The Old Garden

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  But where was the snowman we all made together, so merrily and with such care? Under the daylight of one afternoon, the original shape melted away. The coal eyebrow and red pepper nose fell from its face. The hat was blown away by the wind. The head melted on top of the body and formed a small mound of snow, soiled by dirt and dust. The children’s joyous laughter is no longer there, and all that is left on the street is a little life, muddied by wheels and footsteps.

  24

  Then as now, I do not feel I have to apologize to you.

  Unexpectedly, I fell in love with a man. For a long time, you were not a reality. To me, Eun Gyul was like that, too. As prison was a part of your life, the love that came to me somewhat late in my life in a land so far away was also a very important part of mine.

  It was May 1989. May was the most glorious season of the year, a blessing. The chill and misery melted away with the low, dark clouds, and the clear blue sky opened up. So many flowers bloomed at once that people allergic to pollen walked around with bloodshot eyes wearing masks and blowing their noses nonstop.

  I took the U9 line, which started in Steglitz, to Tiergarten. I thought I would take a walk along the Landwehr Canal, where the memorials for Rosa Luxemberg and Karl Liebknecht were, or look at the ducks and swans on the lake before taking a long walk around the park and going into the city center. Sometimes I bought a bratwurst at a stall nearby. The memorials used to sear my heart whenever I looked at them, but now they were just words that always stood there, like signs on any street. The bourgeois party had built the memorials to honor the very same people they had killed. To get to them you take the little round bridge in the shape of a rainbow across the canal, then walk along a narrow path and reach a forest with almost no one else around.

  Anyway, what extraordinary thing can happen on the subway? In Berlin’s subway, there was no one who checked your ticket at the entrance or in the train. But everyone carried around a pass or bought a ticket. If you thought you could try and get away with riding trains without paying, you might get caught when train guards unexpectedly boarded the train and demanded to see your pass or ticket. You would be embarrassed and have to pay a hefty fine.

  Since I was a student, I had a pass. I got a discount, so it was a good deal. I always kept it in my purse, but I had never met a guard on a train before, so I sometimes forgot whether I had it with me or not. But other students told me plenty of stories about their humiliating experiences, so I tried not to forget. Once in a while, I ran back to my studio when I realized that I had left my pass in there. At the Berliner Straße station, four men in uniform got onto my train.

  They began checking people’s tickets, two on each end of the car walking toward the center. I was not very surprised, I simply opened my purse to look for my pass. Oh no, where is it? I could not find it. Already, my face was turning red and I could not stand still. The man in uniform knew what it meant, and he looked straight into my eyes and opened his hand toward me. I stuttered, “I . . . forgot to . . . bring my pass.”

  “You have to leave the train at the next station.”

  Two young men and an older gentleman in that car were caught as well. I was still hoping to find it, and I kept rummaging through my purse. I found everything else but the pass. Now I was worried about the fine. All that was in my wallet was a little over twenty marks in bills and coins. When the train arrived at the Güntzelstraße station, the officers gathered those of us who were caught in front of one door and directed us to get out. That was when he approached me from behind. “Don’t worry, it’s no big deal.”

  I glanced at him, but I did not have the time to look at him properly. You had to show the officers your ID, pay the fine, and get a receipt, or if you didn’t have enough money, confirm your address, promise to pay the fine later, and sign a document stating that you had ridden the subway train without a pass. It was my turn, and of course I did not have enough money. Once again, I heard the voice from behind. “Do you have enough money to pay the fine?”

  It was only then that I realized something and I turned around, not just my head, but my whole body, to face him. Both times he had spoken to me in Korean. He looked much older than me. He was wearing a dark gray trench coat, and it seemed like he had not shaved in a few days, because stubble covered his chin here and there. But his eyes were warm and smiling. I took out one ten-mark bill and two five-mark bills from my wallet and showed them to him. He simply nudged me aside, asked the officer how much the fine was, paid for it, signed the receipt, and pushed me out the door.

  “Let’s go. They’re busy, too.”

  We hurried out of the office. He took the stairway leaving the station and I followed him, still confused. He was tall. And he swung his slightly bent shoulders as he walked. When we climbed up the stairs, we were right next to the wide Bundesallee, where cars were speeding by.

  “Um, excuse me . . .”

  He turned around.

  “I know, you owe me,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, I think I left the pass at home.”

  “That happened to me, too, I know how that feels. If you’re unlucky, you can get caught twice in one month.”

  “If you give me your address or phone number, I’ll pay you back later.”

  “Ah, here’s the receipt.”

  He took the fine receipt from his coat pocket and handed it to me.

  “You look like a student, what do you study?”

  “I’m at the art school.”

  I took the receipt but I could not part ways with him; I began walking with him because he was moving again without giving me a chance to say goodbye.

  “How long has it been,” he asked, “since you got here?”

  “I came last year. And you . . . what do you do here?”

  “I’m a research fellow here at the engineering school. By the way, where . . . Are you going home now?”

  “No, I was going to take a walk.”

  “Oh, that’s good. I am invited to a dinner. Why don’t you join me?”

  “Well, that’s a bit . . .”

