I left the café and walked toward the marketplace. I went shopping, not at the market, but at the brand new supermarket, where I bought items on the Soonchun lady’s list. I ate lunch and bought groceries for myself, too. It took me about ten minutes to return to Kalmae in a taxicab. I got out in front of Todam, where there was enough open space for the car to turn around, and walked up to the main house. The Soonchun lady saw me from the kitchen and ran out to help me with the plastic bags I was carrying in both hands.
“She just called!”
“Someone called me?”
“The sister. What’s her name? Jung Hee.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, let’s see . . . She just asked if you were doing well here, if you were healthy and all that. She said she’ll call back with Eun Gyul when she goes home. She wanted me to get you when she calls back.”
“I see.”
When I returned home, I did not bother putting things away in cupboards and in the refrigerator, I just lay down on the floor. Perhaps, I thought, she had gone over our conversation after we hung up and thought that I was in control of myself. I had no ill feeling toward her; in fact, I was relieved. Maybe she had decided to filter the inevitable shock through several layers. I had no intention of telling the child that I was her father. But I wanted to chat with her, about nothing and everything, and I wanted to see if there was a trace of Yoon Hee in her voice and manner of speaking. I cooked dinner for myself and ate it, and waited until half past seven before I went down to the main house. The Soonchun lady was waiting for me in the living room. She had brought out the phone already.
“They just called, and they want you to call back. Hurry!”
I took the piece of paper from my shirt pocket and repeated Jung Hee’s home phone number to myself before I dialed. I heard the phone ringing, followed by Jung Hee answering it.
“This is Oh Hyun Woo.”
“We were waiting for you. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things since you called me this afternoon. I was thinking of my sister, too. I don’t think she was ever going to tell you about Eun Gyul. Maybe she had a premonition that you two would never see each other again in this world. I should tell you that we adopted Eun Gyul in . . . It was a year before my sister left for Germany, so it was ’87. She had to start school the following year. Of course, she’s all grown up now, and she knows who her birth mother is. But she calls us mom and dad, not aunt and uncle. And I am so sorry to do this to you, but there’s something you need to understand.”
Jung Hee paused and waited. I pressed her to go on.
“Please, tell me.”
“Neither my sister nor me and my husband have ever told her about her birth father. At first, when she was younger, we told her that he was in America, and in the last few years, that he had passed away. After I talked to you, I was trying to think what my sister would have done in a situation like this. Now that you’re out, I think we have to tell her the truth. But I think we’ll need some time.”
I decided to interrupt her there.
“I do believe you’re right. She’ll be an adult soon.”
“She sure will be. Once she goes to college and into the larger world, it can happen more naturally, don’t you think? I was talking to her just a little while ago. I told her that you were a friend of her birth parents who wanted to talk to her.”
My heart was racing again.
“No, I just called to find out how she was doing.”
“I already told her that you’d be calling tonight, so she’s waiting. She’s upstairs in her room, so I’ll have to go get her. I am so sorry to make the whole thing so complicated and long-winded, but we love her so much. And I know you do, too, even more than we do. Please, don’t hang up, wait for her. I’ll go get her right now.”
There was the sound of the receiver being placed somewhere, followed by a faint electronic sound. I put the receiver to the other ear and then switched it back to the first one, the voice still echoing.
“Hello? Mr. Oh?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Here she is.”
“Hello?”
That is her voice. My mind was blank, and I just repeated back like a recorder.
“Hello.”
“How do you do? I’m Park Eun Gyul. My mom told me about you.”
“Ah, did she? I am a friend of your father. I knew your mom, too. So you’re in twelfth grade now?”
“Yes.”
“It must be tough for you right now. What do you want to study when you go to college?”
“Something in the liberal arts. I’m not sure yet.”
“And how’s studying? Are you doing well?”
“It’s alright, I guess. I heard that you spent many years abroad.”
“Um, yes.”
“In what country?”
“I, I immigrated to America.”
“My father passed away in America. Since you were his friend, you saw him often in America?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What . . . what was he like?”
“Nice, a very nice man. A little naïve.”
“When are you coming back to Seoul? I heard that you were in the countryside.”
“Yes, I am, but I’ll be back in a few days.”
“Call us when you are back. I’d really love to meet you.”
“I promise I’ll call. I want to meet you, too, Eun Gyul.”
“Goodbye. Here’s my mom.”
Eun Gyul’s voice was cheerful, and it went up a little at the end of each sentence. She sounded very positive and self-possessed for a girl who grew up without her birth parents. Jung Hee’s calm voice returned.
“Thank you so much for calling. When you’re back in Seoul, just call my office.”
I mumbled some words of gratitude and farewell, too, and the phone call was over. I remained in the living room for a while, my head empty. The Soonchun lady came out of her bedroom, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “My goodness, you can be so coldhearted. How can you be so collected while talking to her? I tried hard not to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help but hear you talk. I bet she knew who you were, she’s so smart, she has always been since she was a little girl. Why didn’t you just tell her, Mr. Oh? Why didn’t you just say that you’re her father?” I just smiled a little and looked up to the dark, empty space above. Before she could mention Eun Gyul again, I got up and bid her farewell. “Thanks for letting me use the phone.”
