The Old Garden

“That Gymnasium President?⁹ He announced that he has formed something called the national security committee, and that it will arrest all criminals who commit harm against society.”

“Harm against society? What the hell is that?”

“They say people prone to commit crimes, like gang members, but I bet they will include anyone antigovernment, like us.”

“Isn’t massacring innocent civilians the biggest harm against society?”

Dong Woo was being cynical, but Kun was seriously concerned. He sighed.

“We need to find a new place as soon as possible. Any ideas?”

“How about you? You should take care of yourself first.”

“I’m fine. I’m with Jung Ja.”

Hearing this, Dong Woo, who was lying on the floor leisurely with his arms crossed under his head, sprang up.

“What? What did you say?”

“Why are you so surprised? Hae Soon already gave us her blessing.”

“Who said that dating between members is allowed?”

Listening to Dong Woo flaring up, Kun simply smiled as he looked into space.

“Hmm, this is not dating, this is life, everyday life. We are going to get married. You should congratulate us. I actually came here today to tell you that. I also started a knitting factory. I’m the manager.”

“You think people collected money to buy knitting machines for you? That was for those who lost their jobs!”

“There are four workers, and I run around getting business.”

I was listening to their conversation, and I wanted to encourage Kun.

“Good for you. Good luck, too! But you’ll be very busy because of our work.”

“It’s not a problem, the gatherings are usually after business hours. Anyhow, that’s my problem, but you still have to move . . .”

“We should talk about it. Let’s say we’ll leave here by sometime next week. Why don’t we ask our sponsors?”

It was exactly two days after Kun came to see us. Dong Woo had gone down to the main street to buy groceries, but he came running back out of breath. He banged shut the door in the kitchen that led directly out to the alleyway, then he put the lock on and secured it with a long spoon. He was still standing there with his ear attached to the thin plywood door, trying to figure out what was going on outside. I opened the door from the room to the kitchen and asked, “What happened, were you followed?”

“Shhh, be quiet. And turn the light off.”

I became nervous hearing his frozen voice, so I turned the fluorescent light off as quickly as I could. He was still standing by the door in the same posture. Soon, we heard the footsteps of several people, and voices talking. The voices got louder.

“This way!”

“There are so many little alleys, who knows where he hopped to?”

There were sounds of footsteps. Flashlights wavered. They slowly walked away. Someone was calling from far away, “Detective Yi, come over here.”

Police! Only then I was truly shocked and scared. I sat in the darkness without moving, as if my back was glued to the wall. Dong Woo sneaked into the room and sat next to me, his knees touching his mouth and his back straight against the wall. His breathing was even now.

“What happened?”

As I whispered, Dong Woo answered in a whisper, too.

“Phew . . . I almost got caught. You know the little market by the street down there, right?”

I knew it well. It was more like a gathering place for street vendors at the entrance to the neighborhood. Throughout the summer, I walked there to buy watermelons and melons and vegetables, and it was the place where the men in this neighborhood bought special treats for their families when they had money left over from the pubs and bars.

“I was walking down there when I saw both plainclothes and uniformed policemen, a lot of them, inspecting everyone, I mean everyone. So I just stopped there. They even had those chicken coop buses parked by the street.”

“Kun was right. It’s a crackdown. The police and the military are working together to round up as many people as possible, and didn’t he say that they send the criminals for some sort of purification or reeducation?”

“That’s it. If they find us, it would be like catching lobsters while looking for anchovies. I was trying to be inconspicuous, but my eyes met those of a plainclothes officer. Hey, you over there, come here, he said. Me? Yes, you, come here, and he walked fast toward me. So what else could I do? I ran!”

“And he’s thinking, why would he run unless he had to? You’re busted!”

“I know, I know. It doesn’t look good. Think about it, they’ll soon go around the neighborhood and ask everyone about renters and tenants, and somebody could rat us out by saying something like, over there in that house are two young men.”

“Let’s stay up through the night and leave early tomorrow morning. We might lose time, but they’ll have to change guards at some point and dispatch from various points downtown.”

Dong Woo and I waited in darkness for things to quiet down. Far into the night, there was no signs of people walking around, and the sound of whistles in the distance had died down, too. It seemed they had all returned to the local police station with the chicken coop bus. Dong Woo opened his mouth first.

“I’m hungry.”

“Shall we make some ramen?”

“Yeah, turn the light on.”

I fumbled for the switch and turned it on. The room became too bright, and I had to sneeze. With the return of the light, the darkness disappeared at once, and with it our fear. Once we had quickly fed ourselves ramen noodles and sour kimchi, we were ready to push aside every worry and trouble of the world. I opened the back window and looked outside. About an arm’s length away, there was the neighboring house’s cement block wall, and connected to it was the slate roof of the house.

“Why don’t we just sleep? I don’t think anything will happen tonight,” said Dong Woo as he took down the bedding and jumped onto it. I agreed with him.

“I guess we can worry about it when the sun rises again tomorrow. And hey, don’t forget the contact point.”

“No, I won’t.”

We fell asleep with our clothes on and important papers packed in our backpacks and placed by our head. I don’t know how long we slept. We heard someone knocking on the door. I sprang up first, followed by Dong Woo. We were also wearing our shoes.

“Hello? Open the door, please!”

The back window was already open, too.

“Who is it?”

Dong Woo asked as he signaled to me with his eyes. I stepped up to the window and put one foot on the neighboring wall.

“I’m the head of this neighborhood’s association.”

Dong Woo shouted back as he followed me and stepped up to the window.

“Give me a minute, I need to put some clothes on.”

I was already up on the roof of the neighboring house, using the wall as a stepping stone.

“What are you waiting for, break it down!”

Someone yelled, and I heard several feet kicking the plywood door. Dong Woo climbed over the neighbor’s wall. I lay down flat on my belly under the deep shadow of the roof. Someone flashed a light out the window and shouted, “The alleyway behind, they ran toward there!”

“I knew they were on the wanted list!”

There were footsteps running all around. There seemed to be at least seven or eight of them. They left the light on and searched our room, through our books and clothes and all our things. It was almost four in the morning when two of them who stayed behind packed everything up and finally left. I looked around to make sure there was no one around, and when I was certain of it I jumped from the roof to the alley. I ran toward the pine forest at the edge of the neighborhood. It was fortunate that we had packed at least one bag each. As I left the residential area I came upon a crumbling hill and a weed bush filled with chirping crickets. I struggled to walk up the hill without a path. At first, the hill was overrun with acacia trees, and my pants legs kept catching on their branches. I forced my way into the forest and found a place to sit where the pine trees grew more sparsely. I had not exercised in a while, so I was out of breath and sweat covered my forehead and chest. From the hill, I saw the gloomy rooftops of the slum below and the streetlamps and lights of the city further down. A blue and red neon sign continued flashing a word I could not make out on top of a high-rise with no lights on. For the hunted, Seoul was as foreign as a city in a different country. There were many different houses imbedded in the darkness like pebbles, but there was not one room for me to lie down in. As I caught my breath and calmed down, I belatedly realized that the forest was filled with a chorus of insects. I still remember clearly that early fall morning, listening to little insects singing and understanding the small creatures’ joy of life in the midst of a world full of pain and danger. For years in my solitary confinement, I would hear the sudden appearance of crickets, usually on the first day of autumn or around then, and I would always think of that early morning on that crumbling hill waiting for the sunrise just after I had barely escaped capture.

When the sun came up, I went down the other side of the hill and into a busier neighborhood. This was at least three or four bus stops away from where we used to live, so I was not too nervous. I went to our contact point. I took a bus downtown and walked to a Catholic church near a university hospital. We chose this place because the garden of the church had three different exits, each connected to three different commercial districts. The backyard was also nicely wooded, and there were wooden benches all over the place. Once seated, it was possible to observe the church building without being too conspicuous. As I walked onto the church ground, I saw Dong Woo emerging from the wooded area and waving at me. I was relieved. I had been anxious not knowing whether he had been caught after he climbed down the wall. We sat next to each other on a bench in the most secluded area under some wisteria trees. Dong Woo took out a small carton of milk and a piece of bread from his backpack and smiled as he handed them to me.

“First, eat.”

“What happened? I thought you were caught in the alleyway after you climbed over the wall.”

