The end of august, p.36
The End of August, page 36
Woo-cheol passed under the geumjul decorated with red chilies and pine branches. He scooped water from the well and drank some, then undid the laces of his running shoes and took them off; now barefoot, he gripped the water gourd and splash, ah, siwonta, splash, he poured ladle after ladle of water over himself, the water streaming down inside his running shirt, falling down his back and chest like a waterfall. Oh, what a feeling! Woo-cheol peeled his damp shirt from his skin, took the hand cloth from around his shoulders, and wrung it out, then wiped down his body and hair, before changing into the paji and jeogori that had been left for him on the veranda.
“Appa!” Mi-ok came running to him.
“Daddy’s home!” Woo-cheol said, still drying his hair with the cloth.
“Appa, welcome home!” Mi-ok clung with her whole body to her abeoji.
“How’s Omma and the baby?”
“Dunno. And Omma just keeps holding the baby, she won’t hold me at all.”
“Well, that’s how it is. If your omma doesn’t hold the baby and give him milk and change his diapers he won’t live. But, Mi-ok, you’re a big girl who can eat by yourself, change your clothes by yourself, and go to the toilet by yourself, right?”
“Not fair!”
“Mi-ok, listen, for your sweet little brother’s sake, just let it go for a bit.”
“No! I don’t want a little brother anyway!”
“Now don’t say that. Not long ago you were jumping up and down like a little chick saying you’ll be a big sister soon; and he’s so cute.”
“But he’s not cute at all.”
“If you keep raising your voice like that, you know, Appa’s going to have to tickle you.” Woo-cheol picked up his daughter and tickled her under her armpits.
She squealed and twisted, thrashing her legs. “Stoooop it!”
“Then promise your appa.”
Through her laughter, she promised.
“Will you be good to the baby?”
“I promise!” She giggled.
“Aigu, good girl!” Woo-cheol brought her up to his eye level and held her, cheek to cheek.
“Your beard is scratchy.”
“It can be scratchier!”
“Ooh-ooh-ooh, ouch!”
With their cheeks nuzzled against each other’s, Mi-ok whispered in his ear, as if trying to hide herself in it. “Appa, do you love me?”
“Of course I do. You’re my precious little girl!” Woo-cheol put her up on his shoulders and ran around the garden with her once, then walked with her hand in hand toward the store.
When he opened the back door to the store, he saw Hee-hyang sitting on the stool, her head drooping over. He’d told her time and time again that her body didn’t get any rest that way, that she should sleep properly, but she never wanted to leave the store, bringing her bedding there, having her meals there, never leaving except to use the toilet, kitchen, or well. Although nobody had asked her to do so, she had decided to rearrange the store in her own way, and she didn’t want to step away from the rearrangement, like a soldier who has struck camp. Halme, Mi-ok called out, and Hee-hyang’s head came up and her mouth opened wide, as if she were gasping for breath after coming up to the surface; she gave her granddaughter a tired smile. She dragged her body upright and stood, patting the stool as she said sluggishly, “Come sit,” but Mi-ok wedged herself between her grandmother’s legs.
“I want Halme’s lap,” she said.
Hee-hyang sat and took her granddaughter up onto her lap, then started combing her fingers through her long hair, which had never once felt the edge of a pair of scissors. Feeling somehow excluded from this scene, Woo-cheol went back out the door.
In the back room of the house, In-hye and the baby were asleep face-to-face, clinging to each other like potatoes. Woo-cheol knelt before the Samsin altar and whispered a prayer. Oh, Samsin halmoni, please, please, look over this baby, who is as fragile as a water bubble, so he can grow up healthy, we are foolish and know nothing, can do nothing, Samsin halmoni, please, look after this child, please let him live long enough for his head to turn white.
Woo-cheol looked at his sleeping son, who almost looked like he was smiling in his white baenetjeogori. Next to the newborn baby, In-hye’s face, with a few hairs stuck to her greasy forehead, looked dull and unhappy. Perhaps sensing him there, In-hye opened her eyes.
“Oh, hello.”
“Shh.” Woo-cheol put his index finger up to his lips. In a voice that was little more than a breath, he whispered his son’s name. “Shin-tae.”
“Shin-tae . . . Shin-tae . . .”
In-hye looked at her husband’s face as if trying to find a foothold in it to keep her from falling back to sleep, but gradually her gaze listed and her eyes shut. She was lying in a warm, sunny bed, having given birth to her okdongja, a baby boy as treasured as a jewel, and yet for some reason she looked as if she were on her deathbed, having suffered a grievous injury.
“I must look awful, don’t I?” In-hye asked, her eyes still closed.
“Not at all.”
“Bring me the mirror. . . .”
Woo-cheol picked the hand mirror up from the dresser and put it in his wife’s hands. When she had brought it up above her face, she opened her eyes, knitting her eyebrows.
“I look horrible. . . . Honey, you know which mirror this is, right? It’s the one we held up to your father’s mouth when he was dying, to see if he was still breathing or not.”