  I was slowing down my steps, but he kept moving forward, and then he raised one finger and shook it at me.

  “You won’t have another chance to pay your debt.”

  I sped up to walk with him again. “Where are you going . . . ?”

  “To the home of a friend of mine who is studying here. Don’t worry. Don’t you wanna eat bean paste stew?”

  Maybe it was the thought of the fragrance of warm bean paste stew, or maybe because his invitation seemed so natural, but somehow I found myself walking with him toward Rosenheimer Straße. He told me his name, Yi Hee Soo. I gave him mine. He had been an assistant professor at a university in Korea. He had gotten a degree in Korea and now he was trying to experience different cultures, to do some research and add something to his resume. Anyhow, I felt more at ease. Forty-two or -three, or maybe forty-five years old? But he could still pass for someone in his mid-thirties.

  I felt a little awkward as I visited a student’s apartment with him. There was just a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Shin, no child. The husband seemed to be reserved and sincere, but the wife was belligerent and high-strung. When she became tipsy, she talked to us in a casual form of speech, swore at her husband, and in general acted quite rowdy, but she did not make us feel uncomfortable. It seemed like she was exhausted from supporting her husband in a foreign country, yet she was not condescending. We stuffed ourselves with kimchi, bean paste stew, lettuce wraps, pork belly, garlic, and soju.

  We left that house around ten in the evening, and by that time I felt like I had known Mr. Yi for a long time. He was an environmental engineer, but there seemed to be more to him than someone who just knew about machines. He actually seemed to know a lot about many different things. He was studying how Germans disposed of their domestic and industrial waste. But he was not as radical as my other friends in Korea. He carried on a conversation with humor, not confrontationally, and he was sensible. I had never met
a man like him before, so balanced. I could bet that he grew up in a conflict-free middle-class household, a houseplant placed by the window where there was plenty of sunshine and fresh air.

  With the excuse that I had to repay him, we met once more sometime in mid-May. I treated him to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Roma near where I lived. I forget what we talked about that night. I can remember every little thing I talked about, so many years ago, with my father or you or Young Tae or Mi Kyung, but why is it that I cannot remember that conversation with him? We did exchange some personal information that day. He had gotten divorced three years before. He had a teenage son who was living with his mother. I did not want to tell him my story. He knew little about me, less than my neighbor Mari. Of course, eventually he would learn everything.

  The day after our dinner date, Mr. Yi called me in the afternoon. He invited me over for dinner at his house. It was such a beautiful day, and the park was colorful with kids and families, young men and women sunbathing, elderly people walking their dogs. My heart was fluttering for no reason, and I had been out twice already in short sleeves and cotton pants. Through the open window, the murmuring sound of the horse chestnut tree leaves dancing outside the window floated in. Someone was practicing the flute in the opposite building, and the clear sound drifted in and out.

  When I got to the phone, Mr. Yi said he had already called several times. I wrote down the address he gave me, and still excited even though I had seen him the night before, I changed my clothes. I had only a handful of occasions to dress up in Germany, and this was one of them. I think I still have that dress. A simple, light brown dress that reached the middle of my calves. It was loose, and there was a cord that I could tie around the waist. I cannot tell you how comfortable that dress was. It was made out of Indian cotton, as thin as gauze. Is it weird for you that I’m going on and on about a piece of clothing? I found it among the piles of clothes at a flea market in front of the city hall.

  Once, we had to cut down a rose tree in our garden because it was infested with aphids. All that was left after the winter were short stubs of dried brown branches barely visible on the ground. No one in the family mentioned the roses from the previous year. Why would we? It was just a tiny thing sticking out of the ground. In spring, we planted other annuals, the seeds of moss roses and four o’clocks and zinnias. Tender sprouts came up, and soon the pale green turned dark as the garden blossomed into a lively flower bed. But one morning as I watered the garden, among the competing flowers I found a few small buds, rose buds. Among the vibrant annuals, I saw a green branch growing right next to the brown sticks, straight and ready to bloom.

  Before I left the house, I studied myself in front of the half-length mirror in the entranceway draped with the seagull-patterned cloth. I thought I saw something wet, something shiny in my eyes somewhere. My heart was racing, as if I’d had several cups of strong, dark coffee. Outside, the darkness was still faint, but the antique streetlamps of Berlin were already on, lighting the evening mist. I was carrying a thin sweater and I decided to drape it around my shoulders.

  His house was in an old three-story apartment building in Wilmersdorf with high ceilings like mine. His unit only had one bedroom, although the living room and the kitchen were quite spacious. I sat down in front of a large table that was both a dinner table and a desk. There was a computer and a bookcase and not much else in terms of furniture. Mr. Yi was wearing an apron that covered his chest, and he was struggling in front of the oven.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as I approached from behind. He gently pushed me away.

  “Hey, women are not allowed in the kitchen.”

  “What, are you playing a game of opposites?”

  “Haven’t you heard of neo-Confucianism?”18

  He pointed to the table. “Please, sit over there. Tonight’s special is—have you ever had lamb?”

  “Of course. You need lots of spices for that.”

  Mr. Yi opened a cold bottle of Mosel wine, filled a glass with it, and gave it to me. “A palate cleanser before dinner.”

  I put the cold glass to my lips and sipped a little from it. I walked around the house with the glass in my hand and saw a framed black-and-white photo of a sculpture of Maitreya sitting with one leg up and meditating with a mysterious smile on his face. Then there was a brass Buddha, about eight inches tall, standing by the window, and a tapestry next to the bathroom door depicting a thin and elongated Buddha.

  “There are a lot of Buddhas here.”

  “Well, I like it over there. I cut out that photo from an airplane magazine. The brass one I brought over with my books, and the tapestry was a present from a friend of mine, Martin.”

  He brought a plate of skewered lamb and peppers, eggplants, and onions to the table. There also was a basket of rye bread and another bottle of wine.

  “They look great.”

  “I learned from a friend.”

  I ate very well. The appetizer of thinly sliced ham and melon was wonderful, too. After the dinner was over, we drank a trocken wine with a slightly bitter taste, and Mr. Yi offered me a hand-rolled cigarette. I took a puff, and the smoke was stronger than a normal cigarette, yet the original fragrance of grass, so pleasant and sweet, remained and complimented the bitter taste of the wine.

  “This is a cigarette, isn’t it?”

  “They sell it at the Turkish shops. I think it’s from Pakistan.”

  “It’s more rustic than a cigar.”

  If I had seen a scene like this in a movie, I would have shuddered at the corniness of it all. But such a reaction would have been an overstatement, too, don’t you think? So what if we pretended a little? The next day, the midday sun would rise again, bleaching out all our props and scenery.

  “So why do you like that over there?” I pointed at the Buddha hanging on the wall with the cigarette.

  “That we’re all one; it sounds so nice and peaceful.”

  “It is easy to interpret the world in the simplest terms.”

  “Who’s doing the interpretation? People attach meanings to seasons and things like that based on their own lives. The world exists alone, unrelated to all that.”

  “We should change the world, shouldn’t we?”

  I sounded just like my friends. And he, the quiet one—his eyes widened and he threw the question back at me, a little indignant.

  “Change? For what? It’s a tiny wave in the ocean. Each life is so short. Why can’t you stop thinking that humans own this world? Over there, the idea seems to go against physical reality at first. But through meditation, you get rid of your desires, you become nonexistent, and you humbly disappear. You don’t come back or go to another world, or anything like that. To use the language they use, you escape forever the chains of transmigration and reincarnation. That is the way to exist for the world.”

  I did not reply, although I wanted to ask about war, poverty, and hunger. Mr. Yi continued, “They say the enlightened Buddha does not reincarnate, but I think reincarnation is not such a bad idea. Of course, everyone firmly believes that they’ll come back as a human being. But it is said that such a reincarnation is only possible after millions of eons. Why not as an insect, or if you want to be a bit fancier, a pine tree standing on top of a hill? The leaves dancing in the wind. East or West, manmade cities and industrialization are hell.”

  “Indeed, it hasn’t been that long since we appeared on this Earth. But I am, right now, a human being.”

  “We know that we took the wrong course, that of technology and progress, and we’re inevitably headed toward the waterfall of self-destruction. We humans are supposed to be the most intelligent creatures, but we’re less responsible than other feeble creatures who don’t want more than they already have, aren’t we?”

  I was beginning to feel stifled, but I remained patient. “First of all, we need to correct the relationships between human beings.”

  “Nothing would change how it’s been done so far. Life itself has to be
transformed.”

  I could feel my voice getting louder. “How is that possible? The means of production, the methods, the actual power, they are all firmly established already. Who’s going to do it? How? Shall we start a new movement?”

  “The argument for system versus culture is not easy, and it cannot end tonight, even if we start now.”

  My words were becoming harsh and biting. “I saw the flag of the Green Party here, and it was purple. Blue painted over the red. If that is not reformism, what is? Revolution is impossible, so let’s try a movement for a new lifestyle and see what happens in the long term, isn’t that it? Someone once defined it as . . . absorbing the opposing force. With a lot of money, anything can be planned and controlled.”

  “It is a natural process. The abundance of summer causes a forest to become thick and overgrown, but then the monsoons and floods arrive to get rid of the elements of decay and corpulence. And finally the fruits and grains of the harvest season arrive. A civilization can be transformed only through the united efforts of nature and humans. If you change what’s inside, the shell will fall apart or change its appearance. If only quantity is valued and everything is judged according to numbers, then the more important aspect, the quality, is ignored. As everything becomes too specialized and divided and standardized, and if, on top of that, due consideration and awareness are lacking, then the production becomes bigger and more complicated, the need for money becomes greater, and leads to violence. Whether it is socialism or capitalism, both start from an obsession with production. A plentiful society, a society where that abundance is wasted, cannot be a model for the rest of the world. A plentiful society’s rule tells the rest of the world that we can all live well if we follow its technology and development. But that would be a disaster for everyone. We need a different model. Without fundamental changes in favor of something that is humbler and simpler and more vital, the system cannot change. Our humanistic approach toward labor and capital will remain within the system, and therefore it will never gain the strength to transform the system itself.”