“That’s nothing . . . Are you going back already?”
“Yes, I’m a little tired.”
I walked back on the little dirt path toward the house. It was dark, but I was used to it. The door was bright, lit from behind by the fluorescent light I had left on. From outside, the lattice work on the door appeared more clearly. It seemed like someone was in there, about to open the door and come out saying, You’re back! I took off my shoes and climbed up to the porch, then opened the door and confirmed that no one was inside. Instead of going inside, I collapsed on the porch and watched the embroidered springtime night sky. A shooting star fell. Maybe someone just passed away. A lonely dog was barking from far away. Even if you are alive somewhere, the absence of the other person who used to be there beside you obliterates your presence. Everything in the room, even the stars in the sky, can disappear in a second, changing one scene for another, just like in a dream.
21
I think it was sometime in the autumn of 1985 when, for about a year, they began to allow long-term political prisoners a couple of days of furlough, or what they called “visitations.” As oppression turned into appeasement in the outside world, the regime’s effort to “convert” political prisoners also changed, from brute force to more conciliatory tactics. During the 1970s, many political prisoners died because of the endless torture; many of those who survived the torment committed suicide. They began to “convert” me as soon as I was transferred to the prison. They sent me to the torture cell for weeks after weeks for no reason,
and I had to eat like a dog. Two different departments within the prison bureaucracy—education and security—competed to produce the most converts. They pestered us continuously. It didn’t matter if we had broken the National Security Laws or the Laws of Public Assembly, or been involved in the fabricated espionage cases; they wanted to change what we thought, our ideology.
There was a machine to see inside the human body, so why couldn’t they come up with a machine to see through the brain and mind as well, to easily identify whether we were red or blue? I myself was not really sure if I was red or blue.
My crime was that I was opposed to the killing of innocent civilians by a military government that had seized power by force and enjoyed the support of an industrialist monopoly that attached itself to the dictatorship in exchange for privileges and spoils. After what happened in Kwangju in May 1980, how General Chun Doo Hwan’s soldiers opened fire on the demonstration against his new regime, we learned who was on our side and who was on the other. Our eyes were opened, and we realized our enemy was not the North. Certain writings were brought in from foreign countries at the beginning of the eighties, things that during the sixties could have landed you on death row simply for possessing them, and we read them in secret, holding our breath. Was my friend Choi Dong Woo on the Left since he collected these kinds of papers and reproduced some of their content in our own papers? As I stayed in prison, the outside world changed, and all of this became unremarkable and commonplace. Things do balance themselves out. See? It really wasn’t such a big deal.
“Listen,” I said. “How many times have I told you? I am not an agent from the North; you know that better than anyone.”
“It’s just a piece of paper, that’s all. All you need to do is sign it, and everything will change in an instant.”
“It’s only a piece of paper! Then why do you want me to sign it so badly? I never followed their ideology, so how am I supposed to turn from that to this? Or, do you want me to admit that I am a Communist? Do you want me to certify the political maneuvering and the violent oppression of this dictatorship?”
When they realized that they could not achieve much on their own, they began to use people from outside. They brought in members of our families to beg us to sign, people who had not been allowed in for visitation for a long time. When that failed, they used the violent criminals to torment us. Then it was the turn of volunteers from religious organizations who wanted to “help” us, bringing armloads of food and writing long letters to us. It seemed they wrote to us political prisoners every other day. Letters from our families were limited to just a few hundred words and were confiscated after three days. Mostly the volunteers’ letters were about their religion, asking us to change our minds. Fortunately, I did not have to suffer through it too long.
Shortly after our uniform was changed from short sleeves to long—it must have been the beginning of October—the chief of the prison’s education department stopped by my cell with a couple of dissident university students and said we were going to be allowed a special visitation. No matter who it was, a visitation usually meant food.
It had been a hard summer. The mosquitoes and flies and hellish steam from the cement walls were gone, and we could hear crickets at night. A breeze would come in through the meal slot and escape through the high window over the toilet; it tickled my whole body as it passed. We were always hungry and would borrow cookbooks from the guards so we could “eat out,” and fishing and hiking magazines let us “go on a trip.”
“Okay, who has the special issue on the Solak Mountains?”
“I’m still reading it.”
“I want it back, now!”
“Hold on, I haven’t even reached Hankaeryung yet.”
“Bastard, when are you going to reach the mountains? Stop hanging around the outer valley.”
A special visitation during such a season made our mouths water, and we all wondered what they brought us this time.
One of my neighbors, in for forming an illegal organization, said he had a visitation coming up later in the month and had seen Christian women with bags of food. “I hope they have some sticky rice cake,” he whispered to me. His face was covered in scabs and he hadn’t been able to shave. He rubbed at the stubble.
“You’re not supposed to have any special visitation, are you?” said my other neighbor, the president of the student union. “I bet they’re trying to get you to sign something.”
“Let’s not argue with them if they give us a sermon, okay?” said the first.
“Just stuff your mouth and belly as much as you can.”
“There is no free ride in this world. We should at least argue a little, shouldn’t we? You’ll see; this is just the beginning.”
A section chief of the education department, who called himself “the Professor,” had me brought to his office. He appeared affable enough on the surface, but was cunningly determined to advance his career. He was an entry-level officer who had climbed up the ladder and had no plans to go back.
“I had many younger siblings, my father was sick and bedridden, my mother supported all of us by peddling on the street, and I dared not dream of going to high school,” he would begin. “In those days, if you finished middle school and knew a little about the law, you passed the exam and became a civil servant. We’re the real people, not you guys. You guys were so full of it and so spoiled that you didn’t study as you were told and ran around protesting this and that. To be honest, I really resent you guys.
“During the Revitalizing Reform period, we suffered a lot, too, did you know that? There was no heating in the corridors, no desks, no chairs, nothing. We had to do the night shift standing up the whole time. Walking around the cell block freezing to death, we’d look into your rooms, you know I actually envied you guys. At least you got to sleep under a blanket! Sometimes I just wanted to go in there and lie down next to one of you. We were afraid we’d break our noses by falling asleep while standing up and falling down on our faces, so what we came up with was a hook. You bend a wire into an S-shape and attach it to your belt and go to work. When you get sleepy, you could just hook yourself to the corridor, lean on it, standing up of course, and go to sleep. If you hear the boss’s footstep, you get up, take off the hook, and walk around.
“And then I met people working here in the education department, and I really envied them. They got to wear civilian clothes instead of uniforms, no night shift, no inspection, and they got to meet civilians from outside, too. And what can be more patriotic than purifying Commies? Before, they used to say, an ideology for an ideology, and the education department preferred Christians. So you know what I did? I went to the seminary at night. And I took that qualifying exam, too. Did you know that I’m in graduate school now? And that I teach at the school, too? I’ve read a lot about the other side, too, so don’t even think about bullshitting in front of me, understood?”
The Professor called me into his office, which was located right next to the waiting room.
The two section chiefs shared a room, and connected to it was the office of the department chief, whose position in the prison hierarchy was only second to that of the warden. “Mr. Oh, can we talk for a minute?” The Professor asked me to sit down in an easy chair next to his desk.
“You should have something to drink, since you came all the way here,” he said, feigning kindheartedness. “What would you like? Hey, come over here, what can we serve to Mr. Oh?”
The prison assistant, who was most likely a convicted thief, quickly came over to us.
“We have all different kinds of drinks here at the Education Department Café. As for traditional teas we have green tea, ginseng tea, citron tea, goldenseal tea, and adlai tea. We also have coffee, English breakfast tea, and various other beverages including Coca-Cola, Sprite, and energy drinks . . .”
“Stop, stop, stop. Are you nuts? How come there are so many choices?”
“Most of them are donated. Some are supplied by the purchasing d
epartment.”
The Professor seemed satisfied with the explanation. “Well, what would you like? How about a cup of coffee? I bet you haven’t had that in a while.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
“Hey, make sure you get the biggest mug and fill it to the brim, do you understand?”
The Professor bent down toward me secretively. “Mr. Oh, I need to ask you for a favor today. I want you to listen really carefully, okay? A very famous minister is visiting us today, and I’ve specifically recommended you.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about. “You mean one of those educational lectures, right? So you can report to those higher up that you’ve done something, that you’ve observed my attitude, and things like that. Isn’t it just a waste of time?”
“Oh, come on! What can I do? They keep sending me notices that we should carry out the fall program and report back as soon as it is over.”
He had included the dissident students. “They can write an essay afterward.”
“I don’t think they’ll write what you want to hear.”
“Doesn’t matter, we can always edit and rewrite. That’s not the issue. I just want to ask you one thing, and that is, please, at least pretend that you’re listening when the minister talks, alright?”
“For nothing?” I joked.
“Hey, we know better than that. We’ve prepared a buffet, of course. And above all, the reason why this program is so important is that—don’t tell anyone else—there are evaluations going on right now, and some lucky National Security Law offenders may get a furlough.”
After my interview with the Professor was over, the two students were called into his office as well. We were taken to the Special Visitation Room, which was furnished with comfortable armchairs and a large conference table covered with food: heaps of fried and glazed chicken, various rice cakes, and yes, the sticky rice cake with bean flour that my neighbor had craved, and refreshments. An old man was waiting for us, and he greeted us with a raised hand.
“Welcome!”
The Professor introduced us to “the most venerable Reverend So and So” and made us bow to him. We were each introduced by name, the crime we had committed, whether it was against the National Security Law, the Law of Assembly, or some other law, our sentence, and how many years we had left to serve. It did not seem to matter to him that there was a total of three of us in there. The Professor stood up, clasped his hands, and attempted an official opening address.
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