Lost Souls

by Hwang Sunwon

  “There—what did I tell you?” said the village head.

  There was a reason Blackie was acting that way, said Kannan’s grandfather: he’d been doing stud work the last few days.

  Up jumped the headman. “With that mad dog!? That’s even worse. Get the rope,” he ordered the farmhand. “The Dog Days aren’t far off,” he muttered. “We’ll get rid of the dog and have ourselves a Dog Day party to boot.”

  Kannan’s grandfather had to give in. The farmhand tied a noose and passed it to the headman, who secured it around Blackie’s neck. The farmhand took the other end and jerked the dog toward the gate, drew the rope under the threshold, and pulled it tight from the other side. Caught unawares, the dog yelped frantically, but it was no use.

  Hearing the yelps, Spotty came out to look, and all the dogs from the neighborhood at the foot of the mountains to the west emerged onto the road and started barking. Blackie’s eyes blazed blue. He clawed at the ground and finally at the threshold of the gate. This was what the headman had seen every time a dog was slaughtered, but this time the fire in Blackie’s eyes was unusually blue. However you looked at it, he repeated to himself, the dog was mad. Excrement spurted from the dog’s bowels, and then the animal gave one last great twitch and went limp.

  Now to the younger brother’s house. As if sensing his fate, Spotty began a slow retreat into the yard, making it a chore to snare him. The farmhand had to act more swiftly to tighten the noose around his neck. And so Spotty met a similar fate.

  The older brother’s wife brought out a large kettle and propped it off the ground beneath the chestnut tree in back of their house for boiling water to remove the dogs’ fur. Meanwhile, the brothers conferred, then sent the farmhand off to Dolmen Village, near the pass to the north, to invite the village head and Pak Ch’oshi.

  As the butchered dogs were cooking in a soy-paste stew, the three men returned. The Dolmen Village headman had slicked-down hair parted to the right. Pak Ch’oshi was a pudgy man who wore the traditional horsehair cap and an unlined ramie jacket that resembled a pair of dragonfly wings. The guests contributed two half-gallon bottles of soju, which the farmhand had toted on his shoulders.

  The drinking commenced immediately. The men fished out the dogs’ innards, already cooked, to snack on over a couple of rounds.

  The host removed his jacket.

  “Strip down and get comfortable, men. It’s time to let loose.”

  The brothers had decided not to mention that the dogs they were eating were rabid. It wouldn’t be much fun if the guests lost their appetite.

  “Now this is what I call getting a head start on the Dog Days,” said the Dolmen Village headman as he removed his jacket. The host’s younger brother did likewise.

  Pak alone demurred—he never removed his jacket, even at drinking parties. And when he paid a visit without wearing the traditional topcoat, as he had that day, he felt he’d committed a breach of etiquette. And so after the first polite suggestion to remove his jacket, no one mentioned it again.

  “How about a repeat performance out our way when the Dog Days start?” asked the Dolmen Village headman. He gazed at Pak as if to say, “You’d better join in the fun then.”

  Pak nodded once.

  The Dolmen Village headman continued to stare at Pak.

  “Kilson’s family have a dog, you know. And they’re planning to sell it. Kilson’s sick with food poisoning, and they need the money, so the dog won’t cost much. Pretty scrawny, because they don’t feed it very well, but it’s good sized.”

  The head beneath the horsehair hat nodded once more. It was as if Pak thought the Dolmen Village headman could speak no wrong.

  Meat from a foreleg was served, then meat from a hind leg. Kannan’s grandfather was kept busy stripping the bones so the others could eat while they drank.

  Evening came earlier to the highlands, and before they knew it the long twilight of early summer was settling over them. The first bottle of soju was sprawled on the ground, mouth gaping, and the second bottle had assumed its place on the table. By now everyone was quite drunk.

  Under the influence, the older brother went so far as to admit that the dogs they’d slaughtered that day were rabid. But the meat of a rabid dog was a tonic, so the guests were to set their minds at ease and eat up.

  “That’s why it tasted so good,” chimed in the Dolmen Village headman. “Let’s eat till our belly buttons pop out.” And with that he loosened his waistband, exposing his navel—as he was wont to do on such occasions.

  The younger brother asked the two visitors if they could find him a puppy. As was his habit, he kept passing his hand back over his stubbly hair.

  The Dolmen Village headman responded first. As a matter of fact, his in-laws in Temple Hollow had a bitch that was about to pop, so not to worry. It was a good breed, he added.

  “Make sure you save me one,” said the younger brother. When it was grown, he continued, they’d slaughter it and have another feast.

  Everything sounded fine to Pak. He continued to nod, smiling a smile of utter contentment. Perspiration had dampened his white ramie jacket. The torsos of the other three men glistened with sweat and dogmeat fat. Gradually all of them blended into the evening shadow.

  The farmhand lit a kerosene lantern and hung it from the chestnut tree. The oily, sweaty torsos and the Dolmen Village headman’s slicked-down hair came alive, flickering in the light. Sitting bleary-eyed around their low table, each man passing his empty drinking vessel to the next and filling it, stripping meat from bones, then slapping their necks and chests when bitten by mosquitos and other pests—they resembled a pack of animals.

  “Let’s limber up the vocal cords, boys,” said the Dolmen Village headman. Thick tongue and all, he was the first to launch a tune. The younger brother then took up the challenge, still in control of his voice, and the others followed in their turn, all except Pak, who was content to keep time tapping his knee. Sitting in the dim glow of the lamp on this early summer evening, the men sounded like a band of howling beasts.

  Which was why, among the people who would gather in the corner of Ch’ason’s family’s yard at the foot of the mountains to the west, Kim Sŏndal had always been able to draw a laugh by saying that the singing accompanying a dogmeat party was actually the howling of the slaughtered animals. Tonight too, Kim set the others laughing. There you could hear Blackie, and now Spotty, he said as the Dolmen Village headman and the younger brother traded songs. And whether it was the jokester Kim or the laughing villagers, any feelings they may have had for the dogs were subordinated to the same thought: if only they could taste that meaty stuff—when was the last time they’d savored it? Late into the night the lantern remained in the chestnut tree, like an animal’s eye glaring in the dark.

  The next day the brothers visited the families who lived at the foot of the mountains to the west. Someone had seen, besides their own dogs, another dog following the mad one. Whoever’s dog it was, he had better get rid of it now. And remember, the brothers said—if the owner knew his dog had followed the mad dog and was concealing that fact, the day it became known would be that man’s last day in this village.

  Understandably, Kannan’s grandfather did nothing about the family’s dog, Yellow. Five days passed, then ten, but Yellow didn’t turn rabid. Meanwhile the villagers at the foot of the western mountains put their mill to use for the first time in a long while, sweeping up the dust and hulling barley. Whitey seized this opportunity, and whenever the mill was used she would visit at night and lick up whatever chaff the broom had missed. Because this was the season for rice weevil infestations, the brothers constantly hulled small amounts of rice as a precaution, so their mill was an even better source of chaff.

  Two months later, Yellow still wasn’t rabid. The villagers near the mountains to the west harvested and hulled the early millet. For the poor among them, a nicely cooked meal of rice mixed with this millet was one of the year’s supreme delights—how could food be so nutt
y, so tasty? A bowl of it would call to mind the old saying that young-radish kimchi eaten with early millet will draw milk from a virgin’s breasts. How true, these impoverished people thought.

  In the meantime, Whitey continued to visit the mill at opportune moments in search of food, and there she would sleep. She kept out of sight of everyone, and seemed to rest a bit easier. But she made sure to leave for the hills early in the morning, so that even Kannan’s grandfather wouldn’t spot her.

  But then one day, word spread that the mad dog had been sleeping in the mill. Ch’ason’s father, bound for the western mountains to find a tree limb he could make into a crossbar for his oxcart, had seen something emerge from the mill and run off. A closer look revealed it to be the mad dog. And even in the predawn darkness he had seen it wasn’t alone. Ch’ason’s father saw well in the dark, and the villagers took him at his word.

  Hearing this news, the village heads visited the families at the foot of the mountains to the west. The wild dog would have to be ambushed that night. (The brothers no longer referred to it as a mad dog, for if it were truly rabid, they told themselves, it wouldn’t have eaten anything and eventually it would have bitten off one of its own legs and died.) And if it were carrying young, they added, that would mean it had mated with a jackal—in which case there was no better tonic than the meat of the pups, so after they’d slaughtered the dog they would take only the pup fetuses and leave the rest of the meat for the villagers. After this pronouncement, they went back home.

  At nightfall the brothers returned. The villagers had gathered in Ch’ason’s family’s yard, and the brothers made sure each was armed with a stick or a backrack support. Kannan’s grandfather was among the group. He didn’t think Whitey had changed, but if in fact she’d been sleeping in the mill next to his house, then she’d doubtless been consuming his scant supply of nightsoil. No way could he allow that, and he decided the time was ripe to slaughter the dog. And, like his neighbors, he knew this was a rare chance for meat.

  The night was far along when Ch’ason’s father returned from his scouting mission to report that the wild dog had just gone into the mill. The villagers tiptoed there, each already anticipating the taste of meat. The brothers remained at a safe distance, watching carefully.

  The mill had two openings, and the villagers surrounded each one. They looked inside, and sure enough, something was moving in the dark, a light-colored animal. Clearly it was that damned Whitey dog. They crept inside a step at a time and closed ranks. As the animal was gradually forced backward, part of it lighted up—the eyes, like the eyes of a wild dog. The villagers tightened their grips on their weapons—Kannan’s grandfather among them. The circle narrowed by one step. The dog whirled about once, as if the blue flame of its eyes were seeking an opening to escape. And then Kannan’s grandfather realized that the flame emanated not from Whitey alone but also from the pups inside her. So what if it was an animal? How could they kill a creature carrying young? he wondered.

  “Get it!” someone shouted. The next instant, those on either side of Kannan’s grandfather rushed forward and swung their sticks down. At the same time, the old man saw a blue flame slip past his leg.

  “Who let it out?!” said an outraged voice.

  “Who was it? Who was it?”

  Emerging from the grumbling, the farmhand stuck his face up close to Kannan’s grandfather’s chin.

  “It was Grandpa here.”

  “What happened?” came the older brother’s voice from off to the side.

  “It got away,” said the farmhand.

  “Got away?!” shouted the brothers simultaneously.

  “Who let it out?!” asked the older brother, his irate voice carrying nearer.

  Kannan’s grandfather walked outside to his home next door.

  “These old goats’d be better off dead!” barked the older brother a short time later, his voice carrying into the old man’s house.

  One day about a month later, when autumn was gone for good and the people of Crossover Village were busy gathering winter firewood, Kannan’s grandfather set off for Fox Hollow. This place across the mountains to the west had long been known to be rugged, and most woodcutters avoided it. There the old man could quickly fill his backrack with fuel. After an easy day of gathering, he was on his way back home when he came upon a brood of animals at the side of the path. He startled, thinking they might be tiger cubs, but quickly discovered them to be a litter of sleeping puppies. And there was Whitey herself gazing his way from a distance. She was nothing but skin and bones.

  Kannan’s grandfather approached the puppies. There were five of them, and they looked a good three weeks old. But then the old man received another jolt. There was no doubt about it—among the sleeping pups were a miniature Yellow, Blackie, and Spotty, all in the same litter. Well, it was only natural, wasn’t it? A smile formed on his rugged face with its bushy salt-and-pepper beard, and he made up his mind that he wouldn’t tell a soul what he’d seen, not even his family.

  One summer when I was an eighth or ninth grader, I was visiting my mother’s family in Crossover Village, and there I heard this tale, at the end of one story or another, from Kannan’s grandfather, Kim Sŏndal, and Ch’ason’s father as they were taking a work break beneath the weeping willow near the well at the foot of the mountains to the west. Kannan’s grandfather was the main storyteller. The tale unfolded, and since it had happened two or three years earlier, if the sequence was wrong or someone’s recall was faulty, the others would correct him, and if one of them left something out the others would fill it in.

