Lost Souls

by Hwang Sunwon

  When he returned home that evening, his head spinning with such thoughts, his wife greeted him with the news that for some time she had suspected the widow of secretly removing her possessions from the house, and she appeared to have done so again that day. The widow had been going to the market every few days, presumably out of gratitude and to show that she could feed herself, but it seemed she used those opportunities to smuggle her belongings out. At that very moment, his wife reported, she was in the storage room rummaging around for something. As if Chunho wasn’t already out of sorts! Flaring in anger, he stomped off toward the storage room and sure enough the widow was just then emerging with a bundle she could barely manage. What did she have there? Chunho demanded. An electric heater, the widow replied. And before Chunho could question her further she said that she had visited her daughter-in-law that day to find her ill and lying on an unheated tatami floor, and that she felt the least she could do was take her the heater.

  In an angry voice Chunho said they knew she had been sneaking things out like this, and that even if her daughter-in-law was sick, there must be at least one room in that house with a heated floor, and that’s where the daughter-in-law should be, and he imagined that whoever occupied that room with the heated floor might be expected to have sympathy for a fellow Japanese, and what’s more, if he and his wife had a distinguished visitor they would need the heater, and with that he told the widow to speak no more and to put the heater in the Western-style room. “And if you do that again, you won’t be forgiven,” he scolded her as she set off. Without realizing it, he was scolding her as a household head would scold a servant while forgiving her for a mistake. And the widow for her part, as a maid would have, came to a halt and bowed deeply at the waist, as if to say she wouldn’t do it again.

  Not until he saw the woman emerge from the Western-style room did Chunho turn to leave, but just then he saw his two youngest children scampering toward him from the far end of the hall. For the first time in his life he shouted at the two little ones to be quiet. “What’s going to happen if you kids screw around like this and end up breaking a window or something? I don’t want to see a single paper panel ripped. If we have a distinguished guest, I want him to think we deserve to live in a grand house like this. What will such a guest think if you kids are running wild?” As the children retreated, chastened, Chunho shouted once more: “Make a racket like that again and you can count on a whipping.” Yes, indeed, he told himself, he had better make a whip.

  All of this had put Chunho in a drinking mood. Retrieving the empty bottle next to the head of his bedding in the guest room, he went out to the yard.

  In the past he would have wanted to offer the liquor in the basement to all the other employees, but he no longer felt this was necessary. Instead he would save it for future use. His gaze traveled to the stone lantern and the stone figures and he realized he’d forgotten to get the cement to repair them. That proved how busy he’d been, he lamented to himself. The least a man can do after a hard day’s work is have himself a drink in the evening!

  He filled his bottle in the basement, went to the quiet guest room, had his wife bring kimchi, and poured himself a drink in an empty rice bowl. In the past Chunho had been second to none in his capacity, albeit for drinks to which he was treated by others, but now, owing perhaps to his regular usage, half a bottle was sufficient to get him good and drunk. And today, drinking from a larger vessel than usual, he felt the alcohol even more quickly. Holding his not quite half-finished bottle, he launched into another silent tirade: Just you guys wait!

  So, Kŏnsŏp, you figure you’re going to move in on me, huh? You little shit! So worked up about the distillery you forgot your job and only have eyes for my position? That’s why Koreans are in such a mess! And where do you get off calling me “Comrade” when I’m ten years older than you? Okay, when all of this started I trusted everyone and called them “Comrade” myself, but I can’t believe a bloody whelp like you calls me that. And that’s just for starters! Now all the riffraff in the distillery call me “Comrade”—every plug-ugly one of them! . . . No matter what, I have to dig up a source of money and get the wherewithal. There must be somebody. . . . Yes! P’ilbae—he’s made a pile with his clothing factory. Why didn’t I think of that? He’s my hometown friend, for heaven’s sake! Should I go see him now? No, it’s too important, I need to be sober.. Tomorrow morning, then. All right, I’m set! One more drink!

  He poured himself a full bowl, delighting in the glug glug glug of the liquid, then drank it straight off and went to bed. But again, once the liquor had worn off he awakened and just couldn’t get back to sleep.

  The next morning Chunho gave his suit another brushing, knotted his tie, and set off to visit P’ilbae before going to the distillery. Along the way he considered: before, when he had wanted to barter his allotment of liquor from the distillery for rice or fabric he had thought of P’ilbae, but the thing was, the closer you are to someone the more difficult it is to work the exchange to your advantage, so he had given up on the idea. How thankful he was that he had never worked an exchange with P’ilbae, so there had never been occasion for the two of them to develop a bad impression of each other.

  It turned out that P’ilbae the clothing manufacturer was shrewd enough not to barter with anyone he knew. In the course of their conversation that morning this shrewd clothing king in his forties told Chunho that as a matter of principle he would never try his hand at a line of business other than the one he was comfortable with—clothing manufacture—and so Chunho had to deliver a lengthy, detailed explanation just to get a response of “I’ll consider it” from his counterpart. He started by telling P’ilbae how Nakamura had arrived in Korea with empty pockets, had done clerical work for a liquor wholesaler, and then with an investment from a hometown friend had established a small distillery. Now, seven or eight years later, look how big it had grown, and Chunho knew this for a fact because all along he had been working there; and Nakamura’s mill at Chinnamp’o had been established with proceeds from the distillery. That distillery was now to be taken over and probably at a very good price, and if he, Chunho, were given control of it there was no doubt in his mind that he could repay any investment within two or three years—“Mark my word.” In any event, Chunho considered it a success to have extracted an “I’ll consider it” from P’ilbae, and after telling him he would return that evening, he left.

  As soon as he arrived at the distillery he told Kŏnsŏp that he had found a backer. Kŏnsŏp responded with a frosty stare (or so it seemed to Chunho) and said that these days there were a lot of guys entering into a position of responsibility in the factories and companies who seemed to think of themselves as if they were a company president back in the colonial period, and when such people then got financing in addition, their thinking got even more grandiose. And that was why the distillery employees should entrust their distillery to the union.

  Chunho realized that Kŏnsŏp was including Chunho among those who fancied themselves old-time company presidents. That’s all I need to know! Clearly Kŏnsŏp was going to use the power of the union and connive to make himself the distillery representative. It was obvious from the icy look in his eyes.

  If Kŏnsŏp was going to campaign to become the distillery representative, Chunho told himself, he couldn’t sit back and do nothing, so he said to Kŏnsŏp, “As long as we have a reliable source of capital, why do we have to fall back on the union?” To which Kŏnsŏp replied that in any case there were other issues to discuss, and that they should call a general meeting of the employees the following day and talk about the matter. That no-good must have formed a gang with those stupid employees, and I bet he’s trying to work the situation to his advantage. But once the funding starts flowing in it’ll be a piece of cake to win those employees over. Plus, almost all of them started working here before Kŏnsŏp, and it’s to my advantage that they’ve worked longer with me than they have with him.

  The day was waning when one
of the employees approached Chunho and asked for a word with him outside. What the man had to say was this: he and his family had no place to stay and were having a hard time of it, and could they occupy one of the rooms at Chunho’s home? Chunho recognized the man as one of those who had helped clear the house the day before Chunho and his family had moved in. “As you know,” Chunho told the man, “it’s a big house, but all the rooms are tatami rooms, and it really isn’t set up for two families.” To which the man replied that in that case he could remove the mats from one of the rooms and put in the traditional floor-heating system.

  Chunho thought of the night-duty room at the distillery and told the man to move his family there. The man responded that not only was that room also a tatami room but that in order to live there for the winter he would have to put even more labor and expense into fixing it up than had been needed for the house Chunho occupied, and he implored Chunho to allow his family just a small corner of the house. Chunho wondered why the man couldn’t move into the night-duty room—after all, Chunho and his entire family had managed to live there, untidy as it was. Besides, if he let out a room, the image of grandeur he associated with the house would be ruined, and quite frankly he had gotten to like the privacy of the guest room he occupied. No, it just wouldn’t work. And so he cut the man off, saying he simply couldn’t let out a room in his house. The man was clearly displeased. He would be on Kŏnsŏp’s side, Chunho told himself.

  And now that he thought about it, Chunho had sensed, starting the previous day, a change in the employees’ attitude toward him. He could imagine the complaints whenever two or three of them got together: if they’d known that the distillery would be in limbo for so long, they would have found other work; so-and-so in his neighborhood was making such-and-such a day cutting firewood, and so-and-so was earning such-and-such carrying loads on his backrack; they really shouldn’t complain because their jobs at the distillery didn’t require them to get their hands dirty, but then, if things went on this way, even their lice would starve and their children would have so little to eat they wouldn’t even poop; and that’s why they’d proposed divvying up the barrels of liquor, but no one had listened and now they couldn’t even go near those barrels, and what a fine situation that was—Chunho could imagine all the grumbling.

  All of these complaints were for his benefit, Chunho told himself. But as for the disposition of the store of alcohol remaining in the distillery, when Kŏnsŏp had said that this wasn’t a matter for them to decide, Chunho had gone along with him and agreed, and if this turned out to be a mistake, it wouldn’t be just Chunho’s mistake. He felt, though, that the resentment over that issue was being aimed at him. (In fact, the employees’ complaints were more for Kŏnsŏp’s ears than for Chunho’s, because Kŏnsŏp was frequently consulting with the union and the employees felt that if he told the union about their situation, it might work out that they could do as they wished with the liquor that was currently in storage.)

  But Chunho wasn’t worried. The employees could resent him all they wanted for now, but once he’d secured his capital, they would all fall in line behind him!

  Early that evening Chunho set out for P’ilbae’s home with three liter bottles of soju. P’ilbae, it turned out, didn’t drink much, and it was he who kept offering liquor to Chunho. Chunho felt compelled by etiquette not to drink much himself. In the end, P’ilbae stopped short of giving Chunho a clear go-ahead. Whether he wouldn’t commit himself to an unfamiliar line of business or was reluctant at such a chaotic time to let the whole world see him investing such a large sum of money, Chunho wasn’t sure. It was all he could do to get P’ilbae to request that he provide an itemized list of the brewery facilities and a rough figure representing the required investment, but to achieve this he had had to address P’ilbae as “Big Brother” out of etiquette, even though P’ilbae was only a year older and the two of them had grown up together not standing on such ceremony, and he also had to repeat the story of Nakamura arriving in Korea penniless and becoming a success, and say that by now he, Chunho, could run the distillery with his eyes closed—this business was as safe as a duck in water. Chunho did feel anxious at the lack of a clear go-ahead from P’ilbae, but to keep after him could easily lead to a breach of etiquette, so with this thought he took his leave, telling P’ilbae he would look him up again in a few days.

  Outside it was getting dark. Chunho felt unpleasantly tipsy, and his head was drooping. On his way home, from the docks at the Taedong River past a police station and skirting the plaza, he worried about what would happen if his dealings with P’ilbae went sour; reminded himself that something important like this would not come easily, but for today anyway, to have gotten the answer he had from P’ilbae, who had always been an astute businessman, meant that something was working. In this way he comforted himself.

  As Chunho was thinking these thoughts, someone collided with him and he flinched and came to a stop. Before him stood a middle-aged woman. A wicker basket of radishes she had been carrying on her head had fallen, the radishes scattering. As the woman retrieved them she kept looking behind her. Chunho turned to see what she was looking at and started. A man, he must have been a policeman, pistol upraised, was walking backwards with measured steps. Half a dozen paces away a dozen men were walking toward him, their hands up. Chunho had never seen anything like it. Although the men were simply following the policeman’s orders, it looked almost as if their steps were synchronized with his. The man with the gun kept a close watch, and with every backward step he took, the dozen men went one step forward. Chunho was reminded of a nursery school teacher instructing her children in a simple dance movement. It was a frightening and yet perfectly harmonious tableau, one that continued until all of the men had been reeled into the lower level of the police station.

  As soon as the last man had been swallowed up, Chunho thought he could hear some of the onlookers asking what was going on, followed by voices saying that Jap conspiracy groups were being nabbed. But to Chunho, who had felt out of sorts since leaving P’ilbae’s house, there was something pleasing about the fact that a dozen men had been led away single-handedly. It was amazing how compliant they had been!

  Back home, Chunho didn’t know what to do about his mixed feelings: on the one hand there was this pleasant sensation, and on the other the unpleasant question of who would manage the distillery. And so it was back to the soju, this time with supper, Chunho first filling a beer bottle from the downstairs cask. After a time the Japanese woman informed him that his bath was ready. Which made Chunho realize he’d skipped his bath the past several days. He would have himself a bath and for once a good night’s sleep. But before I do, one more nip!

  In the event, Chunho drank until the bottle was less than half full, which was enough to get him drunk. His lingering concerns about the management of the distillery dissipated, leaving him only with a relaxed sensation. After picking at his meal, he lost interest in a bath and fell into a comfortable sleep.

  Again that night, once the liquor had begun to wear off, Chunho awakened, and when the new dawn found him still awake, he had to drink a large bowl of soju to get back to sleep, but even then his rest was disordered by all sorts of dreams. At first he was in his bath at home, but then it wasn’t his bath but rather one of the vats at the distillery. Well, then, might as well drink to my heart’s content. And as he drank, he swam around, dove beneath the surface, and drank his fill. And when he could drink no more, he wanted to climb out of the tank, but he couldn’t—there was nothing to grab on to. Now he was in a fix! He looked up, and who should he see looking down at him but that son of a bitch Kŏnsŏp. Down he looked with those cold eyes. And there next to Kŏnsŏp—the man who had asked Chunho for a room in his house. That son of a bitch too looked down on Chunho, and he was just as upset as when Chunho had told him he couldn’t rent him a room. And it wasn’t just those two; all the other employees had surrounded the vat and were looking down at Chunho. And not one helping hand from the
lot of them. Fine! I’ll get out under my own power—just watch! But he couldn’t manage. He was all played out. But he wasn’t about to ask those sons of bitches for help. I’ve got my dignity! He struggled desperately but in vain, until the effort finally brought him awake. He was covered with a cold sweat.

  Chunho was late to work as a result. When he arrived, there was Kŏnsŏp telling him not to forget the meeting that evening. Chunho felt compelled to say once more that he had obtained a reliable source of capital, to which Kŏnsŏp, looking him in the eye with his cold stare (or so it felt to Chunho), said in his haughtiest tone (this too as perceived by Chunho), “Well, I realize we have to discuss these issues this evening, but I can tell you now that since we employees can’t put together the funding to manage the business, it’s better to allow the union to operate the distillery than to use the capital of a single individual.”

  The union—it’s always the union! thought Chunho. Arrogant son of a bitch—he’s got some nerve talking the way he does—it’s probably for the benefit of the employees, and you can bet they have their ears to the door listening. If this is something that an individual can handle, then why make things complicated by handing the distillery over to the union? He couldn’t figure it out. In any event, he would say something at the meeting that evening. That day Chunho prepared the itemized list of the distillery facilities to show P’ilbae, and when he had finished he felt heavy all over, short as he’d been on sleep the past few days.