|
Mildawon Days By Kim
Dong-ni Translated
by Brother Anthony of Taizé Published
in Koreana:
Korean Culture & Arts
(The Korea Foundation) Vol. 33, No. 4 Winter pages
90-103. Once
it had passed Busanjin, the train seemed to be holding
back, as if it was
afraid of falling into the sea. From Choryang Station to
the main Busan station
it dawdled along, seemingly counting every step. Lee
Jung-gu glanced at his wrist watch. Six twenty. He had
boarded the train at a
quarter to three the previous afternoon, so the journey
had taken twenty-seven
hours and thirty-five minutes. Twenty-seven hours and
thirty-five minutes!
During all that time, Jung-gu’s head had been filled
with the idea of a Land’s
End, the end of the earth. The end of the line, a dead
end, with no possibility
of making even one more step, a place where taking
another step would mean dropping
into a “futile void,” a “last point,” which had a
complete grip on Jung-gu’s
consciousness. It was not simply because almost all the
passengers were going to
Busan, the last stop. It was not just for the
geographical reason that Busan
was the end of the line, and at the same time the end of
the land, the place
where it touched the sea. It was not only because the
train was the last train
to set out from Freedom’s Capital, Seoul, with the port
city of Busan as its
destination. On top of all these reasons, there seemed
to be another, more
fundamental and more urgent reason. But
Jung-gu did not know what it was, did not even want to
think about it. He
merely got off the train, because getting off the train
was not a difficult
problem. It was an action that was already scheduled
when he left Seoul, the
reason why the train had gone crawling with such care,
whistling itself hoarse,
all the way from Busanjin, in order to avoid straying
from the schedule or
falling into the sea. By
the time he reached the platform, some two thousand
fellow passengers were
still there. At least they were fellow citizens of the
same nation who had been
guarding Freedom’s Capital until the last moment on
January 3, 1951, then had
made their way down to the same destination on the same
train at the same time,
sharing “a common destiny.” By their watchful eyes,
their dignified postures,
their faces fixed in obsequious smiles, they still were
“comrades” while they
moved along the platform. However,
the moment they emerged through the ticket gates onto
the scrapyard-like
station plaza, as if in response to a promise, the sense
of being “comrades”
died away from their faces. By passing through the
gates, the “comrades” had
been dispersed. And that dispersal also meant “a new
freedom.” Jung-gu,
pushed through the ticket gates charged with this “new
freedom,” watched
blankly as all those people, who had been “comrades” a
moment ago, set off as strangers. Where
were they all going like that? It seemed amazing to
Jung-gu that they all
seemed to be heading somewhere. He felt sure that they
did not all have
relatives in Busan. Besides, it went without saying that
they were not all
originally from Busan. So where were they all going? How
was it that they all
had somewhere to go as soon as they passed through the
ticket gates? How could
they cast off “comradeship” in a flash and practice
freedom so bravely? Did
they not realize that Busan was the “end of the end,” a
“dead end”? Had they
forgotten that if they took one step beyond the “end of
the end,” the “dead
end,” they would fall into the sea or drop into a
“futile void”? If not, was
Jung-gu the only person to reach this “end of the end,”
this “dead end”? Even
so, did every one of those more than one thousand and
five hundred people
really have a place to head for thus bravely, so that
there was not one left
lingering hesitantly like Jung-gu? It was a miracle, a
tremendous miracle. Pondering
these questions within himself, without further thought,
Jung-gu unwittingly followed
the thronging procession at a sluggish pace.
“Unwittingly,” indeed. It might
merely have been the inertia of “comradeship.” Jung-gu,
“unwittingly,” or borne along by “the inertia of
comradeship,” was about to
cross the tram lines, carried along in this “miraculous”
procession, when he
heard a voice in his left ear, “Do you have somewhere to
go, Mr. Lee?” It was
Yun, a reporter with the K News Agency, wearing a purple
scarf and holding a
briefcase, one that looked shinier and fuller than
Jung-gu’s. Jung-gu covered
his mouth with his left hand, in its khaki-colored
woolen glove, as was his
habit, showing that words failed him, then indicated his
former comrades with
his chin and asked in reply, “Where are they all going?”
Yun kept his mouth
shut, smiled a meaningful smile, and simply replied,
“They all seem to be going
somewhere.” They crossed the tram lines. Then Jung-gu
asked, “So where are you
going?” That was not just a formal greeting. When Yun
had first addressed
Jung-gu, it might have been a passing greeting between
acquaintances, but now,
Jung-gu having made it clear that his situation was as
helpless as it was, his
question was an implied request to go along with him. As
before, Yun kept his
mouth shut, and smiled as if he had a mouth full of
salt, as he replied, “For
people like us, what choice is there? I’m headed for the
news agency’s local
office, despite the shame involved.” This “despite the
shame” might have been
added to warn Jung-gu away. But it had the opposite
effect on Jung-gu. That was
because Jung-gu hoped to share the shame of being part
of the plan, despite the
shame involved. For the third time, Yun smiled his
mouthful-of-salt smile. That
was all. Neither accepting nor refusing. In that case,
Jung-gu simply had to
exercise his “freedom,” take it as acceptance, and
quietly follow along behind
him. The
K News Agency bureau was in Bosu-dong. With some help,
Yun and Jung-gu found
their way to the office, which occupied quite a wide
room. Yun said, “There’s
no choice. Suppose we sleep here?” Jung-gu agreed,
“Right.” Then Yun asked if
he didn’t want to go out and have some dinner but
Jung-gu said he didn’t feel
like it. Later, when he brought back a small bottle on
returning from dinner, Yun
asked if he would like a glass of soju, but again he
refused. After
putting four tables together to form what looked like a
ping-pong table,
Jung-gu lay down on it, wearing his overcoat and a fur
hat. He heard a sound
like wind whistling through paper weather strips, or
rather like a flute. The
bureau chief gave them a lit candle, saying, “Blow it
out before you go to
sleep.” In reply, Yun thanked him on their behalf. Jung-gu,
for his part, thought that a hole might form in that
black ice cube, that space
around the burning candle. He imagined the ice on the
wall starting to melt a
little, and turned to look up at the glass door. But the
next moment, the black
block of ice standing there in the dark turned into a
black bear singing
lullabies for Jung-gu. Jung-gu
repeatedly felt as though he was stuck on a cliff,
without being clear whether
it was a dream. He felt as though he was stuck on a
towering cliff. They say
that if you fall from a towering cliff, there’s a deep
pool of water at the
bottom. At the same time, without any connection or
leap, it was a train. The
train was speeding down a very steep incline. The train
could not be stopped in
any way. It was racing toward the sea at a speed more
terrifying than a bicycle
hurtling downhill with unresponsive brakes. But each
time, before the train
fell into the sea, Jung-gu’s consciousness and
subconscious grew muddled and he
had the impression that his body was about to fall
either from a cliff or off
the edge of the tables, he did not know which it was.