  After Kannan’s grandfather had seen the pups, he’d exercised caution so that no one would suspect, and it was his pleasure alone to see them when he went to gather fuel. Though his family didn’t have enough to eat, he would secretly gather the remnants of their vegetable porridge and feed the pups. When they were old enough to eat solid food, he brought one of them home, explaining to his family that he had gotten it from someone at such-and-such a place. A second one he took in his arms to neighboring Koptan’s family. He said he had gotten a third puppy from someone in Temple Hollow, which he could reach directly from Fox Hollow; a fourth one from someone in Sŏjetkol; and in this way he ended up accounting for all five of them.

  At the end of the story, Kannan’s grandfather said that the dog now living with his family was Whitey’s great-granddaughter. And because Whitey herself was of a good breed, practically all the dogs in Crossover Village were either her great-grandchildren or her great-great-grandchildren. Even the two village heads had been given pups from his dog, which would make them Whitey’s great-great-grandchildren. A broad smile lit up the face of the old man, whose bushy beard was by now the color of frost.

  When I asked whatever had become of Whitey, Kannan’s grandfather turned serious. Rumor had it she was shot by a hunter the same winter he had found the pups. Whatever her fate, he never saw her again.

  I wished I hadn’t asked.

  March 1947

  Lost Souls

  DEATHLESS

  Low gray clouds draped the sky. Another breezy day that was cooler than it should have been for spring, thought Lucky Nose.

  He began to load the salt bags onto his donkey as the animal finished its feed. A good fifteen miles lay ahead of them that day.

  His mother-in-law emerged from the kitchen, the corners of her eyes crusted with sleep.

  “Will we see you on your way back, Son?”

  “Probably not. I’ve got folks in Basin Village and Magpie Hollow waiting for me.”

  “So you do. You know,” she said hesitantly, “it’s an awful long way for her to come with a baby. Why don’t you tell her not to bother?”

  “All right, I’ll do that. Anyhow, you know we’ll be taking you in with us next year.”

  Lucky Nose cinched the cord that held the salt bags fast to the donkey.

  Last night he had told his mother-in-law that Sŏbun, her daughter, would visit during the upcoming Yud
u Festival.

  If only she could! the woman had thought. Already two years had stolen by since Sŏbun had gone to live with the salt peddler. Initially, it was agreed that the couple would return for her in the autumn. But then Lucky Nose had gone to see a fortune-teller in preparation for building a new house and was told it would be risky for someone to move in with them. Last spring had brought a further delay: according to Sŏbun’s fortune for the year, bad luck lay in the northeast quadrant, and if a newcomer were to arrive from that area, even if it was her mother, it would cause Sŏbun to go blind. And so the woman had told herself that as long as no harm came to her daughter in her new surroundings, it wasn’t such a terrible thing not to be able to see her for a piddling year or two.

  She had married off her only daughter to Lucky Nose the salt peddler, preferring to send her to an unfamiliar urban area, where clothing was readily available and food abundant, rather than subject her to a hard life in this backcountry mountain village. She would be content as long as her daughter was doing well. And then her son-in-law had arrived yesterday. According to the mother’s fortune for this year, Lucky Nose had said, bad luck lay in the southwest quadrant, and if she journeyed in that direction she would die. But everyone’s fortune boded well for next year, so he and Sŏbun would be sure to come for her then. And since his last visit, Sŏbun had produced a fine-looking baby boy with the fairest skin you could imagine. Finally Lucky Nose had told her about Sŏbun’s plan to visit during the Yudu Festival. Hearing this, she felt as if she had caught a momentary glimpse of her daughter and grandson, and she had to blow her nose to keep back the tears. But after mulling over this prospect for most of the night, she had decided that the hundred-odd miles from that place he called Chinnamp’o was too far for a mother and a nursing baby to travel, and had changed her mind. She had endured the absence of her daughter until now, and could do so for another year.

  Lucky Nose finished loading the donkey and gave it a swat on the rump with his whip.