The Old Garden

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  “Oh Hyun Woo is doing very well in here. He seems to be quite healthy, no illness of any sort. Last summer, he began cultivating a vegetable garden in the backyard.”

  “What kind of vegetables?”

  “Well, it’s not that big. Little bit of lettuce, little bit of sesame plant, peppers . . .”

  “He likes doing that sort of thing.”

  I did not know when he would stop talking, so I spoke quickly.

  “Did he plant the seeds?”

  “We planted lettuce and cabbage, but we got the seedlings for other plants from the nursery last spring.”

  “Did he grow them well?”

  “They looked great,” he said proudly. “Some inmates are selected to work at the greenhouse, where they can grow flowers. Of course, this is only allowed to model prisoners. A model prisoner gets extended exercise hours and also gets to work, so it’s better for his health as well. Moreover, the time passes more quickly, and visitation rights are extended, too.”

  “What does he do for exercise?”

  “He seems to either run or walk. After all, he spends so much time alone. Once you become a model prisoner, then you have access to various exercise equipment and that sort of thing.”

  Only then I realized the focus of the whole conversation had been the words “a model prisoner.”

  “How long does it take to become a model prisoner?”

  “It depends. For ordinary prisoners, there’s a series of steps they can take. In most cases it is possible for them to reach that status once they finish two-thirds of their sentence without reprimand. As for national security law offenders . . . There are no steps they can take, so what really matters is the conversion.”

  “A conversion?”

  He nodded slowly and talked confidently.

  “Yes. He can sign a paper recording his intention to denounce his past ideology and accept the new one.”

  I stared at him, not knowing how to respond. Suddenly, I thought of my father. Without realizing, my voice was getting louder.

  “Who can interfere with what goes on inside his head? And doesn’t that mean he has to admit his beliefs are against the law?”

  “In other words, he should believe in freedom and the democracy of . . .”

  “Doesn’t a free democratic society means you can think and express things freely?”

  “Well, that’s enough. I have other matters to attend to.”

  I sprang up from the chair as quickly as he did, and I suddenly realized I was practically screaming. And I still had to leave you in there. On the spur of the moment, I bowed down deeply to him.

  “Please, take good care of him.”

  He accepted it with a simple nod and pointed to the door. I left the room, unable to look back. I walked to the front gate and exchanged my visitor’s badge for my ID card, then slowly walked down the newly paved road lined with poplar trees. I turned around and saw that the tall white wall was not so high anymore.

  Up close, I had not seen the actual prison buildings, but now I saw them, lined up the hill like a staircase. When walking toward the building I hadn’t noticed them, but now I saw little windows on the prison building and iron bars in front of them. I turned around and stood there idly, wondering if you were watching me. I heard the faint sound of a whistle blowing and someone barking orders. The black windows against the white wall looked like a pretty harmonica. But if I blew on it, only low, somber notes would come out. Or maybe they looked like the eyes of some sort of insect. And when I looked really closely, I realized that there were other colors, too!

  They were clothes on the prisoners’ laundry line.

  The white wall seemed so lifeless, but there were washed clothes drying, evidence of lives. On the surface of what appeared to be empty cement buildings, multicolored laundry was flapping in the wind. There were more whistles and orders, followed by the clear sound of iron gates opening and closing, and a little later I saw human bodies moving past the windows. An arm or a pair of hands appeared at each window, collecting the dried clothes. Only then did I turn around and start walking. I did not want to look at those windows anymore.

  I went back to the small city to take the bus. People, free to move around like I was, were crossing the street and going in and out of stores and greeting each other, so happy, yet to me the scene was mechanical and empty. It was as if I were watching a movie on videotape with the sound muted.

  As I got back on the express bus to Seoul, I thought about you. I was thinking about our days in Kalmae, starting from the beginning. I thought that now I had no choice but to live my own life. And that I should do whatever I could for my art, even if that meant making my fingertips bleed. I decided I was going to walk that road all by myself, boldly. And I needed to figure out what kind of person I would be when I stood in front of you, sometime in the future.

  The moon was not quite full. It stayed in my bus window for a while. Once in a while, we passed through small clusters of houses with bright windows. Under the moonlight, the empty roads in the little villages and the mountains and forests seemed even quieter and more lonely.

  I decided to return to myself from that point on. Please, I pray that you never get sick or give up. Maybe one day, if I am reminded of it, I will go back to Kalmae, but I don’t know. Maybe we will be utterly defeated in this battle. But so what? What the hell, I’ll still look up to the sky even if I have fallen to the ground. I hope there is a thin line of afterglow remaining in one corner of the sky. Just like that dreadful, scary thing called hope that remains, no matter how small. Goodbye. Please, do not anticipate some sort of salvation within your gloomy, dark solitude.

  17

  I was taking a break after dinner. I had put a record on, and I was lying down in the small bedroom attached to my studio, leaning on a pillow with my legs stretched out in front of me, when I heard someone come in. He had called earlier, so I knew it was Young Tae.

  “I thought no one was here.”

  He was peering into the room, still standing outside. I acted as if it was too difficult for me to sit up.

  “Did something happen? Why are you acting like a pregnant woman?”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  Young Tae sat down on the threshold.

  “So did you go visit the prison?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Jung Hee mentioned something,” he said, feigning indifference. “Did you see him?”

  “I couldn’t, because I’m not a family member and I was implicated in the same case.”

  He remained silent for a little while.

  “What the hell, we should get Hyun Woo out of there,” he mumbled.

  “How can we get a lifer out of prison?”

  “That’s why we have to overthrow this dictatorial government.”

  It was a line I had heard hundreds of times, and I did not say a word.

  “So you came back with nothing. And that’s why you’re so down, is it?”

  “No, it’s because I ate dinner and I’m full. Look, just leave me alone, okay? And your cronies, where are they? Are they coming or not?”

  “They’ll be here soon.”

  “Fine, then I’m going to sleep in here, and you can wake me up when you’re done, okay?”

  I pushed Young Tae away and shut the sliding glass door. It was probably around eight at night when I began to hear people talking and pushing chairs and gathering in the next room. I guessed there were about twenty in there as they exchanged greetings. I heard Song Young Tae’s voice.

  “The reason we’re gathered here tonight is to examine various problems we had during the first half of the year and to institute a set of tasks we need to achieve in the second half. First, I’d like to ask the preparation committee to analyze our current situation.”

  As if he had been waiting for that moment, a man jumped in, talking fast and without hesitation.

  “Since the end of last year, the current administration had changed its course from abs
olute oppression to what they now call ‘harmony with the people,’ placating the citizens with education reforms. Our enemy is currently strong and we’re weak, yet we were not able to see clearly why this placation is happening. Our so-called leadership committee came to a passive and defeatist conclusion that it was a trap, and that therefore we had to be circumspect in expanding our activities. In other words, we were hanging onto the education reform issue without the participation of the masses. As a member of the leadership committee, I should criticize myself first. The kind of system we have run excluded the opinions of the masses and therefore reduced space for the expansion and survival capacity of the voluntary movement. Though unknown to the enemy and working outside of the system, we needed to have constructed a centrifugal, representative student organization independently and to have simultaneously fought against the Student National Defense Corps in order to exhibit the fallacies of the liberation policy and their rhetoric of appeasement. In fact, the current appeasement is an external gesture to restore whatever legitimacy has remained since the Kwangju massacre, a palliative to avoid the politico-economic crisis evident in the nationwide bankruptcy due to 1.5 trillion foreign debt and the complete opening of the country to foreign investment last summer. But this crisis also gives us a chance to build a foundation to overcome the military dictatorship, not just from within colleges, but also in society at large. Therefore, it is essential to strengthen the departmental activities, which will become the nuclei of the mass student movement, and to utilize a large-character poster and pamphleteering strategy, which should center on students as active agents of propaganda. After taking over the mass student organizations, we should organize intra-collegiate resistance using this open space. Such allied action can maximize the political resistance in society and improve the movement capacity for what are currently relatively weakly mobilized universities.”

  Another, thicker, voice continued, “I agree that it is very important to obtain open democratization space in colleges and universities, and it is crucial to position resources externally, in order to mobilize the masses, who are the heart of any resistance movement. In order to reveal to them that it is the dictatorship that oppresses them and threatens their very survival, we need a framework of joint resistance for the protection of their rights.”

  A clear and high-pitched voice chimed in. “The Student Association has been restored, as expected, through the vibrant participation of our fellow students. We have debated the vanguard, or masses, issue since the late Restoration period. In fact, it should not be taken as a dichotomy, but as two sides of the same coin. It is important to cater to the mass consciousness and to mobilize them according to political contingencies, but we should be careful not to aimlessly follow or indulge them. It is necessary for us, the vanguard, to show them exemplary resistance, and therefore lead them. Without this combination, the motor of the democratization movement will not be started.”

  Song Young Tae’s voice returned. “The blind spot of the closed leadership was that it tried to base the reconstruction of the organization on small groups within the universities. If the Student Association is to execute the everyday resistance that will mobilize the student masses, then the organization and activities of the vanguard must clearly exhibit the ideology and the purpose of a resistance movement in society. Therefore, I hereby propose a constitution for the organization that will fulfill these goals. As has become clear in the first half of the year, it is necessary to constitute an organization that can execute democratization as political resistance, and a permanent agency to coordinate the worker-student joint resistance.”

  The quieter, slower voice returned. “While we called ourselves the leaders, all we’ve been doing is controlling the Student Association and dealing with internal conflict. We have not even attempted to tackle the problems facing the whole nation, the whole of society; we’ve been confined within fences. Who placed whom in this position of leadership, which is illogical, and made them unable to set an example of self-sacrifice? We need to condemn this system of closed leadership and start all over again.”

