The Old Garden

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  “Recite one, if you still remember.”

  “What . . . ?”

  “One of your poems.”

  “I do remember a few verses. When I was young, my friends and I would drink some rice wine and take bets who could write a better poem. Once, it happened to be raining lightly at the time, so we decided to compose something about that.”

  “Please, go on.”

  “The wind is coming. The air is wet. I call it the spring rain.”

  “Is that it?”

  “There’s one more. I did the first one, the next one is better.”

  “Are they all called ‘The Spring Rain’?”

  “The spring rains. Yet it is not enough to wet the potato field.”

  “So each of you came up with a verse. Not bad.”

  “My friend died early, in a car accident. A poetic sensibility is never enough. Or maybe it never existed. During your adolescence, it is even more mysterious, like a labyrinth.”

  “Why don’t you lie down and talk? My neck hurts.”

  I lay next to her, about a foot away. We remained there, looking at the shadows from the candlelight dance on the ceiling. From the backyard came the sound of bamboo trees rustling in the wind. An owl flew in and howled hauntingly, pausing intermittently, but we could not tell from where.

  I fell asleep while reading Yoon Hee’s notebook, but I was awoken early by sparrows chattering in the bamboo field. As soon as I got up, without knowing why, I put my face against the glass window and looked out. The morning fog had descended everywhere, filling the courtyard. I could not see the tops of the trees. As I was used to doing here now, I took my shirt off and went out to the water faucet in the courtyard. I poured cold water over the top of my head and slowly positioned my back under the faucet. An unbearable chill covered my back and chest. Then I rubbed my torso with a wet towel until I felt heat. As I walked to the main house, the Soonchun lady, watching from her kitchen, gestured to come in.

  “Come inside!”

  In her long, rectangular, Southern-style house, there was a pantry on the left side connected to the kitchen. A narrow porch was attached from the front of the pantry to the other end of the house, and all the rooms were lined up behind it. Next to the pantry was the master bedroom, with the fuel hole for the kitchen underneath it. Next to the master bedroom was a large room with side doors, followed by a children’s bedroom and a study for the man of the house at the end. When he was still alive, the vice principal had me over to the study, to play a game or just to talk. A door on that side opened and the youngest son of the family, the Bunny Boy of the past, came out to the porch.

  “Good morning, come on in.”

  We went into the pantry, each of us offering passage to the other. There was a round table in the pantry already covered with little dishes. The daughter-in-law was helping the mother in the kitchen. The kitchen floor was now covered in tiles, not the bare dirt floor of the past. A sink was installed with running water indoors, and they were using a gas stove. They brought in soup and put cooked rice from an electric rice cooker into little bowls.

  “Hope this suits your palette. You like this soup with dumplings?”

  “Of course I do. You’re still a great cook.”

  “No, I forgot everything, I don’t know how to cook a single dish.”

  I could tell the son was dithering about something, and he finally opened his mouth and whispered so that the women in the kitchen could not hear him.

  “Well, Uncle, someone wants to see you later today.”

  “Who . . . me?”

  “Well, yeah, how should I . . . someone is coming from the police station. He just wants to ask a few questions.”

  I guessed that the son had called the police last night. Perhaps it was the Soonchun lady’s idea. Why wouldn’t they be worried? When I was arrested, Yoon Hee was not the only one here to be interrogated. I am sure the vice principal and his wife had to endure much more than they deserved.

  I was planning to go into town to shop after breakfast, but after hearing the youngest son’s words I decided to stay close to the house and take a walk to kill time. I strolled down to the lower part of Kalmae village. It was too early in the morning for the restaurant and the café to be open, and only the village dogs stirred and barked loudly as I passed. The dirt road that had cut through an orchard full of apple and pear trees had disappeared. Instead I circled the village on a paved road and walked back toward our house, thinking I should hike up the little mountain behind it. An old, black car that hadn’t been washed in a while though it was covered in dirt passed me by and went toward the vice principal’s house. I glanced into the car for a second, and I presumed the man who was looking for me was inside. From a distance I saw a man getting out of the car and climbing the steps to the café Todam. I walked leisurely down the paved road and went up to the café. The youngest son, who was peeking outside through a slightly opened door, met my eyes and smiled. He opened the door a bit further and stood in the doorway.

  “Come inside and have a cup of tea.”

  I climbed up the steps, smiling back. Inside, the walls were covered with traditional rice papers, the lamp shades were made out of bamboo baskets, and the wooden tables were quite rustic. They tried hard to conjure a Korean provincial style, but the window was a huge glass panel, and it just seemed so incongruous. The man was sitting by the window, and he glared at me as I walked in. He could have been simply looking at me, but his eyes were so sharp I got an unpleasant impression. The youngest son gestured toward him with one hand.

  “I told you earlier, right? He is from the police station.”

  The man half rose from his seat. I nodded my head and stood there, not sure what to do.

  “Mr. Oh Hyun Woo, correct? Please, take a seat.”

  The youngest son escaped over to the cash register. I sat in front of a man who looked like a detective. He gave me his card.

  “This neighborhood is my area, so . . . I just have a few questions, for official purposes.”

  He took out a notepad and a pen from inside his jacket.

  “It’s been about ten days since you were released, right?”

  “Almost two weeks.”

  “Released on parole?”

  “No, I finished my sentence. It was reduced while I was inside.”

  The man grinned.

  “Of course. Anyhow, you are now a subject of the Security Observation Law. Did you report to the local police when you arrived?”

  “I did not break any law, so I did not report anywhere.”

  “In fact, you broke the law by not doing anything. It is okay. What is the reason for your visit?”

  “I just wanted to relax.”

  “From what I hear, that house up there is owned by Han Yoon Hee, so what is your relation to her?”

  Inside, I repeated his question to myself and thought about it for a moment. Well, what was our relationship? Like I was in the habit of doing in prison when I was not able to answer a question, I looked up to the ceiling and smiled.

  “She’s not your wife . . . but I heard you were engaged?”

  “Something like that.”

  “How long do you plan to stay here?”

  “Ten days, or maybe a couple of weeks, I think.”

  “And you plan to return to Seoul after that? Naturally, you’ll stop by in Kwangju, no?”

  “No, I’ll go back directly.”

  He put the notebook and the pen back into his inner pocket and cast a glance behind me. The youngest son came over and asked, “What kind of tea would you like?”

  “Well, what do you have?”

  “Quince tea, green tea, citron tea, date tea . . .”

  “How about a cup of date tea?”

  “Uncle, what would you like?”

  I got up from my seat and said to the detective, “I think we’re done here, so if you’ll please excuse me . . .”

  As I turned around and walked away, the man followed me.

&nb
sp; “Look, I know this is awkward. I didn’t want to do this, but my bosses told me I should.”

  “Of course, I understand.”

  I walked up the dirt path leading to our house, swinging my arms. The Soonchun lady’s youngest son followed me, almost running. I guess he was flustered.

  “Uncle, Uncle, just a minute!”

  I turned my head to see him and stopped walking.

  “Actually, I called him last night. My mother was so nervous, so . . .”

  “I’m glad you did.” I had guessed correctly, and I was truly sorry for all their troubles. “I’m so sorry, but this is the situation I have to deal with.”

  His face brightened when I said that. “You are too kind. There was nothing else I could do, we need to make a living. Now you can rest without worrying about anything!”

  I returned to my room. Lying with my head resting on my arms, I decided that I should start cooking for myself from now on. I should go into town to order gas and do some grocery shopping, I thought. No, if I do that today it’ll be too obvious. I should start doing my own cooking tomorrow. The world had not changed that much. I was not completely free, and who knows, maybe there was still something left for me to do.

  I went grocery shopping in the afternoon. I scrubbed and cleaned inside the dust-covered refrigerator and stocked it. I bought rice and ramen noodles, and the propane gas I ordered for the stovetop was delivered and connected. My appetite had been suppressed for such a long time, but now it was back, and I wanted to cook everything I bought myself as soon as possible. But I knew I shouldn’t hurt the feelings of the family in the main house, so I would walk down there tonight and have dinner with them.

  I wanted to be with Yoon Hee again. I opened the notebook. As in her sketchbook, she had written down her thoughts as letters to me.

  Today I went up the hill behind the house. No matter what, I wanted to see what was behind this ordinary mountain. It was so densely covered with thickets and weeds that it was hard to walk through at first, but there was the beginning of a path, as if people walked through there from time to time. Remarkably, it became a lot easier to hike once I got on the path, and I walked up following the natural line of the ridge. By the time I reached what could be called the summit, the sweat had soaked through my T-shirt. There were trees, but not as many as at the bottom, and a few bulging rocks. I looked through the trees and into the distance. It’s not like there was a wide ocean to relieve my heart. There was another narrow valley, and behind it a mountain higher than this one, blocking the view. At the end of the slowly descending ridge on the right, I could just see a newly constructed highway, the one I was pretty sure I had driven on. I knew this, because there was a tributary of a stream running along the road. I sat on a rock to cool myself down. A few steps down was an empty clearing, so I went down to see and found a pretty grave. Well, there is no such thing as a pretty grave, is there? It had been abandoned for such a long time that the mound was flattened, there was no tombstone, not even a mark. The only reason I knew it was a grave was that the land was not as flat, but deflated like an old woman’s breast.8 There were many weeds growing, but nothing like the tall eulalias and scouring rushes and foxtails down below.

  In the grass were little patches of violets and clover. There was a soft breeze blowing from the valley. It was so comforting, and I lay with my back against the grave and whispered, hello. I thought of the grave’s occupant, who was disintegrating only a few feet below. Of the streets and villages he had walked through and of the people he had loved. They say flowers in a cemetery grow with the tears from those who come and cry. That’s a lie. In this peaceful stillness and wind, I find proof there is something good beyond life.

  After coming back from the mountain at night and reading the newspaper, I realize the death I met up there was just my sentimental response, far from the objective reality. I am copying down records from the Spanish Inquisition, strangely familiar.

  Hands and feet cut off from the body. Eyeballs expelled from the head. Ankles detached from the legs. Muscles wrenched from the joints. Dislocated shoulder blades. Arteries inflated, veins popping. Victims are raised up to the ceiling, then crashed down to the floor. Spun around, hung in the air upside down. I saw the torturers whip, beat, break fingers, hang the body high up with heavy weights, tie with rope, brand with sulfur, throw hot oil, singe with fire. When a woman finally confessed after enduring the unendurable tortures, the inquisitor told her, if you are going to deny what you have just confessed, you should do it now. Then I’ll write a report in favor of you. But if you deny the truth in court, you’ll be returned to me, and you’ll receive an even harsher treatment. I can make a stone cry tears.

  My goodness, that was the Middle Ages, but it is the dreary voice you hear so much of here and now. I heard from his sister about the forty-five days he spent in hell. We cannot even face the wild flowers we meet on the mountain, we should be so ashamed. How unfortunate we are.

  Let’s go back to painting. There is no permanent impression in this world. A painting is from the beginning an illusion produced by the one holding the brush. As he recited that spring rain was named by someone. I’m positive a socialist would say the class determines the perception. I’ll never praise a landscape again. A painting is a way of seeing.

  Go your own way, let the others talk!

  Reflected in these words are a determination to transform the world and, in the inverse, a loneliness. And he was never free from the noise of others’ endless chatters. A stubborn exile suffering from poverty and hunger, he went to the libraries and listened to the speakers at Hyde Park. Later, a bald Russian walked back and forth in the same space. But they fared better. So many unfortunate revolutionaries were destroyed under unknown circumstances, crushed like ants under raging feet. But what’s really strange is that although those crushed have left no body, no trace, no memory, the ones who crushed them can never forgive and must keep loathing the dead and any thought related to them. A guilty conscience? No, they’re afraid of themselves. This kind of tenacity lasts as long as anything they inflicted on their victim.

  From now on, we live separately, him inside, me outside. Is there really an inside and an outside? Or is it me who’s inside and he’s the one out? This is my record, a memento of my life. He will have his own in that little room. Years from now when our long parting has ended, how are we going to reckon our own time?

  I know why a hungry thing digs the earth for seemingly no reason, from what I heard about my father’s days in the mountain. Why hungry dogs or wolves or horses aimlessly use their front legs to rake the earth. They have already forgotten how famished they are, but they realize that if they don’t move, they are not alive. I heard many times my father’s story of how he was the only one of three who came down with a fever, how he lay between rocks for a few nights before he was captured. Even later, my father was afraid to look at stars. His eyes were dry as if they were filled with sand and the dark night sky slowly and heavily weighed on him like his fever. Hunger extends time to infinity.

  One day, when he was sick, he said to me, “I could never imagine myself in old age.”

  He also said, “How can you predict November, so far off, when you’ve just taken down the first couple of pages of the calendar?” How could he, as a dying young man, lie next to the corpse of a comrade who slowly expired anonymously, in a place where he knew no one? “You can talk about them and you can think about them, but in the middle of the action, you don’t realize death, prison, and war are anything more than games. Everyday things, like a vase, breaking when it falls from a table. Hey, look over there. What did I tell you, he’s really dying. Old age is like the taste of dried persimmons that remains in your memory after you’ve finished the whole box. Maybe there are a couple left, after all, and you sustain yourself by nibbling on the past.” I told you about my father’s last days, and we grew closer.

  8

  I remember that night. The Saturday we first kissed. On Sun
day we went into town, because we wanted to buy a few things. There was so much we needed, from tableware to pots to bedding. After waiting for the bus for a while at the bridge, we simply began to walk toward the dusty road, each of us taking turns leading the other. A small truck gave us a ride. We sang together until we were able to see the town. I think it was a Russian folk song called “A Sailor’s Farewell” I had taught you, one I learned from my father when I was a child. You sang it first, then I followed.

  Let’s sing a joyous song

  Let’s sing tonight

  For tomorrow we’ll leave the port

  Piercing the early morning fog

  My beloved hometown, but tomorrow to the sea

  Early in the morning on the gunwale

  A familiar blue handkerchief

  You must have been suffocating. For more than two weeks you did not leave Kalmae while I was gone. Watching you enjoy the outing so much, I felt so sorry for you. Your long hair fluttered in the wind. Now there is an agricultural union’s storage house, with ugly cement walls painted yellow, but at the time, at the entrance to the village, do you remember the mill with a thatched roof? There were always mounds and mounds of grain stalks, and it was always so dusty, with grain kernels floating in the air. Behind the mill was a dense forest of reeds and cat-tails, and further behind was a large pool where streams from the mountains gathered before they flowed into the river in the neighboring village. Now it is a reservoir.

  It was not a market day, but there were plenty of people in town. It was the weekend, so working people like me were running errands or going to church. Just like in any other sizable village, there was a public market. Next to it was an empty space with makeshift storefronts for the big market that opened every five days. The public market was small, but there was everything anyone could hope for. There was a hardware store and a housewares store with all sorts of kitchen supplies. And there were a dry goods store, a stationery store, an electrician’s, a general store, a bakery, a rice cake shop, a snack shop, a cotton gin place, a barber shop, a beauty salon, a movie theater, and a public bath. We waved goodbye to each other and walked into the male and female baths. Since I took more time to bathe, you got a much anticipated haircut, too. We had to shop, but we were so hungry. We bought a lot of things, each of us carrying bags in both hands, and looked around by the entrance to the market. Marveling, you once more looked back at the market that we had just left.