by Junghyo Ahn
Old Hwang had secretly invested virtually all the family fortune in a gold mine in the Hwachon area. The old man had not said anything about this investment to anyone in the village, not even his own son, until he realized that he had committed a fatal and irrevocable mistake. Maybe it had been the last attempt on the part of the old man to save the declining family, but this mining investment only hastened the fall of the Hwangs. The other three partners were acute businessmen from Kapyong and they quickly pulled out, but Hwang Sunggak held on to the very last minute, until he lost all his land including the fertile rice paddies at the foot of General’s Hill.
When he had to give up his land to pay his accumulating debts, Sunggak decided not to sell to a wealthy family in town lest scornful gossip spread that the Hwang family had turned to paupers thanks to the senile old man’s stupid investment. Shame was more unbearable than poverty to the old man. After many agonizing nights, the old man finally decided to sell all his land to Kangho’s father. Although he never admitted much less bragged about it, the miller was the richest man in the whole county. He had worked diligently all his life, purchasing land bit by bit until he owned the largest farm on this side of the river as well as a wholesale grain shop at the Market, and the biggest rice mill in West County. Old Hwang was aware that the miller, the only person around who had the ready cash to buy his land, was also very loyal to the Hwang family, as his parents and grandparents had been their sharecroppers. Hwang Sunggak summoned the miller and explained his embarrassing situation. The miller promised to keep the transaction a secret until the old man’s death. Kangho’s father was a man of his word, and he never told anybody, not even his own wife, that he owned most of the Hwangs’ properties. But Sokku knew this secret would be revealed to the villagers after his father’s death. Before that shameful revelation, Sokku had to find a new home somewhere far away.
The crust of the frozen snow crunched under their feet as Chandol and Kijun slunk across the rice paddies. The village was asleep in the dark. The hills, the trees and the houses loomed grey, barely recognizable in the pale moonlight. Mansik must have been in bed, for the Chestnut House was in complete darkness.
Kijun had put on a woolen hood over his head, but nonetheless his bulging eyelids and nose-tip felt cold. “The river will freeze over in a week or two,” he said, breathing through his mouth. “We can go to Texas Town then. We can sled across the river on the ice.”
Chandol started to rub his frozen ears with his palms. “You sled across the river and go to Texas Town,” he said. “I don’t see any reason why I should go to that trouble. At the Imugi House here you can see everything you can see at Texas Town.”
“But there isn’t as much to watch here. Lots of things are going on over there because there’re more whores and Yankees. And it’s easier to watch them, too. This Imugi place is different. There’s only two rooms, and when they fuck in only one room, you always take that room and I don’t have anything to watch.”
“If you resent it so much, you can watch the room with me from now on. Or you can go to the island, if you really want to. I don’t mind.”
“I’ve hardly seen anything lately.”
“I said you can watch the main room with me if there’s no action in the other room.”
The two boys quietly moved in the dark across the snow-covered field toward the Imugi House.
The previous night Mansik had once again spotted Chandol and Kijun going somewhere in the middle of the night. The next morning he had followed their footprints in the snow to find out where the two boys had been. He went down to the stream and followed their tracks across the rice paddies straight to the Imugi House. The telltale footsteps stopped behind the house. They must have been snooping, he thought. But why? It occurred to Mansik that the two boys might have not gone that first night to steal eggs at the duck farm in Kamwa village. Had they been coming here every night for some purpose?
Mansik brooded over this matter all morning and then it began to dawn upon him. He had wondered lately what had made Chandol suddenly change his mind and invite him to the Autumn War after his total exclusion for over two months. Now he began to suspect that there might be some connection between the secret trips to the Imugi House and Chandol’s invitation to him to join the war. Was it, then, by any chance Dragon Lady Club that somehow caused the boys to want him back in the gang?