“Don’t ask. I climbed over to the neighbor’s house but they were already guarding every alley. So I climbed another wall and went to the next house, but this house’s yard was small and there was no place to hide. Then I saw a big plastic container with a lid next to the door. I opened it, and thank God, it was almost empty except for a couple of used briquettes. So I climbed in and closed the lid and crouched down. Ugh, my legs were cramping, my feet were numb, I almost wanted to go out and turn myself in!”

“We have papers, but our books and everything else we owned were taken.”

“What can we do now? Anyway, there must be traces of our real identities in there, and they’ll begin to tighten the net.”

Quickly, I fumbled around inside my shirt and found a pocketbook. I took out the ID card that was hidden in the inner flap of the pocketbook and put it into the inner pocket of my jacket.

“We need to burn the pocketbooks first. There are too many phone numbers and notes.”

“Just memorize the most important numbers. If we need them, we can always ask around, and most of all, we should not contact anyone directly.”

“You do have an ID card, don’t you?” I asked Dong Woo.

“It’s not mine. It was made somewhere near Inchon. There was a factory worker who’s good at photos and government seals.”

“Is it safe?”

“Of course. I was searched several times outside of Seoul and had no problem.”

We each took out our datebooks and tore out every page, including the vinyl covers, and we made a pile under a bench and set them on fire. The papers flared up quickly. There was a little bit of smoke, but there was no one around so early on a weekday morning in the garden of a Catholic church. The vinyl burnt with a stench, leaving only a handful of black ash. Dong Woo patted my backpack.

“What should we do with these papers?” he asked. “We can’t get rid of them.”

“This is our organization, right in here. We have to protect it. How about safekeeping it at Kun’s factory?”

Dong Woo paused for a second.

“Wait a minute, it’s not like they knew where and who we were and came to raid us. It was a coincidence that we were caught during a crackdown.”

“But that will change from now on. Our case will be sent to a different department. I bet they realized right away that we are wanted. There were books. And our names may be written somewhere in one of those books.”

“At the very least, they’ll figure out our real names. Not to mention what we look like.”

“For a while, we need to remain inconspicuous. Let’s call Kun and talk with him.”

I paused.

“We have to be careful not to cross paths with those from Kwangju.”

As soon as we left the church, we found a public phone near the bus stop and called Kun. He came immediately to meet us near the East Gate market. We walked into a twenty-four-hour café in the market and gathered around a corner table. There were a few store owners from other cities and truck drivers sleeping sprawled on chairs. As soon as we sat down, Kun scolded us.

“You know, it’s really frustrating. What did I say? Didn’t I tell you that they’ll be looking everywhere and that you should move as fast as you can?”

“We were just putting it off for a few days. It’s our fault.”

“Well, no more of that. Now, this is a real emergency. It’s October now, so let’s break up for a couple of months.”

Dong Woo shook his head when he heard Kun’s opinion.

“Two months is too long. Let’s say we’ll take a break for one month. We’ll need to start running the organization again in the new year. What are you going to do?”

I realized Dong Woo was talking to me, but I could not think of a single place to go so quickly.

“How about you?” I replied.

“I’m thinking of leaving Seoul.”

“We’ll remain in contact?”

“Of course. I’ll call Kun once a week and report back that I’m okay.”

“Okay, there’s a place I’m thinking of going, too.”

I was the first one to go through my pockets and take out money.

“Okay, let’s do some accounting right here. I have about . . . 500,000 won right now.”

Dong Woo also pulled money from his pants and jacket pockets and put it on the tea table.

“I have . . . 400,000 won. Kun, you should contribute some, too.”

“Oh, shoot. All I have right now is money to buy yarn. Fine, I’ll put down one half of what I have.”

The total was 1,200,000 won.

“We should set aside an emergency fund for the organization,” suggested Dong Woo. “We can’t waste money like water. After all, it was collected by our sponsors. We can get by with half of that.”

“What are you talking about? We can start an emergency fund among the knitting factory club members. You should split that money between the two of you.”

I took out 500,000 won from the pile and handed it over to Kun along with my backpack filled with papers.

“We’ll work for a living. You’ll need money to organize a meeting next month.”

“Wow, I got interest of 200,000 won within a minute!”

Dong Woo got up first and patted my shoulder.

“Okay, let’s get going. I’ll leave first.”

We did not ask each other where we would go. Dong Woo left the café and I remained a bit longer, seated facing Kun.

“How’s the factory going?”

“It’s so busy we may need extra hands. It’s fun, too.”

“Do you live there, too?”

“We found a monthly rental, a two-room place, and it is the biggest house in the slum! In one room, Jung Ja and Hae Soon and I eat and sleep, and we put the knitting machines in the other room and on the porch. It’s livable. By the way, where do you plan to go underground?”

“Somewhere near Seoul.”

“Report back to me at the beginning of each week, please. And leave a name.”

“Fine, let’s use Kim Jun Woo, it’s the one I used before. I should go, too.”

I left Kun in the café and walked toward the market. It was past the early morning rush hour and somewhat in between the busy times of day, so the storefront was pretty quiet. I had decided to go to Anyang. We all learned the rules of the runaways from a little book, a collection of European experiences, and those rules were quite beneficial in urban areas. It was Kwon Hyung, the one who was helping Nam Soo and supporting Bong Han’s hiding, who found the book from a street vendor selling foreign books from the US army base. Kwon Hyung spent ten days translating it, and we typed it, made it into booklets, and distributed them to various groups. I still remember some of the basic principles from the book.

When an activist goes underground, this means he is walking into the life of faceless people, disconnecting himself from familiar surroundings and identities. He should have no name, nothing distinctive. He should also learn the basic skills of making a living, just like any ordinary citizen. He should be ready to function in any job that is offered to him. A person without work loses his ability to survive, and furthermore he cannot be trusted by many who might have provided assistance to him. So find a job, and find as soon as possible neighbors and friends who can surround the weakened self in that unfamiliar territory he has just entered.

Disconnect any communication with the past. No telegrams, no letters, no personal deliveries, but above all, no telephone calls. When there is an absolute need for communication between two runaways, they must go through a third party connected to both of them, and the third party needs to double check everything. The third party in charge of communication needs to check safety before everything. The organization should be aware of the runaway’s situation from afar, and it should never attempt to assign the runaway to any position or to communicate with him.

The runaway should avoid built up areas. His appearance and speech should be ordinary. It is not advisable for the runaway to walk through the downtown area. When walking in the city, use the inside of the pedestrian passages and utilize storefront windows. When walking across a pedestrian crossing, wait behind the crowd for the signal to change. When among the crowd, do not walk too fast or too slow. When using public transportation, do not travel long distances. If there is a need for a long trip, divide it into several segments and switch modes of transportation. When riding a bus in the city, the safest spot is right behind the driver, the row toward the traffic and closest to an exit. The rows toward the pedestrians, and especially the window seats, are dangerous. Move around mostly at night; the next safe time is early in the morning, but avoid rush hours when there is a surge of crowds. Be invisible and inconspicuous so that no one can remember you.

The rules continued endlessly. But there was one thing that stuck with me for a long time.

The first duty of a runaway to his peers is that he should never be captured. For a runaway, hiding is the most important activity. He is a germ carrier who can spread danger to the others. Therefore, he needs to isolate himself and fight with himself until all danger is cleared.

Discipline, integrity, self-sacrifice, faith, courage . . . there were many words like that hidden between the lines, and they constricted my whole body. It was like panting with a hot, dry tongue. Such dry, overheated sentences made me thirsty, so that I wanted to drink cold ice water streaming down between rocks until my chest was frozen.

The grapevines from the old days were no longer there in Anyang. Instead, there were small sweatshops, bars full of hookers, and an open sewer full of dirty waste water. I was actually happy to see overgrowing reed canary grass by the open sewer. I presume this is gone by now, replaced by high-rise apartment buildings.

I found the woodworking shop owned by Sergeant First Class Yim. He was about ten years older than me, and he was the staff sergeant in charge of my barrack when I was serving in the military. I met him once by chance after I was discharged, when I was almost forced by friends in the movement to teach at a night school in an industrial area. The night school usually ended around ten at night, when the night shift began. I met at a street-side bar with a friend who was also teaching at the night school, as we were hoping to fill our stomachs with a bowl of noodles and a bottle of soju. A few men were in there, already tipsy, drinking soju and grilling a plateful of chicken intestines and cow’s heart. We were late and we did not have a lot of money, so we squashed into a corner and ordered. The three middle-aged men were loud. Two of them were wearing uniforms from an electronics company while one was in a suit, and the one in a suit called the ones in uniforms sir and poured them glass after glass of soju. I knew a few girls at the night school who worked long hours at the electronics company and were paid ridiculously low wages, and I glared at the men at the bar from time to time, taking the girls’ side. At one point, the man in the suit glanced at us and met my eyes. He first turned away then looked back at me. I had also recognized him. He leaned over and asked me, “I was just wondering, where did you do your military service?”

