The end of august, p.24
The End of August, page 24
“I do . . . but . . .”
“But?”
“We can’t be together.”
She said nothing.
“I can’t leave my wife.”
Silence.
“I hope it’s a healthy, good baby.”
“What do you mean?”
Now it was his turn to be silent.
“You won’t see me again?”
“I want to see you . . . but . . .”
“You won’t? Why? I don’t care if you won’t see me again, but please, meet your child. A boy needs his father.”
“You’ve no way of knowing it’s a boy.”
“But it is.”
To think that was the last time we spoke—in a house so quiet it trembled, waiting in that stillness for him, waiting waiting waiting, what the hell does he mean, I live so close but he says he can’t see me! No, I can go see him. But if I did, what would happen? Because the fact that he won’t come see me means that he doesn’t want to see me. I thought there was nothing to do but kill him. To jump in the river, still carrying his child. But if I’d had a baby boy, he would come to—
A gust of wind blew, and the cedars twisted like a woman bound and gagged—rustlerustlerustlerustlerustle. Her cheeks stung; her tears drying. I must’ve slept at least a little. The candles on the sansin altar had burned out, but the room was faintly light. Could the moonlight alone make it this bright?
The woman stood up, as if pulled by the silhouette of the moon in the east-facing window, but her face twisted in pain, and she leaned against the wall. Her hips, legs, neck, shoulders, arms; it was hard to find any part of her body without pain. She walked on, her right hand pushing against the wall. Hana, ow! Hana, ow! Hana, ow!
Hearing the sound of footsteps, her aunt opened the door to the room.
“Woo-cheol came earlier.”
“Woo-cheol? Was his father with him?”
“No, he came alone. His mother sent him with a gift.”
“What?”
“Look, see that straw bundle there?”
She slowly turned, her shoulder rubbing against the wall, then cautiously put her buttocks to the floor and unwrapped the bundle. A plucked and gutted chicken.
“What is it?”
“A hen, looks like.”
“She’s trying to hurt me.”
“I can’t see how that could be; she’s killed and trimmed a precious hen for you, to help your milk flow well.”
“Have you really not heard that if you eat chicken the baby will have bumpy skin?”
“Aigu, you know just how to twist things!”
“She wants to do me harm!”
“Aigu, come now, calm down, just look at your baby. Want to give her a little milk? Come now, hold her. You’ve not held her once since she was born, you know, come on now.”
“I won’t. I won’t hold her until he does!”
“Aigo, what a thing to say.”
The woman grabbed the hen by the neck and staggered out onto the veranda, then swung her arm and threw it, aiming for the trunks of the cedars. The hen hit the ground, spilling its eggs, heart, liver, and gizzard over the dead leaves. Rustlerustlerustle, the branches of the cedars danced crazily above her head, their shadows creeping out of the garden, rustlerustlerustle rustlerustlerustle.
Someone is behind me. In the second that she thought, I cannot speak, I cannot even turn my head, this must be sleep paralysis, she felt herself swept into someone’s arms. Honey? Honey, is that you? Those arms transmitted something more certain, more real than memory through her skin. Oh, I know, yes, yes, I know everything. Nodding, she let her strength leave her and sat down on the veranda, and the arms around her instantly lost their strength too. Whoosh whoosh, whoosh whoosh, the wind carried away all trace. The woman turned her eyes to her own hands. Bathed in the silver moonlight, they glimmered as if covered in the scales of a cabbage white butterfly.
Rustlerustlerustle, the woman looked up at the cedars being shaken by the wind. The moon was just above the tops of the trees. She stared at the moon, as if she were questioning it, not merely looking.
I knew I was making a mistake from the very start. But I just couldn’t hold back my feelings. I can’t erase the fact that we met. I can’t make it so it never happened. I met him, and I crossed so many lines I never should’ve crossed.
Hey, honey, can you hear me? I love you. I don’t regret meeting you. I’m not ashamed of having loved you. I love you. I love only you. I love you!
The muscles in her thighs twitched and a slight giggle escaped from her mouth.
Am I crazy? No, I’m not. Why am I not crazy? How can I go crazy? This pain, that pain, and that one, they’re all traces of being held by you. I imagine there’s no trace of me left on your body. But the pain remains in my body so sharply. I want to leave my body and go somewhere, far, far, so far away—
The light of the moon gently slipped its fingers into the jumble of thoughts within her. It untangled and untangled and still they formed; there was nothing for it to do but illuminate in bright, cool light. Her prayer was only, could only be, one name. Unable to voice this hope, she cradled her aching stomach and grit her teeth.
“Yong-ha.” His name escaped through a gap in her teeth. She moaned his name as if calling the name of a lost loved one.
“Yong-ha, Yong-ha, Yong-ha, Yong-ha . . .”
Eleven
The Enemy in the Wind
| 바람 속의 적 | 風の中の敵 |
In the shadows of the Busan Public Athletic Grounds the ground rose with ice needles; in the sun it was sodden with melted ice. White, feathery breaths rose from the athletes, gathered from all over South Gyeongsang Province and standing in rows separated by school or company, who occasionally stomped in place to endure the cold, but when the chairman of the Korean Athletics Organization in his navy-blue suit began to climb the stairs to the victory stand, they all snapped to attention. The chairman, solemn-faced, turned and looked up at the Rising Sun flag, the fat on his neck wrinkling.
“Turn east, east! Worship the emperor!” the competition committee chairman ordered, and not only the competition officials and the players on the field but also the families of the athletes in the stands and even the kids selling dried squid and peanuts from boxes hung around their necks all faced the flag.
“All together, the national anthem!”
Kimigayo wa
Chiyo ni yachiyo ni
Sazare-ishi no
Iwao to narite
Koke no musu made
Among all the athletes in their white cotton shirts and white shorts, one boy stood out in particular. Woo-cheol, clad in a red running shirt with the number eighty-nine attached to it, looked up at the flag on the top of the pole, the nape of his neck crinkled. The Rising Sun fluttered from left to right.
We’ll be running counterclockwise, so it’ll be a headwind. He wanted to think of something else to distract him from his nervousness, but because of the cold these thoughts could only be grafted on. That guy’s got good legs, the muscles on the back of his thighs stand out like a racehorse’s, no doubt he’s fast, but maybe a little too skinny. How many of us are there here, three hundred? No, more, five hundred? Whose idea was it to make us stand here wearing next to nothing in this fucking cold and listen to speeches, and the megaphone is awful, I can’t hear a word he’s saying. Brr! I want to run fast and warm my muscles up, brr! He stepped in place and heard the sound of ice crunching, and in that moment the desire to win rose up in him. I want to run! Now! Let me stand on the starting line! Thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump! To calm his thudding heart he put both hands near his navel and breathed deeply, in out in out in out in out in out.
I want to win. But I don’t run to win. The truth is, my desire not to lose is stronger. Maybe I run to put myself even one step further away from defeat. Stepped on daily, wrung out, beaten down—the Korean people are defeated over and over. You lose! You lose! And again today! But we must not grieve, we must not get fed up, we must not quit. Because the battle’s not over yet. I’ll take the battle to the enemy in the wind. Hey! Waejeok! You Japanese bastards! Fight me! My heart spits out insults, appealing directly to the heavens. Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!
“Fight fairly and do your best to the very end.”
Woo-cheol snuffled as he moved back to the edge of the running track where he’d left his change of clothes and athletic shoes and blew his nose on his handkerchief. It was cold. His toes were starting to lose feeling. Not good.
Got to run to warm my body up.
He sat down on a cloth and tried to retie his shoelaces, but his hands were so numb he could not untie them in the first place. Woo-cheol breathed on his hands over and over again, then undid his laces, straightening the twists in the parts where they crossed.
Shoes, listen, please, get me over that finish line faster than anyone else, somehow, please, my precious shoes.
Until last spring he’d been running in flat-soled tabi boots, but after long runs the soles of his feet began to hurt, so his mother had asked the shoe store across the road from them to make these, special order. His father had been angry. “Why order shoes from our rivals?” But unlike his family’s store, which only sold rubber boots, thin tabi shoes, umbrellas, and hats, the Western shoe store made and sold athletic shoes to the ilbon saram.
I made the order in detail before they took my size. I want them black, made from the softest leather you can find. Thick soles, and I want ten iron studs, about seven millimeters big. May I borrow a pen and a piece of paper? Iron claws, like a child’s canines. If you run on leather soles you’ll slip.
Woo-cheol tied a bow in his shoelaces and stood up. His right foot felt a little tight. Redo it. He put his heel to the ground, toes in the air, and started to loosen the lace a little from the hole closest to him. He stood up. Now his heel was a little too loose. No good, redo! What am I doing? Woo-cheol tutted at himself and sat down again with a thud. No, impatience is not allowed. To make himself calm down, he slowly and deliberately removed the lace and started over again from scratch. Then, to make sure his laces wouldn’t come undone while he was running, he double-knotted them, then stood up. All right, that feels better.
When he stepped in place or lifted his thighs he felt no problem, so Woo-cheol went to run around the outside of the spectator stand.
In-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale soon the first race would begin dun-dun-dun dun-dun-dun the sound of a drum being hit Jae-sik, igyeora! C’mon, Jae-sik! Si-gyeong, jimyeon andwae! You can do it, Si-gyeong! I must be the only one who doesn’t have family in the stands if she were well Eomoni would’ve brought So-won and Woo-gun to cheer for me but in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale Eomoni is in bed and every time Abeoji so much as looks at me in-hale ex-hale hey, Woo-cheol if you do nothing but run you’ll die never forget, you’re the eldest son of the Lee family in-hale ex-hale I didn’t tell her since the day we first slept together in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale sleeping with her is all I can think about in-hale ex-hale her face in-hale ex-hale her body in-hale ex-hale her voice in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale if she were here there’s no way I’d be able to focus I’m fine alone I’ve never wished there was someone to cheer me on I’ve always run alone in-hale ex-hale every day, since graduation, every day in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale I jump out of bed at the rooster’s first crow, wash my face at the well, and do stretches in-hale ex-hale I run sixty ri from Miryang to Samnangjin and back in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale selling rubber boots in the afternoon from four to six running full force on the Miryang River’s levee in-hale ex-hale my studs sending the dirt flying in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale Woo-cheol passed the notice board the top six names and records were written in white chalk bang! at every sound of the starting pistol each muscle in his body reacted with a jump in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale this was the hundred meters next was the two hundred meters so about three minutes or so left ought to keep running up to right before it in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale
“Next is the fifteen hundred meters category. Would all the competitors please gather at the starting line?”
Their names were called over the loudspeaker and all proceeded to the white starting line. They stopped. Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! They stretched. The man with the starting gun put the blank into the chamber. The runners put their right legs back, left legs forward in preparation. The muzzle of the gun pointed up toward the sky. Every muscle in Woo-cheol’s body pulled back like a bow; he stared straight ahead.
“Ready, set.”
BANG! Woo-cheol flew like an arrow released from his own body.
I won! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! I won the 1500 and 5000. That means I can go to the capital and I’ll get to represent South Gyeongsang at the Chōsen Jingū Race. Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Just the 10,000 meters left now. If I can get third place in that then I’ll get the right to appear, but thump-thump! Thump-thump! I’m gonna win. I’m absolutely going to win! I’ve got to calm my breathing. When I was untying and retying my shoelaces, I felt the eyes of the other athletes and their families on me. Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Oh no, my heart is—thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!
Woo-cheol lay down on his cloth, stretching his arms and legs out, my breathing, thump-thump! Thump-thump! My heart, it’s like a steam train running over the bridge over the Miryang River, chikchik pokpok, chikchik pokpok, wheeow! That white cloud running out from it, suddenly, words unaccompanied by a voice came into his head.
I want to do something worth dying for.
In an instant those words drowned out the sounds of people’s cheers and applause, all the drums and horns; they filled in the silence inside Woo-cheol’s mind.
“Hey, Woo-cheol, Korea has its own flag. Did you know that?”
“What?”
“I’ve never seen it myself, but my brother told me about it. So you know how the Rising Sun flag is a red circle on a white background, right? The Taegukgi has a circle in the middle, too, but it’s part red and part blue.”
“And it’s called the Taegukgi?”
“Yeah, he said that it was based on a pattern that a temple used during the Three Countries period. He also said in the four corners of the flag there are lines, and that the three and four lines on the left side represent infinity, and the five and six lines on the right represent light.”
I felt a stab in my heart; I fell silent. Woo-hong also went quiet. Inside the pain itself there was a sweetness, which had shown us into this miracle of a moment. We saw the Taegukgi, fluttering in the wind. I saw it with my own eyes, and I know Woo-hong saw it too. And in the same way as that moment was born, it slowly disappeared.
The clouds are moving faster than they were a little while ago, and my heart isn’t beating as fast anymore. Faster, just a little, right now it feels like it might stop, that’s how slow it’s beating, thump . . . thump . . . thump. . . .
When the next race was announced, Woo-cheol got up. He headed toward the starting line with the same rhythm as the beat. He heard the silent words that nobody else could.
I want to do something worth dying for.
Twelve
Jeonanrye
| 전안례(奠雁禮) | 奠雁礼(チョナンレ) |
In-hye put her arms around her sister from behind as she tied the strings of In-hye’s blue chima above her breasts for her.
“Not too tight?”
“It’s fine.”
“If you don’t tie it tight it’ll slip and be unseemly. Your breasts have gotten so big.”
“What?” In-hye twisted her neck back.
“If you’re not feeling well or your belly gets tight don’t just ignore it, give me a sign. Now’s the most crucial point, you know.” She wrapped a red chima around her sister’s body and tied it, adjusting as she went so that the blue chima would peek out at the hem slightly. A blue and red chima signified the union of man and woman.
“So you know, then?”
“Well, yes. You never could hide anything; it all shows in your face. But Abeoji and Eomoni and Oppa don’t know. Just us.”
“Us? Do In-gyeong and In-yeong and In-soon and In-yu all know too?” In-hye arranged the sleeves of her jeogori and tied the strings herself.
“Of course.”
In-hye brought over the yellow-green ceremonial wonsam overcoat, with its five-colored cloth and long, hand-hiding sleeves. This, with large peony buttons and colorful embroidered butterflies, was part of the bridal costume.
“And Yeon-gil?” In-hye asked as she tied the wonsam’s strings.
“You don’t tie this one, it just hangs down like that. Aigu, what would Yeon-gil know? He’s just sixteen.”
“Oh, he’s only a year younger than Woo-cheol, then.”
“But we’ll do what we can.”
Her sister was behind her now, tying up a large bright red belt with a lucky character embroidered on it in gold thread into a butterfly bow.
“So you must’ve gotten pregnant at the start of the year, I suppose? Then the baby will come in October. If you just say it must’ve happened on your wedding night, you should be fine. When the baby’s actually born it’ll be obvious that was a lie, but all’s well that ends well. In-hye, you haven’t had any dreams about bears, have you?”
“I always forget my dreams as soon as I wake up.”
In-hye put the headpiece decorated with pearls, gold, silver, purple agate, rubies, coral, and orpiment over the bun that her sister had tied on her head, stuck a golden hairpin with a turtle on it through her bun, then wrapped the apdaenggi, a long red ribbon with beads on both ends, around the hairpin with the ends hanging over her chest, then she put the dodeurakdaenggi, a long red piece of damask gold tooled with flowers, bats, pomegranates, and designs for long life and happiness, over her bun and arranged how it fell down her back.