Woo-cheol could not understand why she would say something like that right now.
“There’s more and more people in this house, but the traces of those who aren’t here will never go away. . . . I’ve had two children. . . .”
He didn’t know what to say; all he could do was wait for the next words to come from her mouth. He realized with shock that his wife’s face, silent as a fallen tree, closed off to expression like tree bark, looked exactly like his mother’s.
“I’m so tired, I can’t . . .” She shut her eyes again. Before the count of ten, her head had already slipped from the pillow, and the sound of light snoring filled the room.
I can’t . . . ? What was it she was trying to say? I don’t know. What was she thinking about? I don’t know.
Woo-cheol listened closely to the stillness within himself. Sleep-a-bye baby my precious child gift from the angels way up on high Eomoni used to sing me that lullaby a lot. And when the dog barks it’s far from your room aigu, I can’t remember the next line. Woo-cheol gently stroked his son’s palm with the pad of his index finger as the baby slept, his soft chin exposed. Why is it so hard to think that I’m happy? . . . Am I missing something that would let me be happy? . . . I don’t know. . . . I’m sleepy . . . maybe a little sleep . . . beside my wife and son . . . just a little . . . When he closed his eyes he felt the rhythm of running revived within his body. In-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale the faces are shaking they’re crumbling they’re jumping Woo-cheol said the names of those faces out loud Lee Yong-ha in-hale ex-hale Lee So-won in-hale ex-hale Lee Shin-tae in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale in-hale ex-hale
Seventeen
Long Live Sohn Kee-chung! Long Live Korea!
| 손기정 만세! 조선 만세! | 孫基禎万歳！朝鮮万歳！ |
“Appa, look, isn’t that rock so pretty?”
At the sound of his daughter’s voice, Woo-cheol looked up. Had he been asleep? At dawn, he had run the sixty ri round-trip to Samnangjin station and back, fifteen minutes quicker than usual, which was perhaps why he was so sleepy; every time he sat down, he fell asleep. Woo-cheol put the school cap he’d been sewing down and stood up, stretching his arms above his head.
“Appa, look!”
Mi-ok held up a white pebble in her plump palm.
“Where did you find that?”
“Under the bridge. It was in the water.”
Mi-ok opened an empty canister of Kintarō powdered milk. Gray, black, and white pebbles, fragments of glass and brick, girls do love gathering pretty little things, and boys . . . And boys? No, I’m too drowsy, I can’t keep my eyes open.
“If you see any pretty rocks when you’re running, can you bring them home for me?”
“I don’t look down when I’m running.”
“Oh, I guess you might fall.”
“Exactly.”
“Where do you look?”
“Hm-mm, maybe I don’t really look at anything.”
“Do you have your eyes closed?”
“No, my eyes are open, and I can see things, but I’m not really looking. I guess because I’m always thinking about a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
He paused. “Like what indeed . . .”
Clunk-clunk . . . the sound of the can being shaken . . . I must’ve fallen asleep again . . . so tired . . . but tonight from four to six I have to run the embankment . . . last year my best in the 5000 meters was 16 minutes 16.4 seconds. Of course I’m the best in South Gyeongsang Province, but that record made me fourth in Korea and twentieth in Japan. I didn’t get sent to Berlin, but I want to compete at the 1940 Tokyo Olympics, and win the gold in the 5000 and 10,000 meters. . . . Since the year before last when Woo-gun started going to the common school I have to pay sixty sen a month in tuition for him, and Mi-ok’s almost six now and Shin-tae’s three and he’s a growing boy, and then there’s Ja-ok, just four months old, and in January next year there’ll be another mouth to feed . . . with money on my mind it’s hard to keep running, but if I don’t I won’t get my record down . . . in . . . out . . . in . . . out . . . Is that the sound of me sleeping? . . . I see a hand . . . a big hand holding a jangdo, a small knife in a sheath . . . a man.
The man rubbed soap on his chin and neck, then turned his face skyward, still standing. Who is that? Is that me? Am I trying to shave my face? A big white cloud slowly floated by, and the spot where the man was standing went from sun to shade. That’s not me. I’m watching the knife slide over his neck. The moment it turned from shade back to sun, the knife glimmered and the tip of it went upward. Suddenly, blood began to run from his throat, and the man looked at me. Abeoji!
“Extra!”
Woo-cheol opened his eyes, just as a young man in a pure white paji and jeogori ran past the store, scattering papers.
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it!”
Was it war? Woo-cheol stepped outside, wincing from the sunlight and the clamor. The fierce rays of sun had tricked his eyes; he got goose bumps. He picked up one of the special editions of the Dong-A Ilbo that had fallen in the middle of the road.
LONG-AWAITED OLYMPIC MARATHON REACHING THE PINNACLE OF THEIR CRUSADE THE WORLD IS WATCHING SOHN KEE-CHUNG WINS CONFIDENTLY NAM IN THIRD
