The Old Garden

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  The lunches I shared with the prison assistant were infinitely more pleasant than dinner for an inmate in solitary confinement. They were times when I could actually see and talk to and argue with someone else. Dinner was served after the cells were locked down, so I had to eat alone. When the time came, I took out the white plastic bowls that I had washed well the day before and the wooden spoon and chopsticks I had asked inmates in the woodworking shop to make for me. I laid them out on a piece of newspaper and waited in front of the tiny meal window. The cart would arrive, the window would open, and in would come rice, soup, and a couple of side dishes. Even when I knew that nothing more would come in, I couldn’t shut the window, I would wait for a while before I started eating. I sat facing the wall, took a spoonful of food, stuffed it into my mouth and chewed. My mind was blank; nothing kept my attention. There was music in the background, piped in from an old cassette recorder in the guard’s office for meal times. They did it out of habit, not really to please us, and sometimes the guards played the same music, the same songs, for three days in a row. But no one complained, because no one could hear it very well. Over the music came the quiet murmurs of people eating and chatting from other cells. It sometimes felt like participating in a solemn church service.

  One snowy evening, I was eating rice in a bowl of lukewarm broth when I suddenly felt a lump in my throat and my eyes began to well up. What was I looking at? In front of me on the bare cement wall was one of the calendars distributed by Christian missionaries. It showed twelve months on one page along with a picture of Jesus with a halo around his head and a long staff in his hand, standing on top of a grassy hill surrounded by sheep. Written underneath it was, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters.

  It was not the words or the picture that made me cry, it was the numerous x-marks on the dates of the calendar. Each day of the past twelve months was crossed out, and a similar calendar distributed at the end of the year was hanging next to it with no mark on it. Whether they were crossed out or not, whether they were gone or still to come, they were meaningless days. What was it that I was trying to protect? What was I holding on to? I fought for more solid pieces in our broth, an extra piece of meat to reach the promised quantity, more exercise hours, less censorship of letters and books. I protested against abusive guards and remembered the prisoners who went before me. These amounted to an effort to keep myself sane, to somehow hold onto the little bit of dignity that was left to me. The tiny rewards that I received after everything I did were gone by the time the new season came, as the guards and administrators were replaced by new ones.

  19

  From the early winter of 1984 to May 1985.

  In mid-November, Song Young Tae and his comrades attempted to take over the ruling party’s headquarters. While the backup unit blocked the streets and stalled the police, the offensive unit, its members filling the complicated alleyways behind the building, ran inside and managed to occupy the headquarters for a while. They were armed with steel pipes and wooden sticks, and at one point they went all the way up to the top of the building. Song Young Tae was in a nearby tea salon, so he was neither arrested nor included in the wanted list published after the incident. From time to time he showed up at my studio, and he continued to produce pamphlets. I actually got caught up in this, and sometimes I would stay up all night, all by myself, typing and copying and binding.

  I had completed two semesters of graduate school and I wanted to finish, even though I had gotten a late start. Then I would have accomplished at least my first goal. Remember? I wanted to live independently with Eun Gyul. The new semester started, and I met with my advisor once in a while and taught students at my studio. I forgot that it was springtime. I think it was mid-March when Song Young Tae came to see me in the middle of the night. As usual, I was slumped on a chair with a teacup in my hand in the empty studio when he came in.

  “Hey, stranger, haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been busy.”

  Instead of explaining his absence, he looked around the studio.

  “I should take them with me.”

  “Really? Fantastic! Now I don’t have to worry about anything anymore!”

  “Well, I think it’s little early for you to be so relieved.”

  I was swinging my arms wide, slightly exaggerating while I said, “I am free! I am finally released from the evil hands!”

  There was the sound of a number of feet coming up the stairs outside, and three young men appeared at the door. The tall one was wearing a long coat like Young Tae’s, another wore a leather jacket, and the last one a pea coat. They did not even look at me, let alone introduce themselves, but they came in and began moving the copy machine as Young Tae ordered them to. They took the manual press and the electric typewriter, too.

