Pau just couldn’t put his mind at ease. Surely something was going to happen to his father tonight. Pau was with the other boys twining sack-rope in Sshidol’s family’s work shed. He stopped his work and went outside, pretending he had to pee.
It was dark out, no stars in the sky. He remembered his father asking his mother that morning what day it was by the lunar calendar. It was the twenty-sixth day of the month, said his mother. And then Father had muttered to himself, “So the moon won’t be out till later in the evening.” And tonight, not only was it dark, it was cloudy too.
Around dinnertime his father had smoked several bowls of tobacco in his long pipe, and suddenly he had blurted to Mother, “Are you sure it’s the twenty-sixth?” His face wore a serious expression. To be sure, it wasn’t the first time Pau had seen him with that look. Just a few days ago his usually dignified father had come inside and said in an angry voice to no one in particular, “The world has gone to hell—we’re always getting cheated,” with that same serious expression.
At times like this his father’s face seemed especially old. The wrinkles on his forehead were deeper and more numerous. Maybe they were a little more numerous and got a little deeper each time his face wore that expression.
But his father’s face today told him somehow that something was going to happen before the night was over. Pau recalled what his father had said the day before yesterday when the rumor had arisen about the farmers being taken off somewhere in connection with the grain tax: “Even worms will squirm if you step on them.” He thought he could tell what it was that would happen that night. As he hurried back home, the image of that fearsome rifle barrel rose in his mind. His heart wouldn’t stop pounding.
He arrived home and sure enough, there in the dark of the courtyard were a group of village men. So there—I knew something was going to happen. His heart started pounding again. A fireflylike kerosene lantern glowed behind every patchwork paper-paneled door and window, but the light wasn’t enough for Pau to make out who the men were. Or to count how many there were. At least ten, he estimated.
He thought back to last autumn, when his grandmother had passed on. The villagers had gathered in the courtyard then too, and Pau had heard the buzz of voices. But those voices weren’t hushed and careful like the ones he heard now. Granted, what was going to happen tonight was more serious than his grandmother’s death. He had wailed along with his mother then. Even little Ŏnnyŏn, who was too young to understand, had wailed with them. He had always felt a thrill at the buzz of the villagers when they gathered at his house. But not tonight.
That guy over there flicking away the cigarette he’d smoked down to his fingertips—that was Kŏbuk’s big brother, he was sure of it. And he was just as sure that the squatting man who had intercepted that butt so he could add the tobacco to his pipe was Kaettong’s father. He saw the glowing butt in the pipe bowl rise to the level of Kaettong’s father’s mouth, glow red, then fade, and then it began to float in his direction. He looked closer and saw that the group had broken up and were coming his way. Can’t let them know I’m here. He scurried off toward the ash shed. And now he really did have to pee. When he was finished, and even after the villagers had scattered, he remained where he was for a short time so that anyone who came along and saw him would think he was peeing. As he did, another memory came back to him, triggered by the earlier memory of his grandmother’s passing: as soon as they had put her in the coffin, he had taken her pillow and hid it in the rafters of this shed. The pillow of this grandmother who had been so terribly fond of him was somehow so unsettling that he didn’t dare go near the ash shed at night. He’d been scared by something that now seemed completely harmless. He was too old for that—thirteen already. His father had told him that when he was Pau’s age—actually, when he was fourteen—he was already wrestling in the championship matches. Still, thinking about that pillow he’d hidden, Pau had to admit that being by himself here in this shed at night was not pleasant. His feet took him quickly toward the house. No, I wasn’t scared, he told himself; I just want to hurry up and see what my father’s doing.
The courtyard was empty now. Pau heard only the heavy breathing of the bull from the cow shed. In the family room he came across his father, who was putting on his overpants. He was about to go somewhere, Pau was sure of it. His mother had put little Onnyŏn to sleep and was sitting near the kerosene lamp, mending clothing. She didn’t look up when Pau arrived, merely asked why he wasn’t twining rope with the other boys. Pau lied, saying he had come back home for more rice stalks. He went to the cooler part of the heated floor, where some sheaves of rice stalks were stacked in a corner, and rummaged among them.
