Lost Souls

by Hwang Sunwon

  “Have a safe journey,” said the woman. Her son-in-law was every bit as precious to her as Sŏbun. “And remember, I don’t want you sending the baby and his mother here.”

  “All right.”

  And then, without so much as a backward look, Lucky Nose urged the donkey on its way. He cleared his throat and spat, then turned up his nose with its round red tip. Hmph! Might as well forget about that little darling of yours, he silently retorted to the woman. It’s been a long, long time since I sold her off to that whorehouse in Pyongyang.

  The year or so he had lived with Sŏbun, starting in the spring two years ago, hadn’t been very pleasant. And she wasn’t much of a looker, so the money he’d gotten for her had barely covered what he’d invested in order to take her from her mother. Hmph! Girl was ugly as a lump of soybean malt! What else could I do with her? Hmph! Again and again he turned up his nose with its round red tip and snorted. The nickname Lucky Nose had come from that well-shaped, healthy-looking feature of his.

  These unpleasant thoughts of Sŏbun soon dissipated, and into his mind drifted the image of Koptani in Basin Village. She had a charming face, as her name suggested, and already the previous autumn her chest had filled out into a nice pair of mounds. This spring she must have blossomed even more.

  The cool spring breeze whistled through the dense stand of pines that flanked both sides of the road. In the spaces where big rocks separated the pines, the azaleas were at their fetching peak.

  The donkey stopped at a bend in the road, stretched out its neck, and hee-hawed. At the sound of the resulting echo, it pricked up its ears, craned its neck again, and hee-hawed once more.

  Listen to the damned thing—it’s got its own spring mating call. Lucky Nose gave the donkey’s rump a good-natured tap with his whip. Now it was the jingling of the bell hanging from the donkey’s neck that was echoing in the valleys. Lucky Nose pushed back the brim of his well-worn hat. He felt a pleasant warmth radiate through him.

  This time I’m going to take that little skirt back with me, yes I am. Her father half-agreed to it last fall, didn’t he? Once I get her home, the rest will be easy. I’m going to settle down with this one. Age forty is looking me in the eye and it’s time I put down some roots.

  And in fact he had already rented a shop in Pyongyang where he planned to sell salt wholesale.

  Got to take Koptani home with me, yes I do. Got to work on her father first, but this time her mother needs some buttering up too. The mother’s bound to be more concerned about the daughter’s well-being. Well, if I put my mind to it, I shouldn’t have much trouble with that backwoods broad.

  A grin appeared beneath the round red tip of his nose, and he began absentmindedly to croon a stanza of “The Yangsan Region”: “The Taedong swirls and flows, from Yangdŏk and Maengsan to Pubyŏk Pavilion—hey, hey, yah.”

  Yangdŏk was a remote spot about seventy-five miles from Pyongyang, a third that distance from Sŏngch’ŏn, and a good seventeen miles from Changnim, the nearest town. In this and the more remote villages, the only way to get salt for your side dishes was to raft down the Taedong toward Pyongyang in summer, or else wait for the peddler who packed in salt on the back of a donkey in spring and autumn.

  This was the case with Basin Village. It consisted of a grand total of six dwellings—which for a backcountry mountain village wasn’t that small. The houses were tucked into a bend in the road where a dead pine stood, stripped bare by the elements.

  Spring and autumn, the villagers anticipated the salt peddler’s arrival. When the donkey finally ambled around the bend, the first person to see it would cry out, “Here comes the salt peddler!”

  No words were more welcome, none more gratifying. Doors swung open and out came toddlers, babes in arms, everyone. All gathered in the courtyard of Koptani’s house, where for as long as anyone could remember, the salt peddler would unload his cargo and lodge.

  On this particular day Koptani was the first to spy the salt peddler. She emerged from the shed, where she was fetching millet husks for the swill she would boil for the pigs, and there was the donkey trotting into sight at the bend in the road where the skeletal pine stood.

  But instead of announcing the salt peddler’s arrival she hurried into the kitchen, her heart fluttering. This wouldn’t have happened if Lucky Nose hadn’t asked her father for her hand the previous autumn.