  “Where are you taking them?”

  “You’ll see when you come with me.”

  “When did I say I was coming with you?”

  He clasped his two hands like he was praying and begged in his most ardent, desperate voice, “Miss Han, please, just one more time, please help me. You’re the only person I can rely on.”

  “Nope, I can’t. I’m done, really I’m through.”

  “It’s really important, and I don’t have time to screen some new person. You’ve been cleared, so to speak.”

  Again, I could not stand firm.

  “I guess something big is about to happen.”

  Song Young Tae stuttered when he was nervous and shuffled his words.

  “Well, soo . . . soon, there’s going to be . . . a tor . . . tornado.”

  “And why do I have to be swept into it?”

  “Thi . . . this time, you . . . you can wrap it up.”

  I answered him by getting up without another word and putting on my coat. There was a small truck on the street carrying the equipment and waiting for us. One of the three men was sitting next to the driver of the truck, while the other two were in another passenger car. As we got into the truck, the car left. Soon we arrived at a tall building filled with studio apartments. This type of building, called an “office-tel,” had just been introduced, and similar ones were growing all over the city like bamboo trees after rain. The elevator was loaded, and we went up to the eleventh floor. The studio looked nice, furnished with a desk, chairs, and a sofa, complete with a kitchenette and a bathroom. I looked around.

  “How big is this?” I asked.

  “They call this a 500-square-foot unit, but I think the actual space you can use is about half of that.”

  “It’s nice. Good enough for you, I should say.”

  “The building isn’t full yet. It’s nice that it’s so quiet, isn’t it?”

  After every item was put in its place and plugged in, the tall young man stood waiting.

  “Mr. Song, anything else you want us to do?” he asked.

  “No, that’s it. Thanks for all the work. You can go now.”

  The young men did not say anything to me, but nodded before they quietly left the room. Young Tae looked at his watch.

  “It’s ten o’clock already? Man, he’s always late.”

  “Is someone coming? Then I should get going.”

  “No, you can’t! You said you’d help me!”

  “What can I do with a stranger around?”

  We heard somebody walking down the corridor outside, and Song Young Tae paused for a moment and listened. When it was clear someone was coming toward the unit we were in, Young Tae opened the door and cried out, “It’s over here!”

  “Ah, you’re here already.”

  The stranger was a man in his thirties, wearing a worn gray suit without a tie and carrying a large yellow folder under one arm. It seemed he had not shaved in a while; he had stubble around his mouth, but he still managed to give an impression of propriety.

  “Miss Han, let me introduce you to Mr. Kim. He went to our school a few years ahead of us,
and he’s a journalist who was recently fired.”

  The man in his thirties offered his hand, acting like someone older than he was.

  “Glad to meet you. I hear you’ve been working hard.”

  I gave him my hand, but didn’t say anything.

  “So, you got it?” Young Tae asked him.

  “Yeah, it was really hard to find. But I did get many different versions. Some of them are from the reporters who were there, but I also found a collection of witness and protester accounts.”

  “Let’s see.”

  Young Tae was impatient. As soon as the man handed over a stack of papers, he gave part of it to me and went to sit down in front of the desk and began reading. I did the same, sitting across from him on the other side of the desk. Kim sat on the sofa by himself and smoked a cigarette while we read the papers.

  “It’s a little bit chilly in here. Is there no heating at night?”

  “Ah, really? I have something here.”

  Young Tae took out an electric heater from under the table and plugged it in. Kim continued, “It’s written by a number of people, and I marked the dates.”

  “The numbers in red ink, are those the dates?”

  “They should be.”

  “Miss Han, let’s make this easier to work with. We should organize them in order according to those numbers and then type them. Mr. Kim, I want you to select a few episodes that you think are more important than others. We can’t include everything in one little pamphlet.”