“Sergeant Yim, it’s me. I’m Oh Hyun Woo.”

“Hey, you bastard! You’re Corporal Oh! I was thinking from the moment you walked in that you looked really familiar!”

That night, Sergeant Yim and I went on to another place. Within a few months of my discharge, Sergeant Yim had also quit the military as a career soldier. Soon he found a job as an entry-level worker in the woodworking department of an electronics factory, and it did not take long for the manager to realize that there was a professional soldier in his charge. Within a year, Yim was promoted to a foreman position. He received more training and proved himself to be a good manager of other workers, so he rose again to the head of his department in five years. By that time, he was well aware of the workings of the woodshop, and he was able to figure out where to get supplies and how to find a job as a subcontractor. He left the factory with a few skilled workers and opened his own, and so he had become a success story after being discharged from the military, so to speak. That night, completely drunk, he dragged me all the way to his home right next to his factory in Anyang. He had this vague idea that a night school teacher like me could only be seditious, doing things that could not be beneficial to our nation. He was afraid to get involved, but he confessed that somehow he was in awe, too.

“What do we know about what you’re really doing? I just know that you believe in something. There are those who fight, then there are those of us who have to feed the family and survive.”

Whenever he was drunk, Sergeant Yim repeated something similar to that.

I walked along the Anyang stream. On top of the furrows alongside an unpaved road was the cement block structure that housed the woodworking factory, and behind it an almost identical structure that served as living quarters. Piled up in front of the factory were raw materials and waste, and I could hear from outside the piercing noise of an electric saw. I looked around in front of the factory, then finally pushed open the plywood door and looked inside. I saw Sergeant Yim in a vest, his head wrapped in a towel and his mouth covered with a mask, concentrating on his task. I pushed the door open further and walked into the factory, the air filled with sawdust. I could not hear what he was saying because of the noise, but I did see him waving at me from his station. He walked over and yelled into my ear, “Hey, Corporal Oh! I haven’t seen you for years! Let’s go outside.”

He pulled my jacket and dragged me outside. He grabbed my hand and shook it, and studied me from head to toe.

“Look at you, you look awful. Are you still doing that stuff?”

“Well, I guess so.”

“Wait, it’s lunchtime soon, I’ll be right back.”

Sergeant Yim came back with an air force jacket over his vest and his hair covered with sawdust.

“Let’s have lunch at home. Hey, do they offer you lunch or dinner when you run around protesting? Get a grip! How old are you now, thirty?”

“I came here to ask you for a job, Sergeant.”

“Listen to this! Do you want me to get into trouble, too? Anyhow, let’s go in.”

We walked into his cement block house. Inside, the walls were plastered nicely with clean wallpaper, and the entrance was covered with sleek linoleum. He shouted, “Honey, I’m home!”

A sliding glass door to the kitchen opened quietly, and a woman who appeared to be older than Sergeant Yim peeked out and put a finger to her mouth.

“Shhh . . . the baby will wake up! Don’t go into the master bedroom, he just fell asleep.”

“Hey, you remember this guy? It’s Corporal Oh!”

Mrs. Yim’s hair was permed curly like ramen noodles, and she was wearing a pair of red rubber gloves. I bowed to her while holding her hands.

“Yes, I remember the smart university student. Why do you still call him a corporal? I am so sick of your military talk.”

“Can we get some lunch? I’m so hungry, I’m about to die.”

We walked into the smaller second bedroom. It looked like a room for a child in elementary school, with a desk and bookcase built by the father, and children’s books neatly stacked.

“I thought one was enough,” Sergeant Yim said. “But she said it’s not enough. So now we add one this late in our lives, and we can’t sleep well at night. I can’t even watch TV when I want to! By the way, are you serious about finding a job here?”

“Yes, I am. I don’t know if it’s going to be for a month or several months, but I need to make a living.”

“You bastard, you’re running away, aren’t you? I know everything. Are you in big trouble?”

“It’s not me, I just have to disappear for a while for the others’ sake.”

“I hope I’m not gonna get into trouble because of you.”

“It really isn’t a big deal.”

“Okay, fine. What can I do, there is something called loyalty. But I can’t pay you much. You’ll have to be a trainee, so I can’t use you as anything other than an assistant. Still, you’ll be able to eat three times a day. And here, I’m not your sergeant, so call me Mr. Manager. And I’m sorry to do this, but you’re my employee, so I’ll just call you Oh. Agreed?”

“Agreed, one hundred percent.”

The lunch table was brought in. It was not one of the slapdash meals prepared by the clumsy hands of Dong Woo and me, it was a real home-cooked meal. The kimchi tasted good, and the seaweed soup was silky. Sergeant Yim, who had been concentrating on his lunch for a while, raised his head.

“By the way, do you have a place to stay?”

I shook my head.

“Of course you don’t.”

“Would it be okay if I stayed at the factory after work? I’ll clean up nicely.”

“No, that wouldn’t work. It’s a fire hazard, and I don’t want the others to talk. Let’s see, you have no luggage? You left with nothing other than what you have on?”

“Yes, early this morning.”

Flabbergasted, Sergeant Yim looked up to the ceiling with his mouth full of rice.

“Bastard, why are you doing this to me? Okay, fine, listen, I’ll find someone who can take care of you, and you should stick close to them, be joined at the hip, that’s how you’re going to survive.”

After lunch, we went back to the factory. Sergeant Yim searched through his jacket and found a 10,000-won bill and gave it to me.

“Well, this is just a first day thing. There’s a movie theater over there showing two movies for one, so go watch both of them and come back here around seven. You’re going to be such a hassle!”

I smiled sheepishly and walked down the unpaved road to the business district. There was not a single young man at the movie theater, only a few old people and a couple kids who were let out of school by noon. I took a seat in the middle in front of a wide aisle and stretched my legs out. I spent hours watching the movie and dozing off. I could not stay awake.

I saw two movies in a row, but it was not even five in the afternoon by the time I got out. I walked out of the theater and into the traditional market. I bought underwear and socks and toiletries, and also a duffle bag to pack them in. I got a pair of pants and a new shirt. I decided to take a bath, since I might be conspicuous if I looked too disheveled. There was no one at the public bath; the whole place was mine. I used a disposable razor to shave my stubble cleanly. I changed into my new underwear and socks, and I felt like I was back home. Lastly, I walked into a restaurant and ordered a spicy beef stew for dinner. I pledged that I would support myself with my daily earnings.

“Oh, say hello to Mr. Park, the best employee at our factory.”

Sergeant Yim introduced me to a tall young man blanketed with sawdust. Park readily offered his hand, as if we were meeting at a social occasion, and shook mine.

“I heard a lot about you from Mr. Manager here. Welcome.”

“Good. Oh, I need to talk to you before you leave.”

He took me into the factory where the machines had stopped running.

“Listen, I told that guy that you’re a brother of a friend of mine from the country. I thought you should know that. That guy, he’s really cheerful and he’s a good guy. You should be roommates. They all do that to cut the living costs. You pay half the rent and meals, things like that. Now, go.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Bastard, I told you! Call me Mr. Manager!”

I followed Park along the Anyang stream. A cluster of barracks was standing on a hill, and next to them was row after row of long storage structures that together looked like a weird chicken farm. Later, I learned those were called the honeycomb houses and were common in an industrial area. Around the entrance to the village were a handful of little stores, all lit up, and it looked like the marketplace in the slum I had just left.

“So where in the countryside are you from, Mr. Oh?”

“Not too far, in the Kyunggi province.”

“It’s hard to make a living in the country these days, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I wasted too much time after high school, and then I had to do my military service, and now it’s too late. I thought maybe I should at least learn some sort of a skill before I get married.”

“Let’s go grocery shopping. We need something for dinner.”

“I already ate.”

“You did? Okay then, you want to get a drink?”

“Okay, I’ll buy you one tonight.”

“Why?”

“Call it a newcomer’s bribe,” I said cheerfully, trying to match his spirit. “Hopefully you’ll be nice to me.”

Park laughed out loud.

“I wonder if one drink will be enough. Let’s see.”