His father left. His mother didn’t say anything. Why is she asking me about the rope and not asking Father where he’s going? Maybe his father had told her before Pau got home. But there she is, looking like nothing’s wrong.
He thought back to the winter before Liberation, when the grain tax was collected, when his father had caught that awful beating from the Jap constable and been taken off to jail in Ch’ungju—well, his mother had been doing her mending then too, every night, all by herself. She looked like she had eased her concerns about Father being taken away, and would stay awake in case he happened to be released from jail that night, to welcome him home.
Back then Pau would awaken several times during the night, and he would always see his mother sitting there just like that.
But tonight he had to catch up with his father and see what was going on. With half an armful of rice stalks under his arm, he slid open the door and stepped out. He thought his father was already outside the brushwood gate, but in the faint light filtering through the open door behind him he saw his father take the supporting stick from his A-frame backrack where it rested beneath the eaves and head toward the gate. From behind he looked like a very old man.
Ever since that terrible beating the winter before Liberation, his father had had trouble with his back. When he was in the prime of his youth, his strength and his wrestling prowess were known throughout the neighboring villages. Even at the age of forty, he would from time to time challenge the strongest of the village youths to a bout, his face breaking into a dignified smile; then he’d grab hold of his opponent around the waist and before the smile had faded would lift the young man and throw him to the ground.
But after that beating it was all he could do simply to walk. It was really frightening, that beating. The Japanese constable had come riding along on his horse, urging the villagers to pay their grain tax, his mustache giving him the appearance of decency itself. And then out of the blue, as if to make an example of Pau’s father in front of the other villagers, he had grabbed him by the collar and said, “You bastard, you’d rather wrestle than pay your grain tax, eh? Why don’t you and I have a go?” And with a scream he went at Pau’s father, who was standing there wordlessly, and using some technique called judo threw him all over the frozen ground. And as his father lay on the ground, blood gushing from his mouth and nose, the constable worked himself up some more and stomped on his back with the heels of his riding boots. When it was over, his father couldn’t get up on his own. All the onlookers could do was shudder. And then the constable took his father away to Ch’ungju. Pau was transfixed; he couldn’t even follow as far as the entrance to the village. His father disappeared around the corner of Sshidol’s family’s house, and not until a short time later did Pau burst into tears. What a fool I was! All I did was tremble and watch!
Tonight he wasn’t going to stay home and do nothing. He had to be with his father. He placed the rice stalks in his own small backrack, next to his father’s, then took his supporting stick and out the brushwood gate he went.
Even in the dark he could make out his father in the distance. He followed along, maintaining enough of an interval between them to keep out of sight. His father passed through the lower village and beyond the last of the dwellings. Once outside the village it was half a mile to the bank of a stream, and just before that stream bank, where the road narrowed, there stood an ancient zelkova tree. Pau saw his father walk toward that tree; he seemed to be stopping there. Pau likewise came to a stop. He saw that his father was not alone; several others were gathered there. He could hear their muffled voices. Each of these others, like his father, carried what looked like a backrack stick.
Pau wondered if the villagers gathered beneath the zelkova were there for a different reason—were they after a thief? Several days ago someone had supposedly made off with beans from Ojaeng’s family’s bean field, and then the same thing with Kaettong’s family last night. Quite a few families had run out of grain, even barley, and were starving, and there were frequent cases of people taking for themselves newly ripened grain, regardless of whose land it was.
So maybe the villagers gathered there were lying low in hopes of catching a thief, and the reason his father asked his mother what day it was by the lunar calendar was that on a moonless night it was easy to hide and catch a thief in the act. But then the villagers left the zelkova and went down to the stream. Maybe they wanted to keep watch over the far side of the stream. I’m going to follow him anyway. He went beneath the zelkova and looked toward the stream. In the darkness he heard Ojaeng telling the others that they didn’t have to wade the stream—he would carry each of them across on his back. Ojaeng with the stubby neck, short waist, and solid, stocky build—he was very strong. Pau remembered how the villagers had joked about him. When Ojaeng was born his father had swaddled him in a grain basket and hung it on the wall, because that was supposed to make a baby grow fast, but this newborn wiggled so much that the nail holding the basket came out and the basket fell. Luckily the baby landed right side up, but his bottom hit so hard that his neck and his waist were compressed—and thus the grown-up Ojaeng’s stubby neck and short waist.