  “I think all you need to do is record what happened in sequence. There are people working on a book right now, so a lot more details can be included there.”

  It was almost midnight when we came up with an outline. I got more materials from Young Tae and began typing. I had just read it, but the truth of the uprising and massacre of that May seemed to come alive at my fingertips.

  Around seven o’clock, cars and large vehicles suddenly appeared from Yoodong, their headlights on and horns honking. At the front of the line was a fully-loaded twelve-ton truck that belonged to the Korea Express, Ltd., followed by eleven express buses and about two hundred taxicabs, filling up the Keumnam Street. On the truck were more than twenty young men, each waving our national flag, and the buses were filled with young men and women holding wooden sticks as weapons. The march of the cars continued in wave after wave of enormous rage. Their flashing eyes showed their unity, their sense of self-sacrifice, their stiff resolve that were the fruition of the May uprising, and this tidal wave swept through the city from the evening of the 20th to the next morning’s sunrise.

  I then typed what I believe to be the most impressive and touching moment in the pamphlet, the charge of the automobiles on the night of Tuesday, May 20.

  Taxicabs gathered in front of the Moodeung Sports Complex. Some taxi drivers were already injured, their heads wrapped in bandages. By six o’clock in the evening, more than 200 taxicabs had gathered. The drivers parked their cars in orderly rows and shared what they had witnessed so far in the city, the brutal crackdowns, stories of drivers who were hurt and killed. They denounced the brutal and barbaric actions of the airborne unit and decided together to take the lead in breaking down the barricade. Each driver tied a cloth or towel around his head and drove his car to Keumnam Street. As the taxis arrived, many civilians who had been pinned in front of the blockade there cheered and wept tears of joy. Soon, the people there found whatever could be used as a weapon—a steel pipe, a wooden stick, a Molotov cocktail, a pickax, a butcher knife, or a sickle—and, throwing rocks over the cars, they charged again. Caught off-guard by this sudden turn of events, the army, acting under martial law, fought back by launching enormous quantities of tear gas. It seemed they were willing to suffocate the demonstrators. Tear gas bombs shattered the windows and windshields of the taxicabs, exploding inside. Unable to withstand the dizziness and suffocation, drivers in front had to stop only about twenty yards from the blockade. When they got out of the cars, the drivers were dazed and confused, lost in the thick fog of tear gas. They were crying and coughing, throwing up and staggering. The soldiers took this opportunity to attack. Three or four soldiers fell upon each driver, crushing skulls with their clubs, kicking and hitting drivers on the ground before hauling them away. Some drivers in the back were able to get out of their cars and escape, but dozens were arrested. The citizens who were shielding the taxicabs kept throwing rocks, hiding in the side streets or in between damaged cars. However, the soldiers belonged to the special attack corps, and they defied the rocks and continued their counterattack. Now there was a huge commotion, with cars crashing into each other because they were not able to advance. The windshields and windows of a few hundred vehicles were smashed. The soldiers were blinded by the headlights, so they broke all the lights with their clubs or rifle butts as they marched. The citizens retreated bravely, throwing rocks at the soldiers as they went. The soldiers were somehow able to push the citizens back to the end of the line.

  “Wait, I have something that can be added there.”

  Kim interrupted me as he took a peek at what I was doing. Instead of saying anything, I stopped working and waited for him. He handed me what appeared to be a copy of a newspaper article.

  “The article is dated May 22. It was censored.”

  I resumed typing, inserting the article into the witness account.

  In the dense fog of tear gas, the protesters, led by buses, clashed with the soldiers. Keumnam Street near the Chunil Broadcasting Corp was filled with endless screaming and shouting. The clash lasted almost half an hour, and when it was over, among the buses and taxicabs with their motors still on, were numerous injured citizens, bleeding and unconscious. Two young women in their twenties dressed in bus attendant’s uniforms wailed over the body of a man in his thirties. His skull was smashed. People carried the injured, crying, begging for an ambulance.