He walked into a little pub among other little stores and restaurants at the entrance of the honeycomb village. As he sat down on the long wooden bench he said, “I come here a lot.”

The pub was about sixty square feet. There were three tables, and the kitchen was just big enough for one person to turn around. Still, on the wall was a menu neatly written in calligraphy, and the smell of grilled fish permeated from the kitchen. Inside, a group of three men were drinking soju.

“The usual, please.”

“Okay.”

I was curious and asked Park, “What’s the usual?”

“Well, there’s a sequence. First, a bottle of soju and a grilled mackerel. Then poached tofu, but since I haven’t had dinner yet, I’ll add one order of ramen.”

“Sounds pretty substantial!”

A whole mackerel, scored and grilled with a little salt, arrived on the table still sizzling, soon followed by a bottle of soju. With his fingertips, he lightly shook off my hand reaching for the bottle, poured the liquor into my glass first, then handed me the bottle. I poured him a glass. Park raised the glass and said, “Cheers! Congratulations on your new job.”

“Great to meet you.”

We emptied the glasses in one shot. Park poured himself another glass and finished it again. His head was still covered in white sawdust, and his fingers holding the little glass were dirty and stubby; they looked like a bunch of little twigs. But his neck muscles, exposed whenever he poured the alcohol down his throat, seemed so healthy and impressive. His eyes were bleary with exhaustion, but his fatigue was that of a satisfied man who had finished the labor that was assigned to him.

“Mr. Oh, do you have a girlfriend?” he asked me, without pausing from stuffing himself with the mackerel’s flesh.

“No, I don’t have one, it’s too much of a hassle.”

“You want me to introduce you to someone?”

“Not really—I mean I can’t even support myself.”

Park winked at me.

“Don’t worry. Whatever you earn as a daily wage, it’ll never be enough. You know, I’m considered a technician, but I’m always in the red at the end of the month. I can never save a penny. How can I get married and have a family?”

“So why do you need the additional headache of a relationship?”

“Girls have the same problem as we do. But we can’t spend this golden age in our lives just working all the time, what kind of life is that?”

In no time we had finished a bottle of soju, so we ordered a second bottle and another order of grilled mackerel.

“Fine, I get it, one day it’ll get better. We’re just trying to somehow make it with subcontracts from the electronics factory, but if we want to make real money we need to change direction and do furniture. Manager Yim knows that, too.”

Then Park asked me, out of the blue, as if it just occurred to him, “Mr. Oh, are you really a brother of Manager Yim’s friend from the countryside?”

“That’s right.”

“I think that’s a lie. You don’t look like a country bumpkin. You smell like a bookworm.”

“I hear that a lot. In the army, too.”

“It doesn’t mean that I think you look like a obedient boy. And look at your hands!”

“Hands of a lazy man.”

“No, hands that write.”

“That’s why I want to learn from you, Mr. Park.”

“There’s nothing to learn. From tomorrow morning, you start cutting the things that are allotted to you.”

Before he finished the sentence, he sprang from his seat. He hurried to the door and shouted outside, “Hey, Maeng Soon, where are you going?”

I could not see the woman, but I heard her voice.

“Where do you think I’m going? I’m done with work, and I’m going home.”

“Come in here. Have a drink.”

A woman’s white face peered in. She looked around the pub.

“I haven’t had dinner yet.”

“Just come in. I’ll buy you something good to eat.”

They sat next to each other, facing me. He punched her back playfully and said, “Introduce yourself. This is a new guy who will be my roommate starting tonight.”

“Hello.”

“Mr. Oh, this is my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend? Since when?”

She searched the menu on the wall.

“You didn’t have dinner yet, right? Excuse me, one order of ramen noodles, please, with kimchi and scallions, as fast as you can!”

“I don’t want ramen. Do you have any rice here, ma’am?”

“Yes, we do. Would you like a walleye stew?”

Park’s eyes widened.

“What are you doing, Maeng Soon? Do you know how much a walleye stew costs?”

“If you don’t want to pay for it, fine. And why do you call out to me like that? Call me Miss Yi Myung Soo, say it properly.”

Amused, I watched the affectionate tug-of-war between a man and a woman after a day’s work. Park asked, “Hey, Maeng Soon, you know your roommate?”

“Which one, Kyung Ja?”

“No, not that one. I’m talking about the skinny one.”

“Ah, Soon Ok.”

“Yeah, where does she work?”

“She’s a seamstress at a dress shirt factory.”

“Yeah, that one. Let’s introduce her to our Mr. Oh here.”

“And what’s in it for me?”

“Tonight’s dinner. How about that?”

“Hmmm, I think she’s worth more than one dinner.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll take you to a movie in Youngdeungpo next week.”

Myung Soon calmly gazed at me over the table.

“Hey, I have a better idea! Why don’t you bring Soon Ok over to our house later?”

“No, she’s working overnight tonight. I was doing overtime, too, but managed to get away.”

While she ate dinner, we finished the second bottle of soju. Then we started the third bottle, ostensibly ordered for Myung Soon, who had finished her dinner. Park was getting drunk and his voice was becoming louder.

“I don’t think I can work with Manager Yim any longer! Listen Mr. Oh, you don’t know us. Well, I don’t care if you tell him. Since when is he the manager? We started working almost at the same time, and he said we should do our own business, and he said all he can count on is my skills. Then what happened? I don’t get a monthly salary, I get daily wages—this is not the way to treat a technician, is it? I can’t stand it any longer, I’m going someplace else.”

He was full of hot air, but he changed his tone when he turned to me.

“What do you think, Mr. Oh? Friendship is one thing, but money is scarier, isn’t it?”

“Have you looked around to see if anyone will hire you?”

“Sure! I have so many options. Furniture factories are in desperate need of skilled carpenters. You can’t compare that to this subcontract work, making television and radio frames. The most profitable thing for us is a record player, do you know why? Because it needs lots of decorations. With furniture, you make money by charging for its design.”

Myung Soon had been quiet, but she could not resist any longer. She took a glass and emptied its contents down her throat, then opened her mouth.

“Even if you end up leaving, you should remain quiet until you actually do. Why are you such a big talker? You just don’t think about things first.”

“Hey, Maeng Soon, I’m doing all this to take care of you. You need to get married someday.”

“Wow, I am about to weep, I am so grateful. Why don’t you take care of yourself first? I don’t need your help, I just want you to stop pestering me for money to pay all your debts at the end of every month. Phew, I should go home now.”

As Myung Soon got up from her chair, Park stood halfway to stop her.

“Are you leaving already? Come on, have another glass. So far, it’s been our Mr. Oh’s treat, but I’ll buy the second round.”

“I want to go home, wash up, and go to bed. I have the first shift tomorrow morning. Excuse me.”

“Hey, you’re not listening to me . . .”

After Myung Soon left, Park did not say much. I felt that he regretted what he had told me before, that he was thinking about switching jobs. Without saying a word, he pushed around little pieces of fish on the plate with his chopsticks.

“Actually, I came to see Mr. Yim looking for something to do for the next couple of months,” I said as I poured more soju into his empty glass. “Once I get the hang of it, I guess I’ll look for a better job.”

“There’s not much of a prospect here. You’d be better off finding work at the industrial complex, doing something electrical or working on a lathe. You’re a high school graduate, you’d become a technician within a year.”

Park and I left the pub and climbed the hill. On the slope were row after row of long rectangular structures, hastily built with cement blocks. Like a train, there were windows of the same size and shape punched through the long wall, many of them still lit. There were tiny skylight windows on slate roofs, too. Park walked into one of the rectangular houses and gestured with his chin to follow.

“Come on in. This is the 0:50 train from Daejun.”

As soon as he pushed open the plywood door, I heard water gushing from a faucet. Just beyond the door was a small courtyard the size of a single room with a communal faucet and draining floor in the middle, a suitable place for washing clothes or dishes. One woman was cleaning a chamber pot, while another was using a small bucket to pour warm water down the back of a half-naked man who was frozen in a push-up position on the ground. Park spoke to them as though he knew them well.

“You’re home already? You came back early tonight.”

The man remained in his push-up position but lifted his head to talk back.

“I didn’t feel good today, so I came home early.”

“It’s one thing to make money, but he hasn’t slept for the last three nights.”

His wife, standing next to him, sounded like she was pleading.

