The Dwarf (Modern Korean Fiction)

by Cho Se-hui

  It was in the afternoon and Shin-ae’s brother was sitting outside Citizens Hall on a bench where the bronze statue of Admiral Yi Sun-shin was visible. He sat on the fourth bench waiting for his friend. Across from the benches were fifteen public telephone booths. These fifteen booths, with their aluminum frames and polyethylene doors, were numbered 703 to 717. Shin-ae’s brother entered number 712 and called his friend.

  “Are you going to be a while?” he asked.

  His friend said nothing for several seconds.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I’m coming—can you wait a little longer?”

  “Hey, if you can’t leave work now then take your time. If you’re busy we can always meet later.”

  “Just stay put. I ought to see you today.”

  “I’ll wait, then.”

  “Do that.” His friend hung up.

  Shin-ae’s brother emerged from number 712. In spite of himself he looked at the bronze statue of Admiral Yi Sun-shin propping up the oppressive sky of this stifling city. Quickly he looked away. Cunning posterity was torturing the admiral by setting him there in the midst of traffic exhaust. Shin-ae’s brother returned to the fourth bench and waited.

  His friend was carried in on the Saturday afternoon tide of humanity. He sat down beside Shin-ae’s brother. At a glance you would think they were strangers. There was a time, back when they were in college, that they had adopted this posture. They had sat like strangers on a bench outside the faculty center. It was the time when demonstrations—the only way the students could express their views—first became subject to suppression by a well-trained organization and the new machinery of oppression. Some of us have conveniently forgotten, but, yes, there was such a period, a period we lived through. The lips of those who held opposing views were sealed. At the time, Shin-ae’s brother and his friend frequently met with like-minded students to talk. They had decided to write down their thoughts and print them in the school newspaper. Shin-ae’s brother and his friend did the writing. But the copy they had stayed up all night to write was returned to them by the editor himself. To print such crap in a newspaper, he told them, was a terrible crime. And even if he did run it for them, it would cause them great pain. This man was a professor.

  He got straight to the point: “What in God’s name do you guys want? What is it you want? Tell me.”

  “Did you read what we wrote?”

  “Silence!” The editor pounded on his desk. “I know, you’re going to stir up more trouble. Just when we have a semblance of order, you start in again.”

  “That’s incorrect,” the brother’s friend said.

  “Incorrect?”

  “Incorrect.”

  “How so?”

  “There has to be an ending in order to start again.”

  “Now look here,” the editor said, unexpectedly lowering his voice. “What have you cooked up this time?”

  The two young people looked at each other, a bit confused by the subdued tone.

  Hearing no response, the grown-up shouted again: “Chaos!” His voice was very loud now. “All you want is chaos. You yourselves are locking the gates to this university.”

  “That’s true,” said Shin-ae’s brother.

  The professor could only stare at him.

  “We tried to close the gates so they couldn’t get in.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “We can’t post guards.”

  “Get out!” the professor shouted.

  “Please give us our copy,” the brother’s friend said.

  “No way. Not until you tell me your motive for writing this crap.”

  “We thought we should make it known that we have an opposing viewpoint,” said the friend.

  “And you?” the professor asked the brother.

  “The same.”

  “No,” the professor said, indicating the copy. “It’s subversive. And you knew that when you wrote it, didn’t you?”

  “What kind of writing is non-subversive?”

  “You knew it, didn’t you?”

  “We have learned that a country in which we cannot voice an opposing viewpoint is a disaster.”

  “Who said you couldn’t voice an opposing viewpoint?”

  “You know the answer to that, sir.”

  The professor fell silent for a moment. Then he thrust the copy at them, saying, “We can talk and talk but it won’t solve a thing. We’re not the ones who plan and carry things out. The people who do are different. Since you want this copy, I’ll give it back to you. But you shouldn’t resent me for keeping it out of print; instead you ought to be thankful. Print this and nothing would come of it. Here, take it.”

  “Let’s go,” the friend said.

  Outside, Shin-ae’s brother and his friend sadly reread their essay, which was riddled with colored pencil marks where their thoughts had been crossed out. Shin-ae had read it over. It was nothing remarkable. Several times she had laughed inwardly. Her brother and his friend had tried to pour out everything they knew in less than twenty manuscript pages. Their argument was not readily apparent. Even so, the editor had struck out line after line with his colored pencil. “An unseen power is blocking peaceful change”—this passage had been scored so forcefully that several pages had been ripped. The ferocity issuing from the editor’s fingertips was palpable. Suppressing a terrible anger, Shin-ae’s brother and his friend hurried to the women students’ center.

  The pair borrowed the women student association’s mimeograph and stayed up all night at Shin-ae’s house, working in the basement room beneath the veranda as if on a holy mission. Under the light bulb in the corner where the coal briquettes were piled they worked the roller of the mimeograph. The next morning they left without eating. Each of them carried a stack of the newspapers they’d mimeographed. These they distributed among the students. The students recoiled and scurried away.

  “Hey!”

  The pair hadn’t seen the editor approach.

  He told them: “I was hoping you two would get rid of that copy yourselves. And now you’re stabbing me in the back. I won’t say anything else. But you have to realize that kids think differently now. How many of them will actually read this stilted, boring, mimeo stuff? Think they’ll follow you like they did in the last demonstration? Look, do you see any students coming up to you for this ditto-machine stuff? Pick it up and go back to class. Read the situation. The exams that got postponed because of the last demonstration are tomorrow. If you’re going to fight, you need someone to fight against. Who the hell are you two fighting? The sunlight? The moonlight? Shadows maybe?”

  “No,” the brother’s friend said.

  “I didn’t think so,” the editor said.

  “It’s ourselves,” Shin-ae’s brother said.

  The editor smiled. “Let’s leave it at that. All right? Then look around and see who your neighbors are.”

  These were most assuredly the words of a hypocrite. But there was something the editor did see correctly: Even the students who shared the same thoughts as this pair, and who met them frequently to talk, no longer sided with them. Shin-ae smiled in spite of herself when she thought of the two of them as they had been then. Youngsters who had once shouted slogans had since gone into the army. New laws had been passed. The young ones had begun playing poker on campus. They had finally discovered the fun of card games. Shin-ae’s brother and his friend were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seemed only the two of them were left. They couldn’t even talk about their hopes.

  The editor’s observation was correct. But it wasn’t right. After listening to his hypocritical words that morning, Shin-ae’s brother and his friend sat without speaking on the bench outside the faculty center. Under their arms were tucked the newspapers they’d run off on the mimeograph the previous night. As Shin-ae saw it, the two of them were wounded.

  They could not get up from the bench. Quickly, very quickly, Shin-ae’s brother and his friend had to make a decision about
the society in which they lived. The two of them were hungry and sleepy. Still, they thought about their times, their society, and their role. Shin-ae’s brother and his friend had been so serious then.

  “This much is clear,” the friend finally said. “Everybody’s joining one side.”

  “How come?” Shin-ae’s brother asked.

  “That’s what we have to understand. And as they join that side they get paralyzed.”

  “That’s it—paralysis,” said Shin-ae’s brother. He agreed with his friend. His voice grew softer, his eyes distant.

  “Here comes The Bat,” said his friend.

  That was what he called the editor. The editor’s grandfather had worked on behalf of the Japanese when they ruled Korea as their colony. The editor’s father had done similar work. Even now you can go to the library and read in an old newspaper a piece he wrote called “Yi Ki-bung, the Man.” The editor was talking with a student. This was a student who had abandoned the pair some time before. Shin-ae’s brother and his friend had realized too late that the two of them were the only ones left. Their friends with the unusually loud voices had gone in the army, all of them. Shin-ae’s brother and his friend sat silently. At a glance you would think they were strangers.

  It was exactly the same now as they sat on the bench where the bronze statue of Admiral Yi Sun-shin was visible. At first, they didn’t speak. The Saturday afternoon tide of humanity swept past Shin-ae’s brother and his friend. All of the phone booths across from the bench were occupied. The two of them were utterly depressed. There was nothing they could take delight in. They still believed that a lot of people were afflicted with some terminal illness.

  That day the friend spoke after a considerable silence.

  “I’m being threatened and tempted.” His expression had hardened. When he looked up, his face seemed desperately serious.

  “How come?”

  “The Bat.”

  “The Bat?”

  “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  “Isn’t he still at the university?” Shin-ae’s brother sounded alarmed.

  “He’s threatening me.”

  “Where?”

  “Check the newspaper. He’s a big shot.”

  “Shit!”

  Several people waiting at the phone booths turned to look at them. Seeing that nothing had happened, they turned back.

  “Actually, it’s not surprising,” said Shin-ae’s brother. His face was becoming more like his friend’s. “It’s just like him.”

  “For sure.”

  “How is he threatening you, then?”

  “He said he’s going to put me in a position next to him.”

  The friend’s voice was gloomy. Shin-ae’s brother had nothing to say. His friend spoke.

  “I felt like a complete idiot when he called me. Even the department head was surprised; he said, ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ And I went into his office. I must have been the envy of the whole place. But when I was right in front of him in his office with the red carpet, I tried to close off my mind. All I could think of was that this number one big shot, this mister sky-high, was a hypocrite, an opportunist, someone’s lackey who had walked all over us. He was smiling and—get this—he actually shook my hand. ‘I know this is ancient history,’ he says, ‘but I’ve taken you for a fine young man ever since I was at the university—though of course I was well aware of your weak points. But that’s all in the past. Starting next week I want you in the office next door helping me.’ See? I do that, and he’ll pull me up the ladder.”

  For the slightest instant an expression came over his face that Shin-ae’s brother had never seen. “In short, he’s asking me to join his side,” said the friend.

  “He’s thinking how much you’re worth to him if he can use you.” Now it was Shin-ae’s brother speaking. “Any reason why a person who made life so difficult for us at school would change once he gets outside?”

  “Nope.”

  “What do you suppose he wants from you?”

  “Loyalty. Maybe he thinks I’ve got what he doesn’t have.”

  “I don’t get it,” Shin-ae’s brother said. “After all this time you feel tempted by what he says? Why? It’s funny to hear you call it ‘threatening,’ but doesn’t it sound really strange to call it ‘temptation’? If you feel it’s tempting, then who have you been all this time? I know this is ancient history. But nobody forced us to march and shout, nobody forced us to hide, nobody forced us to stay up all night with the mimeograph, right? You wrote that the previous generation wasn’t guilty of setting forth glittering, hypocritical hopes that confused people’s minds in order to cover up their corruption and the unjust distribution of wealth. You wrote that no matter how well a society turns out, for the sake of the next generation it must never lose the voice of criticism and dissent. You’ve always said there’s one thing we really ought to be ashamed of and it isn’t poverty. I just don’t get it. This temptation you speak of—what the hell is it?”

  But it was growing late. The Saturday afternoon tide of humanity gradually swelled. Shin-ae’s brother felt stifled as he sat there. He hadn’t known. He had believed in his friend.

  “It’s strange,” his friend said in a weighty tone. “My thoughts have never really flowered. I feel like they’re withering away.”

  “That’s no good.” Shin-ae’s brother sprang to his feet. “We shouldn’t have started talking at a place like this. Let’s go somewhere else.”

  “Remember how I used to talk about paralysis and all that?”

  “Sure. And you were right.”

  “There were people who said I couldn’t possibly be right.”

  “We need a biochemical product that will work on everyone. We’ll have to make one.”

  “It just makes me nervous, though. I can’t bear it. I was getting threats from my co-workers even before The Bat arrived. The thing that worries me is that I’ll have to behave myself in front of these people. Personally that’s my biggest worry.”

  To Shin-ae, the two of them were still children at that time. That day, the two of them lost themselves in the tide of humanity and descended into a pedestrian underpass. Extricating themselves, they entered Mugyo-dong. There they drank. Drank until they could drink no more. Shin-ae’s brother couldn’t collect his wits. There were a lot of people. Drinking places were the only spots not occupied by their enemies—their last oasis.

  “I can’t forgive,” the friend said. “Drop dead, all of you! Dragged along, paralyzed, can’t see an inch in front of you!”

  In Shin-ae’s view, her brother and his friend had the same innate temperament. But, she thought as she held the railing of the footbridge, who had killed her brother’s friend?

  Her brother’s friend had changed. At first her brother said his friend had knuckled under from exhaustion. But for a long time he hadn’t seen his friend. And even if they were to meet, they had little to talk about now. His friend worked next door to the man who had given them their first wound. He had decided to make no effort to find his lost hopes. He lived in a large house with air conditioning and central heating, a house that lacked for nothing. It looked like one version of paradise. His friend’s paradise was always warm. He had hung expensive paintings there. He would soon have a car for his wife and children.

  But Shin-ae omitted the word happiness from these thoughts. Children age and die so soon, Shin-ae thought as she descended the footbridge steps. They die paralyzed. Her brother’s friend, true to his words at the drinking place, hadn’t forgiven himself.

  Shin-ae found her brother asleep in his hospital bed. As the nurse left she put a finger to her lips. A photo lay beside her brother’s head. His wife had placed it there. In the photo his children were smiling. Little beings, smiling innocently, who weakened people more than anything else.

  Orbital Rotation

  YUN-HO SPENT his third year quietly. December of the second year had been nothing but trouble, as had the following January. If not for his
father, those two months would have passed uneventfully as well. His father had tried to uncover the reason for Yun-ho’s failure in the college prep exam. Yun-ho had said nothing. His score the first year had been 267. The cutoff point that year was 196. His father didn’t know why Yun-ho, having passed by 71 points, proceeded to fail the exam the following year. When he finally found out, he turned pale. He tried to interpret his son’s failure as a form of rebellion. Yun-ho pitied his father for thinking that way. He made no attempt to avoid the beating. His father was angry and he beat his son with a steel cable. For the last few months his father had been looking through old lawbooks from other countries and underlining. Yun-ho knew what his father was doing. The cable with its four strands cleaved the air and coiled about Yun-ho. His older sister had wept aloud. If the secretary hadn’t informed him of the time, the lawyer might very well have left his son’s body with deep wounds. He stopped the beating and went to the hotel. He and his colleagues held important meetings at the hotel. Yun-ho’s sister removed his clothes. His underwear had cut deep into his flesh and was soaked with blood. Night and day for four days Yun-ho bore the pain.

  The fault lay with his father. From the outset he had tried to raise Yun-ho as a member of a completely different class. His superiority complex prodded Yun-ho toward the social science departments at A University. Finally, after two months had passed, Yun-ho’s father asked him what he intended to do. Yun-ho said, as he had in the beginning, that he would study history at B University. Because his grades and test scores as they now stood were sufficient to admit him to B University, he would not take courses at a cram school and wouldn’t consider private tutoring. The thought of cram school courses and private tutors made him want to throw up. It was then that his father’s expectations collapsed. Calmly his father backed off. He was not angry. He must have thought there was no need to burn the remnants of his shattered dream.