From Wonso Pond

by Kang Kyong-ae

  From the factory floor came the loud noise of the machinery. It was then that Kannan finally mustered the sort of do-or-die determination that was almost too much for her to bear. In a breath she had dashed outside, and began skirting the base of the wall in search of a hole. No matter how much she searched, however, her fingers felt nothing but cold bricks. Not even the tiniest of holes was she able to find. There were a few drainage vents at the base of the wall, but nothing else. She might be able to fit her hand through one of them, but of course a whole person would be unable to pass through. And since these vents were quite conspicuous to anyone’s eye, it would be highly dangerous to make contact with somebody by means of them. On the other hand, it might very well be precisely these obvious vents that would be easy for others to overlook. After mulling it over for a while, Kannan decided to spend a few more days looking for an appropriate place, and then later come to a final decision. She made her way back inside, just as the clock in the lecture hall was striking three. When she slipped back under her covers, Sonbi rolled over onto her side.

  “Did you go somewhere?”

  “Yes. You’re not asleep yet?”

  “No, I fell asleep all right . . . But then I woke up and noticed you were gone.”

  “I just went the toilet.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sonbi. Did you believe everything the supervisor was saying earlier?”

  Sonbi didn’t know how she should answer under the circumstances, and she hesitated for a moment.

  “Why are you asking me that all of a sudden?”

  “I don’t know . . . I was just wondering if what he said is really true.”

  “How am I supposed to know that . . .”

  “Sonbi! You’ve got to make a point of knowing about it. Just think about it, here they are making us work, sometimes all through the night, and all they give us to eat is this imported rice. They’re trying to pull the wool over our eyes with all this sweet talk about savings and bank accounts, but the fact is that they’re just trying to make sure that we never see a single coin of our own money. They’re only interested in getting as much work out of us as possible, even if it kills us. All this talk about protecting the girls’ future by keeping them from going outside, and about distributing daily goods to us at discounted prices—I’m telling you it’s in the interest of their profit margin alone that they’re setting up all these regulations. And what about all this garbage about picnics and night school, and keeping our bodies fit by giving us a chance to exercise? I mean, it’s complete nonsense, a total sham, meant to get as much out of us as possible . . .”

  Sonbi couldn’t understand why Kannan was going on like this. If she’d already known so much, well, they shouldn’t have come to the factory in the first place. And, besides, they’d only just moved here from Seoul—why in the world was Kannan complaining like this when they’d hardly been there for a single day?

  “Sonbi! I’m telling you, the supervisors who put us to work and all those people behind them—they’re hundreds and thousands of times more frightening than Tokho.”

  Kannan wanted to tell Sonbi about the girl who had just snuck her way into the duty room, but she thought it better to wait a while before telling her too much. Sonbi herself had felt uneasy, even quite terrified of looking up at the tiger-like boss with that turned-up moustache, especially when he smiled at her with those ogling eyes. So when she heard Kannan mention him now, she could hardly keep the image of those his eyes out of her mind. She imagined the supervisor turning into Tokho, which almost plunged her into despair.

  “Oh, Sonbi! You don’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, do you? Well, you’ll figure it out soon enough.”

  As Kannan spoke to Sonbi, she wrapped her arm around her waist and embraced her. Then she thought again about the girl who’d just snuck into the duty room.

  97

  Several days later Kannan tied a straw rope to the end of a long stick and pushed it through one of the drainage vents at the base of the wall behind the factory.

  From then on, whenever the girls woke up in the morning, they found funny scraps of paper under their bedding and in the corners of their rooms. What the scraps of paper had scribbled on them, in easy-to-understand words, was a commentary on each point the supervisor had lectured on during night school the day before.

  Each time they found a scrap of paper, the girls huddled together and read over it with delight.

  “Girls, I don’t know who put this note in here, but it sure does make sense! If the supervisor said that he was going to give out twenty chon a day in bonuses, why is it that no one’s gotten any yet? That’s nothing but lip service!” These were the words of one of the factory girls lying in bed in Room No. 4 on the top floor of the dormitory.

  “That’s right. I mean, Hyeyong is really good at her job, right? But from what I hear, she’s never even once gotten a bonus . . . Why do you think they’re telling us all these lies?”

  “You know that new girl over in Room No. 7, the real pretty one? I heard she got a bonus alright.”

  “Someone actually got one?” asked another girl who was always laughing. “Who?”

  “Shhh, someone will hear! Speak softer, will you?”

  The girl who was always laughing giggled, stuck her hand beneath the covers, and poked the girl next to her.

  “Who’s going to hear us at this time of night?”

  “Think about it! The supervisor makes rounds every night. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Oh, who cares if he make his rounds! How could anyone outside hear what we say under the covers? Anyway, who is this girl? Do you mean the cute one who just got here?

  In the dormitory they always called Sonbi the cute one.

  “Hey, so listen. Hyeyong was just telling me something. . . You know the new girl who sits just opposite of her? Well, Hyesong says the supervisor keeps standing right in front of her with a big smile on his face! Can you imagine? I can’t stand the sight of him! He used to do the same thing to Yongnyo too, didn’t he?”