This intermingling of
consciousness and subconscious kept being repeated all
night long. In
the gap between his muddled consciousness and his
subconscious, Jung-gu was
never once aware of the fact that he had reached Busan,
that he was sleeping in
the K News Agency’s bureau office, lying beside Yun. His
mind and body were so
exhausted. At
daybreak, as soon as he glimpsed early morning daylight
through the uncurtained
glass door, which was also the door leading into the
office, his consciousness
awakened to reality, in a flash. In a moment, he became
conscious of Yun lying
next to him, conscious of the K News Agency’s bureau
office, of the tabletops.
That was not all. At almost the same moment, the faces
of his old mother, left
alone in a cold room in a small old house on the fringes
of Wonseo-dong, in
Seoul, still coughing hoarsely from asthma, and of his
wife, gone with their child
to Nonsan in South Chungcheong Province, relying on
relatives there, flashed
before his eyes like a lamp being turned on. His mother,
having gone without
food for two days, might by now be lying wanly waiting
for death, coughing
constantly. Maybe his young daughter had died, rolling
off that crowded truck, after
being trampled on by people and knocked over by their
luggage, while Jung-gu,
who had been thinking of Busan as the “end of the end”
and a “dead end,”
suddenly realized that the office of the K News Agency
did not seem so very
cold or uncomfortable. Once again, he heard what seemed
like the sound of the wind
and at the same time the sound of a flute. “Mr.
Lee, you’re so well-known in literary circles, is there
really no one you know
in Busan?” Yun asked Jung-gu, tying his shoelaces.
“Well, I can’t think of
anyone on the spur of the moment … I’ll have to go to
that coffee house, that
Mildawon place, today….” Jung-gu replied as if talking
to himself, only it
wasn’t “on the spur of the moment,” it was what he had
been thinking for
several days past, then all the time he had been coming
down. He was not very
sociable by nature, and he had no connections or
contacts in Busan. This
morning, if he had not heard from the bureau chief that
“all the cultural
figures from Seoul are meeting at the Mildawon coffee
shop,” he might not have
been able to walk so briskly through the office door. The
Mildawon was an upstairs coffee house that lay a little
way down toward City Hall
from the Gwangbok-dong Rotary. To
one side downstairs was a sign, “National Cultural
Association.” Pushing open
the door next to the signboard, he found Jo Hyeon-sik, a
short, yellow-faced
critic, and, Heo Yun, the very opposite to Jo, being
much taller and with a
ruddy face, standing in front of a table. As soon as
they saw Jung-gu, they
held out their hands, looking pleased to see him. He
gave simple answers to the two men’s questions, as to
where his luggage was,
where his family was, what transportation he had used,
where he had slept the
previous night, then he pointed at his old briefcase
holding a face towel, a
toothbrush, a set of underwear, and a picture of his
mother, and added that it
was all he had. Hyeon-sik
led Jung-gu to the second-floor coffee shop. When they
were halfway up the
stairs, the voices of the people in the coffee shop rang
in his ears like the
sound of a swarm of bees. Jung-gu’s heart was pounding.
He paused for a moment
and thought about what was making him feel so cheerful
and excited. From
inside, Hyeon-sik scolded him: “Why are you hesitating
like a country bumpkin?”
Jung-gu pretended to ward off his reproofs by once again
covering his mouth
with his left hand in its khaki-colored woolen glove. It
was bright inside the coffee shop since the southeast
side was all windows, and
there were no tall buildings on that side to block the
sunlight. In the middle,
a large drum stove was emitting heat, and evergreens
stood in front of the
counter and in the northeast corner. It only took a
glance to realize that the
bees swarming around the twenty or so tables were almost
all familiar faces.
Jung-gu was too shy to go greeting each one in turn, so
he shook hands with the
friends who were sitting close by, or those who rose and
came across to welcome
him, greeting the others with a nod or a short bow. “You’ve
become a real bumpkin. How come you’re just standing
there looking around?”
Hyeon-sik scolded him a second time. Jung-gu
finished shaking hands and sat down. At once the painter
Song Si-myeong and the
female writer Gil Seon-deuk came and sat down at the
table with him. The
questions began all over again: when did you come, where
is your family?
Jung-gu responded briefly as before. Coffee arrived.
Hyeon-sik took up the cup
of coffee in front of him without inviting Jung-gu to
drink too, and took a sip
first. Then he pulled a pack of cigarettes from this
overcoat pocket. It was
not simply that he knew nothing of ordinary social
conventions or formal
greetings, it seemed to be his habit and his personality
to ignore courtesy as
far as possible. Yet, surprisingly enough, his very
risky “habit” and “personality”
did not occasion many misunderstandings because his
little, yellowish face
showed not the least sign of any greed. “Ah,
it’s a hard life,” Gil Seon-deuk joked. She came from
South Gyeongsang Province
and spoke with such a strong accent that several people
exclaimed and laughed
aloud. “It’s no good, at this rate we’ll all starve to
death,” she added, and
ordered six more cups of coffee for them all. Jung-gu,
urged by his friends to
drink up “before it went cold,” brought the steaming
yellowish coffee to his
lips. The first in five days. He felt as though he was
having his first taste
of coffee after a decade of exile in Siberia. A single
sip of coffee seemed to
sweep away all the pain that had accumulated in his
heart. Jung-gu could not
help opening his mouth wide and allowing a stupid laugh
to come bursting out.
What is a man? He barely managed to prevent the words
emerging from his mouth
several times. Six
new cups of coffee arrived. Hyeon-sik silently moved the
second cup of coffee, sitting
before him, to the middle of the table, indicating that
he did not want it.
Jung-gu also tried to refuse because it was the second
cup, but this time, Ms.
