Lost Souls

by Hwang Sunwon

  “The fact that you’re the mother of a child born out of wedlock.”

  “And?”

  “Those fish you were afraid might die if they’re left out in the rain.”

  “And?”

  “A four-o’clock from Teacher Song’am’s place that I left in the alley a little while ago, wondering if someone would pick it up and take it home.”

  “And maybe Yŏnhŭi too? She’s a simple-hearted girl. Not a good match for someone like Taehyŏn.”

  “Neither of which is necessarily related to her being happy.”

  “Still, if you really loved her, you’d feel she was important enough to rescue.”

  “It’s a fact that I love her, but she’s free to find happiness on her own.”

  Sŏp came to a stop where the alley to Mae’s bar branched off.

  “I guess I’ll be on my way.”

  “All right, then. Stop by again.”

  The passing rain beat a cold tattoo on the hand Sŏp raised in farewell.

  THE OFFERING

  The rooster was old, its neck bare and red. Only its tail and wing joints still bore feathers, but they lacked a healthy sheen. Its swarthy comb was shrunken and lifeless. The boy no longer beckoned it outside the gate, and so the rooster spent all its time in the yard, following the boy around on tottering legs and blunted feet. When the boy was away, the rooster was content to doze in the shade.

  One day the boy and the rooster were resting in the shade. The boy ran his hand down the old rooster’s neck and stroked the red flesh of its back, which was increasingly bare of feathers. The rooster had not been petted for some time and it responded with a shudder of its wings.

  Just then the village headman happened along. That rooster ought to be slaughtered and eaten, he told the boy; and the sooner the better—otherwise it would turn into a snake. The boy jerked his hand away from the rooster’s neck. Frowning, the headman said he reckoned the rooster couldn’t crow any longer, and didn’t its neck look just like the midsection of a snake? With that he walked off, hands clasped behind his back in gentlemanly fashion.

  The boy took a long look at the rooster’s neck and then gazed up toward the eaves, beneath which was a swallow’s nest. A few days earlier, screeching from the swallows had brought the boy outside, where he saw a snake coiling its way up the pillar, the nest in its sights. The boy’s father had hacked at the snake with a plowshare, killing it. Now the nest was silent, the grown-up swallows having flown off to gather food and only the yellow beaks of the baby birds showing.

  The boy looked down again at the rooster’s neck, thinking that it really did look like the midsection of a snake. No, he thought, shaking his head, he couldn’t let this rooster-snake climb up to the swallows’ nest. From the corner of the yard he fetched a length of straw rope, and then he beckoned the rooster. Responding to this rare opportunity, the rooster followed the boy outside on its tottering legs.

  The boy and the rooster arrived at a reed field beyond the village. More than one villager had reported that a large snake lived there. And quite a few said they had seen the snake floating down the monsoon-swollen river laden with dark red silt before slithering into the reeds. On cloudy nights the grown-ups would tell the children it was the snake making the gurgling sound that could be heard from the direction of the field. And in late autumn where the reeds had been cut there would appear a large hole where the snake was supposed to live. It was believed that the snake would come out of its hole if a mixture of horse dung and water was poured down it, but the children had never seen the grown-ups actually do this. The boy was thinking the snake might have crawled out of its hole at the onset of spring and be coiled up somewhere in the reed field. He now entered the field with the rooster in tow, spreading the reeds apart with his hands.

  The boy came to a stop at a place where the reeds had been broken off at their base. A red pigtail ribbon lay there. It belonged to the great-granddaughter of the village head. For some time she had been meeting the nephew of the village teacher there. The boy began to wind the length of rope about the rooster’s neck.

  At first the rooster seemed to sense that the boy was petting it again, and it responded with a shudder of its wings. But when the boy tightened the rope, the rooster flapped its wings once, then grew still. Leaving the dead rooster beside the ribbon, the boy plunged back out through the tangle of reeds.

  Breathlessly the boy ran home. There he rubbed his face against the pillar beneath the swallows’ nest and began to cry. He cried till the sun began its westward slant. When his parents returned from the fields and saw how pale his face was, their initial surprise turned to fear.

  From that day on the boy kept to his bed. His parents tried various approaches, wanting to know if he was sick; the boy merely shook his head no. But he seemed easily startled, and he kept his face covered with his little palms and trembled. And sometimes he opened the door wide and gazed at the nest where the baby swallows were squawking as they were fed. The boy grew thinner from one day to the next.

  The village head paid a visit. He asked what had become of the rooster, if they had slaughtered and eaten it, examining with his crusty eyes the corner of the yard. The boy’s parents replied that they weren’t sure, but the rooster hadn’t been seen for several days now, and they turned reassuringly to the boy. He had seen this coming, said the headman; the old rooster had turned into a snake and exposed the boy to its poisonous vapor, and that was why the boy was sick in bed. In a fearful voice the boy’s mother asked what was to be done, then declared that no good was to come from keeping an old rooster around. And concealing her face with the hem of her skirt, she began silently to weep. The boy’s father muttered something to his wife about being carried away by superstition. But he too wore an uneasy frown.

  The headman sent the boy’s parents outside, then asked one of the boy’s uncles to fetch him a branch from a peach tree. The headman lit his pipe, sucked on it forcefully, and began to blow smoke in the boy’s face. The boy reacted by thrashing his head from side to side, eyes shut and coughing. The headman explained that the snake’s poisonous vapor inside the boy could not tolerate the smoke, and he continued the treatment, following the boy’s turning head. The boy began to gasp for breath and when it seemed he might faint, the headman stopped blowing smoke in his face and instead directed the uncle to whip the boy with the switch from the peach tree. When the boy began to squirm in response to the whipping, the headman explained that the poisonous vapor of the snake had been frightened into submission by the smoke but was now momentarily awakened.

  In no time the boy’s slender body was black and blue. Outside, the boy’s parents flinched and shuddered at every blow they heard.

  The village teacher overheard the onlookers saying that the village head was using tobacco smoke to release the snake vapor. He went inside where the boy lay and had the headman and uncle stand aside. The boy was panting, his eyes still closed. The teacher began to perform acupuncture on the boy’s forehead and the furrow of his upper lip. By now the boy’s mother had returned and was crouching beside them. She dabbed with the hem of her skirt at the blood on the boy’s forehead and beneath his nose. When the boy opened his eyes she seemed both happy and amazed, and once more began silently to weep. The boy’s father had returned as well; he brought his face close to the boy’s and asked if the boy knew who he was. The boy nodded, scanned the surrounding villagers, then lifted his gaze to the swallows’ nest beneath the eaves and asked in a feeble voice when the baby swallows were going to start flying. The boy was raving, said his mother, and on and on she wept. The headman puffed continuously on his acrid-smelling pipe. What was this silly business with the needles supposed to prove? he muttered.

  The boy continued to grow more emaciated by the day. His parents consulted this person and that and tried various medications, but the boy’s symptoms continued, the occasional startling behavior and his covering his face with his hand and trembling.

  One day when the fiv
e baby swallows were fully grown and were poking their heads outside the nest awaiting food, and when the boy’s parents were out in the fields, the boy got out of bed and went outside. Hobbling like the old rooster used to, he went out beyond the village to the reed field. Tassels had begun to appear on the reeds. Ignoring the lush reeds that scraped at his neck and the backs of his hands, he arrived at the place where he had strangled and disposed of the rooster. Only when he saw the old rooster with the straw rope still about its neck did an expression of relief light up his wan face. But he was too weakened to stand longer, and the next instant he collapsed on the spot.

  The rooster’s breast and the area beneath its wings were crawling with maggots. Blowflies lit on the boy’s face before moving to the decomposing rooster.

  The boy’s home was in an uproar. The villagers had gathered, but none of them had seen the boy. The headman was among them, and he declared that the boy had likely fallen into the pond on the other side of the hill. This hill faced the reed field, and one had to cross it to get to the pond. The thick layer of scum that grew on the water’s surface always bore a dark rust color. It was the consensus of the village grown-ups that buried in the muck at the bottom of the pond was a mudfish that was turning into a dragon. The pond was always decidedly calm, except when a shower swept in, and then the drumming of the rain on the stolid lotus leaves was louder than it was on the leaves of the poplars across the hill in the village. On one such rainy day the body of a girl had been discovered floating in the pond, white belly exposed for all the world to see. This girl had left home a few days earlier to forage for greens and had not been seen since. The village head had had an explanation: the girl had been bewitched by the mudfish that was turning into a dragon. It was rumored about the village that on rainy nights the girl could be heard wailing as she did laundry at the edge of the pond. The ghost of the girl must be lonely and had no doubt lured the boy into the pond, declared the headman; the mudfish turning into a dragon had had nothing to do with it. Maybe so, the villagers responded, their heads nodding.

  The village adults set out, each with a pole, the boy’s father among them, and rushed to the pond. The boy’s mother declared that she too would throw herself into the pond, and was barely restrained by her sister and the other housewives of the village. Whereupon the mother fell onto the shoulder of another woman and began to wail.

  Just then the teacher arrived, and hearing that the villagers had rushed off for the pond, he asked how it was possible for the boy in his weakened state to have gone that far. Gathering those of the village youths who had stayed behind, he began to scour the village itself for the boy. One of the youths moved gradually out from the village and discovered in the reed field a trail of recently broken reeds. He made his way there and found the boy.

  The boy’s mother was the next to arrive. She took the boy in her arms and broke into sobs. The boy had opened his eyes, and his aunt asked if he knew where he was. The boy managed to nod, then turned his gaze to the decomposing rooster beside him.

  By now the maggots swarming over the rooster were crawling about the faded pigtail ribbon that had belonged to the village head’s great-granddaughter. Starting the day after the boy had strangled the rooster in the reed field, she and the teacher’s nephew had moved their trysting place to the tile kiln beside the path that led over the hill to the pond. The teacher now took hold of the length of rope and the rooster’s head came free at the neck where the rope had been knotted. Startled, the boy buried his face in his mother’s bosom, trembling all over.

  Back at the boy’s home, the teacher stated his belief that the boy’s illness was the result of the death of his pet rooster, compounded by the fact that he had strangled it in the reed field. The boy would get well if he were given another rooster. Presently the boy’s maternal uncle set off past the tile kiln and around the pond to the local market and returned with a large speckled rooster in his arms. The rooster stretched out its neck and crowed. But the boy gave only a single look to the rooster with its red comb, before rolling over to gaze up at the swallows’ nest beneath the eaves and ask when the baby swallows were going to be able to fly. The boy was raving again, said his mother. Taking the edge of her skirt in her mouth, she began her silent weeping.

  All along, the village head sucked on his acrid-smelling pipe. What did that teacher fellow think he knew, talking the way he did? he muttered.

  The boy continued to waste away, concealing his face behind his small hands when he was startled, and trembling all over. Meanwhile, on a night of dense fog, the village head’s great-granddaughter and the teacher’s nephew ran away together. The village head said he had never in his life been so humiliated, and what was so vexing was that she had run off with a no-good like the teacher’s nephew. For some time he didn’t appear outside his door. And then one day he made the rounds of the village, hands clasped behind his back, and let it be known that perhaps his great-granddaughter had done the right thing after all, for she had not forgotten to send her great-grandpa a set of winter clothes. No one, though, had actually seen the village head receive this new set of clothing.

  Beyond the village the reeds blossomed white, and the day arrived when the five baby swallows took wing for the first time. A smile filled the boy’s face as he looked out at the swallows. Seeing this, the boy’s parents and aunt cried out that it was the boy’s last smile, and they burst into tears.

  THE GARDENER

  It never failed. Once again he had placed the pork-blood sausage before his wife in her sickbed and once again she had closed her despairing eyes and begun to retch. He pitied her for having to retch at the mere sight of what she wanted to eat, but then again, wasn’t it a good thing if foods that were bad for her peritonitis nauseated her before they touched her lips? As he looked down now at his wife retching and turning onto her side, he realized that the reason he had indiscriminately bought everything she wanted was that he knew in advance she would retch and couldn’t eat them. When he asked himself if he did this out of reluctance to say no to someone who couldn’t tell when her days might come to an end, he realized as well that the dizziness overcoming him these days whenever he was confronted with the prospect of his wife’s death was making it impossible for him to linger at her bedside.

  He went to the room he occupied, which was cooler, being farther from the firebox; he drew close his thick dictionary and lay down, using it as a pillow. When he had sufficiently composed himself he leafed through the travel guide beside him, thinking that he and his wife would take a trip somewhere once she was healthy enough to eat at least some of the foods she said she wanted. A quiet temple would be preferable, however attractive a hot springs or a seaside resort might be. The temple they had visited not long after they became acquainted seemed just fine. And then his eye came to rest on the arrival and departure times at a small train station he had never heard of. He had the illusion of boarding a train and traveling past a nameless expanse, and thought he would lay the travel guide aside, but at the same time he didn’t want to lift a finger, and in the end he drifted out of wakefulness with the book resting on his chest.

  Sleep was accompanied by the sensation of a weight on his chest different from the weight of the travel guide, and he was awakened by the maid’s voice from beyond the paper-paneled door calling “Here, kitty, kitty.” There on his chest lay a kitten. Startled, he pushed it off. The door slid open and the maid’s hand grabbed the kitten by its midsection. He asked what the kitten was doing there and was told it had shown up a short time earlier from somewhere or other. The kitten’s eyes left the hand that held it and shone now in his direction. Before he realized it he had met the kitten’s gaze with a scowl.

  The still-cold autumn wind gusted from time to time in their small yard. From the room where his wife lay ill came the voice of the maid exclaiming at how well the cat ate—“I’ll bet you’ve never tried pork-blood sausage”—leading him to believe she was feeding sausage to the cat. He went outside to the
pigeon cage and inspected the female, sitting on her eggs, and the male beside her. As he shut the door to the cage, he told himself he had to make sure to keep the door shut tight now that the cat was there.

  His wife, it was clear, had developed a special attachment to these pigeons, which her family had given her as a possible diversion in her time of illness, and by now she could tell from the male’s cooing whether the female was there beside him—a more plaintive cooing if not—and could even imitate the male’s cooing in each case. And since her surgery she had grown sensitive in the extreme to direct sunlight. Even the reflection from surfaces such as the pigeons’ wings was so strong that she kept the curtains lowered most of the time. But at night she kept the lights on, and the bulbs were of exceedingly high wattage.

  Even now he could hear his wife in the next room, asking the maid to turn the lights down. The maid grumbled in response that she could do nothing, being as short as she was, and then she declared that the luck of the household would take a turn for the better now that the cat was here. Wasn’t it supposed to be bad if animals appeared at a house? his wife asked. No, said the maid; it was bad if the family dog went off somewhere, but good if an animal joined a family. She proceeded to tell a story: in the house where she had worked before, there was a normal, healthy boy who had a puppy. One day the puppy disappeared, and then for some unknown reason the boy developed an illness that caused him to foam at the mouth every night. Ample medication was given, but the boy didn’t improve. And then one day someone polishing his shoes happened to look under the shoe ledge and found the puppy’s baked carcass inside one of the floor-heating flues. Once the puppy was removed, the boy miraculously recovered.

  Hearing these words as he lay in his room, he feared they would irritate his wife, and this in turn displeased him. Suddenly his wife shouted in disgust, telling the maid to get the cat away from the bedpan. The thought that his wife had been needlessly upset because of the cat reignited his anger at the animal. He could hear the maid saying that the cat wasn’t used to luxury, and so instead of finishing its rice and soup it had found something filthy to feed on.