replied, “Don’t jump to any wild conclusions! Friends should call one another every once in a while. I assumed you were doing well but I wanted to check. I’ve been very upset recently about the chaos in the States.”

Sun-ae laughed and said, “Chŏng-suk, you don’t have to beat around the bush. You’re wondering whether you should go to America, aren’t you? If you want to go, just go. You’ll have no trouble. You can go to the ends of the earth if you want to, even the ends of heaven.”

Chŏng-suk shivered, and goosebumps rose on her skin. The woman was definitely possessed!

“How did you know? That’s amazing! Actually, we need to visit Washington. But in these difficult times… You don’t think there’ll be another terrorist attack?”

“Terrorists? Not even the grandfather of terror can touch you.”

“Really? And what about my husband?”

“Nothing will happen to him either. Go ahead and have a good trip, and don’t worry about a thing.”

“Hey, you sound as if you’re reading something you already wrote. And you haven’t even heard my husband’s voice.”

“Your voice doesn’t indicate a widow. Don’t worry. You’re going on a honeymoon in the midst of terror… That’s wonderful!”

“Don’t joke. It’s a serious matter. I plan to do what you say, so please tell me truthfully.”

“There’s no need to worry. Have a good trip. And on the way home, buy me a ballpoint pen or something on the plane.”

“Sure. I’ll buy you a set.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll buy you lunch in return.”

“There’s no need to buy me lunch—it’s on me. Thanks to you I’ll get to see my grandchildren.”

“All right, lunch is on you then. And I won’t feel awkward even if you treat me to an expensive meal. Have a nice trip. I’ve got another call coming, so I’d better go.”

“Okay. Sorry to have kept you so long. Goodbye.”

When she got off the phone, Chŏng-suk felt as if the cobwebs had been blown away from the corners of her mind. “That was so simple, and here I’ve been worrying about it for a whole month?”

Sun-ae had seemed very confident in her advice; Chŏng-suk’s own intuition was positive and the coin test had confirmed it… Chŏng-suk laughed at herself—her strong desire to go was making her look for proof to convince herself.

“Honey, let’s go,” Chŏng-suk shouted through the hands-free intercom to her husband. She had installed the intercom some time ago because she had gotten tired of having to leave her room, walk to his study and knock on the door to talk to him.

Ki-jun came out of his study and said, with a look of surprise, “Hadn’t we already decided to go?”

“I know—I’m just confirming that we’re definitely going.” She didn’t tell him about her conversation with Sun-ae. He would probably laugh and call her superstitious.

“You gave me a fright. I thought something had happened. I already sent an email to say I’m going.” He returned to his study.

A whole month of agonizing about whether or not to go to Washington was finally over. The charismatic Sun-ae had made the decision quick and easy.

Chŏng-suk phoned Yŏng-hǔi. “Guess what!” she told her. “We’re coming!” Yŏng-hǔi was

delighted, and said they had made the right decision.

“We arrive at Dulles Airport at eleven-thirty in the morning.”

“Great. I’ll come and meet you at the airport. And Pŏm-u too.” She couldn’t contain her joy that they were coming. This time she didn’t tell her mother not to make the trip if she was worried.

When she got off the phone, Chŏng-suk went to the closet and pulled out a large suitcase and a smaller carry-on bag for the plane. Then she opened a drawer and took out a list she used for overseas trips. Over the years there’d been various things she and Ki-jun had forgotten to pack before going away somewhere, so they’d made a habit of noting them down on their list. Now, like lawyers consulting their statute books, they checked the list every time they packed their bags.

The list had five columns labeled “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” and “E,” and each column featured a list of items and comments. Under “A” were listed: 1) passport; 2) plane tickets; 3) four kinds of medication for high blood pressure (high blood pressure pills, tranquilizers, Mevaco, 100-milligramstrength aspirin); 4) eye drops for cataracts; 5) credit cards and local currency. These were the things they absolutely could not travel without, and they’d been the first items to be put on the list.

Her blood pressure medicine was listed because it was as vital to her as the plane ticket; she had to take it every day and, because it required a doctor’s prescription, it was impossible to get a replacement while traveling. Number 6), a thin notebook containing local contacts and telephone numbers of close family and friends in Korea, was not as necessary as the other items in the column but as it was small enough to fit into a handbag it could be carried at all times.

Column B had only one item: bathroom slippers. Except in Japan, hotels abroad never provided slippers, and after a bath she found it unpleasant to walk with bare feet on a carpet that had been walked on by shoes. Chŏng-suk could not understand why Westerners did not use slippers indoors.

Column C included regular medicines: 1) indigestion medicine; 2) anti-diarrhea medicine; 3) anti-inflammatory drugs; 4) calamine lotion; 5) painkillers; 6) painkiller patches to apply to aches and pains; 7) disposable heat pads (to help combat lower back pain in all seasons. Each packet lasted 24 hours, so one was needed for each day of the trip. One emergency heat pad went into the

handbag for use on the plane); 8) band aids; 9) salt roasted in bamboo for gargling; 10) Jung Ro Hwan indigestion pills (good for intestinal troubles and aching gums); and 11) aspirin and Tylenol.

Column D listed clothing: 1) pajamas (only provided by hotels in Japan. Some hotels provided bathrobes but they were too thick to be comfortable. Ki-jun felt uncomfortable even in a Japanese gown, so pajamas were essential for him); 2) vests (a necessity all year round. Even in summer one could catch a cold, and vests were good retainers of body heat); 3) underpants and socks (as many as were needed for the length of the trip); 4) outer garments (for indoors, outdoors and formal receptions) and cardigans—needed even in the summer for air-conditioned buses and taxis, high altitude areas and windy beaches).

Column E contained items that were not vital and could be replaced easily if lost, so they were always packed last: 1) toiletries and cosmetics; 2) reading glasses and sunglasses; 3) visor; 4) detergent for laundry (small solid soap; powder might get mistaken for drugs) and a pair of plastic gloves (for doing simple laundry at the hotel); 5) an umbrella (only one light one, even if they were both traveling); and, 6) a pair of sneakers (only Chŏng-suk’s, in case they did a lot of walking).

Chŏng-suk opened the big suitcase and started packing, ticking things off the list. She would check whether any of the medicines were missing and replenish them later on. Because it was autumn, she packed Burberry coats. The climate in Washington D.C. would be similar to that in Seoul, since they were at the same latitude. It took about an hour for Chŏng-suk to pack from column B to E. She would keep swapping clothes in and out of the case until the day they left: she always tried to pack light, but sometimes she would pack an item just in case, then take it out thinking it would be too heavy, only to change her mind later on and put it back in the suitcase. It took her over two hours to pack even for a one-week trip.

Ki-jun took care of his own toiletries and his academic papers. He packed the items on Column A himself. His blood pressure was normal but he had difficulty sleeping, so he packed sleeping pills. He couldn’t sleep on planes so he brought along books to read (Chŏng-suk, because of her poor eyesight, did not pack any books; she almost always fell asleep).