In the middle of the house was a narrow corridor, wide enough for one person to pass from one end of the building to the other. On both sides of the corridors were identical sliding doors, connecting rooms that really did look like honeycombs. On the ceiling of the corridor was a blackened fluorescent light that seemed to have little time left. I found it baffling that there were no shoes in front of any of the rooms. Park opened the door of the room at the end of the corridor and fumbled for a light switch on the wall. Above the sliding door was a wooden plaque with the number sixteen. He took off his shoes and entered the room carrying them. The room was stuffy with the smell of unwashed feet and sour kimchi. It also smelled of briquettes, and I guessed there was a fuel hole right under my feet. I entered the room, too. From other rooms came the sound of a man and a woman bickering, an old man coughing, and a baby wailing almost out of breath. Park kicked away a futon and blanket, both which had clearly not been washed for a long time, to make space for me to sit.

“Take a seat, make yourself comfortable. This is how we live,” said Park, comically. There was one mirror and one plastic shelf on the wall where dishes and food containers and toiletries were all piled up. There was a blue chamber pot in the corner next to the sliding door. There was one small vinyl wardrobe in the middle of the room and hanging from it, up in the air, was a laundry line with socks and underwear. He took the blanket and gently spread it out in front of the door.

“For tonight, this is your bed. Ask Manager Yim if he can lend you a blanket.”

Looking up from my seat, I saw the skylight. The one on the wall was so small, I doubted any air would circulate even if it was open. Without a trace of modesty, Park took off his clothes and turned on a transistor radio on a small desk. A popular music program called The Starry Night was on.

“How many people live here?” I asked. He nodded his head to count them.

“Let’s see . . . there are sixteen rooms, and each room has at least a couple, and some of them a family of four or five, so I guess about fifty?”

“They all work?”

“I think so. Some are factory workers, and the man who was bathing outside, he’s a substitute bus driver. In fact, there are three substitute bus drivers here. Some of them work in construction, some of them are street vendors. They persevere here for a few years and then they move out when they can afford to lease a house somewhere. Even the housewives, none of them are wasting time. They make beaded bags or glue envelopes.”

Just wearing his underwear, he wrapped a towel around his neck, stuck a toothbrush into his mouth, and walked out of the room calling to me, “Do you want to wash yourself? My whole body is itching because of sawdust.”

“I’m okay, I took a bath earlier.”

I breathed a long sigh after Park left the room and fell back onto the blanket. From the radio an R&B song continued that sounded like someone crying. Dying leaves falling one by one, he said he’d come back last fall but there’s no news; broken heart, and the leaves are falling again, frosts and wild geese honking as they fly away.

The once noisy corridor was quiet and I could no longer hear the sound of drunken men outside, yelling and screaming as they walked home. It was quiet everywhere. Park was in a deep sleep, snoring loudly. Seeing the dawning of another day through the ceiling window, I could not fall sleep. The living conditions at the honeycomb house were worse than the slums. Everyone in this house lived from day to day, earning barely enough to eat for one day. I had thought I was used to this, as I had traveled to many places in the past few years, calling myself an activist. But all of a sudden, I was struck by an unbearable sense of helplessness. Had Dong Woo found a place to settle down? Was it really possible for us—and there was not even a handful of us, and we were so young—to change the world with nothing but our noble intentions?

At seven o’clock in the morning, Park got up from his slumber like clockwork and woke me up. I followed him to the communal faucet, which was already chaotic. It seemed like everyone at the honeycomb house was out there. Park, holding a red plastic bucket tightly in one hand and a plastic wash basin in the other, charged to the faucet.

“Hey, everyone’s busy here. Wait for your turn!”

“Oh come on, it won’t take long.”

“Look, you’re splashing!”

“Can’t you wash the chamber pot outside? Do you have to do it when it’s so busy here?”

“Now, move if you’ve got your water!”

This complaining continued endlessly. Outside the house was the same, the narrow alleyways in between houses clamoring with people in underwear washing their faces and brushing their teeth. The ground was muddy with water that had been unable to drain for a long time. Following Park, I brushed my teeth and ended the morning ritual by scooping up some water from the bucket and rubbing it on my face a few times. There was a long line in front of the outhouse not too far from our house, and grumblings and complaints continued there, too. Park glanced over.

“Don’t ever go there unless you absolutely have to,” he told me. “It’s much better to do your business at the factory where you’re not rushed.”

I felt pressure to go, but gave up. I had to deal with this nightmare again later when I was arrested, in the ancient jail built during the Japanese occupation period. It really hurts for the first two or three days, but after about ten days you get used to it. Eventually, you can eat three meals without batting an eye while the stench from collected filth surrounds you. What is bothersome and irritating lasts for a few minutes, but the warmth between people in the same harsh environment somehow continues.

I began working at the factory. In the morning, Manager Yim assigned the day’s allotment to each worktable. There were six at the factory, including Yim, and now there were seven with my arrival. There were three technicians, Yim, Park, and another man named Nam. The other three were apprentices who were younger than me. As for machines, there were three electric saws, a plane, a sander, a drilling machine, and a table with a huge round saw. The shape of the saw blade changed depending on what was cut, whether it was a plane board or a plywood board or a square wooden peg, and also depending on whether it was cutting a curved or a straight line. I became Park’s assistant. After he received the order from Manager Yim, he first made a model based on a specification. He showed it to me.

“Today, your job is to cut 1,500 of them. You have to hand me at least 150 per hour.”

The stick was about a foot long, and it tapered at the bottom.

“What is this?”

“Legs for a television set.”

He taught me how to use the table saw.

“Push the valve under there, under your foot, the saw comes up. Push it again, it goes down. Can you see under the table? Touch it with your finger. You push that, the saw starts spinning. Push it again, it stops. Try. You see the graduations? That’s how you meet the specifications.”

I practiced, following his directions step by step, and began working. When I handed him the square wooden stick that I cut to the specifications, he smoothed it off diagonally with a wire saw. In about thirty minutes, I got used to the work. The weather was cool, but everyone was working either with his top off or wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. I assumed no one wanted sleeves flapping around their wrists. They were wearing masks and safety goggles with rubber headbands, but they all worked in bare hands with no gloves. It was more dangerous for the fingertips to be dull. Mr. Nam was in charge of the circular saw to cut large lumber into small pieces. Others were working on cutting plywood to fit the backs of radios or making the holes in the front for speakers and additional decorating. Making television legs was not that easy. Once the horn-like shape was done, Park was in charge the second day of rounding it off and hollowing out a groove at the bottom. Then the finishing team took over to apply glue and attach a rubber pad.

During lunch, Yim went home to eat while the rest cooked and ate together, except for Mr. Nam, who always packed a box lunch. There was a scruffy cupboard on one side of the hallway to the restroom, where pots and bowls and other things were stored. We took turns cooking, and those not cooking went out front to smoke cigarettes and chat or play volleyball. As for food, all we had was rice, kimchi from Yim’s house, and a stew consisting of whatever was around. On top of the worktable covered white with sawdust, we spread out newspaper and placed the stew pot in the middle, and we stood around with rice bowls in hand and ate, sweating. I really liked life at the factory. There was no time for distractions, and I was quickly becoming better at what I did. Park said it usually took at least six months of apprenticeship, but the way I progressed, all I would need was three months, tops.

After a couple of weeks, I reported to Kun that I was safe. Hae Soon answered my phone call.

“Hello? May I ask who’s calling?”

I lowered my voice and talked with my mouth pursed, trying hard to pronounce each word thickly.

“This is Kim Jun Woo.”

“Kim . . . Jun Woo?”

Hae Soon had no idea that it was actually Oh Hyun Woo calling, and she seemed a bit suspicious. After a pause, I heard her calling Kun to get the phone.

“Hello?”

“It’s me, Kim Jun Woo.”

“Hey, everything alright?”

“Sure, I’m fine.”

“Really? Are you really okay?”

I decided to ask him about Choi Dong Woo.

“How’s the Inchon guy? He’s good, too?”

Kun understood immediately to whom I was referring.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s fine. The Inchon guy’s name is Han Il Goon, remember? Hey, you know you really made me nervous. You were supposed to contact me at least once a week.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve been busy trying to make a living. Fine, until next time.”

“Wait, wait a second. Il Goon wants to meet with you where we parted.”

“When?”

“Call me the beginning of next week.”

I was planning to stop at the market on the way home. Park went with Manager Yim to the industrial complex for a delivery, and he was coming home late. I asked him again and again, as he left riding a truck with Manager Yim, to come home as soon as possible, as I was preparing dinner. Park would not forget it, either. Today was his birthday. I had noticed a few days before that he had drawn a red circle on today’s date in the calendar.