When he was sure no one remained on this side of the stream, Pau ventured down to the water. Quickly he took off his shoes and rolled up his pants legs, and then he crossed the stream. The water chilled his toes and calves. On the far side of the stream he dried his feet on the grass, put his shoes back on, and without rolling down his pants legs, set out after his father and the villagers. They were some distance beyond Kŏbuk’s family’s tobacco plot before Pau spotted them. None of them spoke; there was only the sound of their footsteps. It wasn’t like a group of people moving forward; instead, the way each man silently followed the one in front of him, they looked just like a line of cows walking this dark road. No, a line of bulls.
Pau thought back to the year before last when he had gone to Ch’ungju with his father to buy a bull calf. They had returned at night on this very same road. The sun was setting when they crested Masŭmak Pass, and by the time they reached the Han River it had dropped below the horizon. The calf had balked at the ferry landing and the boatman and Pau had to pull on its nose ring while his father pushed its rump before they managed to get it on board. By the time they reached the three-way fork that led to Hŭinbawi Hollow, it was dark and Pau was frightened. But unlike tonight, stars had dotted the sky and there was a crescent moon, so it wasn’t pitch black. Pau had tried to comfort himself with something he had heard from the grown-ups—if you had a bull with you, you didn’t get scared, no matter how rough the surroundings. Well, the animal he and his father were taking home was a calf, but it was a bull calf, and with that thought he had tried to put his fears to rest. But then Pau had remembered a story he’d heard from the grown-ups, something that had actually happened a few years earlier. One evening a young man went outside around dinnertime to graze the family’s bull. When sometime later the bull came back by itself, its horns bloody, his family panicked, certain the bull had gored the young man. But then the young man reappeared, and he didn’t have a scratch on him. He had been grazing the bull, he explained, when without warning it startled, knocking him over. He thought he was going to be trampled. But once he had managed to gather his wits, what should he see but a tiger? The tiger seemed to be toying with the bull, leaping back and forth over its back. And every time the tiger leaped, the bull turned to avoid it. (Here the young man explained to Pau that actually the bull wasn’t trying to avoid the tiger; instead it was trying to meet the tiger head-on so it could charge.) Anyway, he hadn’t been trampled. The bull somehow managed to gore the tiger and then ran off. The young man saw that the tiger was dead, its belly ripped open. (Here again the man telling the story added that it’s the nature of a bull when it finally hooks its adversary to keep goring it, flipping it up into the air like a shuttlecock, until finally its innards spill out, and then it gives up.) This story had made Pau wish that their bull calf was a little more grown up. And then there were the stories about tigers attacking people while they slept or people walking country roads, and supposedly the tiger always snatched the middle person because it thought that person was the most fearful. And yet Pau hated walking in front of the calf or behind his father, so he stayed between them, and by the time they got home he had been kicked by the calf more times than he could count.
But at least back then he had the bull calf and he was with his father. Tonight he was by himself, separated from his father. If only he had the bull—it was full grown now—he wouldn’t have a worry in the world. On the other hand, you’re two years older now, right? Don’t tell me you’re scared of a dark road. Besides, you’ve got the stick. And all you have to do is shout and those bulls from the village will come running. But he had never been able to erase such fears from his mind, and now he walked faster so as to shorten the distance between himself and the villagers.
But if the villagers intended to catch whoever was stealing the grain, shouldn’t they be hiding somewhere nearby? They were almost past the croplands; if they went much farther they’d be at the three-way junction to Hŭinbawi Hollow. And then it occurred to Pau that maybe they weren’t trying to catch a thief after all. Maybe they were going to fight the people from Hŭinbawi Hollow.
Almost every year fights broke out over water during irrigating season. They were murderous brawls in which teeth were knocked out and skulls split open. Behind each side was a powerful landowning family urging the fighters to get the water first and worry later. This year the son of the Hŭinbawi Hollow landowner had supposedly gotten himself a high government position in Seoul, after which his father had ordered the villagers to irrigate only his paddies. Some time previous, the oldest grandson of Old Kim Long Pipe, the landowner in the village where Pau’s family lived, had likewise obtained a high government position in Seoul, and once he was established, Old Kim launched an attack on the other landowner, calling him an ungrateful wretch and warning him to watch out. And so, thought Pau, maybe the men from his village were going to fight the men from Hŭinbawi Hollow tonight.
Wait a minute. Didn’t some men from each village get together and decide not to fight anymore?
And sure enough, the villagers had reached the three-way junction and were not taking the road to Hŭinbawi Hollow. Instead they turned down the road to Ch’ungju. So there. As he had reckoned in the first place, his father and the villagers were on their way to Ch’ungju.
That fearsome rifle came to mind. Pau could see it whipping down in the darkness, cracking Ch’unbo across the shoulder blades. He hadn’t paid his barley and wheat tax. Ch’unbo hadn’t flinched under the first blow. Ch’unbo, face pale from long years of malnourishment, who shouldered the burden of so many mouths to feed. That fearsome rifle struck again. This time Ch’unbo would go down. His shoulders would be injured, just like Pau’s father’s back. The man with the rifle struck the unresisting Ch’unbo’s shoulders yet again, and finally he went down. There was a glint in Ch’unbo’s eyes. It came from tears. And then Ch’unbo began to shudder all over. He looked like he was wiggling. This wiggling spread to all the villagers looking on, and to Pau among them. But that was the end of it. Ch’unbo, like Pau’s father before him, could not get up on his own, and was led off to Ch’ungju. And it did turn out that Ch’unbo’s shoulders were never right again. Just like Pau’s father’s back.
The villagers arrived at the Han River. They seemed to have already spoken with the boatman at the landing, and were crowding onto the boat. Should he wait for the next boat? Or take this one? If he took this boat they would know right off that he’d been following them. If he took the next boat he’d fall too far behind them, and he wasn’t sure of the route where the road went up from the other side of the river—that would really be a problem.
He decided to take the first boat. Even if he was discovered, the villagers wouldn’t have the heart to send him back home by himself. And I wouldn’t go back even if they did. But once he was on the boat, no one recognized him. Then again, he wasn’t able to tell who was who either. No one spoke, or even smoked. The only sound in the darkness was the creaking of the oars. Pau listened to the creaking. He remembered thinking, when he was on this boat before, that if they went down the river for three or four days they’d get to that place called Seoul—wouldn’t it be fun to go there sometime? But no such thoughts came to mind now. His mind was occupied by the creak of the oars and a feeling that the river was so much wider now than before.
On the other side the villagers started walking silently up the hill, still resembling a procession of bulls. Pau followed at a safe distance.
They were getting closer to Ch’ungju, and once again that fearsome rifle came to mind. Pau’s heart was racing. He thought back to the news two days ago about all the farmers who had been taken into custody. Young as he was, he realized he could not pretend to himself that this was simply someone else’s concern and not his. Now he knew. He knew why his father and the other villagers were going to Ch’ungju—“Even worms will squirm if you step on them.” From now on, he would be there for his father.
Oh no! Yet again the image of that fearsome rifle loomed in his mind, only this time the bodies of his father and the others were sprawled out beneath it. There was a glint in their eyes, the glint of tears. All of them were squirming, just like worms will do if you step on them. They were crying out, all of them: If you keep this up, we’ll starve! We’re not asking to get rid of the grain tax, we just want it to be fair! Why do you let people fill up their sacks in the granary and sell on the sly in Japan or god knows where else? Why do you let them do that? Why do you harass the needy night and day—what will you get out of them? If things don’t change, we’ll starve!
All these outcries Pau had heard from the villagers. And every time, he couldn’t help thinking back to when he and his father had gone to Ch’ungju in autumn two years ago to buy the bull calf. They had to borrow money first, and that was when Pau had seen all the sacks of rice stacked to the ceiling of Old Kim Long Pipe’s storehouse. And the ink-black iron padlock bigger than a man’s fist.
Again they came to mind, the storeroom filled with sacks of rice and the padlock on the door. That padlock wasn’t about to open. And that led to the image of something whipping down. But not to break open the padlock; rather to break the back of his squirming father. Pau imagined his father’s back giving out, his father collapsing on the spot. Now I’ll have to carry Father. I can do it. That time Father’s back gave out in the middle of the harvest, I carried him home on my own back, didn’t I—even though I had to stop for a rest three times along the way.
The sky couldn’t have been darker; not a star was to be seen. When his father had muttered to himself that morning about the moon not being out until later in the evening, Pau didn’t know if his father was hoping for a moon or for no moon, but for Pau on a night like this, even a waning moon would have been welcome. And if not the moon, then even a sprinkling of stars. And just then there appeared far ahead a cluster of stars. Wow, they’re beautiful! But the next moment he realized they were the lights of Ch’ungju. This was the first time he had seen Ch’ungju at night. Before he knew it he had arrived at Masŭmak Pass, comfortably warmed from the effort of following the villagers uphill. There at the high point of the pass the breeze, absent till then, swept past his ears and down his back. Pau didn’t mind.
The next instant he was telling himself he had to be ready, and his hand tightened on the backrack stick. But what was this? Instead of heading straight down into Ch’ungju the villagers were making their way up the left-hand slopes of Nam Mountain. He couldn’t understand it, but he climbed after them nevertheless. And then it seemed they had staked out an area and squatted. Pau squatted too, still keeping his distance. As ever, no one was speaking.
Pau heard someone cough, and then cough again. It sounded like Kŏbuk’s big brother. He could tell that Kŏbuk’s brother was standing, not squatting, and that he wasn’t coughing in Pau’s direction but in the opposite direction instead.
And then from out of the darkness in the opposite direction came a similar cough, followed by the sound of movement. Who? Pau’s heart began pounding. And then someone, it looked like Kŏbuk’s brother, was moving straight toward the oncoming person. Pau heard whispers. Much to his relief, the two whispering voices were not arguing. And then he noticed that they were not the only ones on Nam Mountain. He could now see many other people as well, villagers like them, also squatting. Pau felt safer.
And it was better now that he could see light coming from the streets of Ch’ungju. It was almost like having starlight. That place off to the left, where a lot of light was concentrated, had to be the train station. Pau heard no whistle—when would the next train be coming? Wouldn’t it be fun to take a train to Seoul sometime? And now he was imagining a bus coming into Ch’ungju by way of the main street in front of the train station, a bus from Seoul, raising a cloud of dust as it rattled along and then coming to a stop, and passengers getting off, quite a few of them. How could so many people fit into that little thing? Now it was the bus he wanted to ride, rattling and shaking, to Seoul.
Hmm, where is the bus station anyway? His eyes scanned the lighted streets of Ch’ungju. There? Or there? He remembered it being across the alley and a couple houses down from where Old Kim Long Pipe lived, and then his eyes came to rest on an area that was brighter than anywhere else—maybe there. And popping up once again in his mind’s eye was that magnificent house of Kim’s that he and his father had visited the year before last, when they had come to Ch’ungju to buy the bull calf.
As soon as his father had entered the stately gate that time, he had bowed from the waist toward a sliding door to the right. Was that where the old man was sitting? He too, as his father had taught him, bowed deeply in that direction. But all that Pau perceived as he bowed and straightened was the play of light on the glass-paneled door; he didn’t notice the nose, which the villagers said (but never in Old Man Kim’s presence) resembled the gall bladder of a slaughtered animal, nor did he notice the pipe with the large bowl that never left Old Man Kim’s hand. Then again he shouldn’t stare through the glass, and so he directed his gaze to the palm-sized patch on the back of his father’s traditional going-out jacket, which his father had changed into before leaving on their outing. And then from the other side of the door came a booming voice calling for Kwidong, the errand boy, a voice loud enough to startle Pau and to rattle the glass panes.
From the middle gate there emerged a boy even smaller than Pau who took the wicker basket wrapped in cloth that his father had brought and went back inside. Both their presence and their gift must have been clearly visible to Old Kim Long Pipe behind his sliding glass door.
Telling Pau to wait, his father removed his shoes and carefully brushed off the soles of his socks. Pau went toward the middle gate, where the errand boy had just disappeared. He heard the sliding door open and close. His father would be meeting now with Old Man Kim. Once he had the loan, he could buy that calf he’d had his eye on.
The middle gate opened and Kwidong handed Pau the empty basket. Visible through the open gate was an array of glass-paneled doors to the inner quarters. What a magnificent sight it was! So that’s why the villagers talk themselves silly about this house.
“Are there lots of persimmons where you live?” asked Kwidong.
He must have seen the persimmons they had brought. And he talked funny.
Pau nodded.
“There’s lots where I live too.” Kwidong was about to say more when a woman’s voice called him back in.
Kwidong soon reappeared with a small meal table set with two bowls of soup-and-rice. He carried the table to the sliding glass door, which opened to reveal Pau’s father. Instead of receiving the table where he was, his father came out to take it. From inside came Old Man Kim’s voice asking both of them to eat inside. “We’re fine out here,” said Pau’s father, who then joined Pau and set the table on the ground.
Pau sat down opposite his father and began to eat. It was honest-to-goodness rice. Even before the grain tax came along, it was all you could do to get a bowl of rice not mixed with other grain, and after the grain tax, forget it! And even though there was no meat on their table, the broth was definitely meat broth. As soon as this food was in his mouth, it went straight down. They probably ate like this every day—judging from the fact that the meal had been brought out right away. Boy, was it good!
His father transferred a spoonful of his rice to Pau’s bowl. Kwidong stood outside the middle gate, watching. Pau felt ashamed of himself. “I don’t want it,” he said to his father. But instead of returning the rice to his father’s bowl, he ate it himself. Next his father found a morsel of meat in his soup and added it to Pau’s bowl. “I said I don’t want it”—louder this time.
As soon as they had finished, Kwidong took the table inside and Pau’s father returned to the master’s quarters. I wish Father would hurry up and get that loan so we can buy the calf and go home.
Suddenly he heard a loud tapping sound—it must have been Old Man Kim’s pipe bowl in the ashtray. Pau had been told that the old man liked to bang things around when his dander was up. Maybe the loan hadn’t worked out.
The middle gate opened again and out came Kwidong. He approached Pau and said, “How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
“Eleven? I’m ten.”
Kwidong gestured with his chin toward the master’s quarters. “So that’s your father. Good for you.” He still talked funny.
“You don’t have a father?”
“Why shouldn’t I? He’s with my family. In Mungaeng.” By which he meant Mungyŏng. “Ever heard of Mungaeng?”
Pau shook his head.
“Kyŏngsang Province. That’s where we—”
The rest was lost as the same woman’s voice called Kwidong, who hurried back in.
Pau wondered why Kwidong wasn’t at home with his mother and father. He peered through a gap in the gate and saw, off to the side of the yard, Kwidong emerging from the storehouse, a sack of something or other slung over his shoulder. Just before Kwidong closed the door Pau’s eyes were drawn to the sacks of grain stacked inside the storehouse with its padlock bigger than a grown-up’s fist. He quickly turned away, as if he had witnessed something shameful.
Presently Kwidong reappeared, his face suffused with a smile that revealed dimples in both cheeks.
This time Pau spoke first: “So what do you do here?”
“Grandpop here asked my father to send him a boy to run errands—and that’s me. Our family works his land, see? And me being here is a big help to my family because now they have one less mouth to feed. There’s nine of us—but that doesn’t include my two big sisters, who got married off. . . .”
“Don’t you get homesick?”
“Sure I do. More for my mom than my father. When I left to come here she followed me out to the main road—she couldn’t stop crying. I eat better here, but I still wish I was home. But my father told me not to think about home and just take care of myself here. . . . We got persimmon trees out in back of our house, and the persimmons are bigger than the ones you brought. We pick them in the fall—”
Yet again the woman’s voice called Kwidong, and again Kwidong left off in mid-sentence, the smile gone from his face.
It looked to Pau as if Kwidong would keep thinking of home in spite of his father’s instructions. When he came out again Pau would ask when he was going home to all those big persimmons. He wished Kwidong would hurry up and come out.
And then out he came. But this time he scurried past Pau, saying he would see him after he ran an errand, and disappeared through the main gate.
A short time later the glass door slid open and his father emerged. His face looked careworn. Maybe he didn’t get the loan. Behind him came Old Kim Long Pipe’s raspy voice: “Look here, I just gave you a three-percent loan, that’s practically free money, so why the long face?” I guess he got the loan after all. But why did his father look so down in the dumps?
His father approached him, picked up the empty wicker basket and the wrapping cloth, and used the corner of the cloth to rub off a reddish-orange stain on the tip of his right thumb. Pau didn’t realize that his father had just used that thumb to seal the loan agreement.
His father led Pau back to the sliding door and performed a bow, as he had done when they arrived. Pau did likewise. Again he was aware only of the gleam of the glass panels; he couldn’t see Old Kim Long Pipe, but knew the man was there on the other side.
Outside the main gate, his father gazed at the sun setting in the west, his face still careworn. “The market’s probably shut down, but let’s hurry there anyway.”
But it bothered Pau to have to leave without saying good-bye to Kwidong. When Kwidong got back from his errand maybe he’d look around wondering where Pau went. As he and his father emerged from the alley he kept looking back, but Kwidong never came into sight. . . .
Pau wondered now if Kwidong was still there at Old Kim Long Pipe’s house, where all the lights were coming from. His father had since paid several visits to the old man, and upon his return Pau would ask if Kwidong was still there, but his father never had a definite answer. It looked like the grown-ups didn’t pay attention to things like that.
From the darkness he heard Ojaeng’s muted voice: “How long till ten o’clock?” It sounded as if he were talking to himself. “Isn’t it about that time?” That was Ch’unbo’s trembling voice, muted like Ojaeng’s. So, something’s going to happen at ten o’clock. Again the voices fell silent.
Ch’ik ch’ik—flint striking on rock. And then an urgent shushing sound, telling whoever it was to stop. I guess you’re not supposed to light a cigarette.
The back of his neck and from his waist down felt cold. His body, sweaty from the uphill walk, had cooled off, and the chill was working its way in. The pants legs he’d rolled up before crossing the stream had come partway down; Pau pulled them the rest of the way down over his ankles. Then he put down his backrack stick and wrapped his arms around himself.
That’s when it happened. All the lights in the Ch’ungju streets went out. The next moment all the villagers stood up, as if they’d been waiting for this signal. Before Pau knew it he was standing too, backrack stick in hand. He thought he heard Kŏbuk’s big brother say something and then move out in front, and then the villagers began to flock downhill, like riled-up bulls. Bulls from his own village and the other villages descending toward the streets of Ch’ungju, the bulls that Kŏbuk’s big brother had been whispering to, the bulls just beyond them, the bulls hidden all over Nam Mountain, those bulls just like the bulls from his own village.
So surprised was Pau that for a moment he couldn’t move his trembling body. You idiot, you idiot, you’ve come all this way and look at you now. . . . Finally his hand tightened around the backrack stick and he began to chase after the grown-ups. He kept stumbling and falling. Got to catch up. But instead he gradually fell farther behind and eventually he lost sight of the grown-ups altogether. And still he ran.
It was virtually black in the direction of Ch’ungju, now that the streetlights were off. There were other lights, flitting through the darkness this way and that, coming in and out of sight. Pau realized they were coming from cars, but the cars were making a strange noise. His heart kept racing.
He heard a popping sound and straightened in spite of himself. It’s that horrible rifle! And then people crying out. He imagined his father among those people, sprawling onto the ground. Oh my god, oh my god. Why couldn’t you catch up with the grown-ups? You idiot, you idiot!
Flames shot up through the darkness. He felt as if those flames were flaring up inside him. The outcries from the people were sounding inside him as well, his father’s voice distinct among them. And then he realized that the voices were coming from where the flames were rising. He ran toward those flames. It didn’t seem that far.
Breathing heavily, he came out onto a street. The fire was farther off than it looked. Voices in the dark asked where the fire was. And then from nearby came gunshots. And once again a confusion of outcries. He imagined, there in front of him, a formation of those fearsome rifles, stopping him. Go anyway, you’ve got to go!
He arrived at what looked to be a main street. The clamor was louder. He saw people running recklessly in the dark. The next moment, as Pau ran breathlessly along, the street fell silent.
A strange noise cut through the air and a large light sped past. In the light Pau could see running figures, and then in a split-second their shadows enlarging, shrinking, and enlarging again, before disappearing. He spied an alley to the right—maybe a shortcut to where the fire was—and turned down it.