Chŏng-suk closed the suitcase and called Ki-jun on the intercom: “Did you pack your passport?”

“No need to shout,” he replied. “Yes, I’ve got my passport.”

“Did you check the passport expiry date and visa status?”

“I did.”

“Plane tickets?”

“Don’t worry!”

“Check one more time and put them in your carry-on bag. Don’t put them in your suit jacket. You might lose them. And don’t forget to change anything that needs changing in that document for the kids.” “That document” was a sort of will and set of final instructions for their children to open, saved on Ki-jun’s computer.

“A businessman might need to change his will, but not a college professor like me who doesn’t buy any shares or lottery tickets. You worry too much.”

“You know we’re leaving in two days. You have only one day left to get everything ready.”

“Stop nagging. I’m busy!” Ki-jun shouted back.

“So am I!” Chŏng-suk yelled and lay down on her bed. Her lower back was hurting— probably because of the hour she had spent packing, opening and closing various drawers and clambering on and off a stool to get soap and new rubber gloves from the laundry room.

The day before they were due to travel it was reported that an envelope containing anthrax had been delivered to Tom Daschle, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate. The national mood was tense at the prospect of germ warfare, and the media speculated that the 9/11 attacks might be the beginning of a new, 21st century type of warfare. Chŏng-suk was now faced with the ordeal of flying to a country with a potential anthrax threat as well as the risk of terrorist bombs.

Surprisingly, there were some empty seats in the business class section of the plane on their flight to the States. Chŏng-suk asked a flight attendant about the seating situation in economy class: she was told there were about 140 empty seats. Rumors of the imminent possibility of further terrorist attacks had led to a sharp drop in the number of people traveling. She was worried that if this situation persisted, KAL might not be able to survive financially. “I’d have got economy class tickets if I’d known—then I could have stretched out across several seats…” mused Chŏng-suk.

“Maybe we should talk to the travel agent about our seats for the return flight. Economy class is quite empty,” she said to Ki-jun. He ignored her and carried on reading. As soon as she had eaten her meal, Chŏng-suk fell asleep.

Chŏng-suk and Ki-jun arrived at Dulles Airport safely, just as Sun-ae had predicted. The moment she got into her son-in-law’s car, Chŏng-suk asked him to check whether he could change their tickets to economy class. “There were 140 empty seats in economy class. With the armrests lifted, I could have had a whole row of seats to lie down in and stretch my legs. That’s better than a first class seat.”

On their third day in America, Chŏng-suk started pestering her husband to stay longer. What a stressful month they’d had! They’d really been through the wringer trying to decide whether or not to come to the States, hadn’t they? They’d changed their minds so many times, and she had even asked the possessed Sun-ae to prophesy for them. Now they were there, it seemed a pity only to stay ten days (or actually only eight full days, with two days of traveling). She even resorted to the argument that they should make sure they got their money’s worth out of the plane tickets, but Kijun only shook his head.

“Even parents shouldn’t stay longer than ten days. Any longer would just stress them out.

We shouldn’t outstay our welcome.”

“We should give them a chance to do their filial duty. Sometimes I regret that I wasn’t better to my parents. I deeply regret it.”

“You should have treated them better. Then you wouldn’t have to be sorry now.”

“I never got the chance; my older sisters took care of my parents so well that I never got a chance to do it myself. My turn never came.”

Why hadn’t she made tea and served it on a tray to her parents as Yŏng-hǔi did for them?

Why hadn’t she used that sweet tone of voice and offered explanations about the different kinds of tea, as Yŏng-hǔi did? “This is rose hip tea. It’s very fragrant and has a nice color. There is no caffeine in it so it’s perfect for you, Mom. If you like it, I’ll buy you a few boxes to take to Korea.”

Ever since she’d turned sixty-five, Chŏng-suk had from time to time been filled with remorse

that she hadn’t done more for her parents, whom she dearly loved and respected. Recalling the saying that once a person is mature they are ready for the grave, she reflected that she herself might die soon. Thus, she reasoned, giving Yŏng-hǔi the opportunity to serve her parents was a good idea, even if it was burdensome. I don’t have many years left…

Ki-jun said, “If you regret that you didn’t do enough for your parents, you should focus on being good to your children! You don’t want to have to regret that in the after-life.”

“What are you saying? Haven’t you noticed me doing the dishes even on my vacation?”

“Oh, yes. You mean have I noticed you putting them in the dishwasher?” said Ki-jun.

“You haven’t even done that!” said Chŏng-suk.

“Don’t worry. I’ll do the dishes tomorrow,” said Ki-jun, turning to face the computer.

“Well don’t forget!” Chŏng-suk shouted as she got into bed.

“Okay, I won’t. Now lower your voice. You don’t want to disturb the kids, they’re asleep next door.”

Chŏng-suk soon realized what a tight schedule Yŏng-hǔi had each day, and stopped nagging her husband to prolong their stay. The first out of the house in the morning was nine-year-old Julie. After seeing Julie off to school, Yŏng-hǔi made breakfast for Pŏm-u and four-year-old Chi-ho. After Pŏm-u had left for work, Yŏng-hǔi took Chi-ho to his school bus. She was busy the entire morning and seemed to have no spare time. Chŏng-suk and Ki-jun added two sets of cutlery, two plates and two cups to the dish-washing burden. They also added to the laundry load. Even though the washing was done by machines, their visit obviously created extra work for Yŏng-hǔi.

Yŏng-hǔi treated her parents to lovely meals for lunch and dinner nearly every day, at nice restaurants that she had investigated prior to their visit. They had a taste of Greek, Italian, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, French, Japanese, Chinese and Mexican cuisine. They found them all delicious, and Chŏng-suk was especially pleased to discover that they were all quite reasonably priced.

She remarked, “If we ate out like this in Seoul, with this many people, it would be quite expensive. I’m amazed. What they charge here is only a quarter of what we would pay in Korea.”

The whole family, including Chi-ho, grinned at her comment.

“The food is such good quality and so cheap. This is such a great country,” she continued her praise.

“That’s enough. You shouldn’t talk like that about Korea in front of the grandchildren,” Kijun admonished her.

“All right. I’ll say no more.” But although she didn’t voice her anger, she was fuming about the high price of food in Korea and its poor quality given the prices they were charged.

Yŏng-hǔi drove her parents about twenty minutes from her place to the center of Washington to show them a private art gallery that they had never visited before. It was packed with people. There were many paintings by Klee and Cezanne that they were not familiar with. None of the art books in their large collection included the paintings they saw in the gallery. Some adults and children were sitting on benches in the middle of one of the exhibition rooms making sketches of the paintings.

When they left the art gallery, Yŏng-hǔi asked whether they wanted to see the damage the recent terrorist attack had done to the Pentagon. Chŏng-suk shook her head, saying what she had seen on TV was more than enough. She felt lightheaded and breathless just thinking about all the dead soldiers crushed underneath the building. Yŏng-hǔi noted her mother’s expression and steered them in a different direction.

Chŏng-suk said, “I know they say life and death are in the hands of fate. But it’s just terrible to think of all those military people surviving the battlefield only to die here inside the Pentagon. How sad and wretched their families must be feeling! And it’s awful to think of the people who perished in the World Trade Center and the hijacked plane, too.”

Chŏng-suk thought she should give Julie and Chi-ho some money for next Sunday’s church collection. How much should I give? she wondered. Perhaps ten percent of what Pŏm-u paid for the airplane tickets? Like tithing? Maybe that’s too much… America is a rich country, so it’s not really necessary. Korea could use some of my money. On the other hand, we did have a safe trip, so perhaps it would be good to make a thanksgiving offering. What good will the money do us if our plane is hijacked and we die… This was what was going through Chŏng-suk’s head when Yŏng-hǔi suddenly asked, “Have you seen the pictures of Afghanistan on TV?”

“Yes, those poor women and children …O Lord, have mercy on them...” It occurred to Chŏng-suk that she ought to send some money to help the people in Afghanistan. “Yŏng-hǔi, did you see that documentary on Afghanistan made by a British reporter?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Don’t you think we should thank God more than twelve times a day?”

“I certainly do.”

The state of Virginia seemed to have no underground parking. Everywhere they went they saw huge overground public parking lots, and just the sight of them made her breathe easier. There were also huge swathes of countryside covered with trees, their leaves just starting to change color. It was good to have so much space, but they did end up having to drive for ten minutes just to get a box of eggs. She wondered how the people here would have managed without gasoline.

Chŏng-suk went to a shopping mall with no intention of buying anything, just to do some window shopping. There were countless shops selling plates and dishes, lamps, clothing, handbags, shoes, toys, home accessories, and furniture from all over the world. It would have been impossible to see the entire mall even if you’d spent several days there. Ki-jun wasn’t interested in shopping so they dropped him off at a book store and Chŏng-suk and Yŏng-hǔi proceeded to explore the mall.

Yŏng-hǔi borrowed a wheelchair and pushed her mother around. She wanted to make sure Chŏng-suk’s legs wouldn’t ache at the end of the day. Chŏng-suk was more interested in kitchen goods and gadgets than anything else. The store still had the plates and cups and saucers that she had admired the previous year. They also had some new items of even better design. She thought it would be refreshing to drink tea from those cups and saucers. But then her inner voice whispered, “Control yourself. Why do you want more things? Haven’t you just had a clear-out?” Indeed, for the past few months she had been throwing things out in order to reduce and organize the clutter around her. She’d thrown away nearly all the pictures she’d taken throughout her life. The pictures wouldn’t stir any emotion in her children, she knew, even though they contained precious memories for her.

Many of the products in that huge shopping mall were of very poor quality. Chŏng-suk

enjoyed just looking at things in the shops without feeling the need to buy.

Yŏng-hǔi said, “Mom, it’s strange that you have such a keen interest in dishes and other kitchen stuff when you don’t like to cook.”

“How many times a month do you look at the paintings on your walls? You look at your dishes every time you use them, right? It helps my digestion to eat from beautiful dishes. That’s why I have this kind of hobby. Dishes are living art. Maybe you’re wondering why I spend time looking at things that I have no intention of buying. But do you buy every painting you see when you go to art galleries? In the olden days, they said that your eyes would gain weight if you looked at nice things.”

Recalling the words of her grandmother, Chŏng-suk added, “Your great-grandmother used to say that if a woman loses the desire to see things and own things, and everything becomes bothersome, she’s nearing the end of her life. Indeed, if one doesn’t have any desire for anything, one might as well be dead.” Chŏng-suk agreed with her grandmother, who had loved fancy clothes, good food and nice houses. I could die tomorrow, so why shouldn’t I have what I want?

As Chŏng-suk was leaving the shopping mall she said, “Yŏng-hǔi, I’ll take another look at those cups and saucers and if I still like them, I’ll buy two sets, one for your father and the other for me.”

Chŏng-suk marveled at how peaceful and serene Yŏng-hǔi’s neighborhood and the streets of downtown Washington DC looked—not like a place that had been attacked on September 11th and where the threat of terror still lurked. Wherever she went in the area, be it an art gallery, a restaurant, a shopping mall, a bookstore or a supermarket, the people looked cheerful, and were eating, working and laughing as though nothing had happened. Whenever she passed someone and their eyes met, they always said “Hi!” in a friendly way regardless of their gender or skin color. Even women wearing the chador said hello. Women in chador in the United States didn’t cover their faces, unlike in Afghanistan. Chŏng-suk wondered if the women felt confident enough to wear chador in public because they knew that America and Americans believe in freedom of religion.

“Things here are so different from how I imagined they’d be. It hardly seems any different from last summer… There’s just more flags flying.”

Yŏng-hǔi replied: “We need to carry on with normal life as much as possible, and face the music when we have to.” She said all of her neighbors were trying to live that way.

“That’s a good attitude to take… There’s nothing to be gained from dwelling on the uncertainty of tomorrow, is there? It’s better to live every day to the full.”

The flags flying at every house were the only reminder of 9/11. Every single building— townhouses, homesteads, apartment buildings, private and public property—had the Stars and Stripes on display. Some were even flying two flags. One house had all its upstairs windows papered with flags. Some houses had a low-flying flag at the edge of the lawn close to the sidewalk.

Yŏng-hǔi’s house was the only one in the neighborhood that didn’t have a flag by the door. The one on the lawn had been placed there by someone else. Everyone in the neighborhood had found one planted in their yard when they awoke one morning.

“Yours is the only house without a flag,” remarked Chŏng-suk.

“I couldn’t bring myself to put one out. But I did take part in a campaign to raise money for the victims.”

“Um. Um. I see… The flag is something…” Chŏng-suk nodded in understanding. She had seen many people in the supermarkets and shopping malls wearing Stars and Stripes badges on their lapels. There was even a kiosk in the shopping mall selling flags and badges. Chŏng-suk didn’t remember having seen that on her previous visit. Lots of cars sped by with flags flying.

“How long do you think people will keep flying flags on their cars?”

“Wouldn’t you think until the vindictive spirits are appeased and move on to the next world?” Yŏng-hǔi answered.

“It won’t happen anytime soon. I heard that the head of the LG branch also died in the attack, and a Korean professor at Boston University and her family. I can’t comprehend how anyone could want to harm those innocent people who were just going about their daily lives, just making their way to work in the morning.”

Yŏng-hǔi told her that immediately after the terrorist attacks she had seen many people, in a kind of unspoken accord, coming out of their houses and putting up American flags.

