The Old Garden

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  I traveled far away and I came back here. But Kalmae has disappeared. I decided to fix the house. Found my old letters high up on a shelf and reread them for a long time. So childish and full of dreams. I was about to throw them into the fire but decided to keep them. Like a passing monsoon, those two people. That young man and young woman do not exist today.

  Can such direct opposites exist? Looked at monographs on Bosch and Bruegel all day. Bosch’s nightmare of a despondent hell and Bruegel’s valiant living human beings. In fact, they are the front and back of the same body. The scene is filled with a vast field, and a cow and a farmer plowing. In the left hand corner is a tiny ocean the size of a palm, and there, I can barely make it out, the two legs of a man who fell headlong into the sea. This is called the Fall of Icarus. Compared to everyday life, the fall of an idealist who flew too high with candle-wax wings is an unremarkable tragedy.

  I walked around the courtyard, stepping on the stones that he’d laid one by one. I stopped and decided to flip one of them. It was repulsive and fascinating. There were three earthworms, a handful of sow bugs, a few clumps of green moss. I even saw deeply embedded in that moist earth the white root of a violet that had stubbornly sprouted under the stone. I regretted disturbing this little universe. I thought of the world a little bit while carefully placing the stone back exactly has it was.

  Art, what the hell. Will never paint again. Meaningless innumerable mistakes. The word “mistake” is quite amusing. In Chinese, it means the tracing of a lost hand. Today, I continue writing the old letter to him.

  I closed Yoon Hee’s sketchbook and finished cleaning the room. I kept thinking I should warm up the room more, so I went out and walked toward the fuel hole. First, I stacked a handful of thin branches and ignited them with a lighter. Like a wriggling little animal, the flame spread to the top. I picked a few thicker branches and broke them. They were stacked over the flame, crossing each other to support a couple of logs on top. They were so dry that they caught easily without emitting too much smoke. I put a couple more logs in. The fuel hole was soon filled with warm yellow light, and the warmth spread to my lower body. I stared blankly at the flame. It looked like the tongue of a live creature, licking the fuel hole and spreading toward the kitchen.

  The first day we arrived here, Yoon Hee did not go back. She started the fire with me in front of this fuel hole. Each of us insisted on starting the fire and finally agreed to do it together. One of us said, Do you know how much fun it is to start a fire? The other said, Who doesn’t know that? And we coughed and cried because of the peppery smoke from the pine tree branches that were still fresh. The smell of smoke, the darkness, so warm, our bodies getting closer.

  There was no electricity at the time, only one candle to light the room. A month after living there, we brought in cables from the main house and installed a fluorescent light. We decided that we liked the candle better. We borrowed two flannel blankets from the owners that first night. The floor was burning up, it was so hot. Each of us took a blanket and slept on opposite sides of the room, maintaining a careful distance from each other.

  After filling up the fuel hole I went back to the room to finish mop-ping. By the time I was done, the sun had set and darkness had fallen. Under the fluorescent light, the paper window was an even paler shade of white, and the glass window darkened to black.

  5

  After dinner I walked down to Todam, the Traditional Tea Salon, run by the youngest son of the Soonchun lady. I became reacquainted with the Bunny Boy, who was now in his thirties. Yoon Hee and I had adored the youngest boy at the main house. We frequently sent him on errands to the village in order to give him pocket money. Yoon Hee nicknamed him the Bunny Boy because his two front teeth protruded and his eyes were so round. It is inevitably disappointing to see someone you knew as a child all grown up. A child has a future full of possibilities, yet there is no shadow of greed. All too soon, however, the childish ingenuity and innocence are gone without a trace. As the face matures, layers of tired guile are added. The Bunny Boy was not shy at all. Instead, he seemed to be guarded or sneering at me, this old man who had returned. When I said how sorry I was to see Kalmae changed so much, he said, quite firmly, that I did not know the reality, that the village needed to be developed further. His wife, the youngest daughter-in-law of the Soonchun lady, only went to village schools and had never lived in a big city, but she still looked like a woman who enjoyed more urban surroundings like Kwangju. They called me Uncle, a small gesture they offered to acknowledge my connection to his parents in the past. As I left, I bought a pack of cigarettes for the first time.

  I opened the packet, pulled out a cigarette, and held it up to my mouth. In prison, on snowy days when the cement wall was covered with water droplets as frost melted and the chill from the bare floor penetrated my knees, I would think of warm sake. I imagined the guard on duty having a psychotic episode and secretly pushing a cup of it through the little slot they put the meals through. I walked into the bathroom and looked at the sky, the heavy snow falling through the tiny window cross-cut with bars. My breath dissipated into the air like cigarette smoke. If only I could have had one shot of sake and one cigarette on nights like that.

  In the middle of the night, I was awoken as the calm valley began to stir slowly with the sounds of the imminent spring. I heard the little stream flowing, the endless sounds of lonely wind grazing the bamboo leaves. Trying to calm my fluttering heart, I found myself sitting in front of a bundle wrapped in cloth, which I had taken down from the shelf.

  In the bundle was something I recognized. Recently, it had become possible to get elegant holiday cards with various designs from the outside world, but for a long time only a limited number of cards of poor quality printing and paper were available to prisoners. This was a card with a picture of a pine tree and a crane. I was certain I sent this to her from the holding cell shortly after I was arrested. I opened the folded card. The thirty-two-year-old me was still in there, frozen in the discolored writing.

  Dear Yoon Hee,

  The first night I came here, I stood on top of a paint can and saw a few bright stars in the empty darkness far away. Or I thought they were stars. The next day I realized that those were lights from the ghetto up on the hill. In the early evening the hill was covered with lights, but close to dawn, they disappeared one by one. There is one over there, and all the way over there another. Eventually I began to wonder why the window would become a star. As a sleepless heart becomes a star, mine would become another.

  There were also a few postcards that I had sent around that time. Perhaps she wrote back to me, but I never received a reply. I did not receive anything until the new president was elected.

  My dearest Yoon Hee,

  The trial is over. I am sure you already heard what the outcome was. They sentenced me to life. It didn’t feel real. When I returned from the court, the chief guard called me. He is a devout Christian, and I am told that he did this not just to me but to murderers who received death sentences. He held my hand and prayed. I don’t remember exactly what he said. After returning to my cell, I read scribbles left on the wall by previous prisoners and began to ponder. There was one phrase, ‘existence is happiness.’ It seemed time was standing still. I slept for two days and nights, but it seemed like the same day. The third night I paced around the whole night and didn’t sleep. I felt like I had no life to live anymore, but then I braced myself with the thought that in order to persevere for a long time I would need to consider this my home.

  I stopped reading my own postcard and thought of Mr. Huh and the young Mr. Choi. Already I could not recall their first names. They were both on death row. Mr. Huh was in his early forties. Since he had been on death row for eight years by the time I got there, I presumed he had begun his sentence when he was around my age. He was in a solitary cell like I was, and our cells were right next to each other. While others washed up in the communal bath, the two of us brought two big barrels of hot water int
o the staff restroom and had a steam bath. Mr. Huh was a big guy with powerful hands, and he knew how to scrub well. He used to soak his lower body in water and quietly chant Buddhist prayers. Every spring Mr. Huh was depressed and withdrawn, rarely talking to anyone. This was because they usually carried out executions when the seasons changed, especially in the new spring after a long winter. A few mornings I saw that his eyes were swollen and bloodshot, perhaps because he cried alone at night worrying about his daughter, who he entrusted to a Buddhist temple before he came in here. I would put on a concerned face and lie, You’ve been waiting for so long, I’m sure you’ll be pardoned. He would contort his expressionless face in an attempt to smile and mumble as if he did not care, I should go soon, I trouble too many people. The young Mr. Choi, who came later, was a smart and gentle guy. His widowed mother visited him often, and encircling his wrist were Buddhist prayer beads, carved out of bo tree, that his mother had made. The reason I cannot forget them is because I found out about their deaths the day before they happened. The chief guard for our block wanted to see me, so I went to his office, skipping my afternoon exercise. He was leaning over his desk, intently reading some papers. Without realizing that I was waiting right behind his back, he did not take his eyes off of them. Inadvertently, over his shoulder, I saw a list of names, among them Mr. Huh and the young Mr. Choi. Sensing someone was behind, the chief hurriedly turned the paper face down and turned his chair around to face me. What is it? I asked casually. Still nervous, he looked around then raised one hand. He made the hand as stiff as a knife and motioned cutting his throat. Quickly understanding, I mouthed the word when? without making a sound, and he mouthed back tomorrow. I returned to my cell and had to witness with the eyes of death the everyday life of two men. After dinner, when we were allowed to visit each other’s cells, the young Mr. Choi asked me the date and hour of my birth. He told me about his own fortune which he’d read in a book. He talked about his old age as it would unfold a few decades from now, whereas I knew he had only a few hours left to live. That memory has been engraved on my heart for a long time. Early the next morning, as soon as the wake up call rang, Mr. Huh began beating his wooden gong and chanted his morning prayers. I got up as well and paced around, whispering the name of Ksitigarbha bodhisattva over and over again. I went out first for my daily exercise; they did theirs right before lunch. Maybe everyone sensed something from the guards, maybe we all have a sixth sense. Everyone, from the old-timers to the petty criminals, was nervous without knowing why, and the entire block sunk into silence. I sat in my cell cross-legged with my back straight. There was no sound, not even the usual greetings we shouted to each other when the meal arrived. They say they feed you first because the well-fed ghost is prettier. As soon as lunch was over, the men with red hats rushed in. It was eerily quiet. They must have gotten Mr. Huh first. I heard him grumbling, Why did you fill me up? It’s going to be ugly. If I knew, I would have had only fruit juice. He paused in front of my door. Mr. Oh, I’m going first. See you again later, but take your time. After he walked away, it was the young Mr. Choi who quietly stood in front of my door. Look, here . . . Take this. And please write a letter to my mother. What he handed me was the prayer beads. I could never forget Mr. Huh and the young Mr. Choi. It was as if they were my family. I understood early on what time meant for a lifer.

  My dearest Yoon Hee,

  I am being transferred to another prison the day after tomorrow. Once I am there I won’t go anywhere else, they say, since I am a lifer. I will stay there for a long time. Don’t be sad. I know I am being cruel, but I have to say that my prison cell will become my coffin. Only immediate family members are allowed to visit and write letters, and what I read will be censored, too. The lawyers said that this affair of our organization was pretty hopeless from the beginning, yet it could be quite useful to paint us as political casualties. I can’t write about it too much, I know it’ll be censored.

  In here, when a woman finds new life, they say she puts her rubber shoes on backwards. That’s what they said when a thief with numerous criminal records came back to the cell with his head down, his face covered with tears and crushed, that his wife put her rubber shoes on backwards. Don’t hate me. I have too many hours to spend in here, so please, Yoon Hee, I want you to turn your shoes around.

  Now I regret that didn’t I stay in Kalmae longer, even only for a few months. Or a few weeks. Even only for one day.

  There were a handful of postcards that I had sent and about twenty notebooks of similar sizes but different paper quality and binding. Each notebook was numbered with a sticker; perhaps she had organized them later. I opened the first notebook.

  It was exactly one year ago that you left. I went through some changes, too. First, I quit school. I am no longer a teacher. I resigned during the last winter break. The school found out that I had provided refuge for you, and it became a big issue all the way up to the ministry of education. I have become your common-law wife. The police did not treat me too roughly. But because of my father’s past, they wanted a thorough interrogation, which lasted fifteen days. I have decided that I do not want to do anything here, just rest for a while, then apply to graduate schools. I will need to do something to dissipate the eternity. One half of this notebook was written while I was living here alone. The latter half was written much later, when I was visiting Kalmae twice a year, summer and winter.

  Like a preface, this was written on the first page. She must have written it after she finished this notebook.

  A woman I knew from my university sent word that someone connected to the Kwangju Incident would come see me. How unlucky I was. Nothing ever happened when I breezily passed through the southern provinces before. I graduated and took the exam to become a teacher. I found a job, and it wasn’t easy, and all of sudden I had this responsibility. Not just any but an enormous responsibility that put me at risk. If I hadn’t stopped by her studio in Seoul, if I hadn’t copied the videotape from the priest, if I hadn’t been in the Cholla province during the massacre, I would have been able to live through this age effortlessly. I had no luck. But when was I ever lucky? As long as I was my mother’s daughter, there is no way I could be lucky.

  When I first met you at the Hometown Café, I was nervous because it was right in front of the police station. But the lighting was so bad in there, I did not get to see your face clearly. Only after we moved to the pub near the market was I able to really look at you. I already knew your name but you came up with such an obviously fake name that I had to suppress my laughter. My first impression was that you reminded me of my father in his youth. Of course, I was not born when he was a young man, I mean the portrait I painted of him based on his photos and what my mother had told us. At first, I could not tell you the story of my father. I vaguely referred to him as someone wounded by history. I still cherish two photos that capture his youth. One was taken when he was studying in Tokyo, and he is wearing a college cap and gown. Everyone in those old, discolored photos looks so mature and illustrious, don’t they? He would probably have finished Kant and Hegel or maybe Feuerbach, and around the time the photo was taken he had begun Engels and Marx. He would have found paperbacks of Capital and The Communist Manifesto at the used bookstores in Kanda.

  The other one is the picture in question, taken during his stagnant period just after the October insurrection in Daegu in 1945. Men usually had short hair at the time, but my father has long hair parted in the middle, a symbol of intellectuals, and he is wearing what looks like the uniform from the Japanese occupation period, buttoned all the way up his neck. According to my mother, he was not able to return home for about eighteen months at that time. So he took the picture at a photographer’s studio in an unknown city where he was active and sent it home around New Year’s Day. I was not yet born, but my older brother was. I do not know what he looks like, he died at the age of five in the countryside. Later, my father would cry out his name when he got drunk. In this photo, my father looks like a professi
onal revolutionary from Russia or Ireland, his cheeks shallow and his eyes blazing intensely. That was the end of his youth. After he took that picture he was arrested, then he escaped and went into the mountains. Naturally, I found all this out many years later.

  I guess it is natural that I somehow saw in your face my young father. I grew up hating him, and later I hated myself for that and became reconciled with him. Remarkably, I got to understand him perfectly while I nursed him as he was dying of liver cancer. In your face, I saw what was imprinted in the face of my father, photographed in a studio—in a setting that looks like a makeshift stage with curtains and white fences and a window and a painted background of a gas lamp and the moon—in an unfamiliar city; the youthful hunger and the determined heroism, something like a fever. I do not know why, but just like you have said, the classic activists have an air of a consumptive or a rejected writer. Why can’t they look like a practical engineer or a professional, a doctor or something like that? Ah, I’m sorry, I am not being cynical. What I mean is that I felt close to you that way.

  When we first went to Kalmae, I actually had no plans to move there. In an old-fashioned agricultural community, a female teacher cannot live as openly with a man without a job or known history. But if we were not so explicit, who would believe our story? The first night, we started the fire together. The kitchen fireplace was so warm and cozy. Without realizing, I found I was humming. The melody came from a song my father sang while in the mountains. You were quietly watching the fire and said to me, “Miss Hahn, I am a socialist.”