Gil paid no attention to his refusal. “It’s too unfair
to drink the coffee a
critic pays for and then refuse the coffee I offer you.”
As if agreeing with
Ms. Gil’s protest, the artist Song also extended his
palms and made a gesture
meaning “drink up quickly.” Jung-gu responded to the
gesture by bringing his
hand to his mouth. This gesture of Jung-gu’s was already
famous. Sometimes it
meant something was difficult, sometimes that he felt
awkward, sometimes that
he was sorry, sometimes that he was apologetic, or else
indicating that he felt
shy, ill at ease, or wanted to brush aside thanks; it
was his way of expressing
all such kinds of delicate feelings. “Until
what day did the coffee shops stay open?” This time the
coffee-crazy painter
Song asked. It might have been the twenty-ninth, or was
it the thirtieth? In
any case, by the end of the month almost nobody could be
seen out in the
streets of Seoul. Finally, people loaded the sick and
elderly onto stretchers
and into handcarts, alas, and once again Jung-gu brought
his hand to his mouth.
At that moment, his heart was stabbed by the thought of
his mother whom he had
not been able to bring away, even in that way. Just
then, Heo Yun came up from the downstairs office. “Heo,
come here,” Hyeon-sik
shouted cheerfully. Grinning, Heo Yun came to his side
without knowing what was
up and Hyeon-sik said, “You two are a good pair.” What
he meant was, “Heo lost
his children along the way and came down alone, while
Lee came leaving his
mother alone in Seoul,” implying that they would be able
to comfort each other,
being in similar situations. The musician Ahn Jeong-ho
and the artist Song, who
were nearby, laughed a little, but Heo Yun and Jung-gu
did not laugh. Ms. Gil
simply raised her left hand to her mouth in imitation of
Jung-gu. Ms. Gil, who
was already over fifty and had made several journeys to
the United States and
Hawaii, was someone who did not hesitate to make clumsy
gestures or sociable
responses, even at her own expense, in order to avoid
spoiling the atmosphere,
hurting people’s feelings or self-respect. In this
regard, she was virtually
the direct opposite of Jo Hyeon-sik, who kept needling
the pain of others,
though without malicious intent, and even with feelings
close to kindness. Lunch
time came. Ms. Gil said she would buy udon. The party
was composed of Jung-gu
as the main guest, Jo Hyeon-sik, Heo Yun, Song, Park
Un-sam and Ms. Gil, six
people in all. Ahn Jeong-ho had another engagement and
excused himself, so Park
Un-sam took his place. Park Un-sam was a poet. He had
been sitting alone in a
corner where he would not be noticed, like a mural
painting, but he was a close
acquaintance, and the way he was sitting there with a
very glum expression had
touched Jung-gu, so that he had deliberately brought him
into the group. From
beginning to end, in the restaurant or when they had
finished their udon, Park
Un-sam remained completely silent. His character had
always been rather
melancholy, but prior to the outbreak of the war he had
not been so taciturn.
It seemed that there had to be some particular reason
why he was sitting there
silently like a man in despair. But no one was
particularly interested in the
reason, or tried to explain it. That
evening, Jung-gu went to sleep at Jo Hyeon-sik’s place.
The house was in
Nampo-dong. It was a Japanese-style building with a
hospital signboard, “Harbor
Clinic.” Hyeon-sik had a friend who was a teacher at
Gyeongnam Girls’ Middle
School, and thanks to that friend’s introduction, he had
gained the use of part
of the hospital’s second-floor ward. It was a
four-and-a-half tatami room. In
addition, closets were attached to the northern and
eastern walls, making it a
very useful room. The
northern closet held bedding, bundles of clothing,
trunks, boxes of books and
various other items of refugee life, and he was told
that the closet on the
eastern side was being used as a bedroom by the
relatives. The
family consisted of Jo Hyeon-sik, his wife and their two
children, his mother,
a widowed sister with her child, as well as a cousin’s
son, a total of eight
people. And he added that his younger cousin sometimes
came to sleep there,
too. When
Jung-gu entered the room behind Hyeon-sik, he found a
group of some ten people
of all ages, including the son of the hospital’s doctor,
sitting together, the
grandmother entertaining her young grandchildren with
old stories, and the
young people noisily playing a yut board
game. As
soon as they entered, the yut game was cleared away. He
had known Hyeon-sik’s
wife since they were in Seoul, but his sister, his
cousin’s son and
cousin were faces he was
seeing for the first time. However, Hyeon-sik did not
bother to introduce
Jung-gu to them. Since they were from different fields,
and had different
reasons for being there, Hyeon-sik seemed to feel no
need for any such
formalities; that seemed to be an aspect of Jo
Hyeon-sik’s incorrigible
personality and habits. “Go
and buy a bottle of soju and some squid,” Hyeon-sik told
his son, a primary
school child, handing him a thousand won note. “So
where is your mother now?” Hyeon-sik’s wife asked
Jung-gu, looking at the
drinks table that was also their meal table. “She’s up
in Seoul.” Jung-gu
glanced briefly at Hyeon-sik’s mother. Sure enough, at
Jung-gu’s words
Hyeon-sik’s mother looked at him with a surprised air.
Her face seemed to be
asking if he meant he had abandoned his mother in coming
down. Suddenly,
Jung-gu realized that his throat was aching painfully.
And what has become of
your wife? Hyeon-sik’s wife asked. He replied that his
wife had gone with their
young daughter to her brother’s house in Chungcheong
Province. To Jung-gu, the tone
of her response, noting that it meant he had left his
mother alone in Seoul,
seemed to indicate that the interrogation was over and
at the same time to
declare him an unfilial son. Jo
Hyeon-sik was a poor drinker. His younger cousin,
however, was a heavy drinker,
so Jung-gu emptied almost the whole bottle of soju with
him. The ache in his
throat, that had been so painful, seemed to have been
washed away after a
couple of glasses. Instead, the following complaint came
flowing from his lips,
without his knowing for what motive or purpose: “If I
had only had the money,
of course I could have brought Mother down to Busan with
me. We had been living
day by day, hand to mouth, with the small payments I
received for things I
wrote, but then the war started in June, and although
Seoul was recaptured in
September, I was left completely broke. Actually, I
thought of selling that
shack in Wonseo-dong, but then, beginning in December,
the communists started
advancing south again, and how could I sell it then?