Chŏng-suk felt the country’s collective fury toward the terrorists in the American flags, big

and small, that had appeared on the cars and houses. On the surface it seemed nothing had changed, but behind the façade of normality she sensed the underlying strength of the American people.

Shortly afterwards, however, she heard that those who were against the war did not put flags on their homes and cars.

A Korean woman whom Chŏng-suk happened to meet at a Mexican restaurant told her she had immigrated to the States twenty years ago. She said life had been tough at first, as they were quite poor, but she had still managed to give $50—a lot of money for them at the time—to the local veterans’ association for their fundraising campaign. She had wanted to do it because during the Korean War some American soldiers had saved her family’s life by letting them ride to safety on their military truck. Later she had received a thank-you note for her cash donation along with a large, embroidered American flag. She said she had put the flag in a dresser drawer and never looked at it again; but when she saw the horrific scenes of the Twin Towers collapsing and the Pentagon being damaged, she took out the flag and hung it from her porch. “Whenever I heard the last words of the victims, I couldn’t help but burst into tears…” She had to stop talking to compose herself. The woman seemed so compassionate. Chŏng-suk wondered how it was possible that Korean immigrants could develop such an attachment to the United States, such patriotism for their adopted country. Even after a month, the woman was so overwhelmed with grief for the innocent people who had died at the hands of the terrorists that she choked up with emotion just talking about them. Chŏng-suk suddenly realized that this was what the saying “attachment makes a hometown” really meant. This woman was another type of Korean living in the States, quite different from Yŏng-hǔi.

In the queue for the check-in counter, two black people and two white people dressed in cargo uniforms and pushing carts full of luggage asked with surprise, “Are you flying with KAL too?”

“Yes, we’re flying KAL,” someone replied in fluent English. Chŏng-suk wondered if there hadn’t been a hint of pride in that reply. She overheard several people saying that there were more passengers than usual waiting to check in because many people, even non-Koreans, thought flying KAL would be safer than some of the other carriers.

“That’s not it,” someone said in Korean. “It’s because there’s no direct flight to Southeast Asia, and since KAL is the only direct flight to Korea and their security check is so thorough, it takes them a long time to process everyone.”

Chŏng-suk thought the person who had come out with this explanation must be a bit deluded. Wasn’t it true that there were more passengers than usual? “I hope you’re not suggesting KAL is profiting from terrorism!” a man said angrily. He exchanged a few words with another person who seemed to be his colleague. Chŏng-suk wondered what the man was getting at: was he proud of KAL for having so many passengers? Was he saying that KAL got its passengers through the misfortune of others? Or was he upset because his plan of stretching out on the plane had been thwarted? Oh well—at least all these comments gave her something to think about while she waited, thought Chŏng-suk, bored of standing in a line that was hardly moving.

The queue continued to move slowly. After an hour they had advanced only 20 meters or so.

Behind Chŏng-suk there was an elderly Indian couple, the wife clad in a sari, and in front was a Thai couple who had told her they were changing planes in Inchon. There were many Caucasians in the line. It was truly an international flight.

“Ohh, my legs hurt. When will it be our turn?” Chŏng-suk looked around to see whether there was anywhere to sit down. All the seats, and even the air conditioning ducts along the walls, were already occupied—it seemed everyone was searching for somewhere to rest their legs for a moment.

Ki-jun returned from the check-in counter and said: “There are four counters checking people in and still it’s like this. Just these four lines moving within the rope.” Then he added: “No one is waiting at the business class counter. There don’t seem to be many passengers for business class.”

Chŏng-suk felt a little sorry for Ki-jun. The conference organizers had provided him with a business class ticket, but because of Chŏng-suk they had switched to economy class. “I guessed wrong. I was greedy about lying down in economy class,” Chŏng-suk told herself.

While she was lost in thought, Ki-jun wandered off and when she looked up he was nowhere in sight. He must be feeling so frustrated that he can’t stay in one place, thought Chŏngsuk. “I’m feeling confined myself. Why does he roam around? Doesn’t he realize I don’t like it

either? Should I leave the suitcases and walk around…? What will happen to our luggage if I leave it unattended?” Chŏng-suk grumbled under her breath as she exercised her neck and back by bending down, stretching backward and twisting left and right. Standing for two hours had made her legs and back ache. Others in the line were also doing stretching exercises and running on the spot. The line behind her had reached a length of about 100 meters, winding around the exterior of the airport building in a C shape. Chŏng-suk was getting angrier by the minute and just as she said to herself “That’s it, I’m just going to go off and leave the luggage here!” Ki-jun appeared with a USA Today newspaper.

“Another package containing anthrax has been found. It’s frightening. By the way, I looked around for a place to have a cup of tea but everywhere is packed. I thought we could take it in turns to go for a cup of tea and a sit down. People traveling alone must get really tired not being able to move from their luggage. You go have a look around. And check out the cafeteria. There might be a seat by now,” said Ki-jun.

“You should let me know when you’re going off like that,” complained Chŏng-suk. “I felt trapped.”

Twenty minutes before the departure time, Chŏng-suk finally checked in their suitcases and rushed to the boarding gate with Ki-jun. The plane took off on time at two o’clock. Economy class was completely full with not a single empty seat. Chŏng-suk’s seat was in the middle of the mid-section of the plane where she had to say “excuse me” to the people on either side if she needed to leave her seat. The passenger on her left was a huge white Canadian woman in her forties, about twice the size of Chŏng-suk. There was no way Chŏng-suk could squeeze past the woman without asking her to get out of her seat. She told Chŏng-suk that she worked in Singapore, and was on her way back to her job after vacationing in Canada. She had a sweet voice and gracious manners. She said, “I fly KAL and Asiana Airlines frequently,” and Chŏng-suk thanked her for doing so. Ki-jun had already placed his book on the table that folded down from the seat-back in front of him. It was going to be complicated to pass him. To the right of Ki-jun, an unusually tall Caucasian man was sitting with his legs stretched out into the aisle, avoiding the cramped space in front of him. “Oh no!” though

Chŏng-suk. “It’s going to be tough to leave my seat. This is the worst seat ever!” Her plan to stretch out in an empty row of seats had come to nothing. She blamed the 140 empty seats she had seen on the way to the United States.

Her meal of bibimbap tasted like it had grains of sand in it. Usually a good sleeper on planes, Chŏng-suk couldn’t doze off. Of course, the seats and the food were not the most important things. The main thing was to have a safe trip to Seoul. Chŏng-suk kept seeing in her mind the horrific images of the crimson flaming United Airlines plane crashing into the World Trade Center, and all she wanted was to get home safely. I wonder what Grandma would say if she knew what was going through my head right now? Probably something like: “These terrorists have turned my granddaughter into a sniveling weakling. Wait till I get a hold of them!” Her grandmother had always stood up for her family no matter what. I’m sorry, Grandma. These days I just don’t know what the point is in living. This world has so many innocent people living in poverty, freezing to death, starving to death, dying in terrorist attacks and wars. Thanks to my ancestors, at least I have plenty to eat and a roof over my head. “That’ll never do! Never! My grandchild has lost her spirit. I’ll not put up with that!” Chŏng-suk could picture her grandmother standing at the edge of the main hall of their Korean house, looking down into the courtyard and shouting in her resounding voice.

