The Old Garden

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  “We still have to carry out the promises this century has made.”

  Song Young Tae and I talked oil and water as we walked around. It was completely dark by four o’clock in the afternoon, but the city center was still festive as we entered it. In front of us was a couple taking a walk with their young children, and we knew right away that this was a family from East Berlin soaking up the new air. Both adults held onto a child’s wrist tightly, and they were walking cautiously on the inner side of the sidewalk. There were many more people like them in the city center. As usual, all the stores were closed at six o’clock, but the lights were left on in their windows where mannequins stood among various goods, with no trace of a living person. We used to call those brightly lit windows with their mounds of material goods the windows of capitalism. Ah, it was the perfect name for them. The people from the East stood in front of those display windows like a crowd in front of a street performer, mouths shut tightly, arms crossed or holding onto a child’s wrist, and just kept staring.

  Mr. Yi once said that as more and more nonessential products are brought into the market, the essential well-being of the people disappears. There were so many lingerie stores, clothing stores, accessory and cosmetics stores. In the display windows of an electronic goods shop, more and more new things were presented in more windows, and on television screens. The East Germans were a little shy at first, admiring these products of the new world as if they were an art installation or some new landscape. Then the West German government decided that any East Germans visiting West Berlin could receive 100 marks per person from any bank, as long as they showed ID. One hundred marks per person. East Germans brought over all their family members and friends. Five people meant 500 marks, which was a lot of money, even in West Germany. In a few days, Berlin turned into a grand marketplace. People were coming from the farthest corners of East Germany. The first thing they bought was electronics. Everyone was carrying around a television set or a cassette radio. In order to learn about the West as quickly as possible, you needed to attend the new school, the television. And then they were buying fruit. Fruit wasn’t imported anymore under the controlled economy of Socialism, where all they got were strawberries and apples, available only at certain periods throughout the year. The most popular item now was California oranges with Del Monte stamped on the skin. And then boxes and boxes of toilet paper. Later, it would become impossible to buy used cars, thanks to East Germans. What was really funny, however, was how poor West Germans or foreign students rushed to East German supermarkets and cleaned them out, buying meat and bread and dairy products. Over there, the cost of food was only about one-third that of West Germany. And books were so cheap! This strange economy continued for a couple of months until there were no restrictions on travel. In order for the two economies to unite, the West German government decided to exchange East German currency for the West German one at the same rate, as long as the total amount was reported. Naturally, black markets thrived. Some immigrants from Southeast Asia or Turkey went to East Berlin and bought unreported East German currency at a much lower rate, then brought it back and exchanged it at the full rate. All this happened over the next few months, until, as everyone knows, West Germany ended up absorbing the East the following year.

  I decided to take Song Young Tae to Mr. Yi Hee Soo’s house. I called Mr. Yi and explained the situation, and he willingly agreed to host my guest.

  First, I took Young Tae to a German restaurant and treated him to a dinner accompanied by Berliner Weisse, the beer mixed with syrup. At the end of the meal I broached the subject.

  “When we’re done, I’ll take you to where you’ll sleep tonight.”

  “What are you talking about? Aren’t we going to your house?”

  “Well, it’s a studio, so it won’t really be comfortable for you.”

  “You bragged that you’d be the host! What is this, are you shy or something? So whose house are we going to anyway?”

  “Someone I met here. He’s really nice,” I said as casually as possible.

  Song remained silent and then whispered, “I guess . . . it’s a good thing that you found a friend.”

  He stuffed his mouth with several Nuremburg sausages at once and chewed for a while, his head bowed down. I waited, quietly.

  “What does he do, is he a student?”

  “No, a professor. He works at the research center here.”

  “You like him?”

  Instead of answering, I nodded. Song Young Tae wiped his mouth with his napkin.

  “Well, let’s get going then. If you like him, I bet he is a decent person.”

  “How long are you staying here?”

  “Don’t worry. I want to go to East Berlin tomorrow to buy some books, and I’ll have to leave in the afternoon.”

  It would be the first and the last time Song Young Tae met Mr. Yi Hee Soo. As was his nature, Mr. Yi was gentle and warm, while Young Tae remained stiff. The next day, the three of us went over to East Berlin together. We left Mr. Song’s car at the parking lot across the street from Mr. Yi’s apartment, and we took the U-Bahn to the Friedrichstraße station, where we went through customs. It was the first time for me, but Mr. Yi said he had already done it a couple of times. I put my passport under the window, and it came back with a pass allowing me to stay in the East for thirty-six hours. I was told that there were a lot fewer people at the station than before. We walked around the neighborhood near the wall. The buildings were old, and the streets were quiet, as if everyone had gone to visit West Berlin. Once, while driving on the highway, I had made a rest stop on the East Berlin side. It was incredibly filthy and the service horrible. I am not even going to tell you how bad the restrooms were. I was told that that was the case because no one owned the place. In East Berlin, there were no places to drink coffee other than at hotels run by the government. Song Young Tae knew exactly where he wanted to go; he went directly to a bookstore on Unter den Linden, near the entrance to Humboldt University, and bought complete sets of Marx and Hegel. Even I could tell that he was buying them for almost nothing, compared to what he would have paid in the West. In the center of the city, we saw the familiar flag with a star in a circle and walked toward it. Looking at the sign that said Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we were delighted and uncomfortable at the same time, and we walked around the building once before walking away. Trailing behind us, Song Young Tae slowly approached me.

  “Maybe I should go in there. Get some information.”

  “You can get a lot at German university libraries.”

  “Miss Han, do you know what really shocked me after I left home?”

  “Besides the wall coming down?”

  “That we were living in a bubble. That North Korea is really near us, closer than Europe or America.”

  “But that is so obvious.”

  Mr. Yi did not say anything, he just smiled. He rarely said what he was thinking. Anyway, it only occurred to me after we returned to West Berlin how far off track we’d gone. After sharing a late lunch, Song Young Tae was leaving. As he stood outside his car I spoke to him.

  “I’m sorry that I didn’t do more for you after you came all the way here.”

  He did not look at me, but turned his eyes to the street.

  “I missed you, Miss Han. Take care.”

  Mr. Yi and Young Tae shook hands. Then Young Tae raised one hand toward me, and drove away. Finally, I was left alone with Mr. Yi again, just the two of us. I put my hand in his coat pocket, held his warm hand tightly, and began walking.

  “Where should we go?” he asked.

  “Let’s go to my place tonight.”

  25

  By December, the crowds in West Berlin had become an everyday occurrence. The subway resembled those in Seoul and Tokyo during rush hour, filled with tourists, East Germans, and even Poles and Czechs. Near the Reichstag, flea markets sprang up. There was a huge increase in automobile theft. It was around this time that something unforgettable happene
d to us.

  On a rainy winter evening, a young man crossed over the wall. It was more like he seeped through the crumbling wall. Alone, he got off at the Zoo station. He bought a sausage to eat, and carrying an old umbrella, he wandered around the city among the huge crowds, stopping to look at the display windows or the pictures in front of a peep-show booth. East Germans had quickly learned how to use peep-show booths, and they would line up to go in and use bags of coins. From what I heard, there is a pair of holes where you can place your eyes, and next to it is a slot to put coins in, like on the binoculars at tourist attractions. A timer starts the moment the coin is inserted. You see a small room and a door, through which a woman enters to do a strip show, taking off her clothes, one article at a time. When the time is up, something clicks and you cannot see anything anymore, and you have to put more coins in to watch the show again. This young man used only one coin and was furious when he left the place. The city lights were too bright, and he did not know that the U-Bahn trains had stopped running. He went back to the Zoo station, but all he found there were homeless people. In a panic, he ran around, checking the numerous platforms, but all he did was confirm that the tracks were empty and that he had lost his way out.