  “Hmph! Well, this new girl is much prettier than Yongnyo. She’s really beautiful! If I was a man, I’d fall head over heels for her. Those eyes, and that nose—just take a good look at her sometime.”

  “Oh, what’s so pretty about her? Have you seen her hands? I get the creeps just looking at them,” chimed in a girl who was hard of hearing.

  “Hey, deaf ears! You actually heard something . . . Hee-hee. . .Well, look at these hands here!” The laughing girl grabbed the hands of the girl hard of hearing. She’d been listening to them with her hands cupped behind her ears.

  “Oh, stop laughing. I don’t see what’s so funny,” said another girl, lying between them, who now put her hand over the mouth of the girl always laughing.

  “Okay, Hyosun. Who do you think is leaving these notes in our room? They might have notes in other rooms, too, for all we know . . . I’ll bet one of the girls here in the dorm is behind it all. In fact, I’m sure of it. In any case, what if all the factory girls got together like these notes say to do, and then . . .”

  The girl who was hard of hearing went as far as this, but then seemed to be overcome with emotion. She pushed her bedding a bit and tried to catch her breath.

  “Oh, don’t start with that again. I used to work in a caramel factory in Seoul, you know, and our damn supervisor treated us cruelly, and hardly ever gave us our wages. So they tried to organize us all to strike, right? But some of the girls switched sides and ratted on us to the supervisor. And then what happened? He kicked almost everyone out of the factory. Somehow I was lucky and didn’t get fired, but I hated that guy so much I couldn’t stand it any longer, and got out. That’s just how it is.”

  “Well, it’s those snitches we’ve got to get rid of ! You know the whole bunch of them are sleeping with the supers anyway . . .”

  “Think about it. Here they are working us to death, and we don’t even get to hold onto our own money. I mean, just look at us n
ow! Our parents spoiled us as kids so so we could end up like this? I came within an inch of getting my hand ripped off by one of those reels today. Before we got here, who’d ever have dreamt it would be this bad?”

  She put her hand to her cheek and then shuddered. She could almost see all the reels, still spinning furiously, in front of her.

  “I wish I could talk to the person who planted these notes here! How about we keep watch?”

  “Yeah, but what happens if it turns out to be some man we don’t know?”

  All of a sudden they felt a sense of shame and horror that sent a tingle across their breasts.

  “Oh, now I’m scared!”

  Instinctively they snuggled closer into each other’s arms.

  98

  The workmen were shoveling stones into iron-mesh bags to build an embankment into the middle of the sea, while on the opposite side of it others were carrying dirt to dump into the marsh land. Ch’otchae, too, mingled among them, carrying a load of dirt on his back. As he worked, he thought about his discussion with Sinch’ol the previous night, when they’d talked about organizing the day laborers.

  Ever since meeting Sinch’ol, Ch’otchae felt that there was nothing anymore that he didn’t understand about the world. Everything that had puzzled him, immobilized him for half his lifetime, he could now understand clearly, as clearly as he saw this newly built road spread out before him. Even the path his life would take in the future now seemed as clear and as smooth as the newly built road. His once heavy heart was filled with a hope as bright as the sunshine that shone off the sea.

  “Hey, man, take a look at that! Today must be a holiday, with all those students out here!”

  Ch’otchae quickly looked back. Several hundred schoolgirls were walking toward them in a single file. He then remembered what Sinch’ol had told him the day before, after getting the report from the Taedong Spinning Mill. Maybe they’re actually factory girls. They’d been given new shoes to wear for some outing to a shrine, hadn’t they? he remembered, as he plodded off once again.

  “All right, get back to work. And stop staring!”

  Startled by the voice of their foreman, the workmen stooped over again to carry their loads.

  “Holy shit! They’re all chicks.”

  “Well, why don’t you go fetch one for yourself and run off with her.” One of them laughed out loud.

  The men shot glances at each other and joked around as they caught sight of the passing procession. The girls were dressed alike in black skirts and white blouses, and they even had black shoes. As Ch’otchae made his way along, groaning under the burden of his load of dirt, he kept looking over at the procession with an indescribable pleasure, and wondering if they might really be factory girls. Then Ch’otchae’s eyes met with those of one of the girls. He staggered back in surprise.

  “Sonbi?”

  The woman he was staring at shot him a look of surprise. She froze in her tracks before slowly walking forward again, swept along by the others in line. Ch’otchae wanted to throw off his load of dirt and follow her in order to find out if she was really Sonbi. It had been so long since he’d seen her, he couldn’t be quite sure. Before he was even conscious of it, his feet had taken several steps in her direction.

  “Hey, you! Get the hell back to work!”

  Ch’otchae tried his best to hold back the unbearable sadness rising within him, and when he looked back at his boss, he could feel his heart pounding. Slowly he retraced his steps. Sonbi? But how could she have gotten here? Did Tokho send her to school? But why would he do that? And who knows what could have happened to her? She’s so pretty, maybe sending her to school is Tokho’s way of getting her to like him. No, that can’t be it! I mean, but hell, what else could it be? She’s got to be married by now anyway . . . With this, Ch’otchae took another look over at the girls. He remembered what Sinch’ol had told him last night, and realized that, indeed, these must be the factory girls from the spinning mill. Maybe Sonbi was working at the mill! All sorts of thoughts now raced through Ch’otchae’s mind. He made his way to the marsh land, dumped his dirt, and when he looked up again, the procession of girls, now just a line of black dots in the distance, was disappearing into the gateway to Wolmido. Sonbi? A factory girl? Could they really all be factory girls? Well, let’s just wait and see! They might pass by again on their way back, for all I know . . . Judging from the way they were dressed, they hadn’t seemed a bit like factory girls to Ch’otchae.

  As he gazed out at the red roof of the salt bath on Wolmido, in plain view on the other side of the marsh, two questions kept circling his mind. Were they factory girls? And was that really Sonbi? He kept his eyes peeled just in case the procession passed by again on the way back.

  “Hey, man, snap out of it. You see a few factory girls and you get that worked up?”

  “Factory girls? Do you know for sure they’re factory girls?”

  “What, are you crazy? Of course they’re factory girls. What the hell else are they?”

  “So they’re not students going to school?”

  “Hell, man! You have your head in the clouds? Known throughout all of Inch’on for his treachery, the tiger boss with the twisted moustache—he just passed by, and you missed him?”

  Ch’otchae listened to the man, then he looked over at Wolmido once again. Factory girls . . . Now that he knew they were factory girls, he was certain that the woman who’d caught his attention was indeed Sonbi.

  “Shit, you’re smitten, aren’t ya? Hah, ha . . . But you need some of this, you know.”

  His buddy made the sign of a coin with his fingers. As Ch’otchae strapped his load of dirt onto his back and then rose to his feet with a grunt, he looked into the distance at the smokestack of the Taedong Spinning Mill. From the top of it, as always, streamed out puff after puff of thick, black smoke.

  99

  That smokestack! Rising up into the air as though it was about to pierce the sky . . . Staring at it was enough to make Ch’otchae feel dizzy. He had worked there almost every day as a laborer while the mill was being built. When they’d put up the main building of the factory itself, he hadn’t thought the work very dangerous. But as he recalled carrying up all those bricks to construct the smokestack, he felt dizzy even now, and everything seemed to spin in a circle around him.

  Making his way up those rickety wooden ramps with three dozen bricks on his back, he’d been in a constant state of fear that the planks might collapse. When he looked down to the ground hundreds of feet below him, he felt like he was staring into a deep pool that was spinning round and round. He could feel his legs trembling beneath him and every hair on his head stood up on end. And even after he managed to pull himself together, he had only to start climbing once again to feel the smokestack swaying back and forth. Perhaps it was simply an effect of the perceived danger, but the higher up the smokestack he climbed, the more clearly he could actually see it sway. And each time he thought he saw it move, he was convinced that it was on the verge of collapse, and that he, too, was going to tumble to his death.

  Knowing full well the danger involved, Ch’otchae never failed to climb up that wooden path each morning. And each time he did, he’d think, Oh, no, I’ve done it again!

  As Ch’otchae recalled climbing the stairs, he froze in his tracks without realizing it—it was as though he had just climbed to the top of the smokestack. The dirt on his back felt the same as a load of bricks, and the sweat streamed down his lower back. His arms and legs started to tremble, and only after taking a good look around him and closing his eyes for a moment did he finally manage to bring himself to his senses. He realized that he’d probably never be able to get this smokestack out of his mind, not until the day he died. Oh, that terrifying smokestack! He was so sick and tired of seeing it in his dreams. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d had nightmares of falling from the top of it. How many of my friends have fallen to their deaths! How many of us have given our lives to these people—have no ot
her choice but to wager our very lives for the sake of a single day’s pay!

  Ch’otchae’s thoughts drifted again to the factory girls, and to Sonbi. He’d had a picture of Sonbi in his head all day long. He made it back to the streets of Inch’on quite late after he’d finished work. By the time he entered the soup shop, his buddies were already back from the labor market, eating their meals and drinking makkolli as they whiled away their time joking amongst themselves. Nothing was more comforting than this soup shop for these men. It gave them the chance to hang out with friends with a good buzz off the rice wine.

  Ch’otchae had a cup of makkolli and then downed a bubbling hot bowl of soup almost in a single gulp. He stole a few glances around the room, very carefully, so as to escape any notice. Ever since he met Sinch’ol, he always worried that there might be a spy or two lurking in these places where so many people gathered. Outside, the same sort of thought would invariably cross his mind when he saw a man in a suit or someone particularly well dressed. In any case, it had come to the point where, besides Sinch’ol and a few buddies of his who worked at the docks, Ch’otchae looked at almost everyone with suspicion.

  Only after checking out the shop for a while did he feel enough at ease to enter the inner room. He wanted to sleep a while in the heated room that was available to the shop’s clients before heading back to his own place. It was boiling hot inside the room, and the stench of booze was almost as thick as smoke. He went to the warmest part of the floor and found a wooden pillow to rest his head on, but as soon as he lay down, that long line of factory girls came into his mind, followed by an image of Sonbi. Just then, he heard one of his buddies come in from outside shouting.