The market at that hour was so crowded with housewives and female factory workers who had just finished work that it was impossible to walk around without knocking into everyone’s shoulders. I bought three pounds of pork belly, scallions, garlic, green peppers, lettuce, and for the bean paste stew, I got tofu, zucchini, and potatoes. Carrying plastic bags in both hands, I walked out of the market and all the way to the bakery in the commercial district. I chose the cheapest cake with the least tacky decoration and asked for four candles that would signify his age of thirty-one.

The birthday party was not being held at our house, but at Myung Soon’s place. I went there for the first time with Park the week before, so this would be the second time. The Sunday before that, Myung Soon, Soon Ok, Park, and I went all the way to the Youngdeungpo theater to see a movie and have dinner. Soon Ok was a tall and slender girl from Daejun. From behind, the way she wore pants appeared too sleek for a country girl. But she was not like Myung Soon, more of a quiet type, and I thought she was too straitlaced. There was another girl named Kyung Ja, a bit heavyset, whose face was flat and wide, her eyes thin. When we first met and exchanged hellos, her face got so red it looked like flowers were blooming in her ears. Among them, Myung Soon was the most assertive and energetic.

Further up the hill, past the rows of honeycomb houses, there were small houses hastily and carelessly built with cement bricks lining the narrow alleyway in clusters. Each house was somewhere between 550 and 725 square feet, with a slate roof and a thin plywood board that served as a door. Still, there was a kitchen and a restroom, and a little courtyard with a faucet to do laundry. People were still poor in this neighborhood, but one could live like a human being here, better than at the honeycomb houses. When I pushed the plywood door open and walked in, I was soon enveloped by the smell of hot oil wafting from the kitchen near Myung Soon’s room. I peeked into the kitchen.

“What are you all doing?”

“Hi, welcome!”

Myung Soon, wearing a billowing peasant skirt like a farmer’s wife and with her head wrapped in a towel, was frying little pieces of meat and vegetables in a small pan on top of a gas burner. Soon Ok took the plastic bags from me. I put the cake in their room.

“What is that?”

“A birthday cake.”

Myung Soon was not at all touched.

“Mr. Park doesn’t like sweets,” she said evenly.

“Still, it’s his birthday. What does he like, anyway?”

Myung Soon grimaced with her entire face, as if she were sick of it. “All he thinks about, asleep or awake, is liquor. Especially the harshest soju.”

“Oh no, I forgot to buy a bottle!”

“Don’t worry about it, he’ll bring some. We also have a couple of bottles here.”

I went into their room and sat down while the two women continued cooking.

“Where’s your other roommate?”

Soon Ok answered, “Kyung Ja hasn’t come back from work yet. They’re doing overtime tonight.”

The table was set with the cake in the center, out of its box and with the candles in place. Now it looked like a proper birthday party.

“Okay, I’m getting nervous. When is he coming?”

Myung Soon sat down with her arms crossed and mumbled. By the time I craved a cigarette, we heard someone whistling and walking toward the house. Park walked in.

“Sorry, sorry. I made you wait for a while, didn’t I?”

“The food is cold now. We were going to eat everything without you, but we didn’t. By the way, there’s nothing for you to drink.”

Undeterred by Myung Soon’s gruffness, Park raised the paper bag he was carrying.

“Ta-da! I bought four half-liter bottles!”

“Ugh, bastard.”

“Mr. Park, come here and sit down. Let’s start the party!”

“Wow, this is the first time someone has treated me to a birthday cake. Isn’t that a little girly?”

We sat around the table. I lit the tall and short candles with my lighter. Myung Soon sprang up and moved so quickly, her skirt fluttered.

“Wait a sec, if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it right.”

She turned off the fluorescent light so that only candlelight remained in the room. Park calmed down and muttered, “Looks good.”

“Now, blow them out.”

Park sat there blankly, staring at the candlelight. Myung Soon urged him on.

“What are you waiting for? Blow!”

He blew the candles out and the room became dark. We clapped, but we did not sing “Happy Birthday.” At that moment each of us was following his or her own thoughts. Soon Ok whispered in the darkness, “With no light, it feels like we’re back in the country.”

“Yeah,” Myung Soon added, “I was also thinking of my younger brothers and sisters.”

I did not say anything, but Park sighed.

“One year older.” Then, as if shaking off his own thoughts, he shouted, “Hey, turn the light back on. Let’s drink!”

Myung Soon cut the cake, and we opened the soju bottle. As we all got drunk, we took turns singing, then sang as a chorus with chopsticks serving as drumsticks. Myung Soon began to cry, Soon Ok soon followed with tears in her eyes, Park kept banging the glass on the table and angrily screamed at someone, and I fell sideways from the table and passed out. When I opened my eyes the next morning I smelled perfume on the blanket, and right next to me was someone, definitely a woman, sleeping under another blanket. When I rustled around, Soon Ok said, in a sleepy voice as if she had just opened her eyes, “The other two went to his place.”

“Ah, I see.”

My head was aching like it was about to break open, and my stomach was burning so that I wanted to drink ice water, but I decided to suffer through it all. I fell asleep again. After that night Park teased us mercilessly, saying that Soon Ok and I had become a couple. I knew it would be even more embarrassing to protest that nothing had happened, so I just smiled back at him like a fool. Park often teased Soon Ok, “You can’t treat the man you’ve slept with like that!”

One day, I think it was the following week, I called Kun as I had promised and was told the scheduled time to meet with Choi Dong Woo, whose alias was Han Il Goon. After work was done I skipped dinner and went to the Catholic church where I had seen him the last time. From Anyang, I took a bus and crossed the Han River to the northern part of Seoul. It was a long journey. It took an hour and a half. I switched buses at Jongro and got out one stop before the closest one to the church. To make sure that no one was following, I crossed the street twice. I bought a newspaper from where I could see the church and watched the entrance for five minutes before I crossed the street again. We did not have support from the organization as before, so we had to be careful on our own. I finally entered the church grounds and walked slowly to the back. I saw in the darkness the bench where we had sat last time. I walked to the last bench and sat down facing forward. Dong Woo emerged from the shadow made by the corner of the building and sprinted over to sit next to me.

“You just arrived?” I asked, and Dong Woo nodded without saying a word.

“You’re well?”

“Um, I’m alright. And you?”

“I’m actually having fun.”

Dong Woo said, “Suk Joon in Tokyo sent something via a friend. Some books and a letter.”

“What did he write?”

“He had good news. He met some new people.”

“New people?”

“Well, that’s all he wrote, so that’s all I know. I’m guessing Korean-Japanese.”

“And what kind of books?”

“You can read them later. We need to strengthen the educational program within the organization.”

Dong Woo handed me a large envelope containing books.

“It’s too early for everyone to get together. It’s still dangerous.”

“We can do it through correspondence. Kun’s factory could be the center where we distribute materials to each team.”

“Who will produce the material?”

“I’ll do the first month, you can do the next. They’ll form a new government by next spring.”

Choi Dong Woo stopped talking and got up.

“Let’s get out of here. Someone’s coming.”

I turned around. I did not know who it was, but the shadow of a person was walking around the church building and approaching the backyard. We walked out on the other side, onto the wide boulevard where I had gotten out of the bus before. We only turned around once we were among the crowd of pedestrians, and no one seemed to be following us. Dong Woo whispered, “We have to make sure we’re not being followed. Let’s cross the street.”

We walked toward the crosswalk and looked into the shop windows while waiting for the green light. We saw the changing light reflected in the window and crossed the street with a crowd. As soon as we reached the other side we turned into a little alleyway a few steps from the crossing. As though it was choreographed, as soon as we jumped into the alleyway we began running. As expected, we heard the tapping noise of other shoes running behind us. It was too dark to see clearly, but I figured there were at least a couple of them. The alleyway split into two, and we took the closest way, where we could see another major street at the end.

“That way!”

Dong Woo squeaked under his breath as he ran. “Let’s cross the street as soon as we get there!”

I ran right behind him. We headed toward a well-lit, busy intersection. Dong Woo and I ran into a busy traffic lane where cars were speeding past. They honked and screeched and spun, but we managed to cross the street and find another side street to run through. Looking around, I spotted a little café at the corner of the street. It was an old two-story Japanese-style building. I climbed the stairs and Dong Woo followed without hesitation. The café was quite large but only two tables were occupied. First we walked over to the back window draped with curtains, to study the layout of the neighboring side streets, then we took a table next to a window overlooking the street. It was the middle of November and the weather was quite cool, but sweat streamed down my neck and chest. Puffing and gasping for breath, we were still unable to relax, and we stared at the street down below. The waitress approached us, yawning.

“Would you like to order?”

“Two coffees, please.”

Dong Woo showed her two fingers and turned his back to the window.

“We were being followed, no doubt.”

“Yeah, they followed us at least up to the alleyway over there.”

But then I thought of how they had urgently pursued us through the side streets after we crossed the street, and I realized something.

“No, they weren’t just following us, they were ready to pounce.”

“I think you’re right. One came into the church to confirm our location. We happened to see him first.”

“And the other one was waiting outside. How many do you think there were?”

Dong Woo was nodding his head, as he was in the habit of doing when trying to figure something out.

“Two or three? I don’t think they’re from here. If the national security people were following us, there would have been layers and layers of nets. Where do you think we got the tail?”

“Either you or me.”

“Yeah, someone near us must have reported us to the police. There’s someone suspicious, maybe a spy, so why not find out for sure? So they follow him, and he walks into a darkened church garden. And meets someone. Even provincial police would quickly realize something dubious was taking place.”

Dong Woo’s deduction was logical, and I reached a conclusion.

“The solution is simple. We need to move from our hideouts.”

“I guess that’s the only thing we can do. Ugh, here we go again.”

“I don’t have much, all I have are underwear and toiletries. I don’t even have to go back there.”

“I’ll send someone to stay in my room for a few days, and if nothing happens I’ll go back there. I’m sure they’ll come tonight if they are coming at all. If you were in their shoes, would you be able to wait one more day? Their hearts must be racing now.”

Dong Woo sounded like he had calmed down, and I reconsidered the situation.

“I guess that would be a natural way to survey your surroundings. The more I think about it, the more I think it was on my side. I have a hunch.”

We swallowed the too-sweet coffee in one gulp. Before he got up, Dong Woo took the package of books back from me.

“I think it’ll be safer for me to take that.”

“What’s in it, anyway?”

Dong Woo wavered a little and answered with a faint smile on his face.

“The fastest shortcut is to break the forbidden law. It’s from over there.”

“What, Capital? I read that a long time ago.”

“Not from the West, from over there.”

Dong Woo pointed upward. He got up with the envelope tucked under his arm.

“Okay, I’ll go first. Call Kun tomorrow morning. I’ll call him, too.”

Dumbfounded, I sat and thought about the meaning of over there. That was the last boundary, and the thought made my mouth dry and my whole body tingle with anxiety. And I was so curious. One half of our people lived in their own way in a completely different world. What did they talk about? What did they think about? Where were they headed? About twenty minutes after Dong Woo left, I descended the stairs of the Japanese-style building. I walked as far as I could and caught a bus far from where we had been.

Back in Anyang, I got off the bus two stops before the one nearest to the honeycomb house village, at a busy commercial district full of shops. It was late at night. I walked toward the neighborhood up on the hill, taking the path on the other side of the mountain. I had come back there to confirm something. It was something that needed to be done, the one thing I had to do before I went underground again. I had thought about it during the bus ride and decided to see Soon Ok. Instead of taking the main road, I climbed the far side of the mountain and dipped down near the cement walls and cement blocks. Along a narrow passage, tiny houses that looked like little boxes stood right next to each other. When I reached the house of Myung Soon and Soon Ok, I stood as close to the wall as possible and looked inside. There was a barely audible sound from a transistor radio but no voices, so I figured someone was listening to the radio alone. I walked into the house and gently pushed the kitchen door. It was locked from inside. I waited for a minute, than knocked on the door lightly. There was no answer, so I knocked again, a little louder.

“Who is it?”

It was Soon Ok’s voice. Thank God.

“This is Oh.”

“Goodness,” she exclaimed softly and said, “wait just one minute.” She bustled around for a while, then finally turned on the light in the kitchen. The door opened a bit, and I pushed it and jumped in. Soon Ok was wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants, and a red cardigan on top, unbuttoned. It looked like she had just changed. I brazenly crossed the threshold from the kitchen into the bedroom. I turned to Soon Ok, who was still standing in the kitchen, nervous and confused.

“Turn off the kitchen light and come in, please,” I said. “We need to talk.”

I took a seat by the door, and Soon Ok came in and sat upright by her bedding in the corner of the room. Like all men would do in such a situation, I sucked on a cigarette and blew smoke toward the ceiling, taking my time.

“The truth is, I’m in hiding right now because I am wanted by the government. But it’s not because I did something criminal. I went to university, and since then I’ve been . . . involved in the student movement.”

“What kind of a movement?”

“I protested against the government.”

“Ah, the protesters.”

Soon Ok’s face changed, as if she understood what I was talking about.

“There are many people who are like me, and if one gets caught everyone else will get caught, too. I won’t be the only one in trouble. So, have you heard Mr. Park say anything? Where’s Myung Soon? And Kyung Ja?”

“Kyung Ja is on night shift these days. Myung Soon left a while ago to have dinner with Mr. Park. I think they’re in that little pub down there.”

“Some people followed me all the way to Seoul. I think they were detectives. Are you sure Mr. Park didn’t say anything?”

Soon Ok thought about it for a while before speaking.

“I haven’t heard much from Mr. Park. But yesterday, Myung Soon said something. She said you didn’t look like someone who would do hard labor. The way you talk, the way you look, she didn’t think you looked like someone who belongs here. I thought so, too. There was a similar incident in our factory. A female college student got a job under false pretenses and was later arrested.”

Something heavy was welling up inside me. Ah, I was still so far behind. I still hadn’t gotten rid of the air of an intellectual. I looked down and my eyes were filled with hot tears. I did not want her to see it, so I kept my head down and stopped talking.

“Why do you do such things?” she asked. “There are people who want to go to universities but they can’t because they have no money, so they go to Seoul to make some.”

“Your parents, you, Soon Ok, and your friends, you all work so hard, yet you barely make a living, right?”

“That’s because . . . we’re poor.”

“Why are you so poor?”

“We had nothing from the beginning.”

“If you work so hard, you should be able to save and have some money, no?”

“Well, we had no education and we can’t find a good job.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a world where, even if you had no education and no money, everyone could live well if they worked hard?”

Soon Ok remained silent, unable to find words.

“My friends and I, we hope for our world to be like that.”

Soon Ok shook her head meekly.

“I don’t know, that is . . . that will be too difficult.”

I did not want to torment her anymore, so I changed the subject.

“Can I stay here tonight until the curfew is over?”

Soon Ok nodded her head.

“Kyung Ja will be back tomorrow morning and I think Myung Soon will stay with Mr. Park.”

“Thank you. But I have one more favor to ask you. Can you go down there and get Mr. Park for me around midnight?”

“Bring him here?”

“No, to the empty lot up there with the horizontal bar.”

“Okay. But do you think that’s a good idea?”

She was sincerely worried, and it was something I had been wondering about since the dangerous incident near the church and throughout the bus ride coming here. They would choose me. If I trusted them, they would not desert me. In a way, I had come back to validate that belief. Soon Ok rose from her seat.

“You haven’t eaten dinner yet, have you?”

“I’m fine.”

“I bought lots of ramen noodles for night snacks. It won’t take long.”

The room was soon filled with fumes as Soon Ok lighted the portable gas burner. I opened the window. As I looked out through the open window, I saw a pale half moon.

Around midnight, at the beginning of curfew, I sent Soon Ok down to fetch Park, and I went to the empty lot by the rock at the top of the hill. It was an open-air gym for people in the neighborhood to use, a place they went to in the midst of their busy daily life to stretch and relieve stress. The main flaw was that it was a desolate place where no trees grew; it had only weeds and piles of used briquettes. Instead of going to the middle of the lot, I chose a spot by the wall opposite from where Park would probably climb up.

A dark outline of a person appeared from the alleyway. He was staggering, a little drunk. He looked around the empty lot then walked toward the rock and collapsed on it. Wearing a pair of sweatpants and a military parka that I had seen him wear at the factory, I was sure it was Park. I could even hear his voice muttering that he was freezing and grumbling. To make sure that he was not being followed, I waited for about five more minutes until I was certain he was by himself. I left the corner and walked toward the center of the empty lot.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

I did not give him a chance to talk back, I got right to the point.

“Why did you do it? How can you stab your own roommate in the back?”

Instead of answering back, Park dropped his head and sighed.

“I know, I am sorry I deceived you.”

“I don’t know if you’ll understand, but I was involved in the democratization movement, and now I am underground. Yes, I am wanted. Did you report me because you thought I was a spy?”

Park raised his head.

“That’s not what I thought. I never thought you were a spy.” Then he continued in a weaker voice. “I just happened to be drinking with some people from the neighborhood at the pub down there, and you were mentioned. I can’t remember very well what I said, I was a little drunk.”

“When was this?”

“The day before yesterday, after work.”

“Try to remember what you told them.”

“Well . . . just that it’s a nasty world. If you say righteous things, they come and get you, something like that. That my friend is now working as a lowly assistant to a woodworker, but it’s certain that he’s highly educated.”

I put my hand on his shoulder.

“That’s enough, Mr. Park. It’s all my fault.”

“After you left, four detectives came, around nine. They went through everything in the room and took all your stuff. I had to go to the police station to be questioned.”

“Did you say anything about Manager Yim?”

“No, I’m not that dumb, and I won’t jeopardize someone unnecessarily. I told them I met you by chance at a pub, that you said you were working at the industrial complex and looking for a room, so I told you to pay me 30,000 won a month so I could save some money. I said I didn’t know you very well.”

“And they let you go?”

“There are a lot of factory workers at the honeycomb house who become roommates that way. They told me to cooperate. They told me to let them know when you come back home, tonight or tomorrow.”

Suddenly, my eyes welled up with tears. I lifted my head toward the empty sky, but the liquid rolled down anyway and reached all the way to my chin. I wiped my face and under my chin with my jacket sleeve.

“Mr. Park, I need to ask you a favor. I’ll never come back here again, so please, make sure that no harm is done to Manager Yim. Just stick to the story that you told them. I told Soon Ok to be careful, and you should tell Myung Soon, too.”

“I promise. I am so sorry. I had too much to drink and I made a big mistake. Every wall listens and reports back, especially when you’re so poor.”

“Now, let’s go. I’m going to wait for the curfew to be over in Soon Ok’s room. I think I’ll feel better if you stay with me.”

“Let’s go. We should drink our last glass.”

“No . . . no more liquor.”

We stood up together. Park took a long sigh again and murmured, “I hope you’ll understand, Mr. Oh. If you report someone suspicious, they give you rice as a reward.”

“How much?”

“At least three quarts.”

My eyes welled up again.

“Yeah, that’s okay. Three quarts of rice is worth something for a family.”

I said that, but I could not get rid of my sense of helplessness. Park and I walked back to Soon Ok’s room, where she had turned off all the lights though her bedding was neatly folded away. She was waiting for us. Park followed me into the room, but I stopped him at the threshold.

“Let’s say goodbye here. I’ll leave when the curfew is over.”

“No, I want to stay.”

I extended my hand toward him.

“Go back. Someone at the honeycomb house may be watching.”

Unable to disagree, he took my hand.

“Goodbye. I’m really sorry about everything.”

We shook hands. Park disappeared beyond the kitchen door, and I collapsed to the floor in front of the door, away from Soon Ok. She remained silent for a while, then handed me a pillow.

“You have a few hours until 4:00 a.m. Why don’t you lie down and sleep a little?”

“I won’t be able to get up if I lie down. It’ll be better if I stay up all night.”

Soon Ok put the pillow on top of the rest of the bedding, folded and stacked.

“Like Mr. Park said, please try to understand. Everyone here barely makes enough to survive.”

I nodded, but did not say anything. I wanted to leave holding onto the belief that my neighbors had not turned on me, those who slept next to me snoring loudly, those who were grateful for the most humble food, those who got drunk with me and laughed and joked with me.

Soon Ok and I did not talk much. I think we talked about her hometown. About the fifty acres or so of rice fields that her family labored on, about the death of the family bull whose belly was stretched like a drum with gas, about the failed attempt to grow strawberries in greenhouses and the mounting debts, and about the few months she worked as a beautician’s assistant. And she talked about her little dream, that with a little money saved and her sewing skills she would be able to open a dressmaker’s shop outside of Daejun, something with a really pretty sign. Because of her many younger siblings that she needed to support, she thought she would not be able to afford getting married until later.

We heard the siren indicating the end of the curfew. Aiming to get the first bus, I waited another half hour or so.

“I think I should go now.”

When I got up, Soon Ok followed me, putting her shoes on.

“I actually want to go by myself.”

“I need to make sure that you leave safely. Only then can I tell Mr. Park and Myung Soon that you did.”

I thought she had a reason. It was early winter, the frosty morning air blew down my neck. We walked up the hill and down the other side. Once in a while, a garbage cart passed us. One of them was pulled by a man with his body bent down almost ninety degrees, while a woman in baggy pants pushed from behind, her head shoved to the ground. Soon Ok and I reached a busy street. Far away, buses parked at the end of the line were starting their engines. I stopped in front of a signal light in order to cross the street and turned toward Soon Ok.

“You should go back home now.”

Soon Ok wavered, touching the pavement with the tip of her shoe and her head bowed down.

“Do you have . . . money for the bus?”

I smiled and tapped the chest area of my jacket.

“I have a lot of money. Well, then . . .”

But before I crossed the street, Soon Ok raised her voice, speaking quickly to my back.

“If it becomes too hard, just turn yourself in.”

I pretended I did not hear her and ran across the street. Just in time, a bus was coming toward me, so I waved my hand to stop it and got on. The bus was completely empty. I glanced back as I took a seat, and I saw the red of her sweater still standing at the street corner. The bus soon took a right turn, and she disappeared.

Later, in prison, I thought of them often. I had forgotten most of the dangerous situations in Seoul; I did not want to remember those days anyway. For me, those dreamy months in Kalmae were everything that I had, but that one month in the hellish honeycomb house lingered deep in my mind as well. It was awful, but the confirmation of trust from the few young workers I met there sustained me. It was one of the reasons I did not give everything up during the years of imprisonment. I wondered where they were now. What happened to the willful Myung Soon and the nice but weak Mr. Park? Were they able to rent a better place and get married, as they had hoped? And did Soon Ok realize her little dream of going back to Daejun and opening her dress shop with a pretty sign? Did she make money, support all her siblings, and finally find time to get married herself and have babies? And those young girls at the factory who I met while teaching at the night school, all of them so scared and hungry, were they now mothers in a different world?

The police were closing in, so it was too dangerous for me to see Choi Dong Woo again. The organization had to give up the plan to keep me near Seoul for a while. When Kun told me, I accepted it without protest. Until the end of that year, I stayed at a boarding house in a middle-class neighborhood near a university in Seoul, and the only connection I had with the organization was an occasional notice Kun somehow managed to send through a third party. I decided to leave Seoul and ask for help from other organizations who managed those on the wanted list in different regions. Winter in the city was colder and more desolate when spent alone. No one was surprised when Chun Doo Hwan was again nominated as the sole nominee for presidency and as the head of the new party. The emergency martial law was withdrawn.

It was the first snowy day of winter. I was passing by a gift shop full of high school girls and it occurred to me to buy a number of cards for the holiday season. Remembering my childhood, I walked into a bakery, took a seat in the back corner, and ordered a roll filled with pastry cream, bread with sweet crumble on top, and a glass of milk. I began writing on the cards in tiny script.

Dear Mother,

It’s already the end of the year, and it is snowing. I am well, so please do not worry. And do not waver no matter who comes to see you and what they tell you. I sincerely believe that you understand your own son’s intentions. I once read somewhere about a woman who had a son in a similar situation to mine. She was caught while distributing leaflets, and she said this:

“I do not know politics. I begged my son not to do what he did. But he did not listen to me. He knows how much I love him. I think he disobeyed me for something that is bigger than the love between us. Therefore, I decided to join him.”

Dear Mr. Park,

I wonder how everyone is. I’ve been regretting the hasty way I left you all. I am sorry. It’s time to take down the calendar in your room. I remember you wrote on there this verse: “Should this life sometimes disappoint you, Don’t be sad or angry at it.” I hope you write that again in your new calendar. Hope you’re well. Please give my regards to Maeng Soon and Manager Yim.

Soon Ok, Myung Soon, Kyung Ja,

I hope you’re all doing well. Wherever you are, life can be tough. Once the time goes by, however, you look back on your past and find there were good days, and you’re proud that you made it so far. I’ve met many different people in many different places, but the most beautiful ones are those who work hard.