  Not knowing where he was going, he crossed a street and saw women standing on the street wearing short skirts and heavy makeup, watching the cars passing by. When a car stopped, they would go over to start a conversation or borrow a light for their cigarettes. Using his poor German, he asked the women which way it was to East Berlin. One woman sneered that there were no more trains going there, that he should stay here one night and go back tomorrow, that she’d take him. Because he did not understand a situation like this, he asked how much it would cost to stay one night. She answered 100 marks, a real bargain. What else could he do but recoil and run away? One hundred marks for one night of sleep? He made sure his two crumpled twenty-mark bills were still in his pocket. The young man returned to the square in front of Europa Center, illuminated like a fairyland with Christmas lights and decorations. He sat on an empty bench near a fountain, which wasn’t running because it was wintertime. When he saw an Asian couple pass him by, he hesitated, but managed to ask for a light for his cigarette. The man with the light asked him in German if he was Chinese. No, I’m Korean, he answered, and the man laughed out loud and said in Korean, I’m Korean, too. For a few seconds, a loaded silence prevailed among the three Koreans. The man and woman were Mr. Yi’s friends Mr. and Mrs. Shin. The young man hesitated, but spoke first, breaking the silence.

  “Is there no train going back to East Berlin?”

  Mr. Shin was the first to realize what had happened.

  “Ah, you cannot go back now. The train will start running again tomorrow morning, so . . . you can stay with us if you like.”

  The young man looked so young, he could easily have passed for a high school student.

  “We live very close to here,” Mr. Shin added. “You can rest for the night, and we’ll bring you back to the station tomorrow morning.”

  He followed them without protest. They walked three blocks down the now almost empty streets to the Shins’ place on Rosenheimer Straße. When they got there, however, the young man refused to go upstairs. Staying on the street, he said, “Where are we?”

  “This is our apartment.”

  When Mrs. Shin answered, the young man added, even though they already knew, “I’m a student from North Korea.”

  “Really? We’re students, too. Come on in.”

  I heard this story from Mr. Yi three days after it had happened. Mr. and Mrs. Shin had brought the young man to him. I knew that even two nights would have been really inconvenient for the Shins. They lived in a studio apartment where the bed and the kitchen and the living room were all one open space. So they did what they usually did when friends came for a visit. They made a bed for him on the sofa and drew a curtain around their bed.

  The young man was twenty years old and from Pyongyang. His name was Cho Young Soo. He had started studying at an engineering school in East Berlin only eight months before. After serving him breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Shin took him to Wannsee and to the museums and the botanical gardens, and then they showed him West Berlin, wondering how he would react. He followed them around until dinnertime and then declared that he would not return to his dormitory in East Berlin. At first they were just trying to be nice, but now they had begun to panic. This was a politically explosive problem. They fretted and worried and thought about it, and then they brought him to Mr. Yi Hee Soo.

  When I got to Mr. Yi’s apartment, the young man from North Korea had already spent the night there, and he did not appear to be nervous at all. Mr. Yi introduced him to me. I felt like I was looking at my youngest brother. Young Soo was wearing Mr. Yi’s corduroy pants and green sweater. I set the table with bread, ham, and cheese that I had brought over, and wanting to appear friendly, I cracked a joke.

  “You don’t have horns.”

  “Pardon?”

  His eyes widened, and I put two fingers on top of my head.

  “Horns, don’t you know? In the South they say North Koreans have horns.”

  “We were told that all South Koreans are special agents.”

  Mr. Yi interrupted, “Mr. Cho here says he won’t go back to East Berlin.”

  “What are you going to do if you don’t go back?” I asked him.

  “I want to live in Germany.”

  “What if Germany doesn’t accept you?”

  “Then I’ll go to another country.”

  “Then there would be so many people you’ll not be able to see again. First of all, you won’t see your mom.”

  Mr. Yi, who was standing behind him in the kitchen, gestured to me not to say anything more. He brought over plates and put them on the table.

  “Well, you don’t have to decide anything right now,” he said. “Let’s eat first, then we’ll take you to the department store.”

  Mr. Yi and I took Young Soo and spent the whole day at department stores and shopping malls. As we walked around, whenever I had a chance, I whispered to Mr. Yi, “Can you please tell me what you intend to do with him?”

  His answer was quite simple, “Send him back.”

  “Why? What for?”

  “Would you want me to report him to the immigration authorities, or to our consulate?”

  “Just leave him alone. He should make that decision on his own.”

  “Listen, it’s like there was a heavy rain and the levee was broken. So many things were carried down to another lake because of the flood, and one of them was a baby fish. But this is a completely new environment and there are too many big fishes here. It’s not going to be easy for the baby fish to survive.”

  “Who knows? Maybe he’ll decide that there are more things to eat and more water plants here, and that this is a better place to live. Living is taking risks, wherever you are.”

  “You yourself said that he’ll never see his mother again! Young Soo is only twenty. He’s just a runaway.”

  Mr. Yi bought Young Soo a thick windbreaker with a hood and new underwear and socks. It was almost Christmas, and the interior of the department store looked like a palace with all sorts of decorations and lights. After looking at the picture of Santa Claus in his red suit and white beard riding a sleigh led by reindeer, and after finding a man dressed in the same clothes standing by the toy section, Young Soo asked Mr. Yi who he was. I found his answer simple and funny. Do you know what Mr. Yi Hee Soo said? He said it was the department store’s monster. We went back home to have dinner, after which Mr. Yi started talking with Young Soo.

  “I think you will be with me for a while, so what do you want to do most here?”

  “Take the train, go wherever I want to go . . . travel to other countries in Europe, too.”

  “Then when are you gonna go back?”

  “I know it’s been a few days, but I cannot make up my mind. Every night, I think I’ll go back to my dormitory the next
morning, but when the morning comes I change my mind.”

  “Are you afraid that you’ll be punished when you go back?”

  “I want to live as I want in a new world.”

  “How can you live just as you want? That’s too easy, and nowhere in this world is it that easy. You won’t be able to see your mother and father and sisters. Ten million people have not seen each other for the last fifty years. I don’t know the world you grew up in, but I can guess that many people believe that you’ll one day become a great engineer after studying abroad, and that you’ll pay them back by bringing back new ideas and technology. Things are difficult over there. Just think of how many workers you will teach.”

  “But a man has the right to choose his own happiness!”

  “Sometimes, unfamiliar things just look better. But if you cannot resolve the problems in your own home, you cannot be successful in someone else’s home. You’re not an adult yet. It’s like you just ran away from home. I want to send you back to your family, but of course, it is something you have to decide. You don’t have to do this right now, but think carefully. Was there anything that you were not happy with before?”

  “Nothing happened the way I wanted it to. It’s not like I chose to study mechanical engineering.”

  “Hmm, that’s not right. But I bet there were many other young people who wanted to study abroad, isn’t that right?”

  “Of course. I haven’t even served in the army yet. The exam’s really difficult. Only one out of sixty or seventy gets chosen.”

  “I don’t know much about politics, but I’m worried about someone using you. Whether you’re in the North or the South, life is very precious to everyone. If you’re in danger and it’s impossible to live, anyone can become a refugee, even in this rich country. But if you struggle together with your family, don’t you think you’ll be much happier later in life?”

  Mr. Yi went on talking to Young Soo with the utmost sincerity. I knew he was a serious person, but I trusted him even more after watching him trying to resolve what he could have considered merely an annoying problem with such fairmindedness. Each side likes to brag about who came over and who chose what, but I also think that my life is the product of South Korea and that I have to do my best there. Didn’t you say that once, too? On the other hand, that’s what people in the North should do, too. Wherever we are, I think we have to do our best to transform ourselves from within. That is the first condition of our country’s division.