Throughout the flight, the television monitor on the plane displayed their current altitude, the outside temperature and the distance remaining to their destination in Korean, English and Arabic. Chŏngsuk could see exactly where they were at all times from the world map with the Pacific Ocean at the center, which indicated the plane’s location as it moved. “Korea has really grown!” She was overcome with a feeling of pride as she realized a Korean airline had grown so big that it now displayed information in three languages.

Chŏng-suk remembered the day she’d flown to Europe for the first time, on a Lufthansa plane. It was the nineteen-seventies, and she and Ki-jun had been told they were not allowed to leave the country at the same time. So Ki-jun left first and Chŏng-suk followed a week later. The reason for this rule was that the Korean government was afraid a couple might escape to North

Korea if they were allowed to leave Korea together. She had protested, asking what difference a week would make as they would be together eventually anyhow, but the passport department was very strict in its procedures. This was at the time when North and South Korea were at their most hostile. For permission to leave Korea, she’d had to submit a handwritten background report for the trip. She’d written six pages in her most legible hand, and it had made her wrist ache. She’d also been required to attend a security briefing which used real life case studies to warn of the danger of being kidnapped by the North Koreans. Anyone traveling abroad had to spend an entire day listening to this security lecture, crowded onto a hard bench without a backrest, even though the authorities could easily have summarized on two A5 sheets of paper what it took all day to tell them in person. A passport was issued for single use only, so the next time you traveled you had to go through the whole process again. In those days, going abroad was somewhat akin to suffering recurring bouts of malaria. Thirty years later, things had changed so much that the most common complaint nowadays was about the airplane food.

Having endured that painful procedure, Chŏng-suk and Ki-jun finally met up in Amsterdam, had lunch and went for a walk around the city. Through the window of a lovely café they saw two beautiful young people with their arms around each other having a cup of tea. The couple looked so romantic that they were inspired to go in and do the same thing. They ordered two cups of coffee and copied the young people by putting their arms around each other. But after their first sip of coffee, their heads started to spin and they had to lean on each other’s shoulders to recover. The coffee was not the weak American coffee they were used to in Seoul.

“Do you remember that time we had coffee in Amsterdam during your first conference in Europe?” Chŏng-suk turned to Ki-jun, who was reading a book.

“Of course I do,” he answered with a grin. His smiling eyes were now surrounded by wrinkles. And his once creamy skin now had brown spots, and his hair had gone half grey. “We’re old,” Chŏng-suk told herself. She realized that they were climbing the ladder of time at a fast pace.

She planted a long kiss on Ki-jun’s aged, liver-spotted cheek.

Chŏng-suk bought a set of ballpoint pens from the duty free catalogue during the flight to give to the charismatic Sun-ae.

Their plane arrived safely at Inchon airport.

“Wasn’t it a good thing we went?”

“Absolutely!”

They left the airport, completely forgetting the month they had spent agonizing over whether or not to make the trip.

(2002, Munhak sasang) Translated by Hyon O’Brien and Suzanne Crowder Han

The Case of Elder Yi Chun

The elevator door opened on the fifth floor to the sound of “Aaaah!” The floor seemed to vibrate with the screams that came from a room at the far end of the hall.

“The Elder is still in pain.” A grizzled grandmother clasped her hands together in a gesture of prayer. “Amen!” The other people getting out of the elevator did the same and repeated in unison, “Amen.” Ǔn-hǔi, an old schoolfriend of mine, had suggested that I go with her, her pastor and some of her church friends to the hospital, and then on to a museum afterwards. We’d driven there together in her car. I was in town at the time with my husband, who was there on business; since he was busy with work, leaving me with nothing particular to do, I’d arranged to do some sightseeing with Ǔnhǔi. Ǔn-hǔi had mentioned that the museum restaurant was known for its good food, and that the special exhibition it had on at the moment included sculptures based on key paintings by Renoir, Manet, Monet, Van Gogh and other Impressionists. She said we could hold hands with characters from the paintings, play with them, and even lie down on a replica of the bed in a Van Gogh painting.

“You’ve come at a good time. I’ve already been to the exhibition, but I was planning to go again anyway. Interacting with the sculptures is even better than looking at the paintings.” An immigrant to America, she went to the museum quite frequently to get to know the country better.

“Since you’re not a Christian and don’t know the man we’re visiting, you could always wait for me in the hall or the lounge near his room,” Ǔn-hǔi had said. “But given that he’s about to die, it wouldn’t hurt for you to come and join in the group prayer, would it? The man is eighty-nine years old. Ninety in Korean age.”

“Okay,” I’d agreed. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t even know him, really. I’m only going because some of the members of my church asked me to. His daughter has a doctorate in engineering and lives in LA. His son-in-law is the heir of one of the richest families in the world. I heard he’s an architect. They must be rolling in it.”

“Is he an American?”

“Yes, Italian-American. Here, people tend to say Irish-American, Russian-American, and so on according to where their ancestors were from. That’s why we’re called the United States of America. Get it? There must be tons of Korean-Americans here. They immigrate here. Live and die here. And are buried here. I went to a public cemetery once. It was a vast piece of flat land. The tombstones were very low, almost ground level, and gave the place a feeling of peace. There were some Korean graves too. It must have been their destiny to end up in this land. Maybe they were Native Americans in a former life?”

“You go to church and you’re talking about former lives?”

“You know I’m not a real Christian yet. There are lots of Koreans in Russia. They’re mostly third generation. We only live once, after all. As long as you’re happy and living a life of peace, freedom and prosperity, it doesn’t matter where on this earth you live. I can’t understand why some people feel they have to live and die in Korea. That’s an old-fashioned, sentimental way of thinking.

You’ve only ever lived in Seoul, so perhaps you don’t know…”

“I don’t know. The thought has never crossed my mind.” Ǔn-hǔi stopped speaking for a moment, then went on: “What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, I remember. I was talking about the sick man’s daughter, before I went off on a tangent. His son lives in Chicago and is high up in an American bank. His daughter-in-law is a lawyer who’s very much in demand. She’s Korean. But they belong to the upper class; I get the impression they don’t really associate with the Korean community. What? You mean my son? Oh, we just about get by. The man we’re going to visit is so wealthy he can afford two private nurses. His wife died three years ago.

He’s given a lot to charity, so he’s highly respected. He’s given a great deal of money to the church as well.” Ǔn-hǔi seemed to want to let me in on even the tiniest details of her social world. Her driving seemed to have improved a lot since she’d moved here from Seoul.

“No, not at all. It’s just that they have good cars here, and the roads are good so you have the illusion that the car is gliding along smoothly. When I bought this car, I also saw a Rolls Royce for seven hundred thousand dollars. I wasn’t intending to buy a car. I was just looking. After the Rolls Royce, this car seemed a bit pathetic; it was as if it had revealed my desire to own an expensive car.

If you can’t buy the best car, it’s better to buy an American car or a small Japanese one. I asked my son to trade this one in for an American car.”

“It sounds like you asked your son to buy a seven hundred thousand dollar car.”

“Do you think I’m crazy? As the saying goes, I stretch my legs only as far as the end of the bed.

I must have been really smitten with that Rolls Royce. Of course, if you can afford a car like that, why not? People with money need to buy those kinds of cars to support the skilled craftsmen who make them.”

“When it comes to dollars, I can’t even fathom how much a million is. But it sounds like you’ll be demanding a private plane soon.”

“Wow, I wish I could. Then the next time you visit, I could take you around in my private jet, right?” Ǔn-hǔi laughed.

“I look forward to that,” I said gleefully.

“I hear that in Korea a forty-p’yŏng apartment fetches a million dollars these days. Isn’t that incredible? It wasn’t like that when I left. I feel shortchanged. I shouldn’t have sold my apartment.”

“How many hundreds of years are you planning to live? Don’t be greedy. You did well to sell.

Do you think you could get a million dollars now?”

“Good grief! Who’s the one living in Korea? Don’t you watch TV or read the newspaper?” Ǔnhǔi stopped for a traffic light and then made a right turn. “Anyway, let’s stop talking about apartment prices. It won’t do us any good. By the way, I heard that after his wife died, the sick man’s daughter warned him not to get too close to his nurses. She told him it’s all right to make friends but he’d better not marry one. People say it’s because of the inheritance. The people at my church say it’s frightening the way rich people behave. The head nurse is really pretty. That’s why the daughter is worried. You’d be surprised if you saw her. If she dressed better, she could pass for a rich woman.”

“If that’s the case, why does she do such hard work?” I was drawn into Ǔn-hǔi’s gossip without realizing it.

“Well, she first came to America with her husband. They worked hard and were just getting to the point where they were comfortably off when her husband had a car accident. He was in hospital for a month. This happened two days after their medical insurance had expired because they hadn’t

paid their premiums. If they’d paid on time, she wouldn’t be in the situation she’s in now. In America, without insurance, you’re dead. Without insurance, the medical expenses are astronomical… Unless you’re on welfare. I see this pretty woman every Sunday at church. She seems very devout. I guess it’s like that saying: beauty attracts bad luck. I’m reminded of it every time I see her.”

“She’s still in her sixties. Her life’s not over yet. Perhaps things will get better. If things are preordained, as you said, maybe she’s destined to have a better life later on.”

“Speaking of destiny, that reminds me of someone. That Korean politician, you know who I mean. Some people have all the luck, don’t they? Just thinking about it makes me crazy. Absolutely crazy!”

“That’s right, that’s right…” We giggled as if we were kids again. Ǔn-hǔi had come to America after her husband died, at the invitation of her oldest son. He’d moved to the States some time ago. His company had flourished, so he’d bought a house measuring 21,351 square feet with 1.63 acres of land in a very well-to-do area. According to Ǔn-hǔi, his house was relatively small compared to others in the same neighborhood because the developer had later adopted a policy of selling parcels of land no smaller than 5.7 acres, to make sure only the rich and the famous would live there.

“It looks great, with all those mansions. But America is such a big country and so diverse. You see all sorts of things here—anything is possible.”

“Won’t the price of the land go up?”

“Sure—that’s why he did it. The value of the land and the houses has been going up for a while now, in fact. It’s got a reputation as a wealthy neighborhood. And every household seems to have a story to tell. There’s this huge house not far from ours. Its former owner was a famous actor. When he went bankrupt, it was bought by the current owner. Only the house remains the same: the owners keep changing. And because there’s so much space between the houses, it’s hard to know who’s moving in and out.”

“It sounds like you’ve seen all sorts since you moved here…”

“The rich can’t stay rich forever. If they misuse their fortunes they’re bound to go bankrupt. You

know there are people who love to show off no matter how little they have in their wallet. The bankrupt actor was probably that type. You know, in that neighborhood, your popularity is in proportion to how much money you have. So pretending to be rich is just a waste of money.” Ǔn-hǔi said her son had bought his house as an investment. He never had noisy parties like his neighbors, though he and some people from his church had once held a quiet fundraising event at his house to help the less fortunate.

“He says that if what he’s doing right now goes well, he’ll have a grand party and invite everybody over. I guess he wants to show off to the Yankees. He’s gone through a lot of hard times since moving here so he’s learned to be cautious and look before he leaps. I told him not to waste even a penny showing off to others. Strangers crowd around you when you have money, but they won’t even give you a second glance if you’re broke—isn’t that so?”

“That’s usually the case.”

We arrived in the city center. Ǔn-hǔi started telling me about her church. She said she felt comfortable there because the pastor and the entire congregation were Korean, and it made her forget she was on American soil.

“Some people sneer at Koreans buying up American churches, but in this foreign land Korean churches are where Koreans can meet other Koreans, you know? The sermons are in Korean, and we can all talk to each other in Korean; it doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are or what you do for a living. Of course, you still live in Korea so you don’t know what it’s like living in a country where they don’t speak your mother tongue.”

“No, of course not.” As I was only there on a short visit, there didn’t seem much point in arguing about it.

In the hospital, as we approached the sick man’s room, the screaming grew louder. I wondered if this was what death throes sounded like. I wanted to block my ears. It sounded like a spy being tortured in a spy movie. I wished I hadn’t come. Ǔn-hǔi was walking quickly ahead of me with the people from her church. As I was wondering whether or not to tell her I wanted to skip the visit, we arrived at the man’s room.

The old man was no more than skin and bone. He was lying on a bed in the middle of a room

about sixteen square meters in size. Extending from under the bed covers and over the sides of the bed were two rubber tubes, one on the left and one on the right. At the end of one tube was a transparent square bag, half full of a bloody fluid. The tube was draining the fluid from his lungs.

Even though he had an oxygen mask, he was breathing with his mouth open as if he were short of breath. His face was distorted with pain as he tried not to scream in front of his visitors. His big sunken eyes briefly opened wide to glance at his church friends, but closed almost at once. The church members surrounded his bed in two rows, and those in the back row poked their heads between the people in front to look at him. I was standing at the foot of the bed, so I had a clear view of his face. The pastor, who was stout and looked to be in his forties, said quietly, “Elder, the doctors told you not to breathe through your mouth.” The old man closed his mouth but then opened it again and breathed with a tortured “huh, huh” sound. As if remembering his instructions, he kept closing his mouth for a second and then opening it again to gasp “huh, huh.”