  “Looking at all these papers and materials, I’d say we’ll have to work for at least two days and nights. Let’s try to finish half by tomorrow morning, take a break, and continue in the afternoon,” Song Young Tae said as he shuffled papers. Kim seemed tired already; he kept yawning and rubbing his eyes. “I think I should get going. There’s nothing left for me to do.”

  “Sure. Thanks, everyone will be grateful for this.”

  “You’re very welcome. I’m just relieved to get rid of this stuff. Well, take care of yourselves.”

  After he left, Song Young Tae and I continued to work until dawn. I typed, and each time I finished a page, Song Young Tae made copies.

  “It shouldn’t be more than twenty pages. People have to be able to read it at one sitting and get mad. We plan to distribute it in the industrial areas as well. We need to produce about one hundred copies here, and then it will reproduce and multiply in others’ hands.”

  Song Young Tae gathered the copies we had already made and counted them.

  “Why don’t we call it a day? That’s exactly one half.”

  “Already? My goodness, the sun is up.”

  “I’ll take you home. Let’s get some broth, too.”

  “Broth? That’s it? You’re exploiting me!”

  “Hey, calm down. You know what Mi Kyung is having now? A cup of instant noodles.”

  “Speaking of Mi Kyung, I haven’t seen her in a while. It’s better for me that she doesn’t show up, but at least send a word so I don’t have to worry, okay? Bastards.”

  “She’s too busy right now, but she should resurface soon. Let’s go!”

  We turned off the light, made sure the door was securely locked, and left the apartment. The corridor was dark, the only light right in front of the elevator. While he had been natural and friendly in the studio apartment, Young Tae became completely silent now, dropping his eyes and never raising them to look at me while we stood in the cramped elevator. I felt awkward, too, and I tried to change the mood by joking.

  “What, are you praying?”

  Song Young Tae cast a glance at me from b
ehind his thick glasses and gave me an embarrassed smile.

  “Hmm? No, nothing.”

  We took a taxi back to my neighborhood and walked to the restaurant both of us knew well. It was busy all through the night with truck drivers and drunken students, but it was almost six in the morning now, and the place was not too crowded. We took a table in the innermost corner near the kitchen. All they served here was boiled pork, a soup with stuffed pig intestines, and a spicy soup with beef bones and cabbage. Young Tae took spoons and chopsticks from a container on the table and set them in front of me.

  “I want the tripe soup, how about you?”

  I hated how sometimes you’d find a hairy piece of lard in that soup, so I replied, “The other one.”

  Young Tae ordered our food, talking slowly.

  “So . . . let’s see . . . one soup with stuffed pig intestines, one with bones and cabbage, and a bottle of soju, please. And please make my soup spicy.”

  Until the food came out, he remained as silent as he had been in the elevator. I just thought he was tired; it did not occur to me that he might be behaving strangely. Why would I perceive him differently? The bowls were brought out with a bottle of soju and shot glasses. Without asking, Young Tae placed a glass in front of me and went to pour. I covered it with my hand and said, “No, I don’t want it. I want to go home and sleep.”

  “Just one. I’ll drink the rest.”

  I let him pour me a glass. He poured himself a glass, and without raising it to me, emptied it down his throat. I sipped from mine and took some broth. Young Tae was noisily stuffing his mouth, drinking the broth one minute and downing the liquor the next. Maybe I was not the type of person who could eat so late at night, or so early in the morning. My mouth felt coarse and the rice kernels refused to go down my throat, so I kept stirring my bowl with a spoon and took a few sips of the broth. Young Tae was already done with his soup, and he emptied the bottle into his glass to the last drop. He drank this last glass slowly, savoring every sip before putting down the glass on the table between us. After I put down my spoon and drank some water, Young Tae offered me one of his cigarettes, and even lit it for me. Then he lit one for himself, and after staring at his half-full glass, he emptied it into his mouth, as if he had just finished an enjoyable game. I wondered what he was doing. Now, Young Tae stared at me.