Around December 20, my
wife said she would take our daughter down to her
brother’s place in
Chungcheong, it’s her old home but they have no parents
left, they are not
normally on good terms, but we had no choice, it was do
or die, but in such a
situation, how could I send my mother along with them?
If I did decide to send
her, did I have enough money? As you know, she has been
suffering from asthma for
a long time now, totally unable to walk any distance, so
in a crowded train or
truck she’d be trampled on and wouldn’t last five
minutes. I might have gotten
hold of some kind of cart, loaded her onto it and set
off pulling her, but
finding something like that would have been like asking
for the moon and
besides, she only has to feel a cold breeze and she
starts a fit of coughing so
she can’t even breathe, she’d be almost sure to die at
the roadside … Besides,
Mother absolutely refused to move, she kept asking if I
wanted to kill her by
dragging her with me on the road. She said if she was
going to die, surely wouldn’t
it be far better for her to die lying comfortably under
a blanket at home?
Also, as there was still fuel and food left in the
house, she could get up and
cook something, so why invite death by leaving?….” So
Jung-gu explained that,
unable to abandon her, he had stayed on in Seoul until
the very last day,
joining the final retreat on January 3. By
the time the drinking was over, the eastern closet had
already been transformed
into a double-level bedroom. As soon as Hyeon-sik’s
sister and her baby went
into the lower space, his cousin’s son climbed into the
upper closet, and the
doors were slid shut. Once
Jung-gu was lying down and had closed his eyes, he heard
what sounded like a
boat’s horn that seemed to emit a kind of sad mist. At
the same time, he
thought that it was the same sound, like wind whistling
through paper weather
strips, or like a flute, that he had heard while lying
on the tables in the
bureau office of the K News Agency the night before. Once
breakfast was over the next day, Jung-gu went back to
Mildawon with Hyeon-sik,
carrying his old briefcase containing his towel and
toothbrush. “Today, our
friend Oh said he would be coming, so maybe we can find
you a place to stay
with him,” Jo said. “Who’s who among the writers in
Busan?” Jung-gu asked. Of
course, he meant people who were well-known, even in
Seoul. “Well, there are
four or five, but none of them is any use,” Jo Hyeon-sik
said. “There’s not one
who will be glad to see me arrive like this.” Jung-gu
seemed to be comforting
Hyeon-sik. They were both refugees from Seoul, and if
Hyeon-sik was acting as
landlord and Jung-gu as guest, it was not just because
Hyeon-sik had come down
first and found a room. Hyeon-sik’s wife was from this
region, and he also had
many close comrades from each province because he was in
charge of the National
Cultural Association secretariat. “You
know Jeon Pil-eop?” Hyeon-sik asked. “The only people I
know from here are Jeon
Pil-eop and Oh Jeong-su.” As soon as he replied,
Hyeon-sik asked, as if
interrogating him, “I heard that you were extremely
close to Jeon Pil-eop?” “As
close as Oh Jeong-su.” At that, Hyeon-sik fell silent,
drank down his coffee,
lit a cigarette, and leaned back in his chair at an
angle. “So,
have you met Jeon Pil-eop?” In reply to Jung-gu’s
question, Hyeon-sik simply
went on smoking for a while, then raised himself as he
knocked off the ash, and
said they had met here a week before. “Did he talk about
me?” Jung-gu asked, to
which Hyeon-sik made no direct reply. “That day, I was
sitting here in this
very seat when I happened to look up. He had already
come in and was standing
in front of the door over there, staring at me. At
first, I thought he must be
so glad to see me that he was at a loss what to do next,
but he just stood
there staring at me, you see? I raised my hand with a
smile, and called his
name, but he just stood there looking blank, without so
much as a nod, so I let
him be, thinking he was a weird guy, at which he went
over to where some
journalists I didn’t know were sitting, sat with them
for a moment, then walked
out. … So far so good, but what he said to Heo Yun when
he met him a few days
later takes the cake. Jeon said, ‘Listen. So far, the
guys from Seoul have led
the literary establishment, but now that Busan is the
nation’s capital, the
writers from here must seize the leadership of the
literary world, so we’ve
decided to wait until the major writers from Seoul come
out with heads bowed to
pay their respects.’” Jo Hyeon-sik ended the story in a
calm voice, without any
expression on his gaunt, yellow face, and stubbed out
his cigarette. “What
does he mean by leadership?” Jung-gu asked. “I don’t
know. He seems to be
talking about the right to publish things in newspapers
or magazines.” “Well,
in that case, Jeon Pil-eop might need that, and as for
us, we have nothing much
to publish, so I think the leadership can go to those
who need it.”
“Nevertheless, if someone asks us to write, there’s no
reason why we should
refuse to write or delay writing for Jeon Pil-eop’s
sake, is there?” “Of course
not.” “But in that case the problem becomes more
complicated. Because what
happens when we write and Jeon Pil-eop writes, and most
discerning readers
prefer us?” “Surely there’s nothing to be done about
that?” “But that’s where
the problem will arise. When Jeon Pil-eop talks about
taking over the
leadership, he means that even if he and we write at the
same time, he wants us
to ensure that society prefers him rather than us.” “Who
could ensure that, and
how would you do it?” “If we don’t ensure it, he will
make it happen.” “Make it
happen? How?” “If you want to know, just take a look at
the weekly newspaper
called ‘Port Literature’ that Jeon Pil-eop is producing.
How many good writers
among those who have come down from Seoul have not been
attacked? On top of
that, regarding more powerful literary figures, he’s
publishing personal
attacks with lies I’m ashamed to repeat, accusing them
of being freeloaders,
saying that someone at the National Cultural Association
is embezzling public
funds.” The two men sat for a while as though struck
dumb, simply staring at
one another in shock. “How
many are there like him?” Jung-gu was the first to
speak. “I don’t know. Besides
Jeon Pil-eop there are some youngsters who follow him.”
“If that’s all, surely
there’s no great problem? Everywhere you find guys like
this, guys like that.”
“But it’s different. No matter if the world is made up
of this kind of guys and
that kind of guys, this kind of trouble-maker could
never be tolerated, but now
that we are at war, with buildings collapsing, people
dying, there seems to be
a general psychological tendency to want to get rid of
all invisible authority
and standards.” Jo Hyeon-sik stopped talking and
continued to draw on his
cigarette. Jung-gu, for his part, found himself
repeating mentally to himself
the phrases “the end of the end” and “a dead end,” that
had not left his mind
for several days past, while he gazed around the coffee
shop buzzing like a
swarm of bees in a thick cloud of smoke. Oh
Jeong-su was wearing a black serge overcoat of
traditional style with a broad
white collar trim, and he came walking toward Jung-gu
with a gentle smile that
kept twitching at the corners of his mouth, sitting
rather far below his nose. “When
did you arrive?” he asked, with a slight hint of
regional dialect in his
accent. He grabbed Jung-gu’s hand firmly and did not let
go as he poured out a
stream of greetings: You must have had a hard time
getting here. Has your
family come with you? Have you found a place to stay? “Ah,
now everything will be fine.” Jo Hyeon-sik grinned as he
gave up his seat to Oh
Jeong-su. “What?” Unable to understand what he meant, Oh
Jeong-su looked at Jo Hyeon-sik.
“Lee here has been desperately waiting for you to come.”
“Why?” “Ask him.” Oh
Jeong-su, with the same smile hovering around his mouth,
looked at Jung-gu.
Jung-gu covered his mouth with his left hand, indicating
that he was sorry to
be a nuisance. “Lee slept in this coffee shop last
night,” Jo Hyeon-sik added.
“Really?” Oh’s expression grew serious. “Ask that
waitress over there,” Jo
Hyeon-sik kept a straight face. “But why didn’t you come
to me straight away?”
“He wasn’t sure whether or not he would be welcome.”
Finally, Oh Jeong-su
understood that Jo was joking. “Hey, you’re a bad
person!” he said, casting an
askance glance at Jo in the way neighborhood women do in
protest. Then he
turned to Jung-gu and said, “Really, you must come to my
house this evening.”
“I’m sorry about this…” Jung-gu was about to scratch his
head, when beside him
Jo murmured, “That’s just great.” “It’s
really great,” the painter Song, who was nearby,
concurred. Then Song added, “Mr.
Oh has made one of his rare appearances today, so let’s
go to a mung bean pancake
place. I’ll lead the way.” That morning, he had been
paid for some illustration
work. The
group was originally composed of four people, Oh
Jeong-su, Jo Hyeon-sik, Lee
Jung-gu, and Song, then the composer Ahn Jeong-ho joined
them, making five. The
pancake place was on a dock at Nampo-dong called the
prow. Directly in front of
it, the blue sea’s waves were pounding. The distant,
faintly visible shore
between Yeongdo and Songdo, from where it’s said
Tsushima Island can be seen on
a clear day, was covered with a sea of mist-like clouds,
and from the clouds a
salty breeze came blowing, occasionally bearing flocks
of seagulls flapping
white wings. As
the drink took effect, the artist Song and Ahn Jeong-ho
grew heated and started
to give vent to their feelings. It was all about the
claim that the Republic of
Korea despised all artists. “Korea’s artists must all
die! All!” Ahn screamed
several times. “Where the hell has all that goddam money
gone? Those billions,
trillions, astronomical sums handed out, where’s it all
gone? If you put all
that goddam money together, it would make a pile bigger
than Yeongdo over
there, wouldn’t it? Where did all that damn money go, so
that on the very day
the war broke out we found ourselves empty-handed
beggars? Even among those
who’ve reached Busan, how many artists are able to eat
properly with their
wives and children? Where is all the money piled up, so
that the Republic of
Korea’s few artists have all become beggars, forced to
fall into the goddam sea
and die?” While Song’s eyes seemed to blaze fire as he
vented his feelings, Ahn
Jeong-ho’s voice cracked as he began, “You’re asking
where those piles of money
have all gone? Only take my wife’s uncle, he’s a
businessman, and do you know
how many ships he’s playing with now? In times of
emergency, he only has to
head for Jeju Island, Tsushima Island, Japan or the
United States, and he’s
free to choose, and you think he’s doing that all alone?
The people with money team
up with the people with power, those with power and
those with money look out
for each other, they’re hand in fist,” and tears came to
his eyes. Judging by
his cracked voice and the tears in his eyes, he seemed
to have tried to get a
piece of the action through his wife and to have been
shamefully rebuffed. “So
we should all just die and disappear, jump into the
goddam sea quickly, die and
disappear!” Song agreed. “But
why is Un-sam acting like that? He seems to have
changed.” Jung-gu tried to
change the subject by mentioning Park Un-sam, whom he
had seen the previous
day. “He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t smile, just sits
there like an idiot,
doesn’t he?” To which Song replied, “You ask why he’s
like that? Why? Because
he’s love-sick.” He spoke confidently. “Remember that
woman who was always with
him before the war started? A student at the Medical
College for Women.” “So,
did he break up with that girl?” “As good as.” “What do
you mean, as good as
broken up?” “They’re as good as broken up, and the
result is that they have
broken up, anyway.” Everyone laughed. Encouraged by
their laughter, Song
continued: “They didn’t break up because of their
feelings or intentions,
circumstances made it happen.” “Circumstances?” “The
girl didn’t become a
beggar following her boyfriend but went abroad following
her parents.” “In
which case her intentions played a role, surely?” “But
it wasn’t like that, or
at least Park Un-sam still reckons so.” Here, the
conversation paused for a
moment. “Is her father a diplomat?” Jung-gu asked. “Not
a diplomat, but he
seems to have a close relationship with the Korean
mission in Japan, all the
time traveling to and fro by plane.” Jung-gu and Song’s
exchanges ended with
that. Jung-gu
turns to look at the sea. Through his drunken haze, the
blue sea shines. He can
see a flock of swooping white gulls above it. At the
same moment, inside his
head, a train speeding downhill comes to mind. It’s the
last train. Reaching
the end of the land, it will fall into the sea. To avoid
falling into the sea,
the train keeps whistling hoarsely and stiffening its
legs until the ankles are
twisted. But the train racing downhill is bound to end
up in the sea, carried
along by its fearful speed. In Jung-gu’s eyes, the
seagulls shine again. He
reflects that perhaps he has already fallen into the
sea. He reflects that he
may already be part of a flock of seagulls. Oh, seagull,
seagull! He calls to
the seagulls with poetic emotion. In his head, a picture
of the artists buzzing
like bees in Mildawon emerges. They are all cheerful.
The artist Song with his
eyes blazing at the idea that every artist in this
country had to fall into the
sea and die; Ahn Jeong-ho, sad and reduced to tears by
his wife’s uncle; the
poet Park who has lost his sweetheart in all the
turbulence and is sitting
there at a loss; the poet Heo who has left his children
scattered along the
roadside and is prolonging his life with three rice
cakes a day all alone; even
Lee Jung-gu, himself, who has fled alone, leaving his
old, sick mother to die,
all are cheerful. In the coffee shop, they buzz like
bees. In the sea, they
flutter like seagulls. With deaths and farewells before
and behind, wandering
and starvation to left and right, yet cheerful because
of a cup of coffee and
familiar faces, cheerful nonetheless, what was there to
be cheerful about? In
order to put out the words rising in his throat, he gave
another long sigh. Oh
Jeong-su’s house was in Beomil-dong. It was a
single-story Japanese-style
building. It had one ondol room and two tatami rooms.
The ondol room was used
by Oh Jeong-su’s wife and children, while one tatami
room was his study. The
other tatami room housed relatives who had arrived as
refugees. The garden was
not large, but there were garden trees, such as spindle
tree, pine, and
paulownia, as well as flowering bushes, such as lilacs.
At one end of the
house, there was a row of seven or eight pots holding
orchids, cacti, palms,
gardenias and magnolias. “You don’t keep birds?” Jung-gu asked. Oh
nodded, “Yes.”
There was no knowing whether he meant that he did or did
not keep birds. There
was merely an empty birdcage hanging at one end of the
eaves. It looked as
though either he no longer kept birds or they had been
moved to another cage.
“You can live here all alone, taking care of these or
looking out to sea when
you’re bored,” Jung-gu said, imitating Oh’s way of
speaking. Oh Jeong-su simply
replied, “Yes, yes” and nodded as before. In the evening, drinks were served and as
Oh Jeong-su handed
a glass to Jung-gu, he said, “Actually, I was thinking
about both Jo and you,
and kept one room ready for you.” Jung-gu said he had
already heard as much
from Jo. However, Oh continued, “It’s good, you’re on
your own so you can stay
here in this room with me,” looking at Jung-gu with a
warm smile on his lips.
“But I feel sorry,” Jung-gu said, offering his glass to
Oh. It was a vague
response. Oh’s wife came in and greeted him. She was
very tall and plump,
with a dark complexion, and a husky voice. However, her
squinting eyes seemed
to have something girlish about them. “I’m sorry we have
nothing much to offer,
but I hope you enjoy the meal,” she said, bowed and went
out. Then the dinner
table was carried in. “Bring it a little bit later,” Oh
said, and sent the
table back. “We’re going to drink some more first,” he
shouted toward the
kitchen. “This must be shepherd’s purse, it’s
delicious,” Jung-gu
said, putting on a Busan accent. The shepherd’s purse
had been mixed with
various seasonings and anchovy sauce. “Yes, eat a lot,
there’s plenty of it,” Oh
Jeong-su replied, picking up a piece with his chopsticks
and putting it into
his mouth. “It’s a shame you don’t drink much, you
know,” Jung-gu joked,
continuing to use dialect. “What do you mean? You’ve
been making me drink
non-stop.” Oh Jeong-su looked at him sideways with a
smile on his face, as
neighborhood women do. A sound like a boat’s horn kept
echoing. It wasn’t the
sound of a flute he had previously heard in Bosu-dong,
neither was it the
whistling sound he had heard at Jo Hyeon-sik’s place the
night before. It was
really a boat’s horn, a heartbroken cry as though
something was leaving. “I
can’t stand the sound of that wretched trumpet.” Jung-gu
emptied his glass as
he kept repeating this, like a drunkard. Oh Jeong-su
didn’t seem to understand
that he was referring to the horn. In fact, the sound of
the horn they could
hear from there did not fit the term “a wretched
trumpet.” Rather, that was the
sound only heard in Jung-gu’s intoxicated heart. “Don’t
be like that. Have
another drink.” Oh Jeong-su refilled Jung-gu’s empty
glass. Jung-gu attempted
to pick up the glass with a hand that was already numb
from drinking. Suddenly,
hot tears burst from his eyes, that seemed to reveal
intense emotion despite
his drunken face, and an uncontrolled sob came welling
up. At that, despite his
drunkenness, perhaps thinking that it was shameless,
scandalous behavior, he sprang
up, opened the door, and ran outside. As he tried to put
a foot on the lower
step, he slipped and fell, knocking a couple of flower
pots off the step. Oh
Jeong-su quickly followed him, carrying a lamp, and
found Jung-gu sitting on
the stone step, with one of the two pots holding orchids
broken cleanly into
three pieces. The next morning, as soon as Jung-gu had
finished breakfast
he quickly made to go out, holding his old briefcase
containing toothbrush and towel,
claiming to have an appointment with Jo Hyeon-sik. “Why
the hurry? Why don’t
you rest for a few days?” Oh Jeong-su held him back.
“I’ll come visit you every
day, don’t worry,” Jung-gu said. “Yes, I hope you come
every day, you can come
even without warning, I’ll always be waiting for you.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll come
so often you’ll be sick of me.” Jung-gu went running to the tram stop as if
he had some
urgent business. What was so urgent he himself could not
say. He simply had to
get to Mildawon. He would only be able to breathe
properly when he could see Jo
Hyeon-sik, Song, Ahn Jeong-ho, Heo Yun, Park Un-sam, and
Ms. Gil. The tram
stopped at every stop, and people dawdled to such a
degree as they got on and
off that he felt like stamping with impatience. About halfway up the stairs leading to
Mildawon, when he
could hear the swarm of bees buzzing, Jung-gu realized
that his heart was pounding
as it had done a few days before. He could not figure
out what was so urgent,
or why he was so excited that his heart was pounding. Jo Hyeon-sik was writing an article in a
corner. He looked up
at Jung-gu and asked, “Was Oh’s place comfortable?”
“Comfortable, certainly,”
Jung-gu stressed the word comfortable. There was nothing
more he could say. Had
he not just come racing away from that certainly
comfortable house of Oh
Jeong-su’s as if escaping from prison? What could he say
to praise Oh
Jeong-su’s true, upright, warm personality, his quiet,
cozy, idyllic study, the
clean bedding, the taste of fresh abalone and seaweed,
shepherd’s purse,
various kinds of salted fish, and express his gratitude? That evening, as Jung-gu ate some toast
with Jo Hyeon-sik, he
said, “I’ll have to impose on you for a bed again this
evening.…” At last he
spoke the words which had refused to emerge since the
morning. “Why, aren’t you
going back to Oh’s place?” Jo Hyeon-sik looked at
Jung-gu with a puzzled
expression. Jung-gu hesitated for a while because he did
not know what to say
at first. “It’s too far away.” That was the first thing
that emerged from his
mouth. At the same time, he laughed as if to say he knew
he was being pathetic.
Then he continued, blurting out, “If I could have my
way, I would sleep in a
closet in your house, then come and spend the whole day
sitting here in Mildawon.
Above all, your place is not far from here.”
Surprisingly enough, Jo Hyeon-sik
seemed not to be taken aback by his words, but rather
smiled as if it was all
quite natural. Jung-gu continued, as if he was
encouraged by Jo Hyeon-sik’s
smile. “I reckon it would be much better to sleep in a
corner of this coffee
shop rather than in Oh’s house, I’m not afraid of the
cold. It would certainly
be better than sleeping on a table like the first
evening in Bosu-dong.”
“Surely it takes less than an hour to get here from Oh’s
house?’’ “Even so, it
feels like a great way off. I have the impression I’m
all alone in Siberia, my
heart burns so. I only have to take one step away from
this Mildawon and I feel
scared, anxious, my heart starts to burn, I can’t stand
it if I’m not
surrounded by refugees like myself. Where’s Beomil-dong?
It feels as though
it’s a thousand miles away.” Jung-gu’s grumbling had to stop there
because Park Un-sam,
who had been dozing in a distant corner, came heading in
their direction. Park
Un-sam came to the table where Jung-gu and Jo Hyeon-sik
were seated
face-to-face, as if he had some business to discuss, and
sat down, but said
nothing. He simply sat there silently, just as he had
sat in his corner, like a
mural painting. Feeling sorry for him, Jo Hyeon-sik
spoke first, “Mr. Park
Un-sam, where are you staying these days?” But Park
Un-sam did not move, simply
went on staring at the wall. Jo Hyeon-sik repeated the
same question, at which
Park turned his head and asked, “Did you say something
to me?” Jo Hyeon-sik
laughed and asked the same question for a third time, to
which finally Park replied,
“I stayed at a friend’s, but he got married yesterday.”
What he meant was far
from clear. Then he returned to being a mural painting
again. An hour or so passed. In that time, Song
and Heo Yun both
came, sat there a while, then left. Ms. Gil also came by
and chatted for a
while. Ms. Gil was asking what they would do if the
Chinese forces reached
Busan. It was a problem that never left anyone’s mind
for a moment. So no one
felt inclined to reply. Finally, sunny-natured Song said
in a loud voice, “We
have all decided to jump into the sea and die before the
Chinese get here.” He
shouted so loudly that not only those who were sitting
there, but the people at
nearby tables all exclaimed and laughed. “I understand.”
Ms. Gil simply brought
her hands together, bowed, looking solemn, and went out.
Once again Jung-gu, Jo
Hyeon-sik and Park Un-sam were left alone together. Dusk
came. Jo Hyeon-sik
picked up his pack of cigarettes from the table and put
it in his overcoat
pocket. It was a sign that he was about to stand up.
Just then the mural
painting Park Un-sam suddenly turned his head and called
out, “Mr. Jo.” He was
in his twenty-ninth year, being seven or eight years
younger than Jo Hyeon-sik
or Jung-gu, and that explained why he was using the
formal title “Mister.” Jo
Hyeon-sik, who had begun to rise, sank back in his
chair. The mural painting
spoke again, “Could I go to your house with you this
evening?” “Someone else
applied first,” Jo Hyeon-sik said, pointing at Jung-gu
with a smile.
Immediately Park Un-sam, without saying anything
further, turned his head back
and once again became a mural painting. Jo Hyeon-sik
stood up, hesitated for a
moment, then said, “Mr. Park Un-sam, come along with
us.” At that, the mural
painting instantly stood up like a robot moved by an
electric motor. After finishing dinner at Jo Hyeon-sik’s
house, Park Un-sam
unfastened his bundle tied in a light blue cloth wrapper
that he always carried.
(It was his only possession, like Jung-gu’s old
briefcase.) It held a rubber
bag with toiletries and two notebooks. Park Un-sam
handed the two notebooks to
Jo Hyeon-sik, “Can I ask you to look after these?” Jo
Hyeon-sik took them,
handed them to his wife, saying, “Put these in my bag,”
and then looked around
at Jung-gu, and asked him, “Can you endure without
drinking soju?” At that,
Park Un-sam suddenly stood up as if something had
stabbed him, saying that the
friend who had got married the previous day had several
bottles of Canadian
whiskey, he had to go pay him a visit, and walked out.
He did not return. The
next day, when Jung-gu and Jo Hyeon-sik arrived at
Mildawon, Park Un-sam was
already there, sitting quietly by the stove. When the
two of them approached the
stove, whether he saw them or not, he didn’t budge. Jo
Hyeon-sik spoke first.
“What happened last night?” He simply replied that it
had been late, then got
up and moved to his private seat in the corner where he
always sat like a mural
painting. Around lunchtime, Ms. Gil came and asked
Jung-gu and Jo
Hyeon-sik to go out with her as she had something urgent
to discuss with them.
They went to the same udon house as a few days before.
Once they had ordered,
Ms. Gil began to talk. First, she asked about the
situation, in terms similar
to the previous day. “It looks as though the enemies are
still advancing
southward,” Jo Hyeon-sik answered lightly. Jung-gu
added, “The Chinese have
reached Osan and Wonju,” sharing information he had
heard that morning when he ran
into Yun from the K News Agency on the street. Ms. Gil
closed her eyes and once
again joined her hands as if in prayer. “After
proclaiming loudly that the
defenses of Seoul were impenetrable, they handed it over
to the enemy, so
there’s not much point in saying that they are sure to
make a counterattack in
any particular area,” Jo said in a gloomy voice.