Just inside the alley he bumped into something and the next thing he knew he was huddled on the ground. He heard a cry of pain and saw a man with a bulging straw sack. There was a dull pain in Pau’s head, he was out of breath, and he couldn’t get up. But he was glad to see that the man hadn’t been knocked down. “Are you fucking blind?” snapped the man. Off he went. Finally Pau got to his feet.
He had taken only a few steps when he saw someone else coming. He couldn’t see clearly in the dark, only that the person was carrying something heavy and that the effort was costing him dearly. Make sure you don’t bump into him. He quickly dodged the man. Wait a minute! The house that the man had come out of, a house in a dead-end alley—it was Old Kim Long Pipe’s house. How did I end up here? He’d never expected this. He went closer, saw that the main gate and the middle gate were both wide open, and slipped inside. There in the yard, peering toward the storehouse, was a man holding a candle. Pau was sure it was Old Kim Long Pipe—though he had actually seen him only twice, and from a distance, when the man had come to their village.
“Hurry up, there, hurry! . . . I can’t believe those sons of bitches set fire to the police station.”
It was Old Kim Long Pipe’s voice all right, but not the intimidating voice Pau remembered. It was stifled, urgent. As always Old Kim had his pipe, the pipe that never left his right hand. When he gestured with it now, the candlelight glinted off the metal bowl. The candle flame was fluttering. Why is it doing that? There’s no breeze. The glass-paneled door, so magnificent before, was merely a dark background that reflected the flickering candlelight.
The candle rose up head high, then was lowered; up and down, up and down it went, as Old Kim Long Pipe tried to see inside the storehouse. The candlelight shone on the drooping bridge of his nose.
“Come on, boys, hurry it up!” His voice was louder now.
From out of the dark storehouse came a man hefting a straw sack of grain. He walked past Old Kim in Pau’s direction. And then someone else emerged from the darkness, approached Old Kim, and took shape in the candlelight—an elderly woman.
“Dear, what’s the use—”
The woman’s fragile voice was silenced by Old Kim’s angry bark: Be quiet! What do you women know, always getting in the way!”
The old woman disappeared helplessly back into the dark.
Suddenly the candle in Old Kim Long Pipe’s trembling hand went out. Did the wind do that?
“Kwidong—bring me some matches! They ought to kill ’em off—what did they have to cut the electricity for?”
Kwidong’s still here! Pau’s heart jumped for joy. Kwidong—here I am—I just plain forgot you were here.
A match was struck, and there in the light of the match was Kwidong. Pau barely managed to keep from calling out to him.
Kwidong was noticeably bigger, and maybe because it was night, he looked different, especially his face, which was more coarse. Pau wondered if he still had those dimples.
Kwidong lit the candle but the flame immediately died.
“What’s the matter, can’t you light a candle?”
It wasn’t his fault, thought Pau.
Kwidong struck another match, and this time he managed to light the candle, in spite of Old Kim Long Pipe’s trembling hand.
The next moment Old Kim was shouting into the dark: “Come on, be quick there! Hurry up!”
Kwidong disappeared into the gloom of the storehouse. Once again Pau felt an urge to call out his name, but managed to contain himself. Another man with a sack of grain came out past Pau.
The cries from outside sounded closer. Shouldn’t I try to keep all that grain from being sneaked away? He momentarily forgot about trying to find his father, and his sweaty hand clutched the backrack stick more tightly.
And then the men who had carried off the sacks of rice scuttled back in out of the dark, hurrying one after another past Pau, still toting their loads. Old Kim Long Pipe’s candle came close to reveal the first man, who said in a panting voice, “We’re in big trouble—they just raided Chief Yi’s home.” Without waiting for a response, he staggered toward the storehouse and disappeared inside.
“They went to the chief’s?”
As Old Kim said this, the sleeves of his traditional jacket trembled. The candlelight kept glinting off the bowl of his ever-so-large pipe. Old Kim seemed not to know what to do with the candle he held.
An idea seemed finally to have come to him—he brought the candle close to his mouth and blew. Pau caught one last glimpse of his drooping nose before it and the candlelight disappeared, and then the trembling hand and the ever-so-large pipe were no more.
December 1946