A Trip Through the Mirror

Originally published in Korean as Geoul Sok Yeohaeng in 2001.

Copyright Š 2001 Kim Joo-Young Translation Copyright Š 2004 Jeong-il Moon & Philip McElroy Edited by Stephen Epstein All rights reserved. All texts thus made available are for personal use only and may not be reproduced commercially without permission from both the original copyright holder and Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

Digitally published by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea in 2016.

LTI Korea, 112 Gil-32, Yeongdong-daero(Samseong-dong), Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 06083, Korea www.ltikorea.org eISBN 9791187947332 Cover design by David Drummond

A Trip Through the Mirror

We lived in poverty. Our house sat at the entrance of a street that sloped up to the township office. We had a tiny yard, barely big enough for raising a few chickens, enclosed within a bamboo fence. Beyond the fence was a dusty, trash-strewn fairground where a market was held every five days. Ordinarily our street was deserted and dogs would gather there in packs and mate. Early in the morning on market days, though, peddlers and shoppers flocked in. By midday, the market was filled with their clamor.

Sometimes men would grab each other by the throat. They'd yet to have anything to drink, but they'd still pummel each other, noses red and faces florid. Or maybe you'd see a cloth merchant, wild-eyed and shrieking, lying prostrate, after her pocket had been picked. People would gather to gawk and, powerless to help this poor woman whose money was now all gone, grumble that the world was going to hell. During the rainy season a cattle market was held just past our fence. The rain had the curious, almost magical effect of dampening the brawling and bickering. Maybe it was because it drenched everyone indiscriminately. Or maybe it just erased the hideousness of it all.

A large rooster stood forlorn, drenched, its comb drooping pitifully, as its owner took refuge under house eaves, trying to dodge the rain without success. The two looked identical in their soaked, pathetic state, the owner's penis peeping out through his hemp breeches.

At sunset, the market broke up. The bickering peddlers and customers headed off alone or in pairs, to be replaced by flocks of birds intent on scavenging kernels in front of the grain shop. As the chill evening wind blew down the street, I would become depressed and feel like crying. Mother was not home, and that made the emptiness that came every market day all the more acute.

Market day meant nothing to my mother. She had to work as a laborer grinding grain. The birds chirping in front of the shop would fly off, their stomachs full. When the distant mountain ridge faded in the evening darkness, my younger brother Hyeong-Ho and I headed home. We'd weave through the market picking up labels that had fallen off aluminum bowls, farm tools, and cans and were emblazoned with pictures: kangaroos with their young in pouches; lions baring their teeth; sketches of fish like mackerel or appetizing fillets. Then we'd sit side by side on the narrow veranda of our empty house, clutching those labels.

We came up with a game. After a round of rock-paper-scissors, the winner had the right to rummage around in the other's hand and choose a label. When the game was over, the one who lost was left with pictures of the things you couldn’t eat, like kangaroos, lions, and factories.

To us, the distinction between what was edible and what wasn't was as stark as the distinction a couple on the point of divorce makes between worn-out “his” and “hers” towels hanging in the bathroom. So we made it a priority to win the mackerel and fillet labels; their juicy smell would fill our nostrils straight away. Children that we were aiming at delicacies, we'd get so

wrapped up in our game, that we wouldn't notice that darkness had penetrated the far corners of the room. But whoever was on the defensive always had a trick or two up his sleeve.

"You can eat kangaroos, you know."

That would pop out of one of our mouths because of dissatisfaction about the winner.

"I bet you think a kangaroo is like a chicken."

"When did I say a kangaroo is like a chicken?"

"Then tell me what it’s like."

"I saw people eating kangaroo. They said it tasted like beef."

"Stop lying. You think a kangaroo is like beef or chicken? I've never even seen a kangaroo."

"People say that mountain over there is crawling with them. Why would they put kangaroos on the label if there ain't any around here?"

"Don't be an idiot. Kangaroos aren't baby deer."

"But I saw somebody eat kangaroo, okay?"

"Who?" "I forget."

"You're so messed up from your lies that you forgot."

"Well, you sound like a lawyer. Let's go and ask a grown-up if you can eat kangaroo."

"Fine, let's go."

We took the kangaroo label and went out to the square in front of the village. We'd grab at each other's belts, just like haggling merchants and customers, and not let go until our argument was settled. The adults held the label up under a light and inspected it but eventually handed it back, snapping at us bitterly.

"We're so hard up we'd eat a crow that fell on the outhouse roof. What'd be the big deal about boiling up one of those?"

"Do you mean you can eat a kangaroo?"

"If you don't want it, give it to me. I'll eat it for you."

"Can you eat lion too?"

"Don't be ridiculous. They'd eat you first."

At that point our serious game came to an end. But just because our game was over did not mean the result had been settled. Both of us knew there weren't any kangaroos around our village.

Besides we'd never seen anybody eat one. And even though we looked for grown-ups to help settle the argument, it didn’t really matter who was right. Getting adults involved was a small part of the game, a ruse we'd come up with to help us figure something out our own way. What we fought over with such determination was only a game to kill time while we waited for our mother to come home.

The kangaroos and lions were toys we’d thought up to soothe our tension. The real enemy was the darkness that swallowed the fading daylight and entered our room instead of Mother. Both of us were reluctant to enter that fearful room before the other. My brother was usually first to cry. His tears foretold that we could no longer use labels to justify questions that deceived the adults and, of

course, ourselves. Nothing was more frightening.

"Ain't Mom home yet?" Hyeong-Ho's voice trembled. He curled up his left hand and pressed it against his chest, still clutching the kangaroo label.

"Don't whine. She'll come soon."

"I'm so hungry I can't even talk."

"Eat something."

"There isn’t anything to eat."

"Mom'll be home soon."

"Aren't you sad?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you feel like crying?"

Sure I did. I wanted to cry just as hard as my brother. I'd have liked nothing more than to give into the urge to cry. It wasn't hard to start. But eventually you have to stop, and I had to stop before he did to keep my dignity. After all, I was three years older. I'd have had to be a professional mourner to be able to rein my crying in once the dam that held my tears in burst. The fear, despair and resentment I'd only experienced as an abstraction would have been made concrete and slowly soaked up in the wrapping cloth that weeping provided.

A rowboat without an oar is at the mercy of the rapids, but the crying demon climbed on board as he always did and controlled us with his usual skill. He sat down, spread his legs and combed his hair while we kept wailing under his deft command. Hyeong-Ho was inconsolable. I could not begrudge him when he asked in such a noble way whether I wasn't sad. I couldn’t ignore him because I was caught in the crying demon's net. It was not that I didn’t cry because I wasn't sad; not crying was simply a habit of mine. We'd keep crying until we had a good excuse to stop or found the root of the problem.

Our crying reached the ambiguous state of an alcoholic who is either drinking to get drunk or getting drunk in order to drink. As a hawk soaring on air currents can keep a steady altitude without flapping its wings, we knew how to modulate our crying comfortably once we reached peak volume. But the crying demon could not spend all night with us. Nobok's mom tore him off us when she walked by, interrupting us.

"You'd think somebody died the way you two are carrying on. Do you think your crying is going to make your mother come home? She'll come when she's done working."

"You know where Mom is?"

"Sure."

"Where?"

"On the other side of the village, at Wolcheon's house. She looked bushed hulling rice all day, but you brats bawl not knowing how worried she is about you . . . What a sight!"

"Where's Wolcheon's house?"

"What, are you gonna go out and look for her at this time of night? A tiger cub might rip your

balls off."

"Did you see our mom?"

"I just said I did. If you don't believe me ask her later."

Nobok's mom turned up the hem of her short skirt and wiped away the traces of my brother's tears. Then she went in and lit the oil lamp, dispelling the inert darkness. And while the darkness may have fled, it wasn't our mother sitting in the room, but another woman.

"Get in here. Why are you looking around? Are you going to spend all night out there or what?"

Nobok's mom and her sharp tongue startled the crying demon into flying off into the darkness on its broomstick. The only remnants of its visit were tear tracks on our cheeks. But we were then captured once more, this time, by Nobok's mom's hypnotic spell. As with the crying demon, we had no excuse for disobeying her commands. We stepped across the veranda into the room uncomfortably, like two little kids who had soiled their pants. The room had a cool vitality that had been absent during the day, and the thin flame from the lamp lapped at the remaining darkness on the walls.

"Ha—you two don't deserve your balls. So what if your mom is a little late? You shouldn't bother the neighbors with your bawling. Of course she's coming back. You two are all she's got in the world. Do you think she's going to sink underground or float away? If you want to be men, you have to act more dignified."

Nobok's mom had us sit and then went out to boil the brass kettle so Mom could start the meal as soon as she got home. The kettle sat on the stove in front of the fence. Once she had started the fire, she came back into the room and patted Hyeong-ho as she wiped his nose.

Her voice softened. "Wait here, and don't make a peep. Your mom will be home as fast as her legs can carry her."

Her steps faded away and it was just Hyeong-Ho and me alone again. The crackling of the wood in the stove died down. Our shoving match with the crying demon had come to an end, but now that we'd let all our tears out we were filled with cool emptiness once more. For a while there was silence. The shadows of the lamp seemed patterned after the teeth of the comb the crying demon had used. They inched up and down on the wall like a worm. On the outskirts of the village a dog barked a couple of times. I wondered where my mother was. In the meantime Hyeong-Ho had come up with another game. Trying to suppress rising hiccups, he said, "I know where Nobok's mom was before she got here."

"Did she say she'd been with Mom?" "Nah." "Did you ask her?"

"Nope!"

"How do you know, then?"

"I just do."

"How could you know without asking?"

"I smelled godubap on her skirt."

"Godubap?"

"Yeah. When she wiped my nose."

I was elated and jumped in, "She must have come from the brewery!" I thought of how they used godubap, rice that had been steamed with just a small amount of water so that it was hard, to make the liquor makgeolli.

Hyeong-Ho nodded. He giggled for the first time since sunset. Nobok's mom regularly helped out at the village brewery, and I also now thought of how she had twice wiped his nose with her skirt. She had a masculine build as well as the grit to do the tough work usually handled by the men.

They made makgeolli two or three times between fair days at the brewery. Out back hung straw sacks. They would be used for steaming the godubap in a cauldron when they were brewing the liquor. Nobok's mom used the shiny blade of a shovel to spread the rice out on a straw mat in the front lot so that it would dry evenly. The dried rice was mixed with malted wheat and alcohol and then brewed in a vat twice as big as a child. Nobok's mom was usually called to the brewery on days the rice was steamed. Its savory aroma would waft out, enticing hungry kids. The aroma would also entice a lot of troublemakers who played hide-and-seek around the brewery.

Jang Seok-Do worked at the brewery. He was well-built and had a very short crew cut. When he scooped out the rice that Nobok's mom had prepared from the cauldron, his muscles and veins bulged beneath his rolled-up shirt like the bubbles of porridge boiling in a pot. If the weather held, the rice was left out for two days. Jang leveled it with a wooden rake so it would dry evenly. As it dried, he’d brace his rake between his thighs and lean on it, keeping watch at the front gate. Thick black hair covered his legs. He patrolled the straw mats, solemnly keeping those mischievous boys pretending to play hide-and-seek from stealing the rice, but as long as they didn’t try to snatch it he would calmly watch without a word.

Jang’s bulk and rippling muscles made him resemble Samson, the strong man of Israel, despite his crew cut. No one was a match for him. They’d held tests of strength in the brewery lot, betting dippers of makgeolli. One guy could hold a bike with two fingers. Another could keep a whole sack of rice hoisted in the air for ages without letting it touch his knees. But Samson just watched from the front gate, arms folded, expression dauntless and serene, as the young men showed off their immature strength.

Samson did not budge from the gate as long as we were around. He was like a stake driven into an irrigation ditch. If he'd left even to go to the bathroom, the kids who were waiting for the opportunity would have rushed the straw mat en masse and made off with the rice. We were natural enemies. However, in the end opportunities presented themselves, even in the midst of this tense, unrelenting confrontation.

As the sun was sinking and the evening glow lit the sky, flocks of birds would swoop down on the mats from out of nowhere and cause an uproar, so Samson made sure to gather up the mats first.

But before that we'd have a chance or two when Samson nodded off.

Samson of Israel was strong but he yielded to the temptation of his lover, Delilah. And while he slept, his hair, the source of his strength, was cut. The Philistines plucked out his eyes and he ended up blind. But we had no intention of plotting to pluck out the eyes of our Samson with a crew cut.

All we wanted was for him to doze off. A well-defined distance lay between Samson and us, the minimum no-go area possible from which we'd be able to scurry away safely, like flies that swarmed on a cow's back. So unless his head obviously nodded, it was very hard for us to know whether he was sleeping or pretending. Samson was used to keeping watch and only very rarely left himself open to attack. Despite this tense standoff we had prospects for success.

One reason was that our Samson was good-hearted and had a soft spot for young troublemakers like us. He never drove us off even though we swarmed like flies and he knew what we were up to. The other reason was more serious. Recognizing that with Samson on guard the kids never made off with any rice, the boss gave him a big lump sum payment each year. Without us being so persistent, there wouldn't have been a reason to keep him on full-time. So we weren't just natural enemies but fellow travelers. As long as the brewery owner knew we were hanging around, Samson could show that he wasn’t some bum getting paid for nothing.

Samson could tell that people had prejudged him because fate had endowed him with such an impressive frame. He was so big that when he was napping he tended to look dumber and more listless than someone skinner would have. If he was pressed with work, he shuffled along, but the less he had to do, the more he hurried as if busy. He knew what other people thought about him but understood our symbiotic relationship well. When he thought he was free from the rebukes of others' and the boss's hectoring, he dozed.

We couldn't miss our chance. Once we determined he was really sleeping, we had to get to the mat and snatch the rice. If Samson had stood guard too consistently and we were convinced we’d never break through or find a blind spot, we'd have given up and let the brewery alone.

But then the owner would have gotten rid of him. So Samson feigned sleep because he understood the meaning of the symbiosis. He knew how to be discreet, but everything had to go off without a hitch. If we couldn't tell fast enough whether Samson was faking it and missed the time to strike or if the red-nosed owner suddenly showed up, then our tacit pact was immediately broken off. He’d jump to his feet from the doorway of the brewery and curse the kids who had made off with the rice, hurling his massive bulk through the air as if intent on trampling us, like an enraged bull that had barely escaped castration. He’d frighten himself more than us. In the midst of the confusion we swooped in, bent over, and scooped the rice off the straw mat, like swallows skimming water. If any of us had had the misfortune to get grabbed by Samson, it would have been all over. But none of us had ever been caught by Samson and violently dismembered or trampled to a pulp. In fact, our lack of experience made us all the more petrified. Nobody knew what end awaited us but given the way Samson would start awake as though frightened out of his own wits, there was something more than mere terror in store.

So when the chase began, I flew off with all the others. I don't even remember my feet touching the ground. Once I flew off, I became a hawk riding the air currents. Boundless space spread before me, and being so far up I heard only the whistling of the wind. I felt languid, refreshed, as if I were floating in water. I did not have to bother bending my legs or flapping my arms. I flew unhindered, propelled by an unknown force.

But there was a problem. I clenched my teeth so hard I could have split my gums. And then, suddenly, I was struck head-on by a bolt of gnashing lightning and come in for a landing, safely.

Before me stood a poplar so enormous it seemed to touch the sky. I looked it over and found no trace of the lightning bolt. As fresh blood flowed from my forehead, I recalled Samson's enraged bellowing. In my heart remained a piece of despondence imparted by the hawk when its exhilarated flight became a dispirited return to earth.

Only then did I open the palm I’d rubbed my forehead with. My empty palm was crying before I was. What was left in my hand wasn't rice but bloodstained rubbish. It was as pointless to look for the rice that had slipped between my fingers as a pair of rubber shoes lost in a flood. A long fierce sob shot up and bitter tears wetted my lips as it dawned on me that all had been for naught. My brother was home alone, like a crane standing on one leg, waiting impatiently for me to return in triumph with fistfuls of rice.

My failure was enough for him to curse me. Despite the blood caked on my forehead, he’d without doubt lay into me and grumble that I was an idiot.

My brother's criticism bothered me as much as those needles I imagined stuck in his heart. I grew more miserable, the more I thought about how little I could do for him although I was three years older. I wanted to fly far away. But I could no longer fly because I had completely forgotten Samson’s choice.

I had no other choice but to go back home on foot. But I was convinced I’d flown from the brewery lot to this poplar. If I’d been unable to believe my proud memory of flying and if there were no guarantee I'd be able to hold on to it, I'd have collapsed on the ground crying and would have lost the courage to walk home. On the way I again convinced myself I could not have come so far without flying. The poplar stood in the middle of a field I’d never been to before so there was no reason for me to run through these pathless unfamiliar fields. Had it not been for the lightning I could have flown somewhere even further and more remote.

I liked our village bus stop with its tiny ticket booth. I used to run to it to see the bus that passed by twice a day. In the winter the bus was packed with strangers behind its frosted windows heading off to different places. When its door opened, the rank body odor of the passengers rushed out with the hot air. When I got up close under the windows for a look, a passenger would glance down sternly and motion for me to hurry and step back. During the summer I wondered when the day would come when I’d sit proudly on the bus, head held high, as the dark blue roadside silver poplars cast their shadows on the windows. Hyeong-Ho and I stayed and watched until the bus left the stop.

That day as well I felt the urge to travel somewhere far away. However, I had to hurry home where Hyeong-Ho was waiting, even though he would be waiting to cuss me out, because I was three years older and had failed him. I got home fully expecting to get it but he didn’t say anything.

He was sleeping. What grown-ups said about sleep taking care of hunger was not nonsense; it was obvious with my brother sleeping there. He’d fallen asleep on his stomach on the narrow veranda, his legs crossed and his upper body hunched over, waiting for me. His left cheek was on the floor so he could look towards the gate.

Finding him like that was even more painful than having him waiting for my empty-handed return with eyes open, fists clenched, and face flushed. The tracks of his tears stood out. I unfolded his legs and laid him on his back. His stifled breathing became more drawn out and the back of his thin neck rested there limply. I took a rag that lay nearby and propped it under his neck. His breathing was remarkably quiet.

"Where were you? How come you're so late?" My mother suddenly appeared from the outhouse, hitching up her underwear. I was scared out of my wits. I’d been so wrapped up in gazing at my sleeping brother I hadn't noticed any signs of her return. She must have really had to go.

"I was playing with friends."

Her eyes popped out even before I finished my sentence.

"What happened to your forehead?"

I raised my hand and found a lump the size of a small peach. She rushed over and gingerly rubbed that ripe little peach.

"What happened? You must have hit something mighty hard. Were you fighting?"

I made a show of gesturing that it was no big deal. "I was just playing."

"Not fighting?"

"Of course not."

"Since when have you guys risked your necks over a game? You're going to try and tell me it happened in a game?"

"It doesn't hurt."

"Don't lie. A bump that big and it doesn't hurt? Who hit you?"

"Nobody. I ran into a pole while we were playing hide-and-seek."

"Hide-and-seek?"

"Yep!" "You'd play a game with your eyes closed n this dog-eat-dog world? It really doesn't hurt?"

"Really, it doesn't."

"You stay right there."

Mother removed her hand and rushed behind the house and came back with a bowl lid that had something on it. Not rice cake or a vegetable pancake, lovingly brought home from work, but old soybean paste. It stank like a cesspool. She sat me down on the veranda, my back to the wall.

After mashing the paste with a spoon, she applied it to my forehead then tore up a rag and

bandaged me with it.

"Soybean paste's good for bruises and stings."

But it tingled and stung after she put it on.

"It's shocking to think this happened because some stupid kids were slugging it out."

"Mom, do you think I'm stupid enough to go and get beaten up?"

"Don't go pretending like you're special. You're already missing meals, so those rich kids'll pound on you. You ain't strong enough. You're not a big boy, or brave, or meaner than others. You shouldn't even argue with your friends."

"Don't worry."

"How can I not worry when you're so frail?"

"Anyway, don't."

"I'd be a lot happier if I didn't have to. Lie your brother down in the room and I'll whip up some supper."

I was happy just to hear the sound of Mom breaking kindling coming through the door. It made us happy to know that the three of us were together under the same roof in the lonely evening after the sun had set and dusk darkened the mountain ridge. We were happy even though all three of us were banged up by our daily activities. Hyeong-Ho had tear tracks on his cheeks from his waiting, I had a bruised forehead from flying into the poplar tree, and after a day like hers Mother must have been utterly worn out.

Her voice came through the door. "Does your head sting?"

"Nope."

"Bet that's not true. It's gotta sting to get better . . ."

"I'm telling you it doesn't hurt."

"Don't lie. Even a strong young man would be lying down if he were as banged up as you are."

"I'll be better after I eat."

"Hey, don't copy what adults say."

"What do we even have for medicine around here besides rice?"

"Yeah, ain't it the truth? People go on about medicines that work good or are famous, but what’s better than a bowl of rice?"

Mother would have felt much more pain if she knew I'd gotten hurt trying to make off with something to eat. She must have been beside herself with worry—the rice she brought in that evening was undercooked.

Once I dropped by the brewery on my way to school and had some of the dregs instead of breakfast. That morning we had a hygiene inspection. One by one, beginning with the kids who sat in front, we had to show our hands, our feet, and our teeth. The teacher stood before me but instead of inspecting my hands and feet, he was staring me in the face, confused. For a long time I did not understand, but then I realized he was signaling for me to show him my teeth. I opened my mouth so wide he could see all the way down my throat. He then addressed me in a very cold tone of voice.

"Shut your mouth."

I did not know what he wanted but I closed my mouth. Then he said something ridiculous.

"You were drinking, weren't you?"

Considering that we were half-starving, no, I’d never drunk any liquor. But here he was pressing me about it. Even more embarrassing, the kids around me started to suppress their giggles.

"I don't drink."

The teacher was sure of himself.

"Don't lie."

"I didn't. Honest!"

"Liar! How could a little squirt dare come to school drunk?"

The teacher's question was completely justified. I agreed that alcohol is bad for kids. I knew it was okay for the older guys in the village when they went fishing or for the louts who rolled around the fair grounds. But he was browbeating me for drinking and moving my chin up and down with his hand while he spoke.

"He's obviously been drinking, and he's just playing innocent because he's drunk."