  “Hey, it’s the salt peddler!” shouted Pottori from next door. Koptani detected a note of triumph in his ringing voice.

  She heard the neighbors gather in the yard. At first the jingling of the donkey’s bell had been so distant that she wasn’t really sure she’d heard it. But now it was clearer and louder, and with it came the raspy voice of Lucky Nose asking in his P’yŏngan accent how everyone had been.

  Koptani’s heart jingled like the donkey’s bell. She couldn’t bring herself to look outside.

  While the men exchanged greetings with the salt peddler, the women returned to their houses to collect the items they would barter for salt.

  Lucky Nose unloaded the salt bags, sat down beside them, and produced matches and a cigarette from his pocket. He lit the cigarette with a flourish. To these people, smoking involved dried pumpkin and tobacco leaves, a pipe, and a flint; striking a match to light a readymade cigarette was stylish indeed.

  The women reappeared with armfuls of hemp fabric they had woven during winter.

  While Lucky Nose smoked his cigarette he rehearsed the ways he would find fault with the rolls of hemp. “This roll’s too narrow,” he might say. Or, “The color’s no good.” Or, “The weave is too loose.” He could then obtain the fabric dirt cheap and resell it later for a profit.

  But Lucky Nose had more on his mind than bartering as he examined the women and their goods. Where was Koptani? She should be here with these women. Was she sick? Had she already been married off? He wasn’t in a position to ask right now, and this annoyed him considerably.

  Lucky Nose stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and stood up. He went through the motions of haggling with the women, and finally it was Koptani’s mother’s turn.

  “How’s everyone, Mother?”

  Already he had begun addressing Koptani’s parents as “Father” and “Mother.”

  “Can’t complain. Except our Crazy Hair’s in bed with a fever these last few days.”

  “Well, I’m real sorry to hear that.”

  That explained Koptani’s absence, he told himself.

  Pottori’s mother came forward next. She had less fabric than the other women. She was a slothful woman, and the meager amount of hemp she did weave was of poorer quality than the rest. So her family usually bartered the pelts of animals her husband had trapped. But the previous winter the husband had caught only a wildcat and some rabbits, and it was these pelts she now offered Lucky Nose after receiving salt for her fabric.

  “Auntie, do you really expect salt for this stuff? A cat’s fur is worth more than this.”

  “We couldn’t help it. There wasn’t much snow last winter. Come on, just a quarter bushel more, and we’ll make it up to you next time.”

  “Auntie, listen to you! There’s no such thing as ‘next time’ in my business.”

  “You think we’re going to die on you? Come on, scoop me another quarter bushel. Tell you what—we’ll trap a fox for you this fall, a beauty. I’ve got my eye on one. It’s a female, at least thirty years old, and you can make a fortune selling the privates. Want to know why? Because whoever gets them, all their dreams will come true. If a woman has them, then her husband will end up pussy-whipped even if he’s a big-time skirt chaser. And if it’s a man, then any woman he hankers for will crawl right into bed with him.”

  This woman had always been known for her brazen manner.

  “What idiot scheme is she jabbering about now?” her husband said. He spat and turned away.

  The others burst into laughter; it wasn’t the first time they had heard such talk from the woman. They enjoyed listening
to her banter with this man from the outside world whose face had become familiar to them over the past seven or eight years.

  Lucky Nose laughed with the others.

  “Well, if they’re so precious, why not keep ’em yourself?”

  “For what? Getting old and dying? That’s all we got to look forward to. But if they’re yours, Mr. Kim, your business will prosper, and any young lady you fancy will crawl right into bed with you.”

  Lucky Nose again joined the villagers in laughter, but this time his was a sardonic laugh. There was something in Pottori’s mother’s words that hinted at Koptani and himself.

  “Well, all right,” he said in a placating tone, and to silence this shameless woman he scooped her another half peck of salt. “But you’d better keep that prize yourself in case your husband starts playing around in his old age; else you’ll have a problem of your own.”

  Next was the wife of the elderly village head, accompanied by their adopted son, Komi, who in terms of age difference could have been mistaken for their grandson by an outsider. Grandfather Headman, the villagers called the husband, since he was the oldest male among the six households in the village. It had been more than ten years since they had taken in Komi. The boy’s parents had passed away in quick succession when he was eight, and the childless couple had ultimately taken responsibility for him. He was twenty-one now, with shoulders broad enough for a man’s work, but he still wore the pigtail that marked him as unmarried.

  Lucky Nose poured a bushel and a quarter of salt into Komi’s bag. Komi picked it up with one hand as if it weighed no more than a feather, and turned to go.

  “Hold on, fellow—what’s the rush?”

  Komi came to a halt.

  Lucky Nose had always called Komi “kid,” but the young man was too old for that now, and the previous fall the salt peddler had started calling him “fellow.” Likewise, he had always regarded Koptani as a fuzzy-cheeked girl, until discovering that she had ripened into a young lady. And it was around that time that Lucky Nose had discovered he could no longer treat Komi as a child.

  Yes, it was last autumn, Lucky Nose recalled. On the way here to Basin Village, that rascal donkey of his had developed a limp in one of its hind legs. Thinking something had gotten stuck in its hoof, Lucky Nose had unloaded the donkey as soon as he arrived. But when he tried to inspect the leg the donkey began bucking, and Lucky Nose couldn’t restrain it. The men tried in vain to rein in the animal. Finally Komi joined in, grabbing the reins with one hand and the donkey’s mane with the other, and brought the animal under control. The villagers goggled at the young man. Lucky Nose too was amazed. “No wonder they call him Komi—true to his name, he really is a bear.” Never again had he used “kid” in reference to Komi.

  Lucky Nose now turned to the village head, who was squatting off to the side, smoking his pipe with its long bamboo stem and small metal bowl.

  “You’ve been kind to me all along, sir. . . . I know it’s not much, but please take some more.” Saying this, he added a full peck more to Komi’s sack.

  The village head put aside his pipe and rose.

  “Hold on—that salt’s too valuable. . . . What have we done to make you obliged to us? We’re the ones who ought to be obliged to you.”

  “Please. I’m indebted to gentlemen like yourself for allowing me to build up a steady trade over these seven or eight years.”

  “Listen to you. . . . I can’t tell you how grateful we are that you come here every spring and autumn.”

  The village head followed up by inviting Lucky Nose for supper. After several protestations, Lucky Nose pretended he could refuse no longer and accepted the invitation.

  Lucky Nose organized the remaining bags of salt, then left for Koptani’s house with a cloth bundle. He arrived to find Koptani’s mother squatting beside the kitchen door, removing the chaff and other foreign matter from her portion of salt.

  “I brought you all some fabric—silk for a jacket for you, calico for a coat for Father, and Japanese silk for a jacket and skirt for Koptani. Nothing fancy, I’m afraid.”

  And that wasn’t all. Lucky Nose had brought a hand mirror and a jar of face cream for Koptani as well.

  Koptani’s mother gaped at Lucky Nose, searching his face for an explanation. Her own face, weathered to a purplish hue by wind and sun, was tinged with uncertainty.

  “Mother, don’t think twice. I’ve started a wholesale shop and I’m going to kiss this darned peddling business good-bye. I’ve put you to all sorts of trouble over the years, and this is just my way of saying thank you. Don’t think twice. . . . Do you mind if I wash up?”

  He took from his pocket a bar of soap wrapped in paper.

  After a moment Koptani’s mother collected herself and managed to call toward the kitchen, “Koptani, find the washbasin and fill it for Mr. Kim.” Her voice trembled.

  The swill for the pigs had boiled by now, but Koptani continued to stir it with the wooden paddle. Her heart was pounding. Something about having to face Lucky Nose frightened her. But her mother had told her to prepare water for the guest, and so she located the basin and the gourd dipper. Suddenly she remembered something. She put down the dipper and instead used a round, wide-mouthed basin of unglazed clay to fill the basin. Once before, she had used the dipper for this purpose and it had come back from the salt peddler smelling of soap. For days afterward the rice and the drinking water had given off a nasty odor that she couldn’t get rid of. It had been very annoying.

  Koptani kept her head bowed as she emerged with the water, but she could sense Lucky Nose’s gaze sweeping over her forehead. She hurriedly set down the basin, then disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Well, look at how the girl shies away from men, Lucky Nose thought. She’s growing up. And she’s starting to fill out around the hips. . . . With a feeling of satisfaction he lathered and washed his face not once but twice.

  Night fell quickly in the valley. The silhouettes of the hills were already indistinct because of the low clouds, and the shade soon thickened into creeping shadows.

  The onset of evening was the noisiest time of day in this backcountry village. You could hear the chirping of birds returning to their nests in the hills, the fluttering of their wings, the cooing of mountain doves. Even louder was the cawing of magpies. And then there was the breeze blowing through the pines, seeming to carry the dusk along with it.

  Lucky Nose and Koptani’s father were sitting on the ground under the eaves smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Lucky Nose repeated what he had suggested to Koptani’s mother a short time ago—that this would be his last time around as a salt peddler, that from now on he would sell salt wholesale and make a thriving business out of it. But there was no way he could run the operation by himself; he needed a fellow to help out. One by one he made sure Koptani’s father understood these particulars. This time Lucky Nose wasn’t lying.

  Meanwhile, Koptani’s mother emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of feed for the donkey. Lucky Nose jumped to his feet and relieved her of it. This was a disappointment. He had hoped it would be Koptani, so that he could accept the bowl from her as in the past. But now that Koptani was a mature young woman, she was keeping her distance from men, he reckoned.

  While Lucky Nose stood watching the donkey feed, Komi came from the village head’s home to tell him supper was ready.

  Lucky Nose had been waiting for this opportunity. Ever since starting on this trip he’d looked forward to a quiet chat with the village head. Which was why he’d given the old man the full measure of salt. When he had received a supper invitation in return, he’d made a show of being obliged to accept, but inwardly he was delighted.

  “Try one of these, fellow.” He offered Komi a cigarette, so satisfied was he that his plans were being realized.

  “I don’t smoke,” Komi said without looking back at Lucky Nose.

  “Oh? I do believe I’ve seen you smoke before?”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  Lucky
Nose couldn’t quite understand Komi’s sulky tone of voice.

  Poor sucker must have gotten a scolding from the old man, he thought. Well, you don’t have much of a life to look forward to—work yourself to the bone here in the hills and die a broken-down wreck. Comparing himself with Komi, Lucky Nose felt quite the fortunate man.

  A castor-oil lamp was burning in the village head’s house. Lamps would never be lit this early in a backcountry village, and if they were, resinous pine knots would be used for fuel. But for the sake of his guest the village head had lit the lamp—something he generally reserved for important occasions.

  “Come on in. Nothing fancy here, but I guess you know that.”

  A small meal table for two was brought in. The villagers had made it from pine boards. They had also fashioned the wooden dishes containing the seasoned wild greens and the acorn jelly. Only the brass rice bowls were store-bought, and they had developed a patina by now. Corn mixed with hulled yellow millet was the main dish. Lucky Nose, the guest, received a larger portion of millet than his host.

  “Dig in, now. It’s a tough job making the rounds out here in the sticks.”

  “You’ve really gone out of your way for me.”

  “Well, I know you eat a lot of rich food in Pyongyang, so perhaps a meal like this isn’t so bad. . . . Ever hear about the fellow who went to Pyongyang and had himself some rice for the first time? Stomach couldn’t tolerate it, and did he ever get sick!”

  The old man’s mouth opened in a wide grin. Pine-knot smoke had turned the white of his beard a dark yellow.

  Lucky Nose pretended to eat his fill, as the village head had urged. He could have finished his bowl, but he left a small amount uneaten, as a gentleman would.

  After the meal table was removed, Lucky Nose offered the village head a cigarette. He debated whether to have one himself, but thought better of it. To smoke in front of one’s elders or superiors would betray a lack of etiquette.

  “Nice and sweet! Like it’s got a touch o’ honey.”