Since the Autumn War Mansik had joined the boys’ adventures four times. Although he came home separately each time, he had been allowed to join a bengko garbage raid and participated in an expedition to the grave-keeper’s spooky hearse shed near General’s Hill. Mansik had also made two more visits to the water mill headquarters and was encouraged by Chandol on one of those visits to extract the millet gunpowder from carbine rifle cartridges and make a glass bomb: a small glass bottle stuffed with gunpowder to be exploded by a cloth fuse attached to the cork stopper. Although he could not play with them openly in the village yet, Mansik was so happy to be back with the boys that, whenever they got together, he brought the boys nice gifts like C-rations, chewing gum, jelly candies and other American goodies that the Yankees had brought to his mother at the Club.
Now Mansik wondered if he had been wrong all the time about the boys—at least about Chandol and Kijun. On several occasions Mansik had noticed Toad’s frightened squints; this boy was obviously afraid of Mansik. Chandol’s behavior had been strange, too. His expression and attitude changed abruptly every so often and he seemed to be telling only half of what he had on his mind.
When night finally came, he put out all the lights at home, pretending he and Nanhi had gone to bed early, and, perching motionlessly before the latticed door in his room, watched the field and the stream through a hole he had poked in the paper. Mansik waited and waited, but the two boys did not show up until the bengkos at the Club returned to Omaha and his mother came home reeking of whiskey and vomit.
This evening again Mansik sat in his dark room, watching the stream and the rice paddies, waiting. When he finally spotted Chandol and Kijun crossing the rice paddies, Mansik quietly sneaked out of his room and began to shadow them.
A white massive bulk of a bengko, mumbling something in a monotone, climbed onto her stomach and the Serpent Woman, giggling, her legs wide open waiting for the soldier’s thrust, babbled, “Darring haany, I rub yore cock. Wassa merra? Wassa merra? Ma cunt namba teng?”
Peeping in through a knothole in the wooden window frame, Chandol had to move his head up and down, to have a better view of the whore and the Yankee, who were rolling on the floor, their groins stuck together. Toad was anxiously waiting for his turn to watch. There was nothing much to see in the other room; Mansik’s mother had put out the lamp, as she always did, before starting her play with her soldier, and the play itself did not last too long.
The whore bent over the giant bengko sprawling on the floor and pecked at his nose-tip and eyelids and then nibbled at his earlobe. With both hands the bengko kneaded her breasts which drooped over his face like two dangling lumps of dough. They sucked each other’s spittle for a long while. Toad and Chandol took turns and by the time Chandol returned again to the peephole, the soldier was on top of the woman, pumping. The soldier gasped and the whore moaned. Soon the whore’s moan changed to pleasure, the woman apparently enjoying her pain, and their groans and pantings quickened. Chandol trembled in violent arousal as he watched the two entangled naked bodies writhing in the room.
Then someone tapped his shoulder.
He instinctively knew it was not Kijun. Chandol quickly stepped away from the window.
Mansik stood glaring at him. He pointed at Chandol and Kijun one by one. He gestured for them to follow him. They headed for a lone tree by Mudfish Pond. Lagging behind Mansik, Chandol and Kijun glanced at each other. Kijun pointed at the stream with his head to suggest they should run away. Chandol thought for a moment and shook his head. Kijun, crestfallen, followed Mansik across the ankle-deep snow. Chandol did not seem to be worried
but Jun believed he should be. Mansik was a good fist-fighter and could punish Chandol if he made up his mind to.
Mansik stopped by a stack of hay. They were far away enough from the Club now; he did not want anyone to overhear.
Kijun was terrified. “I think he’s going to beat us up.”
“Shut up,” Chandol said in a hoarse voice.
Kijun tried to make up with Mansik. “I’m sorry, Mansik,” he bleated. “I’m sorry, Mansik, I’m sorry. I mean it. You have it all wrong. The truth is. …”
“I told you to shut up,” Chandol barked.
Kijun flinched.
Mansik stared at the two boys. “What were you doing there?” he asked in a tone that showed he already knew the answer.
Kijun blubbered, “We didn’t watch anything. I swear. We didn’t, did we, Chandol? We didn’t see anything, did we?”
“So you came to watch something, huh?” said Mansik, pulling his clenched fist back to punch Jun. “That’s what I guessed.”
Kijun ran to Chandol’s side to seek shelter. “Don’t let him hit me!”
“If you don’t keep your trap shut, I will hit you,” said Chandol. Then he faced Mansik. “You’ve got something to say to us, I guess.”
“What were you doing there?”
“You already know. We came to watch what’s happening in that house.”
“How often have you come here?” Mansik asked.
“This is the first time we’ve ever been here,” Jun said.
“How often?” Mansik asked Chandol.
“I don’t think it matters too much how often we came here.”
“Every night?”
Chandol stared at Mansik for a while. “Almost,” he said. “Almost every night.”
“What exactly did you watch?”
“We’d better not talk about it. You wouldn’t like it.”
“And exactly what did you see?”
“All right, if you insist. We watched them play in the room, you know, the bengkos and. … Do I really have to tell you?”
“Watched them play what?”
Chandol glanced at Kijun and said, “Maybe we can let Toad go home and settle this matter between you and me.”
“I can fight you both,” Mansik said, clenching his fists and getting ready.
“I didn’t say anything about fighting. I just meant that we’d better talk in private.”
When he saw Mansik wavering, Chandol pressed on, “If a fight is what you really want, you can fight me now. You can take on Toad and beat him up any time you want later. If you can’t get hold of him, just tell me when you want him. I promise I’ll personally bring him to the water mill exactly when you want him there. But I don’t believe you’d bother about a miserable fat boy like him.”
Mansik stared at Toad for a while, thinking. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll let him go.”
“Can I really go?” Kijun asked Chandol. “Does he really mean that I can go home now?”
“Yeah. Go home. But come to headquarters tomorrow morning. I will have something to say to you.”
Kijun did not wait for another word. He scurried away across the rice paddies like a startled mouse, finally slowing down and looking back twice when he reached the log bridge. Then he started to run again.
After Kijun had disappeared beyond the bridge, Chandol turned to Mansik and said in an unexpectedly soft voice, “I had to send Toad home because I didn’t want him around when I talked with you.”
Mansik, who had anticipated a fight, could not make out Chandol’s intentions. He kept quiet, unsure of what he was supposed to say now.
“Honestly speaking, I feel a little sorry for what we’ve done,” Chandol said.
“A little sorry?”
Ignoring Mansik’s accusation, Chandol went on, “But you might have noticed that we did not peep in your mother’s room. We were both watching Imugi playing with her soldier. Well, you know, I don’t have anything to apologize for as a matter of fact and we don’t have any reason to fight because I haven’t done anything wrong to you. Tell me, what did I do wrong to you?”
Mansik was at a loss at this sudden twist. Too many things were going on at once in his head.
“What did I do wrong?” Chandol repeated.
Mansik was confused. What had Chandol done wrong indeed? If it was a fact that the boys had not peeped in his mother’s room … “How can I know for sure if you’re telling the truth?”
“You’d better take my word because that’s the honest truth,” Chandol lied nonchalantly.
Watching only one out of the two adjoining rooms—any idiot could tell it was a lie. Mansik knew it was a he but he wanted to believe it to be true. There certainly existed a possibility, however feeble it might be, that Chandol was telling him the truth. For one thing, this evening the two boys had been both peeping into Imugi’s room. Why should he care about that? It was none of his business as long as they stayed away from his mother’s room. But they might have watched his mother doing some strange things with the bengkos, at least once, or several times, other nights at Dragon Lady Club or at Texas Town. No, Mansik thought, no, he could not believe Chandol’s lies. If they had been prowling around the Club at night, it was virtually impossible for them not to see, purposefully or by accident, his mother drinking or playing naked with the Yankees or…. Why did he argue with himself about whether the boys’ behavior was right or wrong? They were wrong, absolutely wrong, and they should never have come near the Club. He could not let them watch his mother at night. But he realized he was thinking one way, but speaking another.
“All right,” Mansik said. “I’d like to believe you. I’ll forget what has happened this evening and let you go home.” But this is all wrong, he thought. He should not let Chandol go unpunished. He had to give him a warning, at least. A strict warning so that he would not even dare to think of coming near the Club ever again. “I will let you go tonight but you should be prepared for the consequences if I catch you again snooping around the Club.”
Chandol said nothing.
“Promise me you will never come again,” Mansik said.
After a short silence, Chandol said in a calm cold voice, “I can’t promise that.”
Mansik was stunned. With a gasp, he asked, “What do you mean you can’t promise?”
“I want to come to the Imugi House and watch things,” said Chandol, showing no sign of giving in. “So I will come and watch things.”
“Then I will have to stop you.”
“You may try to stop me but I will keep coming all the same,” Chandol said. “It won’t be easy to stop me. And think. I’m coming to watch Imugi, not your mother. I’m not so hot on watching your mother. Watching your mother isn’t as much fun as….” He realized his tongue had slipped and quickly corrected himself, “I mean, it won’t be any fun to watch a friend’s mother playing with the bengkos. When watching is concerned. …”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this crap.”
“Fine. That’s fine with me. I’ll go home now because I don’t have anything more to say. But you think hard. Because, if you try to stop me from watching Imugi, you will never play with us again. And you may get hurt if you try to stop me.”
Mansik was speechless.
“One more thing, Mansik,” Chandol added. “If you let me watch Imugi, I promise I won’t let anybody else come near that house. Not Toad, not anybody. You think it over and you’ll realize that this is the best deal you can hope for.”
Blankly, Mansik watched Chandol amble away toward the rice mill. Mansik could hear distinctly the sound of the frozen snow crumbling under Chandol’s feet, crunch-crunch, as he disappeared into the moonlit landscape.
SIX
“Peck! Peck him! Kill him!”
Gripping the base of the scarecrow with both hands like the hilt of a wooden sword, Mansik thrust the flat painted face of the dummy toward the rooster again and again. The frightened rooster, one leg tied to the rice mortar, des
perately fluttered, trying to get away.
“Peck here!” he hissed furiously, pointing at the scarecrow’s exaggerated large eyes. Mansik was trying to train the rooster to attack human beings. “Peck here! Here! Right here!”
The rooster fluttered away frantically to the left and then to the right, hopping on one leg, the other leg pulled back taut by the hemp string, shrieking.
Mansik gave up. He leaned the scarecrow against the rabbit’s cage and went over to the sunny stoop. He sat on the edge of the stoop and gazed over the fence at Chandol and Toad and Bong making three snow babies to place around the papa snowman under the ginkgo tree. In the room behind him, Nanhi was playing alone with a spoon and an empty can, beating them together to make noisy music, clack-clack-clack.
Lolling against the stoop, Mansik recalled the short happy days he had enjoyed with the boys after the Autumn War. A treasure hunt for used cartridge shells among the trees and the rocks on General’s Hill on their way to the grave-keeper’s hearse shed, the birds warbling in the groves and the mild late autumn sky high above, the fresh cool breeze on the hill, wild chrysanthemums and mountain lilies blooming along the faint path through the oaks and pines, the excitement of chasing the Castle village boys on the sand, yelling and laughing, yellow and white dust rising on the shore of Cucumber Island, the cheerful jabbering boys…. The old days had returned to him; everything of the old days, and his friends, had all come back to him. He was no longer alone, no longer desolate. Everything was like a dream and that dream instantly shattered when he recalled what Chandol had told him…. But you think hard. Because if you try to stop me from watching Imugi, you will never play with us again. …
Everything was about to change once more. If he tried to stop Chandol, his winter would be solitary. The two months of isolation, of silent tedium, of endless monotony, would return, and loneliness would resume its dominion. He would have nothing to do, nothing at all, except for shuffling back and forth, back and forth in the yard, or squatting on the walnut stump and watching the empty world before him.