The private nurse said: “Grandpa, please try to breathe only through your nose.” The man closed his mouth again, breathing hard. His hearing seemed normal and he appeared to be aware of everything that was going on around him. He just didn’t have the energy to speak. Even in the throes of his terrible pain, he seemed to be trying his best not to scream so as to maintain his dignity in front of his church friends. He had tremendous dignity and self-control.

I later heard that the man’s hands had been bound to his bed because he kept taking off the oxygen mask. He’d said he wanted to die quickly, so the doctors had had his hands tied to the bed so he couldn’t remove the mask. Why did they prolong his suffering? He seemed so weak and was struggling to breathe. Clearly he was in great pain. What was the point? With no possibility of curing him, wasn’t this medical intervention only prolonging his pain and suffering? If they couldn’t lessen the pain, wouldn’t it be more humane to let nature take its course? I found it unbearably frustrating, yet I didn’t have an easy answer to the dilemma. I was upset with Ǔn-hǔi for bringing me here when I was only in town for a short time.

The private nurse held a spoon filled with water to the man’s dry lips. “Please don’t let the water get into your mouth, Grandpa,” she said.

The pastor said, “Elder Kang Chŏng-sil, please pray.” A woman who looked to be in her mid-

fifties started praying, her words flowing like water, never faltering even once. “O Lord, by your loving hand, remove the pain from Elder Yi Chun…We trust Thee, Lord, we trust… Amen.” When she had finished praying, the pastor suggested that everyone read in unison from First Corinthians.

Everyone opened their bibles and, just like in Korea, started reading in a monotone chorus, “But now Christ…” One elderly person swayed back and forth while reading the scripture.

As I didn’t have a bible with me, I spent the time observing the sick man. He seemed to gain some measure of repose, but as his breathing became more labored he opened his mouth and gasped again several times.

After the bible reading the pastor led the group in hymn number 431, which they sang in a subdued tone. “My Jesus, as Thou wilt…”

One of the group closed the door so as not to disturb the other patients.

“We’ll come again tomorrow. The Lord Jesus is watching over you. Be at peace and trust in the Lord. He will protect you. Trust in the Lord to protect you. Trust Him,” the pastor told the sick man once the hymn was finished, and left the room.

Other members of the group offered encouraging remarks—“Elder Yi, keep up your spirit”; “Believe in the Lord”; “Trust in the Lord”—as they filed out, leaving the nurse alone with the patient.

As Ǔn-hǔi had said, the nurse was lovely and very gracious, just beginning to show signs of aging.

She had a peaceful expression that people found appealing. Ǔn-hǔi said, “Mrs. Shin, thank you for taking such good care of Elder Yi,” and then she told the sick man, “Elder Yi, I will come again tomorrow. Be strong. The Lord is watching over you.” She sounded like a real Christian. The man blinked his eyes as if trying to form words.

“What are you trying to say, Grandpa?” the nurse asked, moving closer to him. The man seemed to be mouthing the words: “Hurry, hurry.” His eyes were directed upward as if he were asking her to help him go to heaven.

The nurse comforted him, “Yes, Grandpa, God will be calling you soon. The angels will be coming to escort you. Try to get some sleep now. Dr. Yi is on her way here from the airport. And your son the Executive Director will be here shortly. I’m told he’s arriving on a ten o’clock flight.” At this, the man opened his eyes wide and closed them again. For a brief moment, he visibly brightened

and a trace of delight passed over his face. I was moved to tears at the joy he showed for his children even in the midst of horrible pain. I bowed deeply to him and walked out. He started gasping again while trying his hardest not to scream, shutting his mouth tight. His eyelids drooped, either with drowsiness or sheer physical exhaustion. It would be better if he slept, then at least he would forget his pain.

As soon as we were out of his room, Ǔn-hǔi told me, “We have one more patient to visit. This one has been a complete vegetable for months now. She can’t even eat so she’s fed through a tube inserted in her belly button. She hasn’t got long left…”

Before she could finish speaking, I threw up my hands. “I can’t stand seeing any more sick people. I’ve seen enough! I feel dizzy. I need to find a place to sit down.” I leaned against the wall.

“Oh my goodness, you’re really not in a good way, are you?” Ǔn-hǔi found a chair somewhere and brought it over. I sat at the window opposite the sick man’s room and took a sip of water from the Evian bottle Ǔn-hǔi handed me. As the cool water slipped down, I felt the tightness in my chest ease somewhat. I inhaled and exhaled deeply several times.

“How do you feel now?”

“A little better.”

“You scared me. Your color is coming back. You were so pale a minute ago. You’re very sensitive, aren’t you? Just stay here for a bit. I’ll be back soon. I really need to go see the other patient as she has no relatives to visit her. Her husband used to take care of her but he died. She doesn’t have any children. Her room is in another wing so it will take a little while. Will you be okay?” She looked at her watch. “I’ll try not to be more than half an hour. There’s a lounge around that corner. If you get bored, you can browse through some books there and have a cup of tea.

Sorry, sorry.”

I nodded and gestured for her to go.

It was quiet in the long, wide hallway. I had seen only two Western doctors in white gowns in the ten minutes since Ǔn-hǔi and her group had left. Perhaps there was less traffic here because it was the ward where the sickest patients were kept.

Elder Yi screamed again. I had thought he’d dozed off, but evidently he couldn’t sleep. Why

didn’t they give him some sleeping pills? I took another sip of water and stood up to go to the lounge. Before I could take a step I saw a woman running toward me with a small suitcase and a handbag. I guessed this must be Elder Yi’s daughter, the Dr. Yi the nurse had said was coming from the airport. She had a wide forehead and big bright eyes like her father’s, and she looked to be in her mid-forties.

The woman ran into Elder Yi’s room. I walked along the corridor to the lounge. There was no one there. I took a few sips from my bottle of water and picked up a magazine, intending to wait there for Ǔn-hǔi.

“So, can you explain to me…?” Dr. Yi and a young Caucasian doctor walked into the lounge. It was obvious from the look on Dr. Yi’s face that they were arguing. She acknowledged me with a nod and went on in fluent English, “You told us my father’s illness is impossible to cure even with the most advanced techniques of modern medicine. You told me that a month ago when he first came to the hospital. Didn’t you? So what have you been doing for the past month? This time when he was brought to the Emergency Room, shouldn’t you have given him some morphine to ease the pain?

Look at him! It’s torture, absolute torture. You’ve even tied his hands to the bed. What did my father do to deserve this?” She raised her voice, and appeared on the verge of tears.

The doctor just shrugged his shoulders, not knowing how to deal with her.

“When a patient comes to the Emergency Room, a doctor has to provide treatment. We gave him morphine, but it didn’t work…”

“How much morphine did you give him?” She stepped forward to confront the doctor.

His face took on a serious look and he said, “The amount he needed, in my professional opinion.” He drew himself up to his full height.

Dr. Yi continued, “Okay—I heard my father hasn’t passed urine for at least twenty-four hours.

Why haven’t you done anything about that?”

The doctor replied carefully, “We need to operate on him, but we’ve had to keep him under observation to make sure he’s fit for surgery. We’ve also been waiting for him to pass urine naturally.

Now you’re here to sign the authorization documents, we can schedule him for surgery this afternoon.”

“What does a signature matter in an emergency? I don’t accept that as an excuse. If you’d just helped him pass urine, he wouldn’t be in so much pain. Your approach is all wrong. You should have helped him to urinate from the beginning. I’m not going to pay. Never! I’ll make sure you get fired.

Why did you allow a ninety-year-old man to suffer like this when he doesn’t have many days left to live?”

“He’s eighty-nine.”

“You’re ridiculous!” She spat out the words in Korean. “Hurry up and do the operation!”

“The surgery has to be scheduled.”

“Then hurry up and give him a shot of morphine to ease his pain. I can’t bear to watch him suffer. Don’t worry, if giving him morphine is illegal, I’ll take the blame. I will.”

The doctor’s eyes widened and he shrugged.

“Mi-ae, calm down.” It was Dr. Yi’s older brother, who had just arrived. He came up and took her hand.

She shot a piercing glance at him and said, “You don’t love Dad. I know all about it. I know you harbor bad feelings toward him. You don’t like him because he treated Mom badly when he was younger. So you never sent him a letter or a card the whole ten years you were studying abroad.

Isn’t that right?”

“What are you talking about? You’re jumping to conclusions. You don’t have a clue…”

“I was too young to know what Dad did to Mom but as far as I remember he was a good husband to Mom and the best dad in the world to me.” She started to cry. Her anger changed course and broke on her brother as her anxiety about her father and pent-up emotion made her look for someone to blame and attack.

He looked to be about fifteen years older than her. Even without what Ǔn-hǔi had told me, I could tell he’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was good-looking. Probably a little over sixty. Extending his hand to the doctor, he said, “Forgive us… My sister is overwrought. Thank you for looking after our father.”

Dr. Yi waved her hands and shouted, “No! No!” In a calm tone of voice, the doctor said to the banker, “Your father’s heart is relatively strong. I

think he’ll last four or five days. We’ll do our best.”

At that moment, Elder Yi Chun screamed. The three of them rushed out of the lounge.

I breathed a sigh of relief. In the face of flickering life, or a life that should have flickered out quickly, all three were at their wits’ end. Eventually his heart would simply give out and it would all be over. But none of them knew when that would happen.

I thought about when my mother-in-law was dying. Most of our family had been certain she would see her hundredth birthday because she was so robust, even into her nineties, and they were proud of her for living so long. Her brothers were planning a big celebration for her hundredth birthday. From her ninety-sixth spring she began to cough a little. The neighborhood hospital we took her to told us she had a mild fever and that there was nothing to worry about. They instructed us to give her some cold and fever medicine and use a humidifier at all times. She had a good appetite and was still able to go out and about as usual. She showed no other symptoms. In the fall, she had indigestion for four or five days and her cough worsened slightly, so we took her to a university hospital where she was given an X-ray. We were all shocked to discover that she was in the last stage of lung cancer. The doctor told us it was too late to operate, and gave us some medication to give her. The doctor said she had the heart and the blood pressure of a healthy twenty-year-old.

“Maybe she’ll live longer, then? I’ve heard cancer progresses more slowly in old people,” my husband interjected. Four more years and she would be a hundred. Was it possible for her to last that long?

The doctor shook his head. “No one knows when a heart will give out. I sometimes think the date of expiration is written into a heart from the moment it’s created,” he said.

Could it be true? We trusted the doctor’s medical opinion, but we latched onto his other remarks. We clung to the hope that when my mother-in-law’s heart had been created, the expiration date had been set at a hundred years.

About ten days after we’d been to the hospital, she began to groan in pain. When we asked her where it hurt, she would say, “I can’t tell where this pain is coming from. My whole body aches. It must be because I’m preparing to go back to the place from which I was born.”

“What? Where is the place from which you were born?” I asked, startled at her words.

“I don’t know. It must be the other world. Your grandmother-in-law used to say she was in pain because she was trying to find the place from which she was born so that she could go back there.”

I couldn’t say a word. A few hours later her heart suddenly stopped, just as a good watch stops working when the battery runs out. When I put my cheek to her face it was deadly silent, as if in the abyss of some universe hundreds of millions of years away. The summit of silence. It was almost sacred. She’d had the healthy heart of a young person, but the manufacturer’s expiration date hadn’t quite been a hundred years…

Ǔn-hǔi came back into the lounge with her church friends and served them coffee and green tea she had bought at a kiosk. As they drank their drinks, they talked about the thing that was on all of their minds.

“It will be a blessing if God calls back both Elder Yi and Deacon Kim quickly.”

“What about that man in the room next to Deacon Kim—he must be over a hundred. They should have just left him alone when he collapsed. Why did they have to bring him to the hospital and give him IV fluid… When will it end?”

“I heard that private nurses prolong their patients’ lives so as to maintain their income.”

One of the churchgoers frowned as if she’d heard something she wasn’t supposed to hear and said “Amen,” shaking her head.

The pastor stood up to go to his next appointment, and everyone left together. Ǔn-hǔi and I left the lounge too. I listened outside Elder Yi’s door. Not a sound was to be heard. Was it over? At that moment a medic in a white gown pushed Elder Yi’s bed out of the room, and his daughter and son followed.

“They’re going to operate. Thank you!” Dr. Yi greeted us, bowing her head with a much brighter face than before. The doctor had said the operation would be in the afternoon, but she must have pressured him into doing it earlier.

“And now off to the museum,” Ǔn-hǔi said cheerfully as she started her car.

“Can we leave it till tomorrow?”

“My goodness, you got quite the shock.” She patted my shoulder a few times. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I never imagined it would be so shocking for you. But, you know, while we’re alive we need to live our lives to the full. That makes it easier for us to take care of people who are suffering, right?

The visit to Elder Yi is in the past. Try to about forget it. I made a reservation at the museum restaurant. We can’t get in without a reservation. It’s known for its excellent food. Let’s have lunch and go see those wonderful sculptures. Cheer up!”

That night I lay on the hotel bed and couldn’t sleep. It was late, but I called Ǔn-hǔi.

“Do you know how things turned out with Elder Yi?” I asked.

“Someone from church called to say that he had gone to heaven just a little while ago.”

“I guess you could say he’s better off.”

“I guess, but only he can know. Let’s think about it tomorrow. Have a good night’s sleep.”

“Good night,” I said, and let out a long, deep sigh.

(2005, Hyŏndae munhak) Translated by Hyon O’Brien and Suzanne Crowder Han

Notes [←1] Yakshik is a confection made from glutinous rice.

[←2] A sweet drink made from fermented rice.

[←3] Korean word for ‘Heavenly Being’

[←4] *A long traditional Korean coat tied at the front.