“Anyway, we can’t be
optimistic, can we?” Ms. Gil responded. Jung-gu echoed
her feelings. Jo’s
silence meant that he agreed. Ms. Gil lowered her voice
and asked if they had
any alternatives. Everyone with money was preparing to
cope with whatever might
happen. But we’re just crowding a coffee shop without
any plans. Consider what
might happen. It’ll be dreadful. However, there was a
boat leaving for Jeju
Island on church-related business within five days. If
she asked, another ten
or so people could take it. If Jo Hyeon-sik and Jung-gu
agreed she would move
ahead with the plan. “Think carefully,” she concluded.
After a short pause, Jo
Hyeon-sik’s first response was, “If we go, what will we
eat? How will we live?”
“Survival comes first, eating comes second,” said Ms.
Gil. “But with nothing to
live on, it’s far too vague.” “Lots of other refugees
have gone there, haven’t
they?” While Ms. Gil and Jo Hyeon-sik continued to
debate, Jung-gu was thinking
in his usual manner of the dread of solitude he had
experienced the day before
at Oh Jeong-su’s house. He felt that he could not go far
from Mildawon under
any circumstances. He would act together with all the
others who remained there
to the bitter end. Even if it meant jumping into the
sea, as Song had said. He
had no courage left to act individually. Bees in swarms,
gulls in flocks, he
almost muttered aloud. “Please, Mr. Lee Jung-gu the novelist, tell
us your opinion
too.” Ms. Gil did not lose her sense of humor, even at
such a time. “I can’t do
it, I’m too scared. I’m frightened to leave Mildawon.”
Ms. Gil, hearing
Jung-gu’s clear refusal, once again joined her hands
before replying, “You
should understand that there will not be another
chance.” Jo Hyeon-sik, alarmed
at these words, recalled how he had nearly been killed
several times in Seoul
by the puppet army at the start of the war and,
inquiring about the details,
asked, “How many days do we have left to decide?” When
Ms. Gil replied that
everything had to be finalized within five days at the
latest, he said to stall,
“Then give us five days, and we will consider the idea a
little more.” Ms. Gil
seemed to agree, saying, “Believe me, if you two
comrades are opposed, I do not
have the courage to act alone.” Then they rose. The three of them went back to Mildawon. As
they were about
to climb the stairs, the musician Ahn Jeong-ho was
coming down looking agitated.
“Where have you been?” he asked in a flustered voice.
When Jo Hyeon-sik replied
that they had been eating udon, Ahn Jeong-ho pointed
upstairs and said, “Park
Un-sam has taken poison.” “Poison?” “Sleeping pills.”
“Why sleeping pills?” “What
do you mean, why? He’s unconscious.” Jo Hyeon-sik’s face
turned pale. Ms. Gil’s
lips trembled. “How many did he take?” Jung-gu asked. “A
great quantity, it
seems. It looks as if he’s taken sixty phenobarbital as
well as five Secobarbital.”
“Did nobody realize?” “What do you mean? We thought he
was just dozing as usual
in that corner where he’s always sitting alone.” He ran
out, saying he was
going to fetch a doctor. When they entered the coffee shop, people
were crowded
together in the northwest corner. “You stupid kid!
Wretched kid!” Song was
holding Park’s overcoat sleeve and crying. “How on earth
could you let him do
it and not realize?” Ms. Gil scolded the woman in charge
of the coffee shop. “He
always sat there alone, didn’t he?” The woman replied.
“Especially, today he
was busy writing, it looked as if he was composing
something so no one went
near him. Later, he shut his eyes and leaned his head
against the wall, as he
always does.” Heo Yun was blubbering as he approached and
gave Jo Hyeon-sik
a folded sheet of paper. The front bore the title
“Farewell.” I
have taken sixty phenobarbital and five Secobarbital
that I had prepared in
advance. I
have truly gained clarity of consciousness at last. Now
I am at peace. Now
I can see the face of my loved one smiling at me across
the rolling waves. And
now I can see almost all my dear friends gathered before
me. I do not want to
prolong my life at this time here as they are watching
over me. Farewell,
dear people. January 8, 1951 Park
Un-sam Park
Un-sam’s suicide caused quite a few changes at Mildawon.
The coffee shop was
closed for many days, with a note fixed to the door
saying, “Internal Repairs.”
In addition, since the downstairs portion was to be
repaired, the order came to
remove the National Cultural Association office. Driven
out of Mildawon, everyone scattered to various other
coffee shops near the
Gwangbok-dong Rotary. From the roundabout at the center,
some went to the Star
coffee shop on the Nampo-dong side, and half to the
Geumgang coffee shop on the
Changseon-dong side. Geumgang
was not only much smaller than Mildawon, it was in a
building resembling the
waiting room of a simple rural railway station, with
none of the facilities or
equipment needed for a real coffee shop. Perhaps for
that reason, if you stayed
long sitting on the hard wooden chairs of Geumgang, you
would soon hear the
sound of a ship’s horn, even in broad daylight. Maybe
because of his recent
experience of death, whenever he heard that sound of a
boat’s horn, Jung-gu
would have a vision of his mother lying alone, a
lifeless corpse, and
instinctively shudder in horror. If they nevertheless
kept going to Geumgang
all the time, it was because of their friends working
for the Hyeondae News directly
across from the coffee shop. Five
days later was the thirteenth, the day Jo Hyeon-sik had
promised to give Ms.
Gil an answer. But by that time their minds were already
made up, because the counterattack
by the United Nations forces had begun on the eleventh.
Thus, the issue of “plans”
was abandoned. Starting
on the fifteenth, Jung-gu began to work as an editorial
writer for the Hyeondae
News, introduced by Yun of the K News Agency. Then
on the sixteenth, thanks to
Jung-gu, Jo Hyeon-sik was able to hang up the sign of
the National Cultural
Association on the door of a room in one corner of the
second floor of the
newspaper offices. At the same time, Wonju, Icheon and
Osan were recaptured by
the UN forces. Three
days after Jung-gu started work, the Hyeondae News’
culture page included Jo
Hyeon-sik’s article headlined “Park Un-sam, the Man and
his Art,’’ together
with Park Un-sam’s last poem, “Lighthouse,” with a
drawing by the artist Song. I stood alone
on the beach one
evening when it seemed there
might be a tsunami. Is
the heart finally
crumbling away in
that blue wave acting
like a child? Far
away a
bride dressed in white stands
like a lighthouse. Do I turn on the light by burning myself?
|