  A female voice spoke, and sounded hoarse. “The organization is reborn again and becomes stronger through its struggles. We need to overcome our passivity and factionalism and regroup again. Furthermore, we should set up short-term goals that relate to specific situations, and for each instance reunite and redistribute in order to carry out our tasks. Our fight against the dictatorship needs to become a daily activity. I propose we begin with a committee which will eventually become a coalition.”

  The meeting went on and on, the discussions were endless, and I must have fallen asleep, because I only woke up when I heard the glass sliding door to my bedroom being pushed open. Song sat on the threshold like he had done before.

  “I don’t think you would notice if someone carried you outside. It’s not springtime yet, how come you’re so sluggish?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I was tired. I feel much better now.”

  “Why don’t you come on out?”

  I walked into the brightly lit studio. No one was there, but every fluorescent light in the ceiling was turned on. I hated that gloomy lighting, and the first thing I did after my students left was turn them off, leaving only the desk lamp on the table and the standing light in front of my record player. I quickly turned off the fluorescent lights. The studio was not completely clean, but it seemed to be neat. I took out a cigarette from Song Young Tae’s pack, looked for an ashtray, and found an already emptied one. I looked around and realized someone had cleared off the table and had folded and stacked chairs neatly in a corner.

  “Not bad. You cleaned up after yourselves,” I said, lighting the cigarette

  “Well we can’t inconvenience the civilians too much, can we?”

  “You sound like a warrior fighting for our independence, back in the ’40s.”

  “Of course they left a mess. We cleaned up.”

  “We . . . ?”

  “Yeah, she’ll be back soon.”

  Before he finished his sentence, we both heard footsteps on the stairs. Her steps sounded quite purposeful, with her heels stamping forcefully. The door opened and someone came in. At first, with the studio lit and the doorway in darkness, all I could see was a silhouette. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and she had bobbed hair. She put down plastic shopping bags on the table in front of us and tousled her wet hair with her fingers.

  “What, it’s raining outside?” said Song Young Tae.

  “The fall rain keeps coming down quietly,” she sang, tousling her hair.

  I got up without a word, found a dry towel in a drawer, and handed it to her. She smiled as she accepted it.

  “So sorry to inconvenience you so much. Thank you.”

  They even talked the same way? She nodded her head amiably and began talking to me.

  “My name is Chae Mi Kyung. I went to the same school as Mr. Song over there, years later of course.”

  Her complexion was dark, her face round with thick eyebrows. She had big, dark eyes that twinkled with mischief. She looked like someone from Southeast Asia. It seemed like she knew who I was in a deeper way than just knowing that this was my place, so I just smiled back at her. I directed my praise for her effort to Song Young Tae.

  “So, the perpetrator of this cleanup must have been Miss Chae?”

  “Yes, well, I just picked up some cigarette butts and swept the floor and emptied the ashtray, that’s about it. By the way, is it okay if I boil some water?”

  “What, would you like some tea?”

  “No, the truth is we haven’t had dinner yet. I thought maybe I could cook some ramen noodles.”

  Only then did it occur to me to open the plastic bags and look inside. There were a couple of eggs, a few bags of nuts and other snacks, two bottles of soju, a few paper cups, and five bags of spicy ramen noodles. She snatched the bags from my hand.

  “You want me to cook them for you?” I said, a l
ittle embarrassed.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll do it! I’ve been cooking for myself for so long, I know exactly when to stop cooking, so it tastes the best. Young Tae, what number do you want?”

  “I’d be grateful for just number one.”

  “Here we go. Number one is ramen cooked in just water and spices. Number two has an egg added to it. And number three has chopped scallions.”

  Song Young Tae seemed to be enjoying bantering with Chae Mi Kyung tremendously. He was grinning as he waited for the next chance to butt in.

  “And what’s next? Please continue.”

  “Do not try to confuse me! The next is the special. Yes. Some chopped kimchi is added to all the above.”

  “Jesus, my mouth is watering. I don’t need theories, I want real food!”

  As I got up from my chair, Song Young Tae grabbed my arm and winked at me.

  “Let her do it.”

  “I was just going to get some kimchi out of the refrigerator.”

  “I think she already knows where everything is.”

  “How?”

  “She looked around while you were sleeping.”

  She was more brazen than Song! Still, I liked her immediately. I liked her brisk manners, and I liked that she was vivacious and honest. While she busied herself in the kitchenette I turned to face him. I was curious about her.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s almost midnight.”

  “Doesn’t she have a home? Aren’t her parents worried?”

  “None in Seoul. She is from Busan.”

  “I can never guess the age of girls these days. She looks like a high school student, but who knows? In a different outfit, she could look like a middle-aged woman.”

  “What year is she in now . . . Hey, Chae Mi Kyung, what year are you in now?”

  “Junior. I took one year off between high school and college.”

  “You’re majoring in law, right?”

  “Why do you have to mention that? It’s nothing to be proud of!”

  I could not just sit there and do nothing, so I got up to take the bowls out of the cupboard and the kimchi and other side dishes from the refrigerator. We all sat down around the table. She volunteered to serve the ramen noodles. I sat there quietly with an empty bowl in front of me and looked at her.