The teacher made me come to the front of the class and punished me by making me lift my chair over my head for the rest of the period. The other kids kept glancing at my ludicrous position with their hands covering their mouths or with their tongues sticking out. One serious child, who was trying not to look at me directly, finally burst out laughing. I blushed and laughed awkwardly. My classmates looked just as silly to me struggling not to laugh as I must have looked to them. They sat squarely in their seats and pretended to be listening to the teacher but they leaned forward expecting me to ham it up. I got bolder and cheekier. By using my wits and being spontaneous during that hour I succeeded in shifting their interest in the teacher to me. They'd giggle when I puckered my lips or jiggled my chin and giggled even more when I squinted. When the teacher noticed, he had me face the front wall, thinking that was the best way to break up our game.

But wherever there are kids, there's a playground. Even on a desolate rock without a blade of grass or a pebble, they can come up with a game in no time. They’re experts at being able to stay up all night playing in a pitch-black room, and that’s because the children themselves are parts of the game. Giving them toys just wears away their tendency to come up with their own games. I never had a toy of my own, but my childhood was filled with as much impulsive joy as anybody's. When people see a cow chewing its cud in a field, they think of solitude. But in fact, the cow is absorbed in an important task. It's just the same with kids. They can't be bored and lonely since the world is a playground.

Despite the teacher's practiced maneuver, our game continued. I stood facing the wall, but I still felt their eyes fixed on my back. So, without turning around, I just moved my eyes to the back of my head and made good use of having my arms hoisted in the air. I took a deep breath and then let it all out. Once the air in my stomach was gone, the skin around it sunk in around my spine. The kids started to laugh.

My pants slowly slid down from above my belly towards my knees. With my eyes now planted on the back of my head, I read their expressions one by one. The number of kids laughing was going to depend on how far my pants dropped. They kept slipping down and stopped at the small of my back, where you could see both sides of my butt around the crack. If I'd squeezed my bottom as hard as I could and wiggled a bit, my trousers would have dropped to my feet and the contest between the teacher and me would have been settled with him, of course, having to acknowledge bitter defeat.

When school let out that day, the teacher sent the class monitor to order me to come to the teachers' office. All I could do was say I had not been drinking. And that it was the kids’ fault, not mine. Maybe they’d burst out laughing but I hadn't at all. I couldn't pull up my pants, because my hands were holding the chair in the air, and because the teacher had ordered me to. That was the truth. It's unfortunate that the closer we are to the truth the fewer excuses we have. The fact I had not drunk anything was clear but my teacher came up with the groundless tale that I had. However, I didn't have a witness to back me up. The only way I could persuade him was to plead that I hadn't.

I went to the office repeating again and again in my head, "I did not drink." I anticipated an even crueler and more difficult plot than having to hold up a chair for an hour.

"I did not drink. I did not drink liquor. Liquor, liquor, liquor . . . I didn't drink liquor. I've never drunk it . . . liquor, liquor, liquor . . . liquor, liquor, liquor . . . I did not laugh in class. The kids laughed. They laughed but I didn't. In class I never . . ." I was at the end of my rope, because I’d not come up with a single convincing excuse.

The teacher was waiting for me at the entrance to the teachers' room. He immediately grabbed me by the hand and sat me down on his chair.

"It's my fault. I never regretted being a teacher more than today."

His expression was contorted. It perplexed me because he was always commanding and dignified.

"I . . . I didn't drink."

"I know. I made a mistake. And I know I can't fix it."

My fears about not coming up with an alibi had been unfounded, because my weak defense had convinced him right away.

I realized then that the dregs Nobok's mom took out of a container when she passed our house weren’t dangerous. Nevertheless, my brother was none too pleased to see her even though she frequently took care of troublemakers like us, and the only reason was that her breath often smelled of alcohol. While she took care of us he didn’t utter a peep but as soon as she was out of sight past the twig gate he laid into her.

"She was drinking."

According to my brother's logic since Nobok's mom had alcohol on her breath she couldn't be trusted. He didn't believe it when she said Mother would be home a little later. But nevertheless, he waited for Mother impatiently and that anticipation seized him. Outwardly he was harping on her for

not being home, but in his heart he was waiting for her intently. He had his reasons for thinking the way he did, because, living near the market, we often heard drunks make empty promises or saying embarrassing swear words. Also, adults considered threats of revenge uttered by those who'd been drinking worthless and paid no attention to their cursing. Normal people avoided the drunks as much as possible because you never knew what they might do.

However, as if to throw cold water on my brother's doubts, Nobok's mom filled the kettle in the yard with water, made a fire, and then went back home. But only after the kindling had burned up, the fire subsided and the boiled water gone cold did Mother return home. She came back at daybreak, thoroughly worn out, and, as if to make it up to us, did not go to work for three days.

While she lay sick those three days, bedridden from exhaustion, Hyeong-Ho and I just hung around the house, not going out once. We were hardly waiting on her, but we were overjoyed at her being home, even if her bedding was sopping with perspiration and she babbled most of the night in feverish delirium.

When the sun set and the still air cooled the backs of our necks, we didn't have to cry at suddenly being filled with sorrow or argue about when she would come home. We didn't have to play our label game to free ourselves of anxiety. While she lay in bed she could not eat. Nobok's mom came over with rice gruel but mother refused it. She said it was not her fate to be treated to meals in bed and that if she was lying down she could get by on water. On the morning of the fourth day she got herself together, downed a few spoonfuls of gruel, and went to work.

One event that managed to entrance me in the midst of my grindingly constant and wrenching childhood hunger was the discovery of a mirror. We didn't have a mirror at home that suitably reflected our faces. Of course in the main room of rich families who enjoyed what life has to offer you'd find a dresser with a mirror on top, but in our poverty, we didn’t have much opportunity to see one because my mother had long ago chosen not to have anything to do with a mirror.

My mother once said, "A woman who keeps a mirror too close can't pay attention to her weaving."

The first time I saw an adequate mirror was when a barbershop opened across the street from us. The place had originally been an inn, but suddenly workers came in droves one day and set about demolishing the corner room that sat on the main street. For two days the interior work— tearing out the ceiling, plastering and the like—went so fast you'd have thought the workers were being chased. At sunset two days later, the workers brought in two large full-length mirrors, shuffling like woodcutters moving loads of wood. The mirrors were so filled with the blazing sunset it seemed they would set the distant mountain ridge to the west on fire. Every time the workers got a better hold on a mirror, the captured evening glow veered off at wide angles. Looking at this rapturous and lighthearted dance, Hyeong-Ho and I took a few steps back, almost frightened. With our backs to the west, we experienced the marvelous paradox of seeing the evening glow fade in front of us.

From that day on the barbershop mirrors provided us with previously undreamt of adventures.

Once the workers had fixed the mirrors at a slight tilt on the plastered wall, they flocked into the inn

for a snack. My brother and I darted into the barbershop and stood side by side in front of the mirrors. The sunset captured within them had departed, but there, in the middle of the mirrors, stood two boys who seemed to be us.

"Look."

A reflection of my brother pointing at himself was visible in the mirrors hanging on the wall.

Strange things started to happen. I grinned and my grinning self was reflected immediately. I made myself look angry. So did my reflection. I opened my mouth and showed my teeth. I twisted my upper body, eyes glaring. The mirror followed each movement immediately, no matter how brief the moment between them, and perfectly, like an exact carbon copy. This spirited copying game kept repeating through the mirror's awe-inspiring power of reflection whether I wanted it to or not. When the workers came back after their meal and shouted us away, our marvelous encounter with the mirrors came to an abrupt end.

The next day a stranger appeared at the barbershop. He was in his early thirties and had stylish clothes and a pale face, with a hint of melancholy to it. He didn't look like he came from the countryside. A plaintive solitude hung on him like a yellow butterfly fluttering in early spring. He was obviously the owner of the barbershop but Hyeong-Ho and I called him the Owner of the Mirrors.

Later we noticed that he bore a striking resemblance to the inn owner, but because we were young we could not understand why he had come to this village and settled down as a barber. What was more, he did not seem cut out to earn a living as a barber as he handled the clippers very clumsily.

He hadn’t had a regular barber’s training, so the same pressing necessity that had made the shop spring up must have driven him to become a barber. But we weren’t interested in whether he was qualified to do his job or had some secret plan. We’d loiter around and dart into the shop to play games with the mirrors when the adults weren’t paying attention.

Our encounter with the mirrors changed Hyeong-Ho and me. From the moment we saw them we made it a point to carry on our conversations, no matter how trivial, with slightly exaggerated hand gestures or by twisting our bodies like Westerners. Our mother was the first to notice our strange gestures. I was old enough to feel ashamed of tripping over a rock but my brother would burst out crying after falling down. That was why my mother's aimed her usual scolding and complaints at me. I suppose it was natural because Hyeong-Ho spent most of his time under my nose, clutching my sleeve and whining rather than playing on her affections and clinging to her skirt, and all I taught him as I dragged him around were bad things.

Mother was quite spirited and had stubborn principles in bringing us up. First, there was a problem with the way I walked. I can't remember when I began but I was in the habit of walking with my shoulders huddled, like a goose chasing a hen. My mother demanded that I walk with dignity since I was a boy—shoulders pulled back, chin drawn into my chest, gaze at eye level and looking off into the distance. She also had her opinion about the way to swing your arms. If I flailed them around or kept them stuck to my sides, she thought I looked like a low-life. But she also thought that if you didn't put enough energy into the swing, you’d become hidebound before you

knew it and not live up to your potential. Mother scolded me when I slouched. She said that's what lowborn people who cringed before others did.

Anyway, having started our game with the mirror, I began to wonder one day what the back of my head looked like. I turned around and looked into the mirror, but the mirror reflected only my face, and the back of my head returned to the back straightaway. Not realizing it was futile, I tried to turn my head so slowly that the back would not slide off the surface of the mirror, but I failed. Then I thought that I’d be able to see the back of my head directly if I spun so fast that the mirror would be unable to keep up.

I did everything I could think of but could only see my face. Maybe I was turning my head too slow? But the faster I moved, the faster my face was reflected. No matter how quickly I moved, the mirror anticipated what I’d do. I couldn’t figure the mirror and its mysterious trap out. Why did it reject the back of my head when it showed all my other poses so willingly? After all, even a numbskull like my mom could see the back of my head.

As time went on, Mother became more vehement in pointing out how haggard I looked from behind. It was as if she was making fun of my predicament. She flew into a rage any time our posture even hinted at how nightmarishly poor we were. Mother could never forgive our poverty for the contempt that she attributed to it, either. When grown-ups treated my brother and me as nothing more than stupid kids, she lashed out at them furiously, embarrassing them or driving them to clumsy excuses.

Now that a barbershop was established, the villagers no longer had to wait for an itinerant barber. It was the same for us kids, of course. Hyeong-Ho and I had eagerly looked forward to some day having our hair cut at a decently furnished shop, and our wish was soon fulfilled.

One afternoon, my mother took us to the barbershop. She entrusted us to the Owner of the Mirrors and left. A huge wooden chair in the middle of the shop faced the mirror. While Hyeong-Ho sat on the veranda, I got up on a board that had been put across the armrests of the chair so my upper body could be reflected. Without it, my shoulders would have been buried in the back of the chair. The height of the board struck me as awkward. It was neither high enough to make me dizzy nor low enough to smell the stench of the barber's crotch. However, sitting on the board for a long time looking at my face reflected in the mirror made me uncomfortable; it was like riding on the shoulders of a stranger. For the first time in my life I felt a sense of helplessness as I watched the face in the mirror. It looked bashful or awestruck, like a chrysanthemum that had bloomed late. I could see Hyeong-Ho gazing at the back of my head and wiping his runny nose on his grimy sleeve.

A hint of fear spread across my brother's face. Ringworm appeared on both his cheeks. The Owner of the Mirrors picked up a pair of clippers, held my head with his left hand and inspected it for a while. After sizing it up, he edged the clippers toward the top of my head. If it hadn't been for his request to hang in there even if my eyelids grew numb, if it hadn't been for Hyeong-Ho sitting there, waiting dumbstruck for his turn, if it hadn't been for the urgent need to tidy the mop of hair that hung down over my ears, I'd have jumped down from that awkwardly high chair. The pain I felt

nibbling away at my skull at that frightening height began to exhaust me. Like late-spring fatigue that bores into your ribs, this nauseating pain was accompanied by drowsiness. I could not stop the tears welling up in my eyes.

"Does it hurt?"

Hyeong-Ho was supposed to sit patiently on the veranda, but he approached, his voice trembling, as if unable to watch my shameful timidity. Fleeing the barbershop was out of the question as that would have meant abandoning me. Before I could answer, the Owner of the Mirrors scolded him gruffly.

"Sit yourself right back down and be still."

I glimpsed my face reflected in the mirror beneath his armpit. Two streams of tears ran down my cheek, pooling with the snot that wet the dimple in my upper lip. I'd never seen myself look so shameful and awkward before. The way I looked was enough to ruthlessly crush the beautiful expectations and fantasies I'd had about myself in relation to the mirror. If I strung together every pleasant moment in my memory they would not be equal to the length of the pain I experienced then.

Being completely exposed in such an ugly and shameful state before my brother while defenseless was a great humiliation. His staring was even more painful.

"The more cotton clothes fade in the sun, the shinier they get. It's the same with age. A boy who's three years older than his brother should maintain his dignity and set a good example rather than cringe like a mutt."

Mother always browbeat me. I always tried to do as she had said, but my dignity had just burst like a bubble.

"Does it hurt?"

His voice trembled from behind. I must have looked pathetic for him to beseech me again like that. I nearly broke out in a cold sweat when I thought about his pain his turn to came on that awkward perch. But my inability to answer exactly whether I felt pain or not distressed me.

Suddenly, I discovered something unexpected. I had not noticed that a watercolor painting was hanging at a tilt over the mirror in the slanting gap between the wall and ceiling. In a deep valley set within a craggy mountain a waterfall roared off a cliff. Over the waterfall rose a white half-moon, and in the foreground a narrow path wound through the crags to the base of the falls. A young couple was walking arm in arm and looking up at the moon.

I squeezed my eyes shut to wring the tears from them and then opened them to look at the picture in detail. This secretive night scene—moon high above, couple walking arm in arm, deserted path below a cliff—was hard for me to imagine. I quickly lowered my eyes. It wasn't right for me to stare at the private world of adults. If the Owner of the Mirrors realized I was studying the picture in his presence, I might get an earful. Something struck me as strange. Until then I'd never spied on an adult world that seemed as deeply meaningful and confidential as the picture wanted to convey. But the composition of the picture and its secretive nature weren't entirely unfamiliar to me. I tried to figure out why but couldn't pick out any clues before I lowered my gaze out of a sense of

embarrassment. Immediately, a tingling pain sliced through me. Again I looked up at the picture, hanging there in the slant between the wall and the ceiling, stained with rat piss. In trying to overcome the pain I managed to enter the painting incognito.

I realized that I was being freed little by little from the world of pain. The torrent that plunged over the cliff forced its way over the rocks forming rapids. I heard the rush of the water. I could barely make it out at first, but when I went up into the moon in the picture and folded my hands behind my back it sounded like it was right beneath me. The gauzy moonlight flowed off the cliff, highlighting the silhouette of the boulders clustered at the rapids and shining on the narrow path the couple was walking. The area was deserted except for the splashing of the rapids and I was engulfed by solitude. I felt a chill. When the branches of the trees growing in the cracks of the cliff swayed in the breeze, moonbeams tumbled into the air glittering like fish scales. I heard birds flapping off in surprise. I'd already been studying the landscape for a long time, my hands folded behind my back, when I discovered something new. When I sat on the wooden chair, the couple had their backs turned to me, but when I entered the moon and turned toward them, I could see their faces. The woman had a pale, oval face, striking nose and large eyes—hardly the type you'd expect to find in our village. She clasped the man's arm with one hand. In the moonlight she seemed melancholy but her parted lips glistened with the hint of a smile.

She was walking with her head bowed and whispering something to the man, but I couldn't make it out because I was far, far away on the moon. I watched as the man nodded. He was a stranger and looked to be in his early thirties, a half dozen years or so older than the woman. He had a pale face and stylish clothes, that weren't those of someone from the countryside. A pall hung over him and he seemed filled with loneliness. They must have been dealing with a serious problem to visit such an out-of-the-way place. Their palpable melancholy confirmed it.

As I studied his face, an absurd idea popped into my head. Maybe I actually had seen him before. I twisted myself in knots trying to get at the source of this curious idea, but I couldn't come up on anything. A throbbing pain made its presence known at the crown of my skull, suggesting that I was going to be unceremoniously yanked from the picture. The all too real pain raking down my head was a merciless preview. Just like a cow being dragged off to the slaughterhouse braces itself against the threshold of its pen, I strained not to be cast out from the picture. Where I had met this man before? I ran through several silly ideas. And then it dawned on me. He was the Owner of the Mirrors, the very person who was at that moment furiously brandishing a pair of clippers as if to scalp me. I gazed intently by turns at the man walking toward the waterfall and the man cutting my hair. Without a doubt they were exactly the same person. I was almost overwhelmed with amazement.

I struggled desperately not to be hurled from the picture. But after being on the receiving end of that man's quick temper, I hastily concluded that I shouldn't force the Owner of the Mirrors into the picture. My conclusion came so logically and naturally that I could not cruelly reject it.

But I couldn't figure out the identity of the woman who clung to the Owner of the Mirrors' arm.

And since it was none of my concern whether she had a real life counterpart, I completely forgot about the couple's stroll. I only regretted that I hadn't been able to pick out a single word of their confidential conversation. This fact was linked with the pitfall of the mirror's ability to mercilessly reproduce people's gestures but not their voices.

I folded my hands behind my back again and watched the spray rise from the rapids below the cliff. I gently closed my eyes. Before I came to the barbershop, I'd never imagined being able to fly to the immeasurably far off moon in that picture from my awkward perch across the wooden chair.

Maybe the Owner of the Mirrors was holding magic clippers. Or maybe the gut-ripping pain had lured me into the picture. However, my strange journey ended at that point. The Owner of the Mirrors take a deep breath behind me. "All done."

He looked at my reflection, looking quite pleased with the cut he'd given me. He then began to take off the cloth draping my upper body. My head stung as if someone had boxed my ears and the tracks of those tears remained on both cheeks, like a sorrowful reminder of ascetic practice. My eyes had swelled up like the back of a hand soaking underwater. Before I got down from the chair, the Owner of the Mirrors pointed to my brother with his chin. .

"Now it's your turn,"he said triumphantly.

The Owner of the Mirrors must have guessed that my brother would shrink back so he pressed the boy reflected in the mirror again.

"You get up here right now."

Hyeong-Ho started when the owner barked at him. He looked back and forth between the two of us, his stunned face contorting. He looked truly miserable, but it was too late to flee the barbershop with some clever ruse and leave the Owner of the Mirrors standing there. I put my mouth to my brother's ear and whispered, "Look at the picture, not the mirror."

Hyeong-Ho was now shivering with fright. His voice sounded very loud when he spoke.

"What should I look at?"

"The picture."

"Why? What's in it?"

My brother's hands trembled as he laid them on his chest.

"It don't hurt if you look at it."

I swiped away the snot from my lip with my sleeve. Hyeong-Ho was looking at me intently.

"Do you swear?"

"Sure."

"Why were you crying then?" "'Cause I didn't see the picture fast enough."

"Liar."

"I mean it, you'll see."

"I don't want a haircut."

Hyeong-Ho tugged my sleeve and was about to burst into tears, but with a practiced hand the

Owner of the Mirrors grabbed him by the nape of the neck and seated him on the board. Once on the chair, my brother pinched his lips shut to keep the tears from coming.

"Does it hurt?"

The Owner of the Mirrors preempted me.

"Your brother already told you it won't hurt if you look at the picture."

Hyeong-Ho got feistier. Looking the Owner of the Mirrors in the eye he began to fuss.

"If it's gonna hurt, I don't wanna get my hair cut."

"Brat! Not another word of back talk. I'm not going to hurt you, okay?"

"Why did you hurt my brother, then?"

"He didn't know to look at the picture."

Hyeong-Ho didn't look at the picture like I told him to or into the mirror.

He just sat there and clenched his eyes shut so hard that his face wrinkled. Watching my brother do his penance, I realized that something far more painful than hunger exists in this world.

But there was more to learn than the existence of this pain, and we did when the two of us reached home exhausted. Mother had been waiting for us. She did not utter a word of consolation for the tears that had coursed down my cheeks or for the snot that had pooled above my lip and now formed a white crust—the vestiges of my penance. When we stepped into our house side by side, my mother examined our heads carefully. To my surprise, she took us tightly by the wrist and we visited the Owner of the Mirrors. But of course we did not want to see him again. Mother might have sensed because she clutched us so tightly that she left marks. There was no way for us to shake ourselves free.

At the barbershop, Mother started in, pointing to our heads. "You cut hair like you're mowing a field for cows to graze in."

The Owner of the Mirrors hesitated, not knowing what to say, so Mother continued. "I know my kids have been starving, but there's nothing wrong with the shape of their heads. Why the hell did you make them look like something the cat dragged in?"

The Owner of the Mirrors had been looking down and shaking bits of hair from his clippers.

He snapped back. "Leaving aside how good it looks, don't you think it's a decent enough job?"

"Decent? What are you talking about? A cripple could do better. I'd rather cut their hair myself than let you do it."

"We're neighbors now. Let's not raise our voices."

"Just because we're going to be neighbors for a year, does that give you an excuse to be rude ?

That's how we're gonna get along?"

"I just asked you to keep it down. I didn't mean to be rude."

"If you ain't being rude, are you looking down your nose at me?"

"You're going too far, ma'am. I haven't gotten to know any of my neighbors, so you know as well as I do that I can't choose who to look down on."

"You're not some traveling barber. You've got yourself a new shop. You were supposed to give

a crew cut, but made their hair look like a grazing field. What do you mean cooking up some excuse that you ain't looking down at me?"

The Owner of the Mirrors had just been sitting there, looking down and taking in Mother's tedious tirade. Only then did he seem to catch her drift.

He spoke in a subdued voice. "Look, I made a mistake. I won't charge you."

His offer not to charge doused the flames of my mother's anger. She quieted right down and we hurried back home. While she was washing our hair with warm water, she ran her hand over our scalps, evidently pleased with us. It did not take long for the memory of the gut-wrenching pain we suffered at the barbershop to be washed away. Whenever we passed it, we'd play around with the mirrors, holding on to the window frame and cursing our height. Despite the winter weather, Hyeong-Ho and I spent much of our time under the window frame of the barbershop.

The Owner of the Mirrors did not shout at us to scram unless we interfered with his work.

Once he said to my brother in a voice tinged with pity, "You're still young enough to be going around on your mother's back."

Given my brother's age, The remark was appropriate. When I thought about it, I'd last seen Hyeong-Ho on my mother's back so long ago that it was a dim memory. My brother had gotten used to walking early. He seemed to have long forgotten any eagerness to stay on Mother's back where he could rest peacefully and enjoy the smell of her warm skin. Mother never carried him that way, and he never whined about it. He'd watch kids his age on their mothers' backs with silent indifference.

One early winter evening I witnessed a shocking scene. It looked as though Mother would 1

come home late, and Hyeong-Ho and I were lying side by side on our stomachs on the tepid ondol floor. We had pulled thin wadded quilts up to our shoulders, and with our heads popping out like a 2

turtle's, we were making some ttakji. At the far end of the room, heaped like fallen leaves, were ttakji we'd won earlier that day. I was well known among the kids in my neighborhood as a ttakji master. Although they were tormented with homework each night until they went to bed, I wasted most of my time playing ttakji.

As everyone knew, you can't play ttakji with too much force. You have to thrust just right for the momentum to flip over a ttakji stuck on the ground. If you hit it dead on, it won't move at all, so to raise it from the ground like Lazarus, you have to know exactly where to hit it. You can't complain about where the ttakji lies. A player also has to be agile enough to merge the whirl of energy in his upper body with his arm in a split second. Sometimes it helps to unfasten coat buttons. Another key point is flexibility around your waist. You shouldn't have a gut because you have to bend freely.

Since I didn't eat enough to have a gut, I was ready to take on anyone anytime, anywhere.

Lots of boys kept an eye out for the chance to challenge me and capture my ttakji, but their attempts almost always came to naught. While I was absorbed in a ttakji match, the top buttons of my jacket undone, Hyeong-Ho solemnly stood guard and took care of exchanging the ttakji.

Occasionally he caught someone cheating and shrieked like a goose set to watch over a house. For the most part, though, he just watched without helping, his lips sealed. He never grumbled or showed any anxiety if I fell behind; we were convinced I'd win out in the end. When it began to get dark, I'd feel a stinging pain in my shoulders. The cold boring into my brother's skin would make him red as a pigeon's leg, as he clutched all those ttakji to his chest. The two of us would go back home, reveling in the sight of our opponent stalking off in crestfallen retreat.

Losers never walked away gracefully. They'd give a contemptuous look or leave behind some illogical curse. But their curses never rattled us, because we believed we'd drive away all challengers before us. The swelling pride of victors allowed us to ignore their silly insults.

But even though we were flushed with victory, we did not then waste our time idly. As we waited for Mother to come at any moment, we unfolded all the ttakji we'd won that day and became engrossed in reconstructing them to make even better ones. We knew instinctively that a champion's sword would rust if not whetted carefully.

When my eyes lit upon the heap of paper on the other side of the room, I wondered how much strength I'd used and how much Hyeong-Ho had shivered with cold to win it all. As Mother would ask, could that pile of paper turn itself into rice? Would looking at it fill our bellies? I may have been a callow youth, but while these thoughts were crossing my mind, I discovered the real meaning of despondency, as it rose like smoke over our pile of ttakji. The sound of the winter winds, running along arm in arm, accompanied this discovery. A bitter, tenacious draft penetrated our nylon quilt.

The tepid air from our body heat trapped under the inadequate bedding was slowly dissipating. I glanced at Hyeong-Ho. He lay crouched on the floor looking at a picture drawn on a ttakji, and was muttering to himself. You could hear the weather-stripping flutter.

"Wanna go see Mom?" I even surprised myself when I blurted that out. We'd long been forbidden to show up where Mother worked. She kept strict watch to make sure we didn't appear and expose our slovenliness for all to see, which she considered as shameful as giving men a flash of her own flesh. Several times I'd tried to sneak over but each time Mother gave me a harsh spanking, like I was as dumb as a post. Those unpleasant memories must have been etched on Hyeong-Ho's mind too. He looked at me, perplexed, but I could also tell that I'd piqued his curiosity.

Covering up what he was really thinking, he instead just gave a shrewdly non-committal comeback. "What did you just say?"

His scheming irritated me so I raised my voice and pressed on. "Wanna go see Mom?" "Are you nuts?" His cheeks had become flushed. His eyes glittered in the murky light as he tried to figure out what I had in mind.

"What do you mean I'm nuts?"

"Did you already forget the whipping you got last time?"

"No." "You got a nasty mind to talk like that! Do you want Mom to get killed?"

"We won't get caught."

That's exactly what he wanted to hear. He kept silent for a minute. Then he replied in a low voice but clearly, as if to not get his hopes up. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Even if you're sure, go by yourself. I'll stay here. I hate it when Mom hits me."

"You're not scared to stay home alone at night?"

He responded fiercely. "I ain't scared. It's gonna have to be pretty late before a tiger cub comes down to our village."

"Well, if you ain't scared, I'll go by myself and sneak a peek. Lock the door and keep your mouth shut."

He didn't answer. I rose with determination from under the quilt, pulled up my trousers, and tightened the screws.

"Keep a good eye on the place. I'll be right back."

As I expected, he burst out crying the second I stopped speaking. He made a big fuss and pulled that quilt up to his forehead.

"Are you really gonna go alone?"

"What're you talking about? You're the one who bragged about not being scared."

"When?"

"I just heard you with my own ears. Shame on you for lying."

"I never said anything like that."

"You're gonna drive me nuts! Get up right now, if you wanna come along."

"You think I'm too scared to go?"

"Don't even think about making a scene so I'll carry you, okay?"

"I'm not gonna ask you to carry me!"

Of course I had some idea where my mother was working. Nobok's Mom would blurt out the address as she talked to herself on one of her frequent visits. We stepped out of the house, tiptoeing like stray cats. The air was so cold that our fingers balled up. The only sound was the wind spreading out through the vast sky. A sickle moon hung menacingly above us, its sharp moonbeams glittering like scales, as if intent on cutting slices of flesh from our frozen faces.

"Aren't you cold?" My brother's shoulders shook like air escaping a balloon. He asked again.

"Aren't you cold?"

"Nope."

"Me neither."

"When Mom catches you there's going to be hell to pay."

"If we sneak a quick look, what's Mom gonna know?"

I kept silent. I didn't want to make my brother feel any more scared. He was already shivering with fright. We followed a stone wall through the shadows of the night towards the main road. To avoid the light streaming from the small shops we ducked into an alley, and then walked along the

road that led to the foot of a hill. At the corner beyond the alley, the furrowed roof tiles of Wolcheon's house's came into view in the deep darkness. We could watch the house from here. We stopped suddenly. Hyeong-Ho was first to figure out what had made us pause instinctively.

"Maybe they locked the front gate."

"I wonder why rich people lock their houses so early."

"Beats me."

My brother's hopes were dashed, and his voice became muted with despair. If they'd locked the gate, it would be impossible for us to spy on Mother. Of course, this discouraging situation shouldn't have surprised us, as I'd never scouted the house. In fact, I'd never checked for as long as Mother had been working there as a charwoman. Back in the room, lying on the floor, I had found traces of despondency hanging over the pile of ttakji. That discovery had been awful. The sound of the winter wind boring through the walls around our house was just as bad. A single remark I had blurted out to drive off that awfulness had landed me in this fix.

Hyeong-Ho's suspicion about the gate turned out to be true. I again had to recognize that our foolhardy excursion was pointless. Having to contend with Hyeong-Ho's glares and curses on our dispirited trip home was going to be awful. Once my brother started in, he made sure to pursue his revenge to the full. Maybe he'd tattle to Mother that we'd gone to Wolcheon's house and provoke her into giving me a merciless beating. When Hyeong-Ho was mad at me and got it into his head to give me a hard time he was utterly cold-hearted. Instead of trying to stop Mother when I was being flogged, he just stayed under the covers. However, when he reemerged after my punishment, it was obvious he'd been crying. I didn't want either the stripes on my calves or his tears.

Having failed to get a peek inside the house through the cracks of the front gate, we followed the wall on our left. There was no one walking about the yard, but the sound of a mill pounding rice came from the direction of servants' quarters. Maybe there were some people after all. If we were lucky, we might spot our mother. We kept going and were surprised to find that the mud wall toward the mill was lower than the wall near the main gate and that it had given way. We could look right into a corner of the yard including the mill without standing on our toes. The mill was connected with the collapsed mud wall. Some rafters had been used to make a windbreak. Our fears were shattered because we found our mother working there.

We cautiously approached but as the crumbling wall appeared unexpectedly, we were abruptly exposed to Mother. A lantern hung from a rafter, and the three of us appeared clearly below it. Our eyes met, only four or five meters between us. Hyeong-Ho and I stopped, rooted to the ground.

The frightfully agreeable feeling disappeared, replaced by fear of being caught on our nocturnal outing. But something shocking greeted us.

Mother was milling rice. Strapped to her back was one of the owner's kids wrapped in satin bedding. He was the same age as Hyeong-Ho. My heart had shrunk with fear, but now it pounded with anger. How could Mother, who had so persistently avoided carrying my sickly brother, carry a healthy child who belonged to someone

else? How could she betray us like that? Being too young and immature to understand, I not only couldn't come up with an explanation, but I saw her in a new light—a virtual mother, one who until that time had been cleverly disguised. Mother seemed to have sensed this, too.

Mother stiffened like a corpse, and her face contorted with shame. She couldn't even motion us back home. Mother had always been upright and dignified with us, but that one day alone she was unable to cope with the situation. She wore the desperate expression of one who had been stabbed in the gut. We turned right around. How do you walk away when you want to show you have no regrets about leaving something behind? The only way to handle this heartrending separation and show my stubbornness was to show the back of my head. I wouldn't have turned around if Mother had chased after me calling out my name. I could tell that Hyeong-Ho and I were of one mind as we stormed off. For a long time he kept his mouth shut and did not get on my nerves. But Mother did not follow us or call our names.

When we reached the alley from where you could see our house, my brother asked me in a faint voice. "Are you sad?"

"Are you crying?" I answered back.

"No." "Then how come you keep sniffling?" "'Cause I got a runny nose."

"I'm not sad."

"I get scared when you're sad."

"Let's never go see Mom again. Never!"

My smart little brother changed the subject. "It's not good going out on winter nights. It's too cold."

"I wouldn't have gone, if you hadn't asked me."

"You're the one who asked me. Did I ask you to go?"

"Brothers shouldn't fight."

"When Mom comes back, we're gonna get a beating, aren't we?"

I hesitated to answer because, oddly enough, it hadn't occurred to me that we might get beaten like before. I felt that the one who had been caught was Mother. That set my mind at ease.

"I don't care if she whips me. Let her."

"What'll you do if she beats you?"

"I'll run away."

I guessed right. We entered the room, lifted the quilt, pushed our bottoms in, like crawfish, and began to warm it with our body heat. As it got warmer, fatigue finally crept into our bones. We were so worn out that we fell asleep without supper. Later, half asleep, I heard something strange and unfamiliar, which came intermittently with the sound of the wind as it swept by the wall. It took me a long time to realize that it was someone crying. Mother.

Hyeong-Ho took hold of my left hand under the quilt. His own hand was trembling slightly. He

must have woken earlier than me. Mother had come home while we sleeping and was now squatting against the other side of the room, trying to stifle her crying. My brother's other hand came up and gripped my shoulder. Mother didn't beat us that day.

Around the end of May last year on the spur of the moment I visited Mother in our old house. I didn't have time to let her know I was coming beforehand. I just got on the bus for my hometown. I arrived in the afternoon, the sun softly shining on the back of my neck. I'd come more than 200 kilometers. The old board gate was ajar. I pushed it open and stepped into the yard. I wouldn't have guessed that Mother was home but there she was, in the half-cultivated vegetable garden. As she crouched, back to the gate, she seemed unable to sense my presence. She was now over seventy and hard of hearing. Unable to come up with something commonplace like "I'm here," I stopped and stood still.

It occurred to me that more than forty years ago, Mother had crouched the same way when she came back home while Hyeong-Ho and I slept, exhausted with fatigue and cold. She had crouched with her back to us, trying to compose herself. Forty years have passed since then, so why did the way she look as she weeded the garden overlap with how she did when I spied on her all those years ago? Even though I was again sneaking a look from behind, she never cries now as she used to. Things are different. We used to wait for Mother, thinking about how she looked and anxiously wondering when she would return home. Now she waits pathetically for her sons to show up. A lump rose in my throat at the thought of snatching her up and carrying her on my back. A coarse jacket covered her frail chest and shoulders. This was not the body that had once been strong enough to weave for five days and nights without sleeping. Her decrepit appearance broke my heart. She had lost weight, buffeted by the winds of time like a winter scarecrow. I wanted to put her on my back and spin her round the yard until she complained she was dizzy. She was the only one around, so there wouldn't have been anything in acting on my impulse.

But I couldn't. Just as I was unable to understand why Mother refused to carry my brother when he was a child, so I am now unable to understand why I held myself in check. Was it fear, something quite different from embarrassment or making excuses? I had a thought it was a mysterious swamp, which I would be rash to enter. I realized at that moment that some things can't be understood or solved just by the superficial change of growing older. Like the saying, "The darkest place is under the candle," I went through my childhood knowing that the difference between light and dark or crying and laughing is no thicker than a plank. Even so, to break through such an insignificant barrier took considerable courage, self-confidence and effort.

One afternoon something threw our class into pandemonium. A girl accidentally let some money fall through a knothole in our classroom floor. Her face became incredibly forlorn, and eventually she began to weep furiously. Some other kids raised a ruckus in sympathy. Once our teacher showed up after having been notified, the girl cried even more bitterly. It seemed things were going to get worse before they got better. The teacher first sat the girl in her seat, and just barely

managed to calm her down, by soothing her and patting her head. Thinking the solution lay with the teacher, we sat in breathless expectation and watched him on the platform. After a while, the teacher pointed at me.

"Kim Hyeong-Seok, come over here."

I had been absorbed in thought, my chin cupped in my hands. The eyes of all those wound-up children turned towards me as one. I hesitated to lift to my rear end out of my chair, thinking it sounded ominous. The teacher spoke again.

"You're on sweeping duty, aren't you?"

Every child had a turn at sweeping, but why should the one on duty be responsible for money that dropped through a knothole? The teacher urged me with his chin because I was only inching forward. As I got closer to the platform, he pointed at the front corner of the classroom. A square lid covered an opening sawed in the boards. It was wide enough for a small child to creep through.

"You're quick and you're on sweeping duty, right?"

My assignment was to crawl underneath the floor and retrieve the money. When the teacher flung the lid open for me, a chilly draft smelling of dust blew in my face. The teacher and I were now a team. The children watched us with bated breath. Working together with the teacher was exciting enough whether I succeeded or not. However, the thought of being cast into the dark maze under the floor naturally frightened me at first. I did not want to let the teacher down, but I was reluctant to plunge into that strange place.

"It's early winter. There aren't any snakes or insects that bite. Don't be scared. I won't let you out of my sight till it's over."

The teacher knew just the tone to persuade children who were quaking with fear. My face may have been screwed up with terror, but I eventually descended below.

"It's pitch black down there, and the ground is covered with dust. No matter how much noise the kids make, stay calm. And make sure to watch your forehead."

The teacher had knelt down and stuck his head in, so from my vantage point it looked like he was standing on his head. I began creeping away from the teacher, and followed the sound of the kids stamping their feet on the floor from the opening to where the money was. In the crawl space there were lots of cobwebs, tangled like the thorns of jujube trees. They were coated in dust and so I had to keep rubbing my nose. The harder I tried to keep my sneezes down, the fiercer they burst from my parched throat. It was much darker than I had expected. The pitiless world beneath the floor with its ancient dust was quite different from the world I'd seen in the picture at the barbershop.

There was no moonlight gliding down a cliff, no water flowing into rapids, no couple walking arm in arm. It stunned me that two such different worlds, each harboring a treacherous plot, stood face to face with only a plank between them. The excited children, allowed to stamp their feet as much as they wanted, forgot that they were directing me to lost money and had now gone wild banging on the floor. The teacher was back there upside down, urging me to creep farther. My sense of the distance I'd measured mentally wavered. The teacher stuck his arm in upside down and kept

shaking it. Who was more accurate—the teacher, aiming at the exact spot upside down, or me, creeping straight ahead and knocking about in a maze? I couldn't commit myself either way. How come he was so confident? As soon as misgivings entered my mind, I felt a cold sweat break out down my spine.

When I looked back, I saw faint sunlight shining through the opening where the teacher hung upside down. Perhaps I'd never be able to return. It kept receding and if it had not been for the lure of my classmates raising hell on the floor, indicating a spot right under my nose, I might have curled up like a worm and started crying. A perverse desire to become an insect took hold of me, but I snatched the money that the girl dropped from the dust, clenched my teeth and slowly turned around until I was heading back in the opposite direction. I could see my teacher's upside-down face, the back of his head suffused by sunlight. I then lay motionless for a while. The teacher was watching me and I was staring back at him. I must have looked upside down to the teacher as well. I felt as confused as if I'd been kicked in the head. As soon as I snatched the money, I'd begun heading back in the opposite direction, but I wasn't sure whether I had done the right thing. The teacher and I might have been facing each other, but who was looking who in the eye?

If his gaze was fixed on me upside down, then wasn't I looking at him upside down too? And I might look upside down to him as well. Maybe neither of us could to see the other properly. The words 'upside down' implied something so awful that again dread crept down my spine. But maybe the figure of the teacher shouting at me to come back wasn’t a mirage. Just as people in the desert run after mirages even when they know they are phantom images, I had no other choice.

The stomping noises had ceased. The classroom was as silent as under the sea. Suddenly, I felt saturated with a loneliness that came from far away. An alluring voice came from the teacher's upside down face. My heart pounded with an overwhelming anxiety. I kept looking back at the direction I had come from. I was confused. Maybe there was another face exactly like the teacher's calling me.

"Grab my hand."

As the teacher shouted right above my head, I felt as though my body was floating up into space. The children's whooping sounded like water bursting forth from a dam. The teacher brushed my nose with his large hands. Through the hallway windows I saw some kids I didn't know from another class. Their heads were packed next to each other as tightly as dried fish along a string. The teacher wiped the dust and cobwebs off my nose and quickly helped me up on his back. He took me for a victory lap around the classroom, plowing through the desks of the applauding children.

Being on an adult's back boosted me to a strange height. I was not used to it. It felt as awkward as when I sat on the plank in the barbershop. After he circled the classroom two times, the teacher put me down, as though something still remained to be done.

"Well done! Great job! I knew you could do it."

The teacher flushed with exultation as he commanded the children. "You guys, toss HyeongSeok up and down on the playground during recess."

The children were cheering and out of control, but I was watching the teacher. I wanted to make sure that he and I were looking at one another, standing upright and in the same direction.

Until I was convinced, maybe my rescue from the miserable maze would not seem real to me. The teacher closed the opening by tamping down the cover with his foot.

"There are lots of rats living under our floor. They build nests and breed down there, and, as we studied, they spread the plague. When a person gets it, his skin turns all black and then he dies.

You absolutely must not go beneath the floor without my permission."

The teacher clamped his lips tight. The kids fell silent.

"I won't let anybody go down there again even if money drops through. Today was the one exception."

My experience beneath the floor had shocked me and provided me with someplace different to go. Three days passed before I realized just how special a place it was. I made the connection when I opened my pencil case and realized just how shabby its contents were. I'd found lots of junk in the dust as I crawled beneath the floor—pencils, triangles, protractors, crayons, paper planes, a piece of crumpled paper that might have been money if it was dusted off, some pieces of chalk and even a notebook.

I shook with excitement at the thought. It was as though I had memorized a treasure map by heart. But since I only realized this after three days, I practically wanted to pound my head against something to hammer the memory that was mine alone firmly into it.

But I also remembered my teacher's face as he told us that rats lived under the floor and spread the plague. Of course, a hidden treasure was bound to have some scary booby traps scattered about, but I had to wonder what the plague was like. At home, a half dozen rats lived around our outhouse and where we tossed our waste water. They were so familiar that we were almost on a first name basis. We got along well, with no ill feelings towards each other, sort of like hens and ducks, and none of us had died of plague. The rats had been living with us for a long time, although we'd staked out different territory: the rats claimed the kitchen and we stayed in the main room. Another difference between us was that my brother and I were starving. We were getting thinner and had ringworm on our cheeks, while the rats kept getting fatter and fatter. I dismissed the teacher's warning and figured he had some scheme of his own. I left home encouraged.

One Sunday afternoon I trotted off to the school. I stopped at the main gate. The schoolyard lay quiet in the sun and behind it was all that hidden treasure, running in a straight line like the cars of a train. There was no one around, just some dogs frisking under the zelkova tree at the far end of the yard.

I crossed and went up to one end of the school. A corridor ran the length of the building beside the classrooms, and I could see all the way to the entrance at the other end. The door opened easily.

The corridor was deserted, and the silence gave me a chill. I was sorry I hadn't brought Hyeong-Ho with me. I'd been afraid he might screw things up. I slipped into the classroom unseen and lifted the lid that led to the treasure beneath the floor. It opened as readily as if it had been waiting for me. I

didn't even have to say "open sesame." Still, I was anxious because I hadn't brought a candle or anything with me. But the musty smell of the hidden treasure I was about to explore tickled my nose.

Its enticement was greater than my fear.

Without hesitating, I pushed my body into the deserted silence underneath the floor. It was no longer a maze to me. The only light came through the entrance, so even if I lost my way, I could make it back to the outer world. All I had to do was head toward the light like a diver does. The thought calmed me down. I did occasionally look back, but I kept crawling forward. As expected, my expedition was successful. As I sifted through the dust and gathered my plunder, my body throbbed with a sense of achievement. I couldn't see any rats. Again, I felt sorry I'd left Hyeong-Ho out. Rummaging around in that pile of dust was like trying to grab a rat in a sack of rice, but I stuffed my pockets with whatever I scooped up.

After a while I came across something strange. A cement wall sat among the dust and cobwebs. I stopped my crawling and inspected it closely. It ran perpendicular to the main corridor, separating our classroom from the teachers’ office, and supported some beams that connected with the floor above. This drew my adventure to a close. The moment I identified that wall, fear surged in my heart. I had to get out. I'd certainly find more stuff the longer I rummaged around, but I had to go back.

But when I turned around, I discovered yet something else. The wall had concave gaps at regular intervals, roomy enough for me to fit through. All I needed to do was squeeze through one and I'd be right underneath the teacher's office. I was overwhelmed with curiosity. I balled up like an insect, and glided along as smoothly as a snake into the space under the office. Off to the left, toward the school's flowerbed, was another cement partition. Sunlight leaked in through a gap in it.

The space under the teacher's office was much more open than under our classroom. But to my surprise it was empty. It was just as dusty and full of cobwebs, but no matter how hard I sifted through it, I didn't come up with anything. In my disappointment, I suddenly sensed someone approaching. I held my breath and pressed flat on my stomach.

To my astonishment, the sound coming from above was a woman crying. There was no doubt about it. I lost my nerve and hurriedly crept toward the opening that led outside. Some tree stumps in the flowerbed beyond it came into view. I was dying to get up from off the ground and stand up straight. The moment I heard that unexpected crying, my forgotten fear took me by surprise once more. My curiosity to find out who was crying became secondary. I got to the opening and stuck my head out to watch for movement in the schoolyard. Fortunately, as before, there were no traces of anyone, just the dogs still frisking under the zelkova tree off to the right.

Suddenly I felt confused. When I had stepped into the yard just a short while before, the zelkova tree the dogs were playing under had definitely been on my left but when I looked at the tree with my head thrust out from under the floor, the tree had fled to the right side of the yard. Now, at the end of my mysterious trip, I was temporarily paralyzed. When I faced the mirror and raised my left hand, my mirror self raised the right. If I leaned to the right, the mirror me leaned left. My

confusion, all too real, meant that up till now I hadn't been exploring underneath the floor at all, but had traveled through the trap in the mirror. I pulled myself out of the opening, again curling my body as flexibly as a worm and watching my legs carefully as they followed from the opening last. I lifted my head over the window frame to view the last scene of my exploration. With my saliva I wiped a spot in the window to the teachers' office, and everything appeared through it.

Wax polished tables were placed in an orderly fashion. At the end of them sat a woman staring off into space crying, dried traces of tears on her cheeks. It was the lone female teacher in our school. Of course, she didn't notice that I was peeking at her from outside. She had a shapely nose and large eyes, but her slender face was filled with melancholy. It suddenly struck me that I had met her somewhere outside of school. Right! She was the woman in the picture at the barbershop, the one who walked below the cliff holding on to the Owner of the Mirrors' arm. And here she was this Sunday crying alone in the teachers' office. It was strange that she was crying. I'd often seen her smiling but I'd never seen her cry. Maybe, as I watched her crying, she was actually behind me laughing.

My trip through the mirror had not come to an end. An eerie fear bored into me, as I realized that a long, mysterious journey awaited me.

Filth

One day the following spring I discovered a strange tribe. The gloomy winter had passed and a sand storm was blowing. People emerging from winter's tunnel long for the balminess of spring, when they can see far in all directions and warm sunlight falls on their skin. But the sandstorm undermined people's hopes, scraping away at them with its coarse grains. The storm kept spring from revealing itself, and left everyone troubled, hovering at the peak of desire.

That afternoon, I suddenly heard the clamor of footsteps rushing along the length of the alley.

You could tell from the noise that something unusual was up. I hurried to open the gate and look.

Over our fence I saw a man and some kids running towards the main road. Something disgraceful must have happened in the village. I shuddered. My hair rose. I flashed a look back at Hyeong-Ho, but he must not have noticed the hubbub as his attention was absorbed in his potatoes. He'd just put them in a clay pot and was waiting for them to bake. I came out of the room fingering my belt obviously so I could pretend to be on my way to the outhouse. After I made sure he hadn't noticed anything, I went out to the main road.

"Some Chinks were here."

Or at least that's what some grown-ups loitering by the barbershop said. I didn't understand what they meant by Chinks, but there must have been something really worth seeing, judging from the way people were running around even in a sandstorm. I followed them and my attention was immediately drawn towards a corner of the road. The township office stood in a cul-de-sac. From a

distance I could see that several people had gathered in the office's yard, creating a ruckus. I learned later that Chinks meant Chinese people, but when I stepped into the yard, and saw what was unfolding, I was as stunned as if I'd been bludgeoned.

They weren't Chinks with yellowish faces, but a very strange tribe with faces that were either very black or very white. Their skin color alone was frightening enough to leave me panic-stricken.

People were calling them "Big Noses." Like the other villagers who thronged around I didn't get too close to them or stray too far away, sort of the same distance I kept between Mother and me when she was about to beat me. I drove her crazy by flitting around her, not trying to escape from the hand she used to hit me with. Nothing disturbed the finely calibrated distance between Mother and me unless there was a sudden interruption. If there wasn't, eventually we'd both just become exhausted, and she'd get tired of trying to grab me or I'd get tired of trying to get away.

Parked in the front yard of the township office were an open green jeep and a truck that must have come a long way. Both vehicles were coated in layers of yellow dust, like cake made from coarse flour. Dust covered the Big Noses from head to toe, but they didn't bother to shake it off.

Each time they moved, though, a cloud of dust rose from the uniforms they wore.

They kept chewing on something. A man was sitting in the driver's seat of the jeep. There wasn't anybody behind the steering wheel of the truck, but three of these bizarre tribesmen sat on wooden benches in the truck bed. We were having fun watching them and they were looking back at us with interest, but something more subtle was going on too. For one thing, nobody was looking each other directly in the eye. We were pretending to ignore each other despite enjoying being mutual spectators.

"Lord! I ain't never seen nothing in the whole world as strange as these beasts. They don't seem human. How come they got so much hair? That one in the small car looks like an honest-togod monkey. How come he's not up a tree? What a funny critter!"

"Don't call him a 'monkey'. He might hear you and attack."

"What's that gibberish they're spewing to each other?"

"Who knows? But they may catch on to what we're saying. That nose of his is thick as my thigh."

"How ridiculous! It's hysterical. Look how he keeps working his mouth."

"Sure, even a beast's gotta eat to survive."

"Well, they must be busy surviving the way they keep yakking and chewing. What kind of animal doesn't know how to shake the dust off of it?"

"Maybe we look just as strange to them."

"Look at that pitch-black one. How can his teeth be so white?"

"His teeth ain't that white. It's the black skin makes them look white."

"They're as black as midnight."

"They say their breed has gathered themselves into tribes and that they live at the ends of the earth."

"You want to hear something strange? I had a bad dream last night. Maybe it meant I was gonna see this."

Most of the villagers had no understanding about this tribe. They might as well have come across stray cats living on the roof. But like the sandstorm that had swept down from the continent and taken hold of our village, nobody knew when they would leave.

Suddenly someone broke the heavy mutual silence and spoke to them. To this day I've never forgotten that wild, completely alien utterance.

"Hallochewinggumgibbeeme!"

To my astonishment, that impertinent word, a word I heard most clearly, came from a source I'd never have dreamed of. I turned and there, in the first row of the adults lined up with arms folded across their chests, boldly stood Hyeong-Ho. That one utterance propelled a great wave through the gathered villagers. All eyes were on him, but my brother, haggard, his face marked with whitish dry scabs, ignored them and stood with his chin up.

Whispers came from behind me. "That's Widow Park's second kid, right?"

"I don't know what he said, but the kid's got a lot of guts to look up at them like that."

"Maybe he's trying to intimidate them or something."

"What could he have up his sleeve to intimidate those people?"

"He looks pretty tough."

Of course I though I should run up, grab him and take him back home. I didn't understand what he said, but because he was my brother I could sense that he'd shouted to ask for something.

He must have been begging. If that was true, we'd have to prepare for big problems, as Mother would drive us out of the house. I couldn't just desert him. I had to act decisively, or who knows what conflagration might get set off. But the one who responded straight off to Hyeong-Ho was not me but a black-skinned soldier in the truck. He curled his shiny black hand behind his ear like a conch shell and leaned over the truck bed to get closer and made exaggerated questioning motions.

Hyeong-Ho then repeated his word. "Hallochewinggumgibbeeme!"

The black soldier evidently understood right away. He raised himself back up to the truck and exclaimed something. He held open his shiny gray palm and signaled to my brother to wait. He then quickly rummaged through a cardboard box next to him. Meanwhile, people watched my brother with interest. Some brazen girls milled among the gawkers, and Samson the brewery handyman too.

Of all the dozens of spectators, Samson, with his physique, deep-set eyes and fiery temper, was the only one who looked a match for the soldiers. The pounding in my heart eased the moment I saw him. In the back of my mind was the thought that mighty Samson could make up for our deficiencies in case an incident erupted between Hyeong-Ho and the black soldier. But thankfully, we avoided a collective nightmare. There was no need to plead for Samson's strength occurred.

The soldier picked some colorful paper packs out of the box and scattered them at HyeongHo's feet, just as farmers sow seeds. Something to eat must have been inside them. My famished brother reacted immediately, greedily snatching a bunch of the packs and adroitly clutching them to

his chest. The crowd stood there without budging.

But things weren't so simple. Hyeong-Ho left some behind and fled, elbowing his way through the crowd. Fleeing may not be exactly the right word, but the way he took off helter-skelter suggested flight. I prayed, heart pounding, that his steps would take him far away quickly, even if Mother wound up punishing the two of us and chasing us out of the home. Luckily, nobody threatened him or chased after him as he ran away. In fact, nobody interfered with him at all.

The villagers’ eyes stayed on him until he turned the corner out of the alley, pumping his arm as he shot off. As soon as he disappeared from sight, I swallowed the saliva that had collected in my mouth. The crowd again looked up at the black soldier in the truck. In spite of my gnawing anxiety, nothing untoward happened. The packs Hyeong-Ho had left behind were still there. Then a child moved a few steps forward and took one. Like my brother, he began to dart off, forcing his way through the crowd. But this time the villagers yelled. A third kid appeared. And a fourth. And a fifth.

They swooped down and snatched a pack just as nimbly and ran away in almost the same direction.

The villagers only yelled at the second child. When the soldiers in the truck noticed the hubbub they chuckled.

As all this was swirling around me, I heard an alien language again. A kid from the village went right up under the truck bed and shouted something in a voice clearer than my brother's.

"Hallocigarettogibbeeme!"

Once again the black soldier responded, this time lifting the box without having to be asked twice. Like a magician, he showed the child the inside of the box and tapped it. He shrugged his shoulders quickly a couple of times, and then put the box down. But the child did not step back. A white soldier sitting beside the black one fumbled around in his shirt pocket, took out a cigarette pack with a red circle on it, and sent it sailing through the air to the child. Just before the pack hit him in on the head, though, a young man standing behind him who worked at the notary's office snatched it as easily as he would a marble. The villagers began to murmur.

"That guy was whispering something to the kid. He must've egged him on."

"He got himself a pack of modern cigarettes."

"That guy got some of that new-fangled education in a city."

"A young man's got to go to the city in order to act like a person should. If you don't, you can't even get a pack of good smokes."

"Well, they gotta have deep pockets cause they're supporting our country. I heard the township boss is meeting with some bigwig who came with them."

"The boss can speak American?"

"He's got somebody to help him. The boss might be able to read and write Korean, but he doesn't know how to say 'cigaretto' right."

"Anyway, the world's gone all modern."

"I wouldn't mind trying one of them new cigarettes."

The villagers began to drift away one or two at a time, but I stood there determined to see the

curtain fall, but nothing more happened. After just over an hour, the two strange vehicles disappeared, heading west.

I watched the cloud of dust they raised vanish behind the foot of a mountain and headed home.

But another surprise confronted me. Instead of waiting for me triumphantly like I expected, HyeongHo was crying. He'd obviously been at it a long time. He took a quick look at me and spoke in a wrenching tone.

"They got taken away!"

Somebody grabbed my brother's loot from him in broad daylight? I never would have imagined such a thing could happen.

"What?"

"They got taken away!"

"You're lying. You're just afraid I'm going to take them from you!"

I knew that Hyeong-Ho was sneakier than me. I was trying to cut to the chase, but he shook his head.

"But no one even followed you. Who could've grabbed them? Are you going to tell me it was a goblin? Don't lie."

"You can ask Mom if I'm lying."

"Mom's not even home. How would she know?"

"Because she took them away. That's why."

"Where did she go?"

"Out." "Did she take them with her?"

Hyeong-Ho shook his head.

"So where are they?"

To my astonishment, he pointed with his chin to the attic. I did not believe him but I glanced up at the door. It was locked tight.

Hyeong-Ho and I had a reputation for being resourceful and sociable, but there were two things we couldn't overcome. The first was that Mother always uncovered any plot we had before we succeeded. The second was the attic. We ate and slept beneath it but couldn't come up with a way to get a look inside. Neither of us could remember ever seeing it unlocked or Mother climb up there. For a long time it had been a sacred area, secret and concealed, one to be occupied by Mother alone. We'd never been able to guess what was up there or how it was arranged. The crude brass lock always hung silently on an iron ring on its door. Even if our curiosity gave us the courage to explore the attic, as soon as our eyes landed on that stubborn lock, our desire would vanish like a piece of straw in a bonfire.

With Mother away for so many hours, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get past the lock. Sometimes we'd waste a whole day thinking it over, but in the end our melancholy efforts were frustrated at the first hurdle. The lock may not have looked like much but it was more

than secure enough to thwart any challenge we could muster. The door was flush against the wall and we couldn't even get a grip on it unless we smashed the lock with a hatchet.

Mother never threatened us not to enter the attic because she knew she didn't need to. The lock was a perfect fortification. One summer night, though, I happened to glimpse Mother from behind as she came down from the attic. This was really unusual. She was always very quick and secretive about her trips up there. I managed to see her that night because mosquitoes and horseflies had been biting me constantly and kept me from falling asleep. She made her way downward, leaning forward on her belly, and tiptoed over and lay down beside Hyeong-Ho. Each time she moved, a faint smell of dust wafted off her and she took such deep breaths that I could make out the hollow of her collarbone distinctly. Her breathing spoke of the great strain she was under.

So, Mother was secretly going up to the attic. My brother, on the ball as he was, had figured this out as well and insisted that his packs of gum were up there. His insistence wasn't merely a ruse —he was challenging me. I found it hard to believe him since Mother wouldn't make the mistake of unlocking the attic door in front of us. I glowered fiercely at him. Maybe he thought he'd outsmarted me but I saw right through him craftiness. His crying was a trick to get rid of me, I thought. I wanted to taste what was in those packs. At the very least, I wanted to feast my eyes on them. I decided to coax it out of him.

"Do you know what's inside the packs?"

Hyeong-Ho gulped. He'd already stopped crying. "I tried to feel them while I was running home. I think it's candy."

"Did you taste any?"

"Taste any? Mom took them before I even got to open one!"

I was annoyed but acted calm and said sarcastically, "So Mom knew you'd be bringing home candy and was just waiting for you at the gate,?"

"That's right. She took me by surprise."

"And dragged you into the room?"

"Right."

"And then?"

"She asked where I got them from."

"What'd you say?"

"That they got thrown in the air and I picked them up."

"Did she believe you?"

"Sure."

This made absolutely no sense. How could she have come home and been waiting for him?

Even if it was a coincidence, the whole thing reeked of a little scam. But I was getting sucked in by what Hyeong-Ho was saying. I couldn't stand it. I gave it to him straight.

"Stop lying." My snub hit home, and Hyeong-Ho stared at me. "I know you're lying. You think I'll give up if you say they're in the attic."

"I'm not lying!"

"You've got liar written all over your forehead."

Spite distorted his face, and tears gathered in his eyes. He was about to start bawling at any moment.

"I'm not lying. Ask Mom when she gets home."

The look on his face really did suggest that I was accusing him unfairly. I felt a pang of guilt, but the die was cast. I pressed on.

"Mom wouldn't show us the attic even if there was gold up there."

"Who said anything about gold?"

"I've had enough of your stinking lies!"

But my brother was as strong-willed as me. "You ask Mom when she comes back. I got whipped trying to fight her from taking them."

He stretched out his legs and bunched up his pants around his calves. Sure enough, there were swollen red marks. That shut me up.

"Ask Mom. I'm really not lying!"

I was so embarrassed I could hardly say anything. "Mom opened the attic?"

"I didn't see her."

"But you said she put them up there?"

"Mom left me outside and went in the room by herself. Later I tried to find them, but couldn't.

Where else could she hide them?"

I looked around. We didn't have anything that could be called furniture. There was a clothes rack in the corner with some clothes hanging on it, and across the wall was a shelf where we put our quilts. If Mother hadn't hidden them in the bedding, then the attic was the only possibility. A funny smile broke out on Hyeong-Ho's face.

"How come you're laughing? Don't you know that hair will grow out of your ass if you laugh and cry at the same time?"

He fished something out of the waist of his trousers. "Mom didn't notice this."

My brother hadn't been deprived of all the packs. The back of my neck tingled. This incident was very meaningful—Mother wasn't infallible. She had a weak point and Hyeong-Ho had a way to exploit it. We yelled and jumped up and down, not caring whether the floor slabs sank or not. We opened the wrapper. Inside was yet another paper wrapper, this one of silver. After peeling it away to find an unfamiliar candy equal in size to the wrapper, we tentatively put our tongues to a corner.

The taste was slightly sweet. We began to chew. Each time the sweet juice soaking into our tongues glided down our throats, we'd stop chewing and wait to see what would happen. Suddenly a sound came from outside. We put our faces to the crack in the door. Five or six kids were about to step into our yard. They hesitated, and then one of the bigger ones shouted.

"Haeng-O, come out to play."

That's what kids his age called him. We did not answer right away, so another one shouted in a

voice filled with eager desire.

"Haeng-O, let's play."

Their entreaties made us shudder. An urge to go out swelled in us. We'd never had so many kids rush over to invite us to come out and play. Ordinarily, they didn't want to have much to do with us. We'd have to grovel to join them and put up with their scorn and abuse. But now they'd come to us. I momentarily wondered what had turned the tables, but as soon as my brother slipped the candy into his clothes, it was obvious. I whispered into the ear of my blanching brother. He nodded.

Meanwhile the wheedling for Hyeong-Ho to come out and play continued. I went out to the veranda, shoulders squared and head up to look as imposing as I could.

"Hyeong-Ho isn't home."

For a second they looked startled, but contrary to what I hoped, didn't turn round right away.

Until yesterday they'd ignored my brother even when I brought him under their noses, but today they were determined to see him. Of course I understood what they were after. However, you could have heard a pin drop in our room and that silence was enough to confirm what my brother wanted me to do.

"I told you, he's not home."

"Haeng-O, come out and play."

"He ain't home. Get lost."

"Haeng-O, play with us."

"If you don't go away, I'll make you."

"Haeng-O, come out and play."

Eventually I noticed that these kids weren't watching me, but had their eyes on our terrace stones. Uh-oh. My brother's shoes. They weren't just calling his name to keep me company. They had picked them out. My cover was blown. But I was already too deep into it and told them off once more.

"You can call his name a hundred times. He ain't home."

"Haeng-O, let's play."

"Haeng-O's dead."

One kid shook his head and stuck out his tongue.

"Haeng-O, we're gonna get you. If you eat all that Yankee candy by yourself, you'll get the shits!"

They seemed to realize they couldn't drag my brother out of the house. Showing their true colors, they cursed him and moved off at last.

"Punks."

I'm not sure why the word shot out of my mouth. So what if they made threats, there was no reason to get panicky. So long as I protected my brother, he'd be safe. I went back into the room and started chewing the candy again. We then discovered something surprising. That weird candy had lost none of its size and shape during my quarrel with the kids. Of course it might have been in

the nature of the candy for its sweetness to vanish quickly, but we did not doubt that the candy was still providing us with sweetness. The blind, repetitive bovine action of chewing made us ruminate on its flavor, which had now disappeared. We continued to chew, savoring not sweet flavor but the memory of it. The illusion of the chewing was very enjoyable. What prevented me from connecting the illusion of its sweetness with consciousness of its real lack of sweetness was the fact that the candy kept the same size in my mouth for so long. The two of us ate well. All the food we'd ever eaten until then dissolved in our mouths within a minute no matter whether it was good or bad. But not this candy. We were able to savor the pleasure of chewing for a long time "Brother, this candy's really strange, ain't it?" Hyeong-Ho was having the same thoughts. He appeared dubious but also looked happy.

"Keep chewing!"

"Why's it so sticky?"

"It's like pine rice cakes."

You could chew pine rice cakes a long time, too, but they left such a strong smell of resin that your nose ached and left an unpleasant aftertaste that lingered to the next day. But this candy was different.

"It's really sweet, huh?"

"It sure is."

"Maybe we can chew it for days."

"We don't have to worry about food anymore, do we?"

"Keep chewing."

Unless I did something pathetically dumb like tire of the candy and swallow it, it would still be there.

Hyeong-Ho kept chewing away. Then he started to mutter and spoke sullenly "I'm starving."

"Huh?" I looked back at him, eyebrows arched. His complaining struck me as absurd.

But once more he spoke sullenly. "I'm hungry."

"What's that you're eating then?"

"Whatever. I'm hungry."

"You must have a hundred beggars in your stomach. Boy, you're a real whiner. Complaining that you're hungry while you're eating?"

"Aren't you hungry too?"

He was right. His question made me realize for the first time that I was hungry too. How weird!

How could we be hungry while we were eating? We stopped chewing right away. I was nowhere near full. In fact, my stomach was so empty I felt faint. And my temples were numb. What was really annoying was that we didn't realize we were just swallowing saliva. We were only aware of how hungry we were even though we had been eating constantly.

Maybe it was a sign that a new age was dawning, windy days that would not be cold and still

days that would freeze the tips of our noses off. Maybe there'd be something that was really bulky but light or small items heavier than large ones. As we tried to figure out the nature of this strange candy we had a similar surprise at the unexpected. The candy's shocking betrayal made my brother and me learn how to stand aloof. We wouldn't have to watch for our mother's secret trips to the attic with every nerve alert. We concluded that the candy she'd hidden was like a drug that would offer a temporary sweetness but in the end make us hungrier.

Nevertheless, we stayed curious about the soldiers who'd came from the faraway country.

Their knickknacks were our new concern. They had fountain pens, transistor radios, dark glasses you could see through even though they blocked your eyes. Tiny cartridges that made fire with a flick of the thumb. Knives with blades that would jump out when you pressed a button.

The soldiers visited our village again two weeks later. This time there were five or six of them, and as if to match their increase, many more people flocked to see them. This second meeting was different in many ways. We approached their vehicles more closely but didn't feel uneasy. A number of kids yelled for "chewinggum," and the young men pressed for "cigaretto." Despite their insistence, the soldiers never made any move to make them back away. They just responded to the requests by opening a wooden box and distributing its contents as evenly as they could. In the meantime, we discovered several new things. The first was that the soldiers smelled so strongly of burnt hair that it singed our noses. The second was that they preferred women to kids.

The notary public was located beside the township office, and they shared a yard. A fairskinned young woman worked at the notary. She was very shy and did not come to the street to see the soldiers. She spied through the crack of the sliding door and if she made eye contact with anyone, she'd shut it hastily. Despite the short distance, the soldiers seemed to sense her coy intentions. The soldier who saw her first threw a pack of candy toward her through the crack. She was frightened and backed away from the door frame but soon reappeared. The soldiers started to whoop, and two or three of them threw candy. After some time, her face appeared once more from the door frame and the soldiers competed to toss her stuff. We couldn't see her face, but we could see her slender white hands dexterously picking up the packs of candy that had bounced off the door and fallen on the veranda.

The soldiers stopped paying attention to the kids under their noses asking for chewing gum and cigarettes. The woman kept disappearing and popping out again like a frog surfacing in a rice paddy.

The soldiers enjoyed the game and kept tossing the candy to her as if they were shooting basketballs at the hoop. The spectators, hypnotized, turned their gaze back and forth between the vehicle and the door, as if they were watching a ping-pong match. But in the course of the game, the contents of the box ran out, and when no more packs of candy were thrown, she shut the door. Everyone began to talk.

"They must've tossed a ton of stuff."

"I heard they're helpless when it comes to women."

"It's like when a dog is chasing a hen and it goes up on the roof. There's nothing we can do. I

wonder if the soldiers will go to the notary and threaten her so she gives back what they tossed."

"Don't be silly. They did it for fun. They've got such a mountain of stuff piled up at their camp that it's starting to rot."

"They sure are a different breed."

"That girl was too bold. How could she leave the door open like that so everyone could see?

Has she no sense of shame?"

At first they had marveled at her being cheekier than she first seemed, but their admiration turned to criticism. Hyeong-Ho was nagging again, because he hadn't gotten any of the stuff he had set his heart on.

"Brother, I'm angry."

"How come?"

"How come the Big Noses only threw candy? Why not other stuff?"

"Don't call them Big Noses. They'll cut your balls off if they hear you."

"How are they going to understand me?"

"Well, they might."

"They can't."

"Wouldn't you get angry if I said you had a big nose?"

"No." "Shut up! Only the lady at the notary's made out.� “What do you mean she made out. After a little while, she's going to be starving from eating that candy."

"Be quiet! We're crazy."

I wasn't just griping about Haeng-Ho. I was including myself. But he kept silent, thinking it was his fault that we hadn't gotten anything. But really my complaint was absurd. It was unreasonable, being his older brother, to include him in my rant. Nonetheless, he accepted my rebuke-tinged complaints as if they were quite proper, perhaps out of self-respect, as he was the one who'd had the courage to speak to the soldiers first. Brother's nudging meant that the villagers came to speak to the soldiers one on one and stopped being afraid of them. As I'd predicted, he'd taken his first role to heart.

"Some grown-ups said something to me."

"What?"

"That somebody beats the bush and somebody else catches the birds."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I was the first one to say 'Hallochewinggumgibbeeme', but that lady got the prizes."

Something dawned on me. Hyeong-Ho spoke to the soldiers first, but as far as I knew he didn't even know what he said meant. Where did he learn the word that brought him the candy?

"Hey, who taught you Hallo language?"

He must not have expected such a straightforward question. He looked up and stared me in

the face. I pressed him again.

"Who'd you learn it from?"

He grinned. "Guess."

"Are you gonna give me a hard time?"

"From Mom." "What? Mom? Are you making fun of me?"

I was mad enough to hit him, but he answered me seriously, even though he was disappointed.

"It's the truth."

"Then, how come she understands Hallo language?"

"Well, she's the one who taught me."

I didn't press. I'd already gotten myself into a fix once before by not trusting him. His pathetic look suggested that he was telling the truth. It would also help explain why Mother had been waiting for him when he came running back home. But if that was true, the questions started to snowball.

Where had Mother learned what to say? I could hardly expect as straight an answer from her as from my brother. I'd obviously catch hell just for asking. Maybe the young lady at the notary had taught the young man what to say, but there was the very real problem that I'd wind up in a maze trying to uncover where Mother's knowledge of Hallo language came from. However, before we got the truth out of her, the next time the soldiers visited our village the young woman did something that surprised us all. Their officer was meeting with the township head, so they again parked in the office yard. Once more, many people gathered, Hyeong-Ho and I among them.

About half an hour after the soldiers arrived, the door of the notary slid open slowly. The soldiers let out a shout of joy, as if that was just what they had been waiting for. Opening a cardboard box, they began to throw packs of candy as if on cue. Nothing had changed except the door was open three or four times wider than before. Even someone with poor aim couldn't miss.

Our eyes followed the candy as it flew through the air. But what surprised everyone this time was that the woman had makeup on.

Someone gulped and spoke under his breath. "Look at that! She's powdered her face."

She was now coquettishly flashing smiles while remaining largely hidden by the door. She popped out more frequently than she had the previous time.

Someone clucked his tongue. "It's the end of the world."

"She's an eligible young lady from a good family. It's ridiculous. Before she held back, but now she's coming out."

"I don't care how poor we are. What did we do to deserve this? It's the end of the world."

"I was wondering why she didn't open the door earlier, but I get it now. She was powdering her face. That girl has some education. How could she do that unless she's gone crazy?"

"Even a crazy bitch wouldn't powder her face."

"She's somebody's daughter. Why are you calling her a bitch? Maybe she's got some ideas of her own."

"My heart's breaking."

"Let's go. If I stay any longer I'm going to be sick."

Some people were already leaving. We could not figure out exactly the stir her makeup was having among the grownups. Most people had started to walk away but the little kids lingered around the truck. Word that the young lady had powdered her face for some candy spread quickly.

Even Mother knew. When she came home late that night, she pressed us with questions.

"She smeared makeup on her face?"

Hyeong-Ho nodded even though he might not have known what makeup meant. I gave him a dig in the ribs with my elbow.

"You know what makeup means?"

He got angry and glared at me. "I know. It's powdering your face, right?"

"Did you see her do it?"

"How could I miss it? Her face was so white she looked like a magic fox."

"She didn't look like a fox to me."

"Well, to me she looked like a real bitch."

Mother put a hand over his mouth to shut him up.

"Kids these days talk nonsense. Where'd you learn such a dirty word?"

Hyeong-Ho was still sore and shook off Mother's hand.

"Grownups said it."

"Even if grownups said it, what right does that give a little squirt like you?"

Mother didn't whip us but she scolded us as if we were dogs that had done something wrong.

But my brother wasn't one to back down. I could guess why he was working himself into a fit over the young woman. He was letting off steam about losing out on the candy to her, even though he had taken the initiative. I felt compassion for him but couldn't understand my mother. This was the first time Hyeong-Ho had let a swear word slip out, and it was bad enough that Mother might have whipped him. But she just gave him a few sharp rebukes and that was it. My brother didn't ease up his hostility. Mother's unexpectedly gentle scolding spurred him on even further.

"They say a lady who starts using makeup will be a bitch before long."

Mother was rummaging around in a sewing basket, sitting with her back to me. She grunted in agreement. "That's exactly right. If a girl takes a fancy to beauty lotion before getting a taste for housekeeping, she's gonna have a hard time of it."

"Mom, I'm right, aren't I?" "Absolutely."

"Wait and see. That lady is gonna turn into a fox before long."

"Worse than that. She'll bring shame on her family. It's no light matter."

I was stunned that Mother would criticize a neighbor as easily as rolling up her sleeves.

Ordinarily, she was tight-lipped about our neighbors' faults, but she was siding with my brother.

All her life, Mother seemed to have kept makeup at arm's length, so I understood her well

enough. Just as a tiger on Mt. Baekdu might envy a bear climbing a tree, so Mother's dislike of makeup might have led her to criticize the young woman just to sweep aside a temptation that was as intense as her aversion. Maybe she thought that she had every reason to share the same antipathy towards her as Hyeong-Ho. Mother talked in her sleep that night. I heard her murmuring while I was half-asleep. My eyes started open but it was pitch black. In the darkness I heard, "Hallo-hallohallo . . . jewin-gum-hallo . . ."

She repeated that four or five times. As soon as I realized that the desolate voice fading into the darkness was Mother's, I stiffened. She stopped and her breathing became quiet, but I lay with my eyes wide open. It took me a long time to fall back asleep.

Suddenly an emotion came welling up in my heart, loneliness or sorrow, strangely enough.

When Mother repeated the foreign word in her sleep, a premonition of separation chilled my heart.

It was hard to figure out why her words gave me such a tangible foreboding, but I realized dimly that the three of us would be separated from one another some day. Mother always came home without fail, like a boomerang, to where Hyeong-Ho and I waited, but if those recurrent ties that forced her back were suddenly severed, she might stop coming at that very moment. What always led Mother home? I thought hard but couldn't come up with anything. Those strange words she spoke in her sleep produced all these presentiments in me. I felt a wet warmth on my temples; I had been crying without realizing it. I reached around in the bedding and clutched Hyeong-Ho's hand. Of course that passing foreboding did not torment or wrench me for long. But it nonetheless remained coiled deep inside me and would occasionally visit me without warning.

This sad foreboding was identical with the poverty and dust that coiled around our house. They would quietly wait all day long, holding their breath, but as soon as Mother returned, they came out naked to meet us. Hyeong-Ho and I could see our crushing poverty in her look, as she was fed up with this grubby life and she could do likewise for everyday she was reminded of it through our shabby clothes and emaciated frames.

Usually, Mother was not talkative but for a while right around that time she became chatty and easily excited over trivial things and on such nights, she'd steal into the attic. I discovered her habit after witnessing it several times. Like the proverb says, even a monkey can fall out of a tree. Mother could make a mistake too no matter how faithfully she might control the lock on the attic. One day I learned of her mistake unexpectedly. My brother, who had sharper eyes than I, discovered what had happened first. He pointed to the attic door.

"Look!"

I turned. The lock hung open on the ring of the attic door. I was absolutely stunned. With difficulty I managed to calm myself down.

"Who left the door open?"

Hyeong-Ho looked scared when I pressed him for an answer. "It wasn't me. Mom went out and didn't realize it was open."

"Mom?"

"I ain't tall enough to do it."

He was right. And unlike me he wasn't curious about the attic. Even if he'd had the urge to explore it, he was too tiny to get up there. He'd be like a climber trying to scale an ice wall with his bare hands. But it'd be possible if the two of us worked together. I trembled at the thought of finally exploring my mother's scared precinct. I told my brother the plans I'd drawn up long before.

"Hyeong-Ho, how about lying down right there?"

My brother's face flushed. "Are you gonna climb up on my back?"

"I'll step real lightly."

"No way! Even if you get on my back, you won't be able to reach it. Anyway, Mom will be back soon."

"It'll be a long time before Mom comes back."

"My back will split open."

"No, it won't."

"I'll get smothered."

"You won't."

"My back will break."

"No, it won't."

"It'll kill me."

"Why are you making such a big fuss?"

"If you take something from up there, Mom's gonna notice right away."

"I'm just gonna look."

"Mom will still know."

"I'm not gonna touch anything."

"You wanna die?"

He was on the verge of tears, but finally after I'd persuaded and appeased him with an offer of twenty ttakji, I succeeded in getting him below the attic. Teary-eyed, he lay close to the wall, his body huddled like a caterpillar that had fallen from a tree.

I got up on his back and stuck my chest against the wall. But before I could snatch the lock off the ring, his back wobbled under my feet and he collapsed. We tumbled to the ground in a heap.

Wary from the start, he'd moved out of the way. He was pale and waving his hands. It took a long time to lure him to lie back down next to the wall. This time I caught hold of the ring. I jerked the door wide and put one hand on the door sill to lighten the load on Hyeong-Ho's back, even if for just a few seconds. It was higher and tougher for me to reach than I had thought. I grabbed the sill with my other hand, raised myself quickly and balanced myself by scraping at the wall with my feet. I was in a precarious position and likely to fall, but I managed to get my chest to the level of the door sill and hoisted myself into the attic. The ceiling was too low for me to move around standing up but high enough so that I didn't have to get on all fours. I twisted around and looked back. Hyeong-Ho had already scooted to the center of the room. He looked up at me with a mixture of fear and envy.

I had gotten up to a point twice as high as he was.

"Brother, are you scared?"

The nauseating, smoky mixture of dust and soil tickled my nose, triggering a sneezing fit. To show Hyeong-Ho how cool I was now that I'd finally reached the attic, I nonchalantly replied, "I can see you down there. Why should I be scared?"

"You're really not afraid?"

"Don't worry about me. Hurry up and go out on the veranda."

"Why?" "What if Mom comes back?"

Fear appeared on his face, as he'd forgotten Mother could come back soon.

"Get down now!"

"Spread the bedding on the floor, then go out and let me know when you see Mom coming."

"What then?"

"When you give the signal, I'll jump down."

"What if you die?"

"Why would I die?"

"You'll break your leg."

"No, I won't."

It was dark in the attic but not so dark that I couldn't make anything out. The first thing it occurred to me to look for were the packs of candy. Two papier-mâchÊ jars stood side by side and a wicker trunk were visible, but nothing special attracted my attention. I opened the trunk. In it were some marriage documents and the set of clothes Mother wore on her wedding day, but no candy.

What was it that made Mother so secretive about the attic? What comforted her when she was disturbed? Was it the clothes she wore on her wedding day? No, it couldn't be. She wasn't trying to hide them from us. She'd bring the trunk down to the room to add fresh mothballs to it and tidy it up.

I didn't see anything that gave a convincing explanation, but soon enough I got my answer. I causally lifted the cover of one container and froze, frightened, as if I had seen something utterly taboo. I replaced the cover and crept toward the door. The room was silent but Hyeong-Ho was grumbling to himself on the veranda.

I went back and took off the cover again. It was filled to the brim with polished white rice. I was shocked. The one beside it was more than half full with barleycorn. A rank, fishy smell from the grain assaulted my nose. I felt an overwhelming urge to reach into the container, but I couldn't, because in it was etched Mother's handprint with five distinct finger markings, as clear as the imprints used in a press for making candy. I got the jitters. If I disturbed the rice, Mother would notice right away. It would be like monkeying with a general's epaulets. Her vigilance was evident in that handprint. I assumed that Mother climbed up into the attic and opened the containers when overwhelmed with anxiety about our desperate poverty. After shooing us away, she'd fill the containers in secret. I sat looking vacantly at them for a long time. In spite of all the grain stored

here, the three of us had been slowly starving. It was beyond me how to resolve the quandary of the trap Mother herself had dug.

I never hated Mother more than I did at that moment. There was something pathetic and miserable in her handprint, in her terrifying will not to allow a single grain to be disturbed. How many times had she aimed her hand at the rising grain in that full container, consoling herself with it even as she starved? But until the grain was transformed into boiled rice or porridge, it would always be hers alone and not all of ours. Suddenly, Hyeong-Ho, white as a sheet, jumped into the room.

"Mom's coming!"

He motioned me to jump. I looked down. My landing pad seemed a long, long way down, as if I were now in the most dangerously high place I'd ever been. I myself couldn't imagine how I'd made it this high. Worse, my frantically motioning brother seemed to recede with each passing moment. Without him, I had no second best foothold if I missed my step. It wasn't like climbing a tree. The open space below me offered no guarantees.

I’d long cherished the dream of being able to fly. When I sprinted, I used to give myself up to the illusion that I was flying. And now here was my chance to realize my dream. But it dawned on me that I could not even jump down, to say nothing of flying. I crouched and looked down at the room, resting my worthless wings on the door sill. I suddenly thought of the bags of candy flying over our heads. I would never release my hands as they clutched the door sill, so long as the possibility of falling existed. Hyeong-Ho was nearly in tears but seeing me hesitate he came up with the best alternative.

"Shut the door and hide."

I had no other choice. I hurriedly closed the attic door from inside. Once shut, it was so dark that you wouldn't have been able to tell if your nose had been cut off.

"Where's Hyeong-Seok?"

Hyeong-Ho usually replied firmly but he was at a loss for words.

"Where is your brother?"

I heard a rustling sound. Mother was folding up the bedding.

"Did you suddenly go deaf? Answer me."

"He went out to play."

"Play? He left you all alone and went out to play?"

"I mean, he went on an errand."

"An errand? Who sent him?"

"He's gone out to play."

"What's the matter with you? How come you keep changing your mind?"

"I don't know."

"Now you don't know? You ill-bred squirt, making fun of your mom, eh?"

"Someone called him and he went out."

"Who?"

"I didn't see."

"I said, who called him?"

"I didn't see."

"You didn't see?"

Hyeong-Ho again was at a loss for an answer.

"You could tell me about the dirt between Hyeong-Seok's toes. It doesn’t make any sense that you don't know. Where is that little bastard, wandering about like a dog at a tavern, leaving you home alone?"

Again, silence.

"When did he leave?"

"He snuck out."

"Something's very fishy. You're fibbing, aren't you?"

I heard Hyeong-Ho burst into tears at last.

"Why are you picking on me?"

My mother was put upon. Anger was mixed in with her griping, but Hyeong-Ho was not going to stop crying easily. He may have given Mother a few evasive answers, but he didn't have the wherewithal to parry a close grilling. Bursting into tears was the best way to get some breathing room.

My fear began to subside the longer I stayed shut up in the attic. The anger I felt towards Mother helped a lot. When fear crept over me, I conquered it by thinking of her senseless stinginess in letting us starve despite the containers. I even began to get cocky and wished that Mother would find me sooner than later. My resentment made me want to see the look on her face when she found me. I thought again of how her expression had contorted when she spotted us as she was milling rice with that kid on her back.

"Stop crying." Mother's tone had switched from angry to soothing.

"I don't know where Brother went."

Hyeong-Ho was trying to play the baby with her, but before he could even finish his sentence, the attic door opened. Mother's upper body filled the opening like the portrait of the deceased on the offering table of an ancestor worship ritual. I had thought I wanted to be found, but now I was frightened. I watched Mother dejectedly. My brother had stopped crying. As Mother looked at me all covered in dust, her expression was indifferent neither showing that she was about to criticize me or let what had happened go. It was just a mute blank look. She lifted her arms upward.

"I'll grab your hands. Just come down slowly and carefully."

Even though her voice sounded as warm as when she'd soothed Hyeong-Ho, I hesitated, because a warm tone had signaled a severe whipping in the past. Mother would always sweetly tell us to roll up our trousers and then whip us.

"Are you going to stay up there all night?"

I shrank back even more.

"If you insist, I'll lock the door from the outside. Come down now and let's eat."

As soon as she said that, she glanced at the containers. I had been too preoccupied to set things right and had left them uncovered. Her eyes clouded with embarrassment.

"Come down right now. Let's cook supper."

Mother again lifted her arms. I came down in a half-sitting position, leaning against her arms.

Hyeong-Ho eyed me uneasily, like when he watched the high wire act at the circus. But Mother did not whip me as she swept up the dust that had fallen. She spoke to me in a subdued tone.

"What got you up there?"

I couldn't figure out the gist of her question right away. I wasn't sure whether she was asking how or why.

"Did you put up the ladder?"

Only then did I answer reluctantly. "Hyeong-Ho crouched down and I got on top of him."

"You stinker, he's your only brother. Are you going to break his back? I thought you had more sense than that, but you're as bad as he is."

"It was just . . . just for fun."

"Doing something just for fun can get you in all kinds of trouble. If nothing happens, it's just a game, but doing something for fun can stir up trouble, and then you've had it. If you'd slipped, would it only have been a problem for your brother? What about you?"

Hyeong-Ho interrupted us, rubbing the dimple in his lip with his sleeve.

"Brother, is it dark up there?"

I didn't know how to answer.

"You almost died, didn't you?"

As Mother swept up the dust, she muttered to herself. "What have I done wrong? These idiotic kids . . ."

"Brother, what was up there?"

I glared at him as fiercely as I could muster, but he did not get that I was trying to shut him up.

"What's up there?"

"Nothin'."

"Really, nothin'? There ain't nothin' up there?"

"That's right."

"There's gotta be something."

"Shut up! Ask Mom." Hyeong-Ho had been a major help in getting me up into the attic, so I was being harsh, but what else could I say with Mother beside me? My response had been for her. She didn't say a word but must have sensed what was on my mind. After a little while, she quietly went to the kitchen and then up into the attic carrying a gourd bowl. That evening we filled our stomachs with plain boiled rice. While we were emptying our brimming bowls, my brother held forth on his heroic role in helping me get up into the attic to Mother. He was in high spirits when he finally asked me right in

front of her.

"Did you see the candy?"

I'd never expected such a question, and only shook my head, afraid.

"You mean there really wasn't anything?"

Again I was at a loss.

"Mom, where'd you put the candy?"

Mother then pointed, spoon in hand, to his rice bowl.

"Is that western candy going to give you a full stomach? Is a mudfish going to turn into a dragon? I took those packets of candy to the lady at the notary and traded them for barley."

Hyeong-Ho did not get teary-eyed. The candy had not been his main concern for a while now.

A golden opportunity arose. The soldiers had been stopping by our village regularly, but a month had gone by since they last turned up. We were playing marbles one afternoon when we heard an airplane far off in the sky. We rushed into the street. The main street stretched out toward the East Sea. As it entered our village on the west side it curved gently around the spur of a hill where deer often showed up. Suddenly, what we called a dragonfly airplane appeared over the spur.

Kids poured into the street. In those days airplanes often flew over our village. We imagined a lot of nonsense about them, because in most cases they twinkled, flying as high as they did.

However, this time the dragonfly airplane allowed our imaginations to get closer to the truth and our hopes to become more visible. The plane kept skimming the top of the fire lookout and we could clearly make out the figure of a man sitting in it. Later, the pilots would wave at us sometimes or fumble around trying to land on the school playground. We clapped our hands over our ears as the dust swirled, and anxiously watched. The plane had seemed almost within reach but it gave up trying to land and vanished behind the hill. The plane always seemed on the verge of disaster with its stunts, getting so close to the fire tower that it looked like it would crash into it. When it flew over the back of the hill, it looked like it would knock down the old pine on Deer Corner but it managed to make it over each time. We thought that all these close calls would lead to tragedy.

The adults grumbled as they watched the risky stunts. "Even a monkey can fall from a tree."

One day the dragonfly plane really did show signs of trouble. It had been circling over our village and then began to vanish back into the part of the sky from it had first appeared. But then the kids cried out.

"It's coming back!"

Indeed it was. It veered back toward our village suddenly, and we saw that there was a real problem. The body of the plane was shaking and the propeller jerked as it spun. The villagers shouted as they watched the plane struggle to cope with its weight and stay aloft.

"It's going to crash!"

This wasn't just more of the villagers' idle talk. Flying is always preparing for falling. And standing is just a preparation for sitting down. Heights always produce an anxiety. So it was when I first sat on the barbershop chair. When I climbed into the attic, the fear of high places gripped and

tormented me, too.

"That plane is going to crash," someone spat out.

That sentence stirred my brother and me up. "Let's follow it." I grabbed his wrist. He didn't need to ask why.

We began to run. Nothing was on my mind except that we had to be the first to reach where the plane crashed. Black smoke pouring from its tail meant that it would come down soon, but it flew on tenaciously. Hyeong-Ho and I flew along after it. Of course the dragonfly plane had been created to fly, and you could hardly compare us. A dog in the water can't catch up with even a sick duck. We kept looking back at the kids following us to gauge the lead we had over them. The important thing wasn't the distance between us and the plane, but the distance between us and the kids who were following right behind. But while we kept looking back at the kids in pursuit, the plane had outdistanced us.

At this point, we were halfway up a mountain with spurs in all directions. Below spread a plain with a wide field of reeds. At the end of the plain, several other ranges of hills rose and blocked our view. The sound of the plane grew fainter as it went farther over the layered ridges. It dawned on us that we really had traveled far. I felt as if I'd been exiled to an island. Despite running, teeth clenched, towards the crash site, I felt a sharp sense of loneliness. We were cut off from everything that protected us.

Now we'd not only lost sight of the other kids and the plane but we weren't sure of the way back to our village. We realized that we could not reach the crash site and that our hope of reaching the spot first had disappeared. Far below in the distant ranges we could just make out the plane landing. There stood another village, its houses clustered like crab shells. While we were struggling madly to cover the distance to the plane, the children there could have been standing quietly in their own yards, waiting for the plane to come crashing down in the road in front of their village. If so, we had not been heading for the crash site but simply halfway up an unfamiliar mountain without realizing that we were heading in the wrong direction. Other people already were living at the center of the action. I was just as confused as I'd been with the zelkova tree at school that moved from my left to the right. Hyeong-Ho seemed equally perplexed. We stood still for a long time. I'd been hot and sweaty, but began to cool off. Hyeong-Ho gazed out at the village.

"Brother."

"What?"

"What's the name of that village over there?"

I had no idea, so I just made something up. "Hannae," I replied. We fell silent again.

"The kids must be really happy, huh?"

Hyeong-Ho's dream of acquiring a pocketknife, sunglasses and a lighter was shattered. The day's only result was that instead of waiting for Mother as we were used to, she was waiting for us.

She did not whip us after hearing about our expedition, either. We'd managed to escape a hiding even though our calves felt ticklish premonitions, just as the aircraft had skimmed over the fire tower

but avoided a crash.

I always felt giddy whenever I got out of a bind while looking after Hyeong-Ho. Mother wasn't giving us hidings that made our bones ache as often, but she still disciplined us sharply as if biding her time. Mother's changing attitude was an omen that my brother and I were gradually nearing adulthood. However, we were already otherwise quite aware of this, especially from two notable hints. For one thing, when I wet my bed, Mother dispensed with the traditional punishment of making me go to neighbors to beg for salt with a winnow on my head. She also stopped bringing my brother naked into the yard to wash him. We were at an age when the unfamiliar sense of shame was molding itself into a concrete notion of self-respect. That self-respect began to settle vaguely into our hearts as we began to fill out as we grew older.

Mother began to spot this self-respect in us, for she stirred it up through a decisive action.

Mother had not locked the attic door ever since that night when we had slept so poorly, troubled with diarrhea after gorging ourselves suddenly. We did not know why she'd stopped being vigilant.

After making this discovery, the fact that the attic door was unlocked came to absorb us more than when it had been locked. One day Hyeong-Ho said something to Mother about it, but she only grunted. She was not bothered enough to lock it again and began to go in and out in front of us. We no longer heard anxious secret steps or stealthy deep sighs. She would list the hardships of going up to the attic, grumbling that she had a sore back or housework to do. Her petty gripes might have been a first step in reducing our curiosity about what was up there. That did not necessarily mean that the sense of mystery had diminished, only that it had changed. While the attic had been locked, it belonged to Mother only, but now it belonged to the three of us. Hyeong-Ho and I had a secret activity that we were spending all our time together in except when I was in school. We were so happily inseparable that we even went to the toilet together.

One day while we were leaving our alley to go look for kids to play with on the main street, Hyeong-Ho stopped short.

"Hey, we're not supposed to go out and leave the house alone."

I'd hardly expected him to balk. We'd run around all day long, leaving the house unattended when we were sure Mother would not return home. That was convenient for all of us.

"So now you're not going?"

"No, I wanna go."

"So why are you causing trouble?"

"The attic's open. What if someone goes up there?"

He was right. We had to change our plans. If the attic door had been locked like before, we wouldn't have felt uneasy about going out. But things weren't so simple, and we weren’t sure whether Mother had the key with her or not. I was at a loss, so I just said coldly and needlessly, "So what'll you do? Watch the place yourself?"

He nodded and without hesitation added, "Just go by yourself." He'd never uttered anything like it before. This self-sufficiency of Hyeong-Ho's was unfamiliar and surprising.

"Are you really gonna stay home?"

"What should I do if a thief breaks in?"

Thieves only had a symbolic existence as far as we were concerned. We'd never heard of a thief in our village. The villagers had overheard rumors spread by travelers passing through that thieves from some far-off city lurked about now and then. Hearing the word 'thief' from my brother's mouth, though, gripped me as urgently as if a thief had just entered our village. But what Hyeong-Ho meant by thief could include neighbors or even animals that might go into our house while we weren't there. We headed home, hurriedly going into the room and looking at that inorganic lump, hanging loose on the ring of the attic door. Even though it had been only been a few minutes, after we checked that there was no sign of a break-in, we plopped ourselves down and took a deep breath.

That inanimate object sucked the motion out of us and made us inanimate as well.

Both of us liked to snack if we could, so sometimes we'd chew on grains of rice. We'd trade our super ttakji with which we'd captured many small ones for a handful of raw rice that barely kept our hunger at bay. You could say the rice that filled the containers in the attic had been opened for our snacking. However, even if we'd had the magical ability to tamper with Mother's handprints, we wouldn't have taken a grain of rice because now that the containers had been opened they were ours. That wasn't the only benefit we got by their being open: we began to have more selfconfidence before other kids. Children couldn't plot like adults but they were clever. Adults would wax lyrical about a tavern when in reality rats ran back and forth beneath the tables and it stank of sewage. Children weren't like that. The poorer they were, the more obvious their poverty was. Kids our age flocked and played together but if we joined them, they'd gather up the stuff they had brought to play with and sneak off, deserting us. Then they'd start playing again or completely ignore us right to our faces. However, we were no longer daunted by their ostracism. Whenever they acted like that, we'd show our nerve.

"Haeng-O, why did you come here?"

"To play with you guys."

"We don't wanna play with you."

"I'll just watch."

"You can't watch, either. Why do you want to watch us?"

"None of your business. This land belongs to the whole village, not you!"

"We ain't gonna play with you, anyway."

"You wanna die?"

"You act pretty tough when your big brother's behind you, huh, Haeng-O?" "So what? Do you think only your family's rich? We're rich, too."

"Oh, your family is rich, huh? Since when does a rich kid get all yellow from not eating?"

"You're gonna be shocked."

"How'd your family get rich? You got a goose that lays golden eggs?"

Hyeong-Ho spat a string of saliva from between his teeth. "Something better."

"Yeah, what?"

"If I tell you, you'll steal it."

In spite of their grilling, he did not let on about the containers filled with rice. We placed protective handprints about the containers, just like Mother had, only we did it mentally. If he hadn't had that wariness, Hyeong-Ho might have exaggerated the truth with a gesture. We realized that we'd pledged to ourselves not to damage the attic's defenses as much as Mother had. However, I wondered how much my brother's lips tingled when he insisted on the reality of those rice containers. I understood his predicament. It must have sounded dubious. I had the same urge to drag those kids who wouldn't believe us to the attic and open it. People like to quote the saying that they wish they could show what's going on in their minds as easily as they can turn a pair of socks inside out. That's how we felt. But maybe people only say it because they know how impossible it is.

Wall Clocks

Time seemed to drag on mid-summer afternoons, its depth like a pool below a cliff that cannot be plumbed with an entire ball of string. With nothing to do under the burning sun from morning till evening, we were oblivious to the passing of time. After school, we'd often jump into the stream on the other side of the hill but the sun sizzled, hanging high in the sky. I could go to the stream to bathe and spend all afternoon there. However, such brute courage was dangerous. Diving into the water used up a lot of my energy and avenged itself by making me dizzy.

I'd return to our empty home famished, but no matter how I rummaged through the cupboard, the only thing I could find to put in my stomach was cold water from a jar that smelled of mud. After I had drunk my fill, the blurriness in my eyes left and my sight reverted to normal for a moment. To avoid a vengeful attack of hunger pangs, the best policy was not to go back to the stream to dive.

The only way to elude dizziness until we sat down for dinner was to spend the afternoon doing nothing. Even more appealing was sleeping, because that allowed me forget the hunger constricting my stomach and hold out until dinnertime. Sometimes I'd even be lucky enough to dream of eating delicious things. But I needed something to help me fall asleep, like the languor you get after a meal, or after sunset or after a long and sorrowful crying jag, which would tire me out enough to let me drop off without feeling the furious biting insects.

I did have another option for conserving my strength and killing a summer afternoon when I didn't have anything to help me doze off. The school grounds emptied out after class was over, and the hubbub of students rushed away like the slime along the bank after an ebb tide. For many students the school was something to keep at a respectful distance. As soon as they passed out through the school gates, they wouldn't show up again if they could help it. School meant scoldings, not praise. The teachers were always ready to inspect something of ours: our homework, our blood, our teeth, our fingernail, how clean we were, how fit we were, how smart we were, the way we

swept.

Mother used to implore me. "You should be a lawyer when you grow up. Getting used to inspections is how you'll learn to be an public inspector."

"Mom, the inspections we have at school aren't the same."

"You little . . . don't act up with me. An egg and a chick are from the same stock. Too many smart-ass farts from you and you'll wind up shitting yourself before you know it. You already know so much about inspectors and how to get to be a lawyer?"

The grownups of the village, most of whom had kids in the school, also avoided it, because it was awkward to meet teachers on the road. Showing the proper respect was a matter of grave concern. When I sat in the grounds after school, the still summer afternoon made me feel like I was in a vacuum. Every little thing that went on in the village came through loud and clear in the school grounds, the way the voices of fishermen are picked up easily on an opposite lake shore. While I sat in the naked silence, exposed to the burning sunshine of a boring summer day, I was liberated from gnawing hunger.

During school hours the vaulting horses, the swings and the chin-up bars were monopolized by the strongest, feistiest kids. They'd argue constantly about who'd get to play on them as there was not enough equipment for everyone. In the end, only the mean, tough, older kids got to use them, but after school, the equipment was completely available. My favorite was the chin-up bar. It was the main thing that drew me back to school. The horizontal bar was positioned at a height a little taller than I was, but I could grab it without much difficulty. I actually didn't do chin-ups. I'd latch on and curl my lower body like a worm, hang my calves on the bar, hook the back of my knees against it, and then carefully let my hands go, dangling upside down like a monkey hanging by its tail. I grew to enjoy looking at the world like that.

Everything was upside down—the school house and its stone steps, the zelkova tree, the cherry tree, the vaulting horse, the swings, even the playground. And floating over the roof of the schoolhouse, a sky ablaze with the glow of the setting sun. Of course I understood that everything I looked at appeared to be standing on its head because I was hanging upside down. Yet there was one thing I couldn't figure out. Everything was upside down. So why was the sky still floating over everything just as if I were looking at it while standing up straight? If I reached out, my fingertips touched the sand-strewn playground soil. That proved I was hanging upside down, because if I were standing right side up, my outstretched hand would touch the sky. But the upside-down sky spread over everything. I wondered if my feet could reach the sky. I raised my head to check, but the sky stayed spread out wherever I looked.

Someone was approaching me. If everything were upside down, the person approaching should be walking on the sky. And yet the ground certainly was above my head, and the sky was floating over the person coming towards me. If my legs were hanging in the sky, then the person walking over should also have legs up in the sky. If it were a woman, the hem of her skirt should have slipped down toward her breasts, and her privates and rear end should be exposed. But the

skirt of the woman approaching me was covering her calves as they should have. However, before I could work through this paradox, I had to come down from the iron bar, because she appeared to aiming straight for me as I dangled upside down.

It was none other than the only female teacher in our school. She must have been observing me for a long time from somewhere inconspicuous, because I'd certainly been the only person on the playground. I tumbled down from the bar. I didn't have the slightest desire to be a lawyer and had to get out of there before she wanted to inspect me about something. After I hit the ground, I reeled about for a moment, having lost my sense of direction. I looked hard at the main gate, hoping that the playground was still on my left and had not switched to the right.

"Hold on."

She spoke quickly, her hands spread open nimbly as if to catch a falling wooden post. It was embarrassing to be inspected outside school hours, especially by a female teacher. An inspection meant insults and shame, since I never satisfied the teachers. Just standing before a teacher for an inspection was humiliating. After suffering the insult, spanking or scolding invariably followed and my face would flush from shame. The teachers had a morbid preference for things that were short: haircuts, fingernails, answers to math problems, excuses, the crotch length of pants, and recesses.

The only things they liked to have long were their point by point admonitions and the broad jump.

She was coming closer, her shadow long in the sunset. She dragged it behind her, as if a forewarning about the interminable lecture in store for me. She seemed preoccupied with my face, which was now flushed from hanging upside down for so long. I could just barely make out her expression because I was of course lowering my eyes towards my toes.

"Don't look your teachers in the eye. That's what the children of ill-bred trash do." And yet from the teacher's lips came a response contrary to Mother's warning.

"Don't you like me?"

It was a silly question. I'd never disliked anybody. I'd come to the deserted school grounds to play by myself not because I disliked people's company, but because I had my own way to deal with my hunger. But it would have been embarrassing to try to explain this in a convincing way. I was afraid my eloquence might falter right away. The fear that I might burst into tears any moment made me anxious.

"I don't dislike you, teacher."

"So why are you looking away?"

"I was told I shouldn't look teachers in the eye."

"That's okay. But why have you been playing by yourself for so long?"

It was a natural question. And it was just as natural for me to cry at being asked. Once I started, my bawling would be too violent for the teacher to control and she'd be embarrassed because she wouldn't know why I was crying. That wouldn't do either of us any good. She was clueless and yet she was putting pressure on me as I remained silent.

"Don't you like me?"

Damn! Why was she pressing me? I'd already answered her.

"I like you fine..."

"So why did you pretend not to see me?"

I hadn't pretended not to see her. I'd just been standing still with my head lowered.

"I just . . . " That was her cue to begin hectoring me. She seemed to have prepared her admonishments and I was ready to burst out crying. Yet, it was strange. She just held her tongue and looked down at me. Maybe she'd already noticed that I was on the verge of tears. Teachers are usually adept at picking out where kids problems come from.

A look at the back of a child's hand told them what the child's mother was like. They could figure out how poor the family was from the child's smell. She also must have been very perceptive.

She changed the subject.

"You live next door to the barbershop, don't you?"

I raised my head and looked her in the eye, feeling a mixture of astonishment and shame. Even my homeroom teacher didn't know where we lived. How had she pinpointed it? I felt ashamed that she knew our house. Its grubbiness. Its thick piles of dust.

Mother wanted nothing to do with our school. Letting me attend was the extent of her connection. She'd never once paid any of the trifling fees the school demanded like dues for their community support association or took any notice of the messages they sent. Even if she had, she was illiterate. But despite never shelling out a penny, she sent me off to school every morning more enthusiastically than any other mother. I'd often resist as she hurried me off, telling her how embarrassing it was to study without paying. Mother would roll her eyes and threaten me.

"What, do you think you've got your own private tutor? There are over sixty kids in the class.

What's the big deal if a squirt like you joins them? When the teacher tells you to pay, just keep your eyes down. Even a tiger, let alone a teacher, isn't a match for someone who insists on having his own way."

We might not have had enough to eat, but we weren't so desperately poor that Mother couldn't come up with the meager dues they wanted from her. Mother was sensible and held no grudge against the neighbors, but she was very tight with money. Once it entered her pocket, it never left, no matter the obligation or the threats. I'd had many teachers over the course of my school career. Each one played a spirited game with Mother, doing everything possible to persuade her. The favorite tactic was a home visit. That way they could sit across from each other without anyone losing face.

I'd never seen a parent and teacher grab each other by the throat over a few pennies. But Mother flatly refused even a visit. Nonetheless, the next morning found her little brat, Kim Hyeong-Seok, back in class, sitting in the sunshine in a window seat.

Once a few teachers launched a surprise attack on my mother at home. This would have been a close call, but out house was perfectly set up to avoid visitors who barged in announced. Our house had no fence except some low bamboo stakes on one side so low a puppy could jump over

them. When a teacher came from the front, Mother fled toward the back, and if he came in from the left, Mother disappeared to the right. And that was that. If she was unlucky enough to have the visitor come while she was in the outhouse, she'd just wait patiently until the visitor eventually gave up, exhausted.

However, when I finally graduated six years later, the teacher selected two students for prizes.

I got a set of brass bowls even though we never paid any school support dues. I'll always remember the triumphant look on Mom's face when I won. That evening, Mother filled one of the bowls with rice and pushed it toward my feet.

"See, you finally graduated after sticking to it for six long years, even though you were treated like an eyesore. How those teachers must've hated me. If I'd been an animal, they'd have butchered me. This bowl means that in the end I won and the teachers gave up. No, you won, not me. You're really stubborn, just like me. You deserve to be a lawyer. What we gotta worry about from now on is middle school. There has to be something we can do."

That the teacher knew exactly where our house was put me on guard, because if the teachers knew that I was living next door to the barbershop, it wouldn't do Mother any good. I hesitated but she said something unexpected.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want."

Her response surprised me much more than that she knew where our house was. I'd never had a teacher ask me a question I didn't have to answer before. Not giving a proper answer meant a tongue lashing or a caning. It was worse when you met a teacher on the street. Their question came out as regular and monotonous as if it had been produced in a patterned stamp for rice cake.

Sometimes I could say I was on an errand, but mostly I was just wandering around where I expected to find other kids, sort of like a fisherman who casts his net where the fish are likely to be rather than confirming where they are first. I'd often meet kids worth hanging around with that way and we'd come up with games to play. That's why it was hard for teachers to get an honest answer from us. Once we understood that teachers most hated to hear that we were going out to play, we'd lie about where we were going.

But I didn't need to cook up a lie this time, because the teacher gave up right after my answer.

In any case, she didn't look like she cared or had failed to get the information she wanted. She just kept smiling. She must have had some reason, however, for walking up to me while I was hanging upside down. Teachers never moved without a reason. Why was she spending so much time with me and not getting angry? I stood there with my eyes cast downward and noticed her pale feet in her glossily polished shoes. I'd never seen an elegant woman's calves up close before. Gazing at legs that were so much whiter than any other woman's in our village wasn't tiresome in the least. Not only that, the way she spoke was mild. Compared to Mother's crude clumsiness, her friendly words were as sweet as honey. For some time now, her beautiful calves had been creeping into her skirt. She'd crouched in front of me and her tightly packed features were level with my eyes.

"If teachers ask nosy questions about where I am, just tell them you don't know and stick to

your guns. They like to gossip, and they'll try to talk to you in circles to get some info. Don't fall for their tricks." Mother was right. This woman might be trying to hoodwink me.

"You don't look so healthy, do you?"

Of course a malnourished child wouldn't look good. I heard that so often I didn't have any particular feelings about it. The teacher had a pleasant, faint scent of perfume about her. She put her hand on my shoulder.

"You and I were thinking exactly the same thing, weren't we?"

I didn't know how to respond.

"When it gets hot and humid and we feel wrung out, going somewhere quiet is one way to beat the heat....You may not have noticed, but I've seen you here a lot around sunset. How come you're alone today? Where's your brother?"

If she was asking about Hyeong-Ho and not my mother, I didn't have anything to hide. And if I didn't hold up my end of the conversation, she might go back toward the teachers' office. I didn't know why she was interested in me, but as long as she didn't ask where Mother was, it was good have her near me, especially the nice way she smelled.

"At home."

Her face brightened at getting me to talk.

"You two are very close. You're always with him."

"I'm supposed to play with him."

"You're a good boy to think like that. Does your brother play at home alone when you're at school?"

In the morning he mostly played near where Mother was working, but I couldn't let out any clues about where Mother was. I didn't want to get all tearful, so I countered by making up a lie.

"Yeah, folding up ttakji."

"Ttakji?"

"Uh huh."

"Where does he get the paper to fold them all day long?"

"If you unfold them, you get the paper."

She began to giggle, her regular white teeth visible between her lips. But behind her laughter I saw a different image: the exact same face I'd glimpsed when I was exploring beneath the floor of our school and she'd been crying in the teachers' office. The traces of tears on her cheeks then had been replaced by light rouge. I was suddenly more curious to know why she'd been crying then than what was making her laugh now. But I didn't say anything.. She laughed for a while and then, adjusting a rumpled piece of her clothes, she asked.

"Do you go to the barbershop a lot?"

I shook my head. "Not very much."

"Why not?"

"It hurts too much."

She laughed silently this time. "I've heard rumors that he's no great shakes as a barber. He's done a 180 degree turn in his career. How can he expect to make it? Anyway, when are you going home?"

I glanced west. The sky was crimson with twilight.

"Soon."

"What do you think about when you're alone here, hanging upside down?"

When I hung from the chin-up bar, I was never lost in thought or mulling over anything. I had no genuine connection with thinking. I didn't need to hang upside down specifically when I was agitated.

"Nothing."

"That's the best way. If an idea gets in your head and crowds out everything else, you'd probably fall."

"Sometimes I do fall."

"I see. But take good care of yourself. Just one slip and you can hurt your neck. If you hurt your head, it'll be a big problem."

"Where are you from, teacher?"

"Somewhere very far away. Even in a car it takes half a day. My mother lives at home like yours does. She's got grey hair and is old enough that people call her Granny, but she can make a 3

set of hanbok in a night."

"When'll you go home?"

"Well, I could go after school lets out for vacation."

"Isn't there a school there?"

"Of course. But I volunteered to work here, because I like it here."

"What does volunteer mean?"

"It means I liked it and decided to teach here."

"Why did you come to our school?"

"I had a reason, but I can't tell you everything. Isn't it time for you to go home?"

"Yeah, I think I should go."

"Can you run an errand for me on your way home?"

I didn't answer right away.

"It won't be hard as long as you are careful of one thing. Don’t worry, I'm not asking you to lug something heavy."

"What is it?"

"You pass by the barbershop on your way home, right?"

"Yes." "Here." She reached inside her dress and took out a note folded up like a ttakji. She slipped it into my hand and spoke to me with a solemn look that was entirely different from the expression

she'd had so far.

"Can you give this to the owner of the barbershop?"

"Yes." "Listen, you must give this to him and him only; otherwise, there'll be a big problem. If anybody else sees it, that's the end of me. Got it?"

I asked a question like an adult would. "What if he's not there?"

"He should be. I just saw him there a little while ago."

"Can't you give it to him yourself?"

"I could, but there are things that are keeping me from doing it myself. So you must absolutely not show this to anybody else, you understand?"

It was strange. She put a clear warning in every sentence with words like 'absolutely' and scolded me with 'must not's, as if she didn't trust me. It made me wonder why she'd chosen me.

There were lots of kids who knew the owner of the barbershop.

She continued. "This looks just like one of your ttakji, right?"

"Yes." "And if it gets mixed up with your ttakji, it will be hard to find, won't it?"

"Yes." "So you have to give it to him before you get home to make sure it doesn't get mixed with your ttakji."

"Yes." "Who did I ask you to give it to?"

"The owner of the barbershop."

She patted me on the back. "Okay. Now go straight to the barbershop without looking at anything else, you got it?"

"Yes." I left the school grounds right away. She stayed frozen watching me as I was going out of the main gate. I said to myself: "This is a secret."

"This is a secret between you and me, okay?"

With her last remark she reconfirmed our pact. Of course, once through the main gate, I walked straight home. The twilight grew ever more red and the village's main street was suffused in orange. I turned onto the road where the brewery stood and put the hand clutching the note into a trouser pocket. Even in the pocket, I clutched it. I repeated to myself, 'This is a secret.' This was the first time in my life I ever got to share a secret, so I walked stealthily. But suddenly I heard a clamor and raised my head. A dozen people had gathered in front of the brewery. Some were stripped to the waist, revealing their bronzed chests. Someone let out a war whoop. Another was clicking his tongue, and others were arguing. Some young men were standing in a circle and raising a commotion drew my particular attention. At sunset, the young men of the village often gathered at the brewery to have contests of strength and then have a makgeolli party. There was no way I could just pass

by. The barbershop was just a stone's throw away, so even if I did drop by for a short while, the owner wouldn't slip away.

I forced my way through the crowd of young men standing around at waist level and shoved my head in. I was taken aback. In the center of the circle was a stone as big as a cast iron-kettle, with a straw rope tied around it. The challenge was to lift the stone and hold it as long as possible.

The young men stripped to the waist and rested their chests against the stone with self-confident assurance. But it made no difference whether you took advantage of the leverage the rope offered or lifted the whole stone as it was. Four or five of them were boasting as they sized the situation up.

They then came forward in no particular order to pit their strength against that unwieldy stone. But things weren't so simple. In most cases, they only budged it a couple of times or at best raised it to their knees. No one could lift it over his shoulder. At first the young men had not given it much thought, but now they drew back listlessly.

"Well, that'd weight about the same as five bushels at most, right?"

"Yeah, about, but you can't treat it as though it was half that. You gotta get the knack of it."

"You have to know how to spread your strength evenly when you grab hold."

"You know, Korean wrestling ain't nothing but a fight using thigh bands. Why don't you yank the rope?"

"That'll only break it. There's only one way—brute strength."

"Strength is only a part of it. Stop talking and try to lift it."

"All I got is the guts not the power."

The contestants touched the stone gingerly as if they were touching boils on a child's head.

"I'll try it." Samson suddenly shoved his way through to the front. Immediately the young men turned their gaze on him as one. Silence hung in the air for a moment.

Choi Dong-su, a watchmaker who had a shop near the bus stop spoke up. He wore glasses even though he was young. "Are you going to do it, Seok-Do?" "Why? You think I can't?"

"Seok-Do, everybody knows how strong you are, but that's not enough. Most of these guys are already speechless with admiration for you, so you don't need to act tough."

"Don't need to act tough? What if I lift it?"

Choi pushed his glasses up along the ridge of his nose and snorted. "If you keep butting in and trust your strength too much, you might wind up shattering your ankle. Why would I want to see you limping around?"

"Knock it off! What'll you do if I lift it up?"

"I'll eat my hat."

"What's the point of eating your hat? Let's bet on a tub of makgeolli."

"This guy bets on a tub of makgeolli as easy as if he was calling a mutt that belonged to some tavern."

"Cool it. D'you agree or not?"

"You stupid clod! It'll be a piece of cake for you to lift it."

"Okay! What if I stand and lift it until you count to a hundred?"

"I'll buy a tub of makgeolli."

Samson quickly took a step forward. He spat in one hand and then the other. He leaned over and patted the stone all over, looking for handholds that would give him a firm grip. While Samson was leaning over, Choi winked at the spectators. Only later did I realize that that wink signaled a conspiracy.

The spectators moved a few steps back and folded their arms. Samson had already raised the stone and embraced it his whole upper body to embrace it. He lifted it up to the empty sky in a twinkling. Exclamations burst forth from the spectators and Samson shouted.

"Start counting!"

Choi began the count. "One, a-two, thu-ree. . ."

Samson stood upright, his legs set apart arrogantly, a self-satisfied smile on his lips, and a stone bigger than the trunk of his own body above his head. He was in rapture as he stood silhouetted against the glowing twilight. His gaze bored into the spellbound bystanders. I'd never seen a man stand so proudly. The idea that his power had been reduced by half after a crew cut was proven wrong.

"Look at that lug using everything he's got on a stone that's completely useless. He's like a 4

cripple telling fortunes. Have you ever seen anything more stupid?" Even though the spectators made fun of him, my pride in Samson was unshaken. At most, all I could do was hoist a chair in the classroom when I was punished. But Samson stood firm with a stone that no one else could dream of lifting to a count of thirty.

He was no longer the blockhead who kept watch over the rice straw mat in front of the brewery, dozing in his chair or shooing the chickens away. No longer the spiritless man who tried to read the owner of the brewery, casting his eyes down for fear of being dismissed.

"Look at that dolt. He's carrying that stone like he's enshrining an ancestral tablet. He can't even tell he's being suckered. He might as well be lifting a pumpkin. He might as well be an animal pretending to be a man."

"Shh! Don't say that! He thinks he's got a chance. Why, he might even do a little dance for us."

"Got a chance? Are you insane? I'll eat my hat . . . my hat!"

But whether the spectators made fun of Samson or not made no difference to me.

"Fifty-one, fifty-twooo. . ."

Fifty or five hundred, Samson looked as though he'd stand firm to the last. His face grew purple, the veins standing out on his neck and shoulders and the massive muscles of his outstretched arms bulging. People passing in front of the brewery stopped to have a look. There were now nearly thirty spectators.

But something strange was going on. Instead of becoming hushed with the growing tension,

people began to giggle and whisper. Someone even burst out laughing. Only when Samson's legs and arms began to tremble did I notice that the spectators were stifling their laughter because of how Choi was counting. Until Choi reached fifty, nobody had noticed anything odd. But he then slowed down and his count became halting and dragged out. He even went back to a number he'd already counted and began again. Samson's ability to stand firm with the stone raised aloft did not depend upon his strength, but on Choi, whose count zigzagged all around.

"Sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-two, sixty-thureeeee . . . " However, Samson was oblivious to the fact that the count was spinning round in the sixties. We weren't sure whether he didn't know how to count or if he was just so tired that the numbers weren't registering on his ears. Samson should have settled on a length of time rather than assume he'd stand lifting up the stone until Choi counted to one hundred. Because of his blunder, Samson had fallen in the mire. But it was inconceivable that he hadn't notice that everything was going awry.

"Ha. A stonehead lifting up a stone."

Samson ought to have heard that remark but he continued his desperate fight. He might have sensed Choi's evil design because he though he could last all night, no matter how slowly Choi counted. So long as he held such a conviction, Choi would be the one to get worn out.

Unfortunately, Samson had no one on his side except for himself. I wondered how long it had gone on. From Mr. Choi's mouth the numbers 'six-u-ty thu-ree, six-u-ty fo-our' were coming out in a natural tone. Samson's legs and arms, which had trembled slightly at first, were now very perceptibly shaking, and his resolute, confident expression had become distorted. He adjusted his legs to firm up his stance and shook his right arm and then his left to shift the weight of the stone, which was growing heavier by the moment.

I could imagine the weight of suffering Samson was now coping with. I myself had plenty of experience lifting chairs over my head as punishment in school. Afterwards, extreme exhaustion always awaited me, to the point that I'd feel like throwing up. Once I was so drained of energy that uncontrollable helplessness wound around my whole body. I'd wanted to throw the chair and shake off the vague, melancholy sensation of heaviness that had penetrated all the way to the bone. I thought Samson was in the same situation. His hemp jacket was yanked so high you could see his belly button. The cloth was soaked through his sweat.

Finally I cried out. "Samson, drop the rock."

Samson's glared at me with bloodshot eyes.

I pointed at Choi. "He's tricking you, you know."

One of the spectators sniggered. Of course, he must have heard what I had said but even then he stood firm and showed no sign of putting the stone down. What's more, he had been crying. His eyes glistened with perspiration, but tears were visible in their corners as well. He might have already sensed that he'd been taken in but maybe he intended to stick it out to the bitter end. Samson's reputation as strongest man in the village must have thrown him into the mire. But not a single spectator clued him in that he was sinking. Yes, I had, but only after he'd already lowered his arms

deep into it.

But at that point the spectators who'd been watching from a distance began to slink off. They seemed to have cottoned on from Samson's tears that something was wrong.

"What's with the crying?"

"Maybe he caught on."

"Caught on to what?"

"He must have known that the numbers were all over the place" "Well, he should have just thrown the stone down."

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"He ain't competing against us any more. He's competing against himself."

"Competing against himself? You're talking through your hat."

"Hey, he's sticking it out, ain't he? That's a real sign. Let's get out of here."

"Leave? Let's wait and see how he winds up."

"If we keep hanging around, he might beat the crap out of us."

"You're a nut! It'll all be over if he tosses it."

"He's not going to put it down until we leave."

"Okay. We were trying to pamper the baby and now we've made him cry. That's what we got here. All right, let's go somewhere else."

The whispering spectators began to scurry off. Choi had already disappeared. Then came a bellow like an ox lowing for its mate. Samson had kept the stone up with every last ounce of his last power. Tear tracks stood out distinctly on his cheeks.

"Choi, you bastard! I'm gonna kill you!" he shouted.

Samson's curse was bloodcurdling. Finally he threw the stone at his feet with a thud that carried all the way into our soles. The onlookers hid themselves behind the wall of a house. Only Samson and I were left. He sat on the stone, wiping his sweat away. But then I felt a hand being clutched. I turned and there was Hyeong-Ho. He held on tightly, not removing his gaze from Samson as he took off his jacket and wiped the sweat from his eyes and chest.

Hyeong-Ho whispered to me. "Choi will die in a few days, won't he?"

"When did you get here?"

"A while back."

"How did you know where I was?"

"I came 'cause Mom told me to bring you home."

"Mom is home?"

"She told me to bring you for supper."

The sun had already set, and it was getting dark all around us. When Mother got home and was waiting for us after cooking the rice, we were supposed to stop whatever we were doing and run straight home. But we couldn't leave right away. I didn't want to erase the image of Samson from

my head. Samson, holding aloft a stone the size of a brass kettle, howling in the light of the setting sun.

"Why's Choi gonna be dead?"

"Samson said he'd kill him. Maybe it was just a threat. But he might die."

"Why's Choi gonna die?"

"Because he cheated Samson."

"How?" "Sixty-six comes after sixty-five, but Choi said sixty-four."

"So?" "He counted backward."

"Is it wrong to count backward?"

"Once you say sixty-five, you have to say sixty-six."

I realized I couldn't explain Choi's trick and wanted to leave before Hyeong-Ho asked me every detail.

"Mom's waiting. Let's go eat."

My brother might have understood, so he followed me. As he said, Mother had come home earlier than usual. Every summer we'd bring the kettle out from the kitchen, and she was making a fire in a pit in a corner of the yard. On seeing her, the hunger pangs I'd been suppressing all day overcame me suddenly. She snapped a twig from the bamboo fence and, standing us side by side, beat the dust out of our trousers. Each time she gave a whack, a cloud of dust would puff up and she turned her head away. She scolded and cursed us for wasting a day rolling around in the dirt for no good reason. As soon as we went inside, Mother followed on our tails, bringing the rice and some side dishes. We shoveled the rice into our mouths silently until Hyeong-Ho piped up.

"Mom, starting tomorrow I'm gonna eat lots of rice."

"If you only eat rice, you'll be a glutton, you know."

"I got to eat a lot to grow up fast."

"Growing up takes time. Even if you eat like a pig, will that make you a grown-up? Why do you want to be an adult so fast?"

"I gotta be an adult to be like Samson."

"What are you talking about? What does Sam's son do?"

"He's the man working at the brewery."

5

"Which samchon works at the brewery?"

"Not samchon, Samson."

"I heard there's a few unfortunates in our village who've got six fingers, but I never heard of 6

anyone with three."

"He's the guy with the crew cut, who works at the brewery."

"You mean the one they say is so strong? He's got five fingers, not three."

To us kids he was Samson, but of course to mother he was Jang Seok-Do. "Is that who he's talking about?"

I nodded. Mother stopped spooning the rice into her mouth so enthusiastically and had trouble getting down the last bite she'd taken. Even under the lamplight, I could see she was turning pale.

She sat lost in thought. Hyeong-Ho might not have sensed it, but I could tell there was trouble ahead. What my brother had said unwittingly was enough to make Mother feel ashamed. That Samson's strength set him apart was known even in the next village. None of the young men was stronger. But people also named Samson as an example of a stupid, ignorant man just as often. They made fun of him because he was illiterate. He was the right man for hauling sacks of grain and yeast cake effortlessly. Being a hired brewery hand seemed to be his calling. But that also proved how ignorant he was. I had seen a side of Samson somewhere other than where people bet on their strength. That was how he looked when he was drowsing or driving off the chickens and children that clustered eagerly around the drying rice. He looked more foolish when he was drowsy, and when dozed off and drooled, it looked even worse. People preferred to see Samson fall short of his duty rather than do his job properly. It was more fun to talk about the Samson who dozed off at the brewery entrance than the one who lifted the stone that all the other young men had given up on.

And while Hyeong-Ho and I saw the Samson who hoisted the stone with his back to the setting sun, but Mother thought of the dozing, drooling Samson.

Oddly, Mother kept her temper. Calmly, she asked, "How did such a crazy remark come out of this kid's mouth?"

Of course, Mother's question was meant to scold me, as I was responsible for taking care of Hyeong-Ho. Mother knew that we used to snatch the drying rice, but she didn't blame us, because most kids did the same thing. What got her worked up was Hyeong-Ho's admiration for Samson.

Mother got in real close when she spoke.

"Do you want to be like that three-fingered man too?"

Of course, I shook my head.

"Then how did something like that come out of Hyeong-Ho's mouth?"

Now, it was not like I could ignore Mother when she pressed me for answers. I began to explain what happened in front of the brewery. Mother listened calmly up to the point where Samson threw the stone down with a scream like a bellowing ox. By the time I finished the story, the bowl that had been filled with rice for three was empty. Hyeong-Ho had eaten it up.

When I stopped, Mother asked quietly. "So Choi subtracted instead of added?"

"He said 'sixty-five' and then counted 'sixty-two, sixty-three'."

"You mean he counted all over the place?"

"Right."

"And while other people were giggling, Seok-do just stood there without noticing anything?"

"That's right."

"He didn't know what you said even when you shouted he was being cheated?"

"Yep." I thought Mother was going to grill me, but she fell silent. She hung her head and wiped the bits and pieces of leftover food off the table with a dishcloth. I cringed like I was going to be struck down by lightning. Mother's apparent calm made me even more nervous. Even if I had spoken glibly on behalf of Hyeong-ho, the Samson who appeared before her eyes was most likely a simpleton.

But the storm I feared from Mother never came crashing down.

"Not learning how to read was a big mistake. People don't treat him nice."

I had no response.

"I can't pay the fees but I still send you to school. You have to study hard so you don't grow up to be like Seok-Do." Mother didn't press me any further about Samson and Hyeong-Ho and I fell fast asleep without any problem. But I met Samson in my dreams, and he was acting in a strange way. He had one foot on the ground and was stepping on our principal's shoulder with the other. The principal just lay there without showing any sign of suffering or humiliation. But then again, Samson wasn't betraying any sign of either hesitation or arrogance either. They looked completely unaffected and at ease, like chicks in a rain shower gathered under the mother hen's wings. I approached them without hesitation because they seemed so natural. Samson had taken the old felt hat the principal always wore and was wearing it himself. They looked strange. I'd seen a rooster mount a hen, violently flapping its wings, and a big fly being carried on the back of a small one, but for an oaf like Samson to step on the scrawny principal's shoulder struck me as impudent. I didn't mince any words.

"Don't!"

"What?"

"I said don't!"

But Samson ignored my furious command. He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. Some indecipherable code was stuck on the paper like sesame seeds.

Samson thrust it towards me, but I could not figure the letters out at all. I'd never seen anything like it. The symbols might as well have been Arabic. While I hesitated, Samson recited something, pointing to a corner of the paper.

7

"Look at this! Add k to ga and you get gak. Add n to ga and you get gan. . ."

As he went through the symbols, I nodded my head. The principal also nodded vigorously so as not to be left out. Samson was unexpectedly blunt.

"And if you add t to ga you get gat, and if you add m to ga you get gam. But these are all fakes, right? Where are the real letters? Why are there only fakes here?"

Suddenly the principal who'd been peacefully nodding raised a hand and angrily snatched the piece of paper Samson was holding. Only then was I frightened. It was important that the principal didn't look at the note.

"This is a secret between you and me, okay?"

The teacher's entreaty bored into my head as painfully as if it were a drill. I shouted again.

"Don't!"

The note could not go to anyone except the owner of the barbershop, but now it had fallen into the hands of the principal, the most learned man in the village. But the real Samson who had disposed of his doppelganger looked at me vacantly, as if he had no regrets. Their meeting must have been a conspiracy to ferret out the secret between the teacher and me. I had to reach out and snatch the note, but I couldn't. I wasn't tied up but I couldn't stretch my arm toward the note. I concentrated all my energy into my arm, but could not move it. I did, however, manage to rouse myself from the mire of my dream. The moment I opened my eyes, I heard something.

"Add p to ga, and you get gap..."

I hesitantly got up hesitantly and looked in the direction of the voice. It was Mother, squatting like a nesting hen, running through combinations of the alphabet, turning them into words and enthusiastically jotting them down on a piece of paper. The lamp shone dimly and the wick was turned down low. It looked as though it would singe Mother's tangled hair. Mother's shadow was desolately reflected on the far wall.

"Add a to m, and you get ma."

Mother read in a low voice in order not to wake us up, writing letters down neatly with a pencil all the while.

"Not learning how to read was a big mistake. People don't treat him nice.

I thought of the gloomy things Mother said while she was clearing the dinner table. I quickly looked at the door. The dim light of night gleamed through its frame, and the quiet outside spoke of how advanced the evening had become. Mother still hadn't noticed that I'd woken up. Frightened by my dream, I reached into my trouser pockets. There was nothing there. I groped around under the quilt, rummaging where Hyeong-Ho was sleeping. I felt my pocket again in disbelief. I could not see it in the room and for a moment I was shocked. The thought that everything had come to an end flabbergasted me.

"This is a secret between you and me, okay?"

My teacher had spoonfed me her instructions. The image of her face came to me clearly. This was the first time in my life that I'd fallen into such a miserable hell.

"You're up? Where do you think you're going?"

Mother's sharp voice came from behind as I held the door ring. By now I was wide awake. I made up a lame excuse.

"To pee."

"To pee? Idiot! Even if you're half asleep, can't you tell the difference between the front and back of the house? Don't you know that the chamber pot is out back?"

She was right. I was heading out the front door, but the sliding door to the back was better for the pot.

"You were talking in your sleep. You're not in your right mind. Don't dawdle. Come straight

back. And be careful of your brother. He's fast asleep."

Hyeong-ho and I were always trampling on each other when we searched drowsily for the door in the middle of the night. Nine times out of ten we'd wind up making a racket. But I wasn't so muddled now as to tread on my brother. I stepped down to the backyard with the help of the lamp, which Mother raised from behind. The night air felt cool on my neck.

The air did not stir and the area was quiet. The lights of the neighboring houses were all out. It must have been very late. Even the smoke from the mosquito coils scattered throughout the village had disappeared. I ran straight to the brewery lot, passing the barbershop. Even the stone Samson had lifted was not to be seen. In the dim light, the large open space of the lot looked very bare. I searched every nook and cranny, lowering my head just as if I was going under the water in the stream. After exploring under our school floor, I knew how to make out what was in my hand even in the dark. I searched and searched but couldn't find the note. I could not find the piece of paper that the principal and Samson had passed between them in my dream. It wouldn't have helped even if I'd swept the dust with my tongue instead of my hand. My heart was throbbing and my throat felt smoky, as if I'd really swallowed dust. I had to find an alternate solution.

Recalling the sunset, I followed the road carefully from the lot back home. The folded note most likely had fallen on the roadside, now wet with night dew. But it was nowhere to be seen. I left home again and headed to the barbershop. I was now at a loss where to search for the note; I had no limits or boundaries. I thought of Samson lifting the stone over his head, involved in Choi's conspiracy. My quest to find the piece of paper was now like a tangled skein of thread. I had entered a maze.

The barbershop was locked securely. I went up to the bottom of the window and stood on tiptoe, trying to lift myself over the sill. I could see the mirror on the wall, the dim light of night eerily shining on it and my body reflected in it. The owner of the barbershop was not to be seen, of course. The watercolor over the mirror immediately caught my eye. The scene of the couple walking at the foot of a waterfall was just as it had been. The objects in the painting did not appear clearly in the darkness, but having studied it during the daytime, I could make out the picture's story without problem. Only the flyspecks, conspicuous enough during the day, were impossible to make out.

When I first came up with a story for the picture, I didn't actually have any solid evidence for concluding that the man was the owner of the barbershop.

That night it occurred to me that the man in the picture might not be the barbershop owner.

However, I still did not hesitate to conclude that the woman walking arm in arm with him must be the teacher I'd met at sunset. I wondered what the couple was talking about. Only then did it dawn on me that the note she'd handed me must be a letter that contained her story. She must have written the conversation down in detail there as well. I began to have doubts again about the man in the picture. Maybe he was the owner of the barbershop after all. Her letter was fleshing out the characters who had met only in the world of imagination as actual people. At the same time I began to feel that sense of despair become reality. Where had I dropped the letter?

Again I reached deep into my pocket. This time I was astounded. A thought hit me like a blow to the head. My pocket didn't deserve to be called a pocket. The seam was open, and I could touch my fleshy inner thigh. That made the place where I could have dropped the letter more obscure.

Mother flashed in my mind. I'd hoped to have a proper, reliable pocket like the ones Mother made for her own underwear. Mother clipped a big pin through them to keep things from slipping out, but she'd never been interested in taking care of ours. Her needlework skill was widely admired, and many people praised her cutting and stitching. So the sewing Mother took on for pay always piled up in her work box waiting impatiently for its turn. When Mother took on jobs for others she stitched carefully leaving no loose threads anywhere, but she always did a rough job on our clothes.

When I changed into clothes she'd washed, the first thing I checked was the pockets. Unlike her own perfectly mended pockets, once a button had fallen off she never sewed it back on properly again. My palm always passed straight through the hole "Mom, there's a hole in my pocket."

She'd rail at me without even turning her head. "Of course. They put holes in them."

"But it split open."

"Well, the seam was sewn, so it can split."

"I don't want to wear them."

"What? You won't wear them?"

"Right."

"Okay, great. Just great! Go around naked. I work my fingers to the bone washing your rags.

Really, that's just great."

"If there's a hole in my pocket, my teacher'll punish me."

"You're a naughty one, all right! A little twerp like you lying like an adult! Why would your teacher root around in your pocket for no reason? Because he's hungry? Because he's broke?

Huh?" "Why is your pocket always stitched tight, then?"

"Why you . . . if my pocket rips, the three of us'll wind up on the street, begging door to door?"

"Anyway, I'm not gonna wear them."

"You'll make a good sight for the neighbors. A bean pole wandering around with your willy showing!"

"Give me some other pants."

"You always harp about the pockets, but all you carry in them is pebbles. Why should I bother taking the time to sew them up? Clothing is mostly just for covering up your privates. It's pretty cheeky of you to go on about your pockets. If you really want to know, I did it for a reason."

So because I was cheeky, Mother didn't take care of my pockets, and I wound losing the teacher's letter. But I couldn't fail to see Mother's underlying intention in neglecting my pockets. If she did it deliberately, it meant she knew that the trouble children are most likely get into begins in

their pockets. And then not only Mother but also the teachers knew that pockets were a hotbed of vice. The teachers used to inspect our pockets without warning in class. Cleanliness, homework, hair . . .but it was the personal property check we feared most. We usually got advance warning and so had enough time to remove whatever they were inspecting or take preventive measures. Only our pocket inspection came without warning.

"Okay, stand up. Books and pencils on your desk."

From the mouth of the poker-faced teacher would come an unexpected command. The unsuspecting children stood up from their seats one by one.

"Hurry up!"

When all the children had stood up, the teacher spoke again.

"Starting from the left, file out to the hallway. I want you standing in an orderly line. Got that?"

Once the kids had gone out to the hallway and were in their row, the teacher's fear-inspiring order descended upon us.

"Take out everything in your pockets. Don't let anything fall on the ground."

The kids would begin trembling and their expressions would grow as agitated, as if they were concealing a kitchen knife to commit murder with. We'd root around in our pockets and think. What was the story behind everything we had in our pockets? Did they belong there? Even if we could prove they belonged to us, they had to be appropriate for kids our age. In most cases, though, the items in our pockets raised more questions than they answered, because they possessed an anonymity that was reluctant to disclose its real character. If the stuff we'd acquired by irregular means was exposed to the eyes of adults, its anonymity was smeared with the filth of secrecy and damaged. And since our simple desires were hidden in what we had, we hated it when that happened. The things we owned had no great monetary value and presented no real danger to our studies. To adults they were trifles. But that was just what teachers were on the lookout for. The teacher bestowed on those trifles meanings we were unable to imagine. The teacher's interrogation would start with a false accusation.

"Where did you steal this?"

"But I didn't."

"What do you mean you didn't? You must know I've always got my eye you."

His spit showered on the children's foreheads.

"I didn't steal this, teacher."

"What do you mean no? Admit it."

So some kids, caught in the net cast by the teacher, had to endure bitter insults when our pockets were inspected. Some even wet their pants, terrified by the teacher's third degree grilling.

Those who got corporal punishment were ostracized. They had to endure the ridicule of their peers who referred to them as smokers, or “lighter-flickers.� No secret could be guaranteed. Whenever the teacher wanted, the kids' secrets were exposed as the shabby things they were. Despite all that, kids persisted in hiding their belongings in their pockets.

I believed that the Owner of the Mirrors had concealed a secret of his own in the watercolor, just like the kids. However, I'd lost the letter that was the key to unlocking the secret. Even though I'd brought along with me the reliable lock I called my pocket, I had lost the key due to the pocket.

"Hey! What are you doing over there?"

Frightened, I turned my head and saw Mother in the distance.

"How did you get here on a trip to pee in the middle of the night?"

Mother's voice trembled slightly. She did not drag me home right away. Maybe she was worried I was sleepwalking.

"Is there anybody in the barbershop?"

Mother peered thoughtfully inside. Of course there was no sign of anyone. Her face was clouded.

"What are you doing here?"

"I just . . ."

"What do you mean 'I just'? Now's no time for 'I just.' It's the middle of the night. Why did you come here when even thieves are asleep?"

I had no choice but to keep silent. Mother felt my forehead with her palm.

"You don't have a fever. You haven't come down with something serious, have you?"

"I'm not sick."

"You look funny. I'm sure the messenger of the underworld didn't just dump you here while he was carrying you off. And the chamber pot isn't here . . . " "I just came out to play."

"I've never heard of such a thing in my whole life. Waking up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night and going out to play? I don't care if you're crazy about it. You ain't some shaman's kid.

You mean you're playing with ghosts you conjured up?"

"I'll go to bed now."

"The owner of the barbershop asked you to play with him?"

"Nope."

"Well?"

"I was just looking into the mirror."

"You're out of your mind."

Mother felt my forehead several times, but didn't find any obvious symptoms of delirium.

Nonetheless, she locked the door tight and watched my movements for a long time.

The incident of the lost letter trailed a very long tail coiled behind it, and its end sat yet another incident. The next morning I felt tormented about going to school, but I was lucky. I did not spot the teacher at our daily assembly. I didn't know why she was the only one absent from school. What was important to me was this stroke of good fortune: I'd escape her grilling. But a disturbance arose shortly after the third period was over. The entire student body was suddenly directed to assemble on the playground by my teacher.

After we all gathered, a teacher I recognized hurried on to the platform. All the students stood in line and ordered to stand separated at an arm's length. Then we were told to take our belongings from our pockets and lay them at our feet. All the teachers came out to the ground to join the inspection of our belongings. But the way they were hurrying was quite different from usual. The woman teacher, who had been out of sight in the morning, now stood at the far end of the ground. I felt uneasy, but she did not look over at the students in my class. The inspection was brief but proceeded rigorously. From all over the playground came teachers' heated voices grilling the students. A few senior students were slapped on the cheek for obstinacy. What was in our pockets was trivial. It was as though their orders wouldn't stop until we vomited and showed them what we'd had for breakfast.

But in contrast to the fear-inspiring atmosphere that accompanied the beginning of the inspection began, the final result was absurd. The teachers wound up with three or four basketfuls of ttakji. It was hard to understand what they were doing. We'd never been prohibited from playing with ttakji at school. Of course it didn't occur to me that the inspection had something to do with the letter I'd been handed. If the letter had been the source of all this trouble, she would have questioned me directly. However, neither she nor the homeroom teacher asked me a single question about the events of sunset the day before. Instead they consciously avoided looking at me. She averted her eyes so thoroughly that I began to doubt whether it had all really happened. Strangely enough, nothing happened in connection with the ttakji, since the teachers took them all away from the students.

As soon as we got back into the classroom, we began to make new ttakji like crazy. In the wink of an eye there were almost as many ttakji as had been confiscated. Even children who had originally not been interested in ttakji began to follow suit. It was as if an irrigation ditch had given way, all the water pent up behind it flooding the classroom. At the close of the assembly that day a teacher came into the classroom and made a casual threat.

"As soon as you get home, destroy all your ttakji in the fire. Kids who play ttakji in the street from now on will be expelled."

When I came back home that day, I was again confronted by something unexpected. As were eating dinner, Mother began to speak.

"This morning the owner of the barbershop was taken into custody."

The word "'custody" wasn’t familiar to my brother and me. Getting no response from us, Mother tried a different explanation. "The owner of the barbershop got dragged off by detectives."

Hyeong-Ho beat me to the obvious question. "But why?"

"He was all trussed up with a rope. Nobody knew he was a Red." I stared into Mother's face.

Hyeong-Ho asked again. "How come he was dragged off?"

"Because he committed a crime."

"What crime did he do?"

"There are all sorts of crimes in this world."

"What crime did he do?"

"Treason."

"What's treason?"

"Reds commit treason."

"What's a Red?" "You rascal, why are you pestering me about every little detail? A whatchamacallit...a Red is a Red, and that's that."

"What's whatchamacallit mean?"

"Stop giving me a hard time. Not another peep out of you."

Mother wanted to be cutting but she didn't choose her words well, because she only fueled my brother's curiosity and mine as well. The word Red was so abstract that I couldn't guess its meaning.

Mother must have realized her offhand remark was useless, so she said in a low voice, "People say treason is worse than stealing."

"Will the barbershop disappear from the village now?"

"What's the big deal about a barbershop disappearing? My heart's still pounding knowing a commie's been living just a stone's throw from our house. As the saying goes, 'Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men.' It's so true."

"Will he go to prison?"

"Of course. Maybe for his whole life."

"He ain't coming back?"

"What are you talking about? Why meet him again? Even if he comes back, don't go anywhere near him."

"Has he got a rash?"

"If he got a rash, you could cure it, but there ain't no medicine for someone whose turned Red until he dies and starts to rot."

"How'd he turn red?"

"People are saying that being learned was his big mistake."

"What's being learned?"

"Having real knowledge of what goes in this world is being learned, and to understand everything about learning is being learned, okay?"

"Mom, you said a man can't get on in the world without learning, didn't you?"

"When did I say that?"

"You did."

"Well . . . If you learn too much, you'll end up with disaster. Learning is sort of like water in a jar. If you don't have enough, it's a problem, but if you have too much, it overflows and gets the kitchen floor all wet. Too much learning makes other people gripe."

Mother looked worried, but Hyeong-Ho's curiosity still hadn't been satisfied.

"So then I don't need to go to school like Brother."

"Are you crazy? What are you talking about?"

"They say we have to learn at school."

"Listen you, the owner of the barbershop graduated from university. You're just going to squeak through middle school. You can't compare yourself with him."

"If I go to middle school, I might turn into a Red." "That's like telling me you're afraid to make soy sauce because you're afraid it might attract maggots. You have to graduate from middle school to act like a man whether you become a Red or not."

"If I become a Red, I'll have to go to prison."

"You think I'll live that long? I'd die before my time to avoid seeing that miserable sight."

"Well, anyway, I'm supposed to go to prison."

"You're really getting me steamed up."

"Brother, what'll you do if I'm taken to the police station?"

"I'll go with you."

"What a state this family's in! You two must be the sons of a water demon!"

Mother looked angrily at Hyeong-Ho and me like she wanted to bite our heads off. Once again our conversation had gone astray and somewhere along the way we'd ended up befuddled. All it took was for Hyeong-Ho to join in, and almost without fail it got all screwed up.

"I wondered why he was such a bad barber, but I understand now. It's because it was just a front. I heard he hid some secret papers behind the painting in the shop. A lot of people said that the painting was beautiful but they never imagined what was behind it. The detectives rushed the barbershop and pulled the picture frame apart first. I wonder how they knew? It's a shock. The barber must be a real bastard to end up nothing more than a Red, after having paid a fortune for tuition and graduating from university. Ordinary people can't even imagine getting to do that. He was born under a bad sign."

I stood up from my seat and opened the door. As soon as I set one foot outside, Mother barked out. "Where do you think you're going now?"

"To play."

"At night? After playing all day long, you're going out to play again in the middle of the night?"

"I'll be back real soon."

"Buster, you think I don't know what's going on in that head of yours?"

"I'm going out to play."

"Going out to play? To the barbershop? You've gone completely nuts. What demon makes you run to the barbershop when the sun goes down?"

Hyeong-Ho came to Mother's rescue.

"A Red demon."

Mother shouted proudly. "Did you hear that? Come back right this second! Don't ever show

up at the barbershop again. If you hang around there, I'll wind up jail. They'll take me to the police, thinking you're in cahoots with that Red. What'll become of you two if I'm hauled in? I might survive on their three meals of soy beans and rice, but you two will starve to death. Who's gonna feed two kids who can outeat ten beggars?"

I was stung by what Mother said. Stymied from going out, I went to bed early after all.

Ordinarily, sleep descended upon me without mercy, but that night it fled further and further from me as time passed. That night Mother didn't study the alphabet. I tossed and turned. Much later, I heard Mother's breathing grow quiet.

I slipped out of the house and ran to the barbershop. Mother hadn't been lying. The barbershop looked as though it had been locked up, but when you peered in it was obvious that the door had been kicked in. The barbering equipment and some fixtures which the Owner of the Mirrors had usually handled carefully were scattered all over the floor. Even the wooden chair had been turned over and shattered in splinters. A whirl of footprints covered the once swept and polished veranda. Signs of a slippery struggle between one who was unwilling to be dragged off and those who'd come to drag him off evident. Of course the watercolor was not immediately to be seen, but I soon discovered it, lying on the floor, pinned beneath the crushed chair. At first sight it seemed not to have been damaged beyond having fallen.

"I guess they never imagined that he'd put the secret papers behind the painting."

I thought of Mother's words and trembled, but I couldn't agree to what she had said. In my mind, her accused Red and the harmless barber were separate people. The image of the Owner of the Mirrors etched in my mind could never be damaged by her image of a Red. While adults took no interest in what caught the attention of children our age, we were indifferent to things they tore each other to shreds for.

The Owner of the Mirrors had already disappeared from the real world. Adults who had not been interested in him previously now had a lot to say about him. However, the Owner of the Mirrors remained in the watercolor as an obvious reality.

All of a sudden I wanted to have the painting, but of course the barbershop never opened again.

The lock fastened on the door still hung there silently. Dust was building on the window frame, the walls and the mirror, whose surface was getting more difficult to see. I could see the teacher in the picture, but from the next day I didn't see her at school. She didn't appear. Naturally I did not hear the lovely music she played on the organ again.

When I entered the deserted school after class had let out, I'd hear the sound of the organ flowing over the grounds through the glow of the setting sun. I'd entering the school from the northern end, following the sound as it overflowed into the long corridor. When I reached the teachers' office I found her playing on the keyboard all alone. I saw her from behind. Her permanent was tied with red ribbon. As she played, her forehead seemed to fall on the keyboard and then violently draw up, the melody jumping an octave. The melody was like water, splashed by a hand

or flowing over stepping stones. At points the sound became desperate, like water tumbling down a cliff and at others it swayed gently as if on a swing.

Following the organ, I jumped over the stepping-stones, ran to the cliff, slipped down to the water, and got on the swing. The sound made its way into my heart. It was charming enough to driving far away the hunger pressing against my ribs.

She handed me a ticket I could use to travel far away. Her music carried me to a place I'd never been, letting me leave behind our desolate village full of poverty, Mother's curses and the smell of manure. Her music gave me a ride on a donkey and sometimes left me to spread my wings so that I could fly for myself. However, even though I had the luxury of unlimited time for my distant travels, the final destination was always the corridor outside the window of the teachers' office.

We weren't sure whether she'd been taken to prison for being involved with the owner of the barbershop or had gone to her elderly mother, who could make a set of hanbok in one night. Lots of kids were anxious to know where she was, but the teachers' lips were sealed. They wouldn't divulge a single detail. With each passing day, I grew more absorbed in finding out whether the picture remained where it had fallen when I walked by the barbershop. I never got the opportunity to take it, because I couldn't break the lock on the door. But I had another plan. The inn that led to the barbershop had a room with a sliding door where the Owner of the Mirrors had lived. Although you couldn't go into the barbershop from the inn without passing through it, I'd never looked inside.

There was a small window in the wall of the room, but it was too high for me to peep into.

A girl Hyeong-Ho's age lived at the inn. Her name was Ok-hwa, but the villagers just called her 'the retard.' Her body always smelled sour and she waddled like a goose. When she looked at people, her eyes were always blank, as if she were looking off at a distant mountain. When she looked at someone to her right, her pupils drifted left and when she looked left they drifted right. Her wandering eyes made us uncomfortable. Even worse, chronic indigestion made her burp constantly.

Whenever Ok-hwa came up in conversation, Mother's voice rose.

8

"Samshin Grandmother is fair," she'd begin.

"The Cheongdo Inn family has a pile of money. They're one of the richest families in the village."

Of course Hyeong-Ho had to cut in. "But they don't have a son, do they?"

"How come they don't have a son?"

"If a woman is ill-fated, her womb won't be blessed with a son. They only had two useless girls and quit trying, and on top of that one of them is an idiot, you know. That's why I say Samshin Grandmother is fair."

At first we couldn't figure out what she meant.

"Think of how we're just scraping by. How can you say we're even living? But look at the two of you. You're a cut above the rest, and not to be scorned by nobody. Hyeong-seok, you're so steady, lightning could strike beside you and you wouldn't be scared, and Hyeong-ho, you're tough enough to survive being tossed into burning white sand in midsummer. It's hard to have such qualities

in just two kids. The Samshin Grandmother didn't bless me with property, but she came through with you boys. We may be as poor as they come, but I take comfort thinking about that family."

But there was something Mother did not know. She might have thought of Ok-Hwa as an idiot, but the two sons she was proud of envied Ok-hwa. Hyeong-Ho and I had long regarded the handicapped girl as a target to be won over. Ok-Hwa did not like to go out. She couldn't find her way on her own and wore an I.D. tag that had her name and address written on it. Mostly she just played around on the steps outside the main gate of her house. While she played, she often clutched rice cake, either coarse flour studded with beans or steamed on a layer of pine needles and coated with sesame oil.

My brother once made grumbled insinuations about Ok-Hwa. "Mom, the family at the inn cooked rice cake."

"How do you know?"

"Everyday Ok-Hwa is holding it and eating it."

"The whole village knows they're rich. How come they cook rice cake every three days and spread the rumor all around here?"

"Mom, let's make rice cake too."

"You're better off putting me face down and tearing a chunk out of me to eat. Rice cake ain't a meal. It's a snack. Don't you know the folktales about women who ruin themselves and their families by snacking? That family'll be out on the street and begging from door to door before long, seeing as they teach their retard to snack when she can't even take care of her own things."

But no matter what curses Mother hurled, Hyeong-Ho's eyes sparkled when he saw Ok-Hwa and her rice cake. The weapon he aimed at her rice cake was the labels we’d collected. My interest in the labels was only in collecting them, not how they were used. However, Hyeong-Ho was cleverer than me. Whenever he found Ok-Hwa clutching rice cake, he'd run home and fetch the labels he had gathered. He dealt with her more skillfully than any adult would have.

Holding the labels behind his back, he'd approach her, doing a crazy dance so she wouldn't have her guard up. He pretended to be indifferent to the rice cake until he got right up close. The more he wanted it, the more nonchalant he acted. He thought that approaching her in a strange way would get rid of Ok-Hwa's wariness and pique her curiosity toward him.

Of course Hyeong-Ho's method only came after a lotof trial and error. Once he thought he'd lowered her guard, he'd show her different picture labels. Ok-Hwa looked sullen at first, but she began to show interest in their figures and colors the more he kept at it. But Hyeong-Ho's performance did not stop at laying out the labels for her. When he showed a kangaroo, he'd jump around with his arms curled up, and if it was a calf, he got down on his hands and knees and mooed.

Ok-Hwa's speech was so inarticulate we hardly understood her, but she followed what others said well enough. Her expression glowered like early winter skies, but she flushed as she looked back and forth between the labels and Hyeong-Ho's inspired dancing.

Although I'd salivate as I watched from a few steps behind, Hyeong-Ho showed no interest in

the rice cake she held. Of course, it was possible that Ok-Hwa wanted to toss the rice cake away and snatch up the labels scattered in front of her. It was strange. She was hesitant, but once she got something in her hands, she wouldn't throw it away without a reason even if it was a useless stone or her mother was yelling at her. But Hyeong-Ho showed no concern over her tenacity. because what he was aiming at now so carefully was not the rice cake.

I was the only person who could tell what he was really up to. Now his show was over. While he collected the labels, Ok-hwa's indecision peaked. Set the rice cake down and hold out her hand, or exchange it for the labels? However, luck was with her. After my brother gathered the labels, he slipped them all into the hand that held the rice cake. "Do you like them?"

Ok-Hwa nodded vigorously, of course. That was the climax of my brother's performance. He began to take the labels back one by one as she headed home. Her face did not twitch as he took back the first three or four. They belonged to her now, but only a few moments before they had been my brother's, and so she watched uneasily, putting up with the a loss of a few labels. However, Hyeong-Ho's Indian giving made her pout and finally burst into tears.

This was precisely his goal. When Ok-Hwa reached the verge of tears, he snatched the labels faster and made her cry. When her crying grew louder, my brother no longer had to deal with OkHwa, because before long an adult would run out of the house, usually Ok-hwa's obese mother.

She'd rush forward, buttocks quaking, and bark at Hyeong-Ho. She'd point at him with her chin as if she was ready to bite him.

"What did you do to her?"

"Nothing."

"Did you hit her?"

"Nope."

"Pinch her?"

"I didn't."

"Maybe you hit her on the head, right?"

"I didn't!"

"She's like a tin pot. When you just brush her, she makes a noise, even if you don’t mean any harