I lied when I said I wasn’t guilty of anything. It’s only now that I realize what my crimes were, so I will confess them now.
First of all, I was wrong to believe that I was innocent. My ignorance in not knowing the source of the problem—that foolishness itself was a crime. The problem was within myself.
I never once got outside of myself until now. Even while I pretended to educate the workers at night school, I never felt the slightest sympathy for the pain of the common people, for the persecuted, for the abandoned, or for my neighbors, or my brothers and sisters. I did not know how to feel their pain as my pain, their anger as my anger. I knew the contradictions and the evils of society, but I didn’t throw myself into a fight against them. I didn’t feel passionate enough to throw myself headlong into anything.
Even the love I felt for my mother wasn’t genuine. From the time I was a child, I lived with the idea that I had to be a good daughter to her, that I could somehow make up for her pain and self-sacrifice by studying hard. But even then, one part of me constantly wanted to escape from her. I closed off my heart to even the smallest things, like a flower blooming on the side of the road.
I still existed, though, and felt in the first-person singular. I lived on a distant island in a prison, far away from my friends, my neighbors, society, and even my mother. Even while I kept screaming to the world to save me, I never once thought of trying to swim to the outside.
Only now do I finally realize my wrongdoing, my unforgivable crimes. The crime of not ever being able to let go of myself, the crime of never once trying to find hope on my own, the crime of never extending my hand to others and never letting others reach out to me, the crime of never having shed a tear for anyone other than myself.
Forgive me for these crimes.
When she walked out of the police station, the first thing Shinhye saw was the white snow blanketing everything. She had been locked up inside for three days and nights, and during that time the snow had poured down and covered the whole world in white. For a moment she couldn’t even properly open her eyes. The heavy piles of snow on the roof of the post office and the farming cooperative across the street shone lucidly under the bright winter sun, and in the corner of the police station courtyard, someone had made a big snowman with a comical expression. It was something you could see anywhere in Korea: the winter landscape of any village in which people lived, a scene so peaceful it put your mind and body at ease.
Shinhye began to walk cautiously down the icy, snow-covered street. It was strange to feel her feet touching the ground. She walked slowly, one foot in front of the other, forcing her knees, which felt like they were about to collapse.
“It would be better for you not to say anything when you’re outside,” the chief had told her before her release. “Of course, you’re not the type to be that stupid. So forget everything that happened last night—completely. Is that understood? Nothing happened.”
Nothing happened, Shinhye kept saying to herself. And it seemed like nothing actually had happened. The winter sky was so clear it chilled the eye, and on the snow-covered road, children were shouting, having a snowball fight. An old woman riding on the back of a bicycle gave someone a toothy smile. Whatever she had suffered during that time seemed like a lie—and the world outside hadn’t changed at all, not even a scratch.
“His behavior toward women has always been a bit of a problem. He’s been a little twisted ever since his wife ran off with her dance instructor. So just forget what happened.”
She had regained consciousness early that morning on a sofa in the corner of the office. The faces of the chief and a few strangers were watching her. Someone had haphazardly put some clothes on her naked body.
“In any case, you’ve been through a lot,” the chief said. “You’ve probably had an opportunity to learn a lot, too. We don’t want to meet again like this in the future, right? Take care of yourself, and if we should meet each other again, let’s hope it’s with a smile.”
He had extended his hand to her, and it seemed she could still feel the lingering warmth of his palm. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say; she was just relieved to finally be released.
“Can you make it alone?” he asked. “We can take you to Gohang if you like.”
“No, you don’t have to.”
She still didn’t understand why they had let her go so easily. As of that morning, they had stopped trying to get her to sign a confession. It had all ended abruptly, as if a curtain had come down on the play. Just as it had been absurd at the beginning, the end seemed like a lie. In the end, they had held her three days and three nights, using all manner of violence and intimidation, only to get nothing from her. She had held out until the end. And yet that fact gave her not a speck of pride or comfort.
At the intersection, Shinhye paused a moment, not knowing which way to go. No one paid any attention to her. She realized that on the outside there was nothing to distinguish her from the people passing by. It was reassuring at first, but then it also made her feel an unbearable sadness and sense of injustice.
She couldn’t tell where the pain was—her entire body ached. But what was broken was more psychological than physical. She was baffled that nothing seemed to be wrong with her. She should have lost her mind, collapsed in tears, had a nervous breakdown, and yet not only did she seem fine, she was unbearably hungry. Now that she thought about it, she realized she had eaten almost nothing in the past day. She was thinking there was nothing left of her self. Nothing to dream about, nothing to protect. All that was left was a disgusting shell of a body. But that body was feeling an intense hunger that she could not endure. Instinctively, she went into one of the restaurants on the street.
She sat down and ordered a bowl of gomtang. But as the first spoonful of hot liquid entered her mouth she gagged. She tried everything, but she couldn’t keep from throwing up. It felt like her entire past life was coming up her throat, and when she had nothing left to throw up, the tears began to flow. With her face buried in her arms, she started loudly sobbing, and when the first tears had burst, she could not stop crying. She could hear the other customers whispering behind her back.
“Aigo, she wasted that whole dish…”
“Is she just a girl or a grown woman? Why do you suppose she’s crying like that?”
“She must be sick, or maybe…”
Shinhye abruptly turned to them and shouted, “What are you doing?! Who do you think you are? What do you even know about me? Why are you saying stuff about someone who doesn’t concern you? What’s the matter with you?”
They just stared at her silently, looking alarmed at her insane outburst. She left the restaurant right away. Perhaps it was because she had cried and screamed to her heart’s content, but she felt suddenly exhausted and despondent as if she were empty inside.
She took the bus to Gohang because she had to go back. The bus passed in front of the police station again, and, in the brief interval when it made a short stop, Shinhye looked through the window at the station building across the street. The sentry, his shoulders slightly hunched, guarded the police station. Beside him, a man in his forties in a gray jacket was talking and laughing with an old man who looked like a farmer. As she watched the white mist from their breaths mixing in the cold air, Shinhye suddenly realized who the man in the gray jacket was. Her entire body froze. It was Detective Cheon. Her shock was not due to the memory of the tortures he had subjected her to. It was because the man she now saw before her eyes looked like a good person: simple and kind, scratching the back of his head, his face deeply wrinkled with genuine, good-natured laughter. She could neither believe nor understand it. “Oh, God!” The sound came from her mouth like a cry of pain without her even knowing.
She arrived in Gohang after it was completely dark. The main street had not changed at all. The narrower streets, tangled like fish guts, still stank. It was still dirty and noisy. She crossed the small bridge over the silent black stream and entered the alley of cafés and bars, which began to look beautiful with the evening, like an old prostitute. Drunken men were fighting with their jackets off, a dog with mud dripping from its fur was rummaging through a trash bin, and a Yoon Sooil song called “Apartment” was playing on a radio somewhere. Yonggung Café had the same cracked acrylic sign, the same narrow and steep stairs, the same musty smell. When she opened the door and entered the café, she heard the same familiar nasal voice.
“Welcome! Oh, my…”
Behind the counter, the madam’s face froze, her mouth still open. Shinhye spoke with as little emotion as possible.
“How are you?”
“W-what’s going on? The police…let you go?”
“What’s going on? You’re talking like you were hoping they’d never let me out.”
“What are you saying? You have no idea how much I worried…. Anyway, I’m glad you came out safe. Come sit here where it’s warm.”
Shinhye sat there and looked around the café as if she were a customer. She did not see Seol, but two waitresses she didn’t know were standing around, bored, watching television. Nothing else had changed. On the opposite wall, the naked foreign woman was still there in the frame, her tongue still half-protruding, regarding Shinhye through her narrowed lids. Oddly, Shinhye felt a kind of closeness with her.
“How you must have suffered, Miss Han. It’s such a relief that you got out like this.” The madam gracefully lifted the tail of the traditional skirt she wore and sat down facing her.
“I’m not Miss Han. My name is Jeong Shinhye. You know that, right?”
“What gave you the impression that I know anything about you? Maybe you thought I did, but I don’t know anything at all.”
“It doesn’t matter either way. I just came for my money. Give me what I earned working here.”
“Why such a hurry? Don’t worry about the money. Would you like something hot to drink?”
“No. Just give me my money. I have to leave.”
“Where to? Seoul?”
The madam stared at her silently for a while, waiting for her to answer. Then she got up and walked over to the counter. When she returned after a moment, she was holding a white envelope.
“You were short three days because you got arrested, but there’s a full month’s pay in here,” she said, as if she were being generous.
The envelope contained four one hundred thousand won checks. Shinhye had come to this remote coal town for this money; it was the tuition money that could postpone her withdrawal from the university, and it was her only compensation for what she had just endured. But strangely, she felt nothing at all. No regret. No sorrow. No despair. She folded the envelope, put it in her pants pocket, and stood up.
“Alright. I’m leaving now.”
“You don’t need to go up to your room. Your bag is down here.”
The madam pulled out a familiar brown vinyl bag from under the cash register. The inside of the bag was a mess as if someone had searched it. Maybe it was the police. But all of that was irrelevant now. While she had the bag open, confirming its contents, the madam watched her, arms folded, her face hard and cold.
“Well, I hope you make a lot of money,” Shinhye said.
She picked up her bag and went toward the door.
“Shinhye, I’m so sorry!”
To her surprise, it was Seol waiting for her as she came outside the café. The tip of her nose was red from the cold.
“It’s all my fault, Shinhye! I thought Kim Gwangbae was cheating on me…. I hated him and I hated you…. But I still don’t know how I could have done that to you. I deserve to die.”
“You mean you’re the one who reported me to the police?”
Shinhye couldn’t believe what Seol said. But she was nodding her head, her face twisted with anguish. Her eyes welled up, and then ugly tears were running down her cheeks like wax on a candle.
“You’re never going to forgive me, are you?” Seol said.
“I was just going to go see Kim Gwangbae. Is that alright?”
Seol’s eyes were suddenly full of suspicion and fear, almost crossed as they focused intently on Shinhye’s face.
“Don’t worry,” Shinhye said. “I won’t talk about any of this. Can you tell me where he lives?”
“It’ll be hard to find on your own,” Seol said. “I’ll take you there.”
She led the way. Neither of them said a word as they walked along the narrow, winding path. When they crossed the stream, they could see a group of little shacks at the foot of the mountain. The houses of the mine workers. Shinhye stared up for a long time at the scene of those identical shacks lined up like so many rows of matchboxes in the darkness.
“Is it there?”
Seol nodded. “Do you see the lamppost over there? It’s the next house, number 209. Alright, I’m going back now.”
But she didn’t move. Shinhye started up the steep slope that led to the miners’ shacks. After a few steps, she turned around and saw that Seol was still standing there in the same spot looking at her.
“Shinhye!” Seol called out abruptly. “We decided to live together. Over New Year’s we’re going to his hometown so I can meet his family.”
Shinhye just nodded silently with a faint smile. Only then, reassured, did Seol smile back like a child.
The snow piled on the ground had frozen, making it very slippery underfoot.
Shinhye walked past houses, some without a gate or a fence, every one of them shabby and miserable, and arrived at one lit by the cyclopean eye of a streetlamp. On the door patched with pieces of plywood, she saw the number 209 written in black paint.
A beam of light leaked through a gap in the door. Shinhye stood there for a long time. What had made her come to this place even she herself did not exactly know. What she did know was the fact that it was some irresistible urge from inside herself.
She finally shook the flimsy wooden door, but there was no response. She tried knocking, hard. An unfamiliar passion stirred inside her—she was almost shaking with excitement. Again she asked herself why she had come here. But whatever the reason, the important thing was to meet Kim Gwangbae right away. She had been obsessed by this need since she had left Yonggung Café—no, since she had been released from the police station. She pulled on the door handle. She thought it would be locked, but it opened wide, almost coming off its hinges.
What she saw first was the kitchen. She noticed a battered pot left on the stove with a few strands of ramen dried up inside, a half-collapsed cupboard, and various small dishes covered in dust. “Anybody home?” There were holes in the paper panels of the door leading to the bedroom. She opened it. The light was on but the room was empty. A tattered and faded army blanket covered the broken glass of the window, and she could see clothes dangling from the wall as if they had hanged themselves.
Shinhye stood there for a moment, overcome. She had no idea what she should do now. The impulse that had driven her here had been so strong that she felt a violent confusion. She thought Kim Gwangbae could not have gone far because he’d left the lights on in the empty house, but there was no way to know when he would be back. Outside, she noticed a red light shining in the darkness at the far end of the neighborhood. A lamp for the dead. Someone in one of the miners’ houses had departed from this world. It might even be someone she knew who had died. Kim Gwangbae was sure to be in that house. Shinhye began to walk up the steep path toward the light. Two men who seemed to be mourners were just then coming out of the house, still hunched over.
“Just a moment…” Shinhye said.
They looked her up and down suspiciously.
“You’re coming out of this house of mourning?”
“Yes…. What do you want?”
“Do you know if Mr. Kim Gwangbae happens to be there?”
“And how might you know him, miss?”
She was relieved—they seemed to know who he was. One of them was grinning.
“You’re his girlfriend, maybe?”
“Excuse me, but could you call him, please?”
“Wait a minute then.”
The man went back into the house, and it was a long time before Kim Gwangbae emerged, approaching her slowly, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“All the way up here…What’s going on?”
“Would you let me sleep here tonight?” she asked.
His expression froze in shock. He stared at her face in silence and began walking.
“He was an old miner. He spent his whole life working in the mine and he died last night. Left three kids behind…A few years ago, his wife took out a loan and ran a small business. Then she got swindled and ran away. He had to raise his kids alone, like a widower. He was diagnosed with black lung but kept working in the mine, bragging all the time about how he wasn’t gonna die—no, not him. Last night he was drunk and a train hit him as he was walking home on the railroad tracks. There’s not gonna be a penny of compensation. He ended up dying like a dog.”
He walked in front of her and the sound of his voice resonated from his back. Shinhye felt the cold of the night on her skin. Stars scattered here and there twinkled in the inky sky as the wind tore the clouds.
“So, why did you come all the way up here?” he asked.
In the dim light of his bedroom he looked older and more tired than when she had seen him last. The room reeked of sweat mixed with a man’s body odor. But as she thrust her feet under the filthy blanket, she was surprised to find that the floor was warm.
“I asked you earlier,” she said. “To let me sleep here tonight.”
Still leaning against the wall, he examined her with eyes full of suspicion, and when their eyes met, he looked down awkwardly as if he were the one in someone else’s house.
“I thought I’d never see you again….”
A smile twisted his face. Almost a spasm that made him look like he was laughing at his familiar self.
“That’s why I came to find you.”
Shinhye smiled, still looking at him. She felt a sharp pain as her parched lips stretched too tight.
“Did you hear what happened to me?”
“Yes, I know you were arrested.”
Shinhye couldn’t think of anything more to say. He kept pulling on the tip of one of his socks. There was a small hole worn through there, but it wasn’t out of embarrassment—just an unconscious habit that made him keep doing it.
“You aren’t asking me one thing about what happened at the police station,” Shinhye said. “You could at least offer sympathy for what they did to me. I was worried they might arrest you and make you suffer, too, all because of me!”
He finally raised his head.
“Why did those people put me away? You don’t seem to know about it, but I’m not an important person. The police know that better than anyone.”
That same faint, bitter smile appeared again on his face.
“You were wrong about me from the start,” he said. “I don’t know if you thought I was a victim of the system, oppressed because I was part of the workers’ movement. Or maybe someone who was preparing for a new fight in the future. But I’m not that type. The truth is the opposite. Years ago, when the riots broke out here, I denounced my coworkers. When I was arrested by the police, I told them everything they wanted to know. I sold them all out—all my friends. I’m a filthy, despicable human being because even after all that, I was an informant for the police. That’s what I am.”
He let out a hopeless sigh. As he pulled at his sock, Shinhye noticed that his thumbnail looked dead—it was completely black.
“The truth is,” he said, “I was at the police station, too.”
He went on, though it took some effort. “Yesterday morning the detectives came by to take me in. I understood the situation as soon as I got there. At first, they worked on you because they thought they could get something out of you, but since they got nothing and they couldn’t just let you go, they tried to make up a story. They asked me to write a statement saying you tried to recruit me.”
“So what did you do?”
“I told them I couldn’t do that. People may say I’m just a snitch, but I said I wouldn’t do it for anything. I told them they could kill me…do anything they wanted…”
Maybe it was from the heat that warmed her body, but suddenly Shinhye was overcome by sadness, and it felt as if all the strength had drained from her body.
Kim looked at her and said, as if to justify himself:
“They said I was a fraktsiya—a spy for the cops—but I never gave them what they wanted. That’s the truth.”
“Come closer,” Shinhye said.
He looked wary and anxious for a moment, but then he got up and awkwardly sat down next to her. His fingers careful, like a child touching something for the first time, he brushed Shinhye’s hair and stroked her face. His hand was rough and his fingers calloused, but they softened as if they had thawed.
“What happened to you?” Shinhye asked, gently touching his thumb where the nail was black.
“It’s nothing. Just…crushed by a support beam at work.”
Without a word, she kissed each of his fingers one by one.
“Why don’t you leave this place?”
“Why don’t I leave?” he said, as if he were talking to himself. There was guarded silence for a moment.
“Well…for what reason? I don’t know. Maybe out of pride.”
He fell silent again, and after a long while he continued slowly and with difficulty:
“People would laugh to hear me talk about pride. Everybody here thinks of me as an idiot. To my fellow miners I’m just a coward and a dirty traitor. As for the police and the bosses who used me—they treat me worse than a dog. And since they don’t exactly have it wrong, there’s nothing I can do about what they think of me. When the police arrested me back in 1980 during the incident, I was scared—terrified. They made me into something despicable, more lowly than the lowest vermin. I really believed I was worthless. That’s why I had no choice but to do whatever they told me.”
His voice quavered. Shinhye had rested her head on his shoulder, and she thought she could feel the trembling through her own body. It reminded her of the unbearable suffering buried in her own heart.
“But no matter how much they spit on me and despise me, I’m not leaving this place. No, I can’t leave. I can’t leave here branded as a rat. Not until I’ve proved to them that I’m not that kind of person. That is the unshakable pride of this man named Kim Gwangbae. You don’t understand me, do you?”
“Yes, I understand.”
Shinhye slowly stood up. She undid the buttons on her blouse one by one as he watched her every move.
“Take me,” Shinhye said.
Her mouth was so dry she spoke with a parched voice.
“Hurry! Don’t you understand?”
He approached her slowly, his face hard and contorted. As if he feared that her body would suddenly disappear from before his eyes. She hugged his head. She could smell the faintly fishy scent of the oil that permeated his hair. She was overcome by unbearable pain and sadness, and to resist that terrible pain, she held tightly on to his neck.
She heard the sound of a train shaking the darkness as it passed. Her eyes open in the dark, Shinhye listened to the sound as it pressed unceasingly down on her chest. How much time had passed? She got up quietly. A faint light entered through the gap where the blanket hung over the window, revealing the face of Kim Gwangbae soundly asleep, snoring. So as not to wake him, she groped around in the dark to put on her clothes, then grabbed her bag and left the house. She did not look back once as she made her way down the steep path.
It was dawn. Now the darkness was sloughing off a layer at a time, and a corner of the sky had already appeared in the distance, gleaming blue like the back of a fish. Shinhye stopped to look at a single star above her, twinkling in the middle of the sky, holding its place and shining brightly, indifferent to the fact that it would soon be erased by the light of day.
Who could have lit that single unquenchable lamp burning so high above the hill?
Her head tilted back, Shinhye looked at that star for a long time. She had never in her life felt a star so close. Even while she had suffered those terrible things at the police station, and while she’d been with Kim Gwangbae, even at that very moment, the Earth still turned in its orbit, and, high up in space, the lonely star was shining in its place.
In the next moment Shinhye felt a chill, as if she were doused in ice, and felt something from deep inside pierce the confusion in her soul. This star is there in the sky, and I am here, standing. No one—nothing—can take the place of that star. In my heart, too, is a star that no power in the world can take away. Yes, here I am, alive! An overwhelming desire to live filled her heart. Suddenly the star seemed to fly right in front of her eyes and explode there, and she found herself bursting into tears for a reason she could not fathom.
The lamp was still hanging in front of the house of the dead, and a fire was burning outside. She went there, as if drawn unconsciously to its warm light. Five or six people stood around the fire, keeping warm, and when she approached, they stepped aside to make room for her. Just like them, she stood in silence, watching the rising flames. The light of the crackling fire dyed their faces red. The firelight flickered, illuminating each face, one after the other, a different expression, a different color. Countless embers floated up and faded into the winter sky. Shinhye suddenly reached into her bag and got the envelope the madam had given her the previous night. She did not know why.
“Could you please give this to the family?”
She handed the envelope to the man who looked the oldest.
“But…what is this, miss?”
“It’s just money…for condolences.”
He took the envelope, examined it tentatively, front and back, and looked at Shinhye.
“There’s no name on this. Who are you, miss? Did you know Mr. Choi?”
“I…someone sent me…I…”
She turned and hurriedly left without finishing what she had to say. It sounded like someone might be calling out to her, but she didn’t look back.
The hoarse whistle of a train pierced the darkness. It would be the 3:05 to Seoul, and she knew that if she hurried, she could catch it. With only her vinyl bag in hand, exactly like the day she’d arrived in the coal town, Shinhye ran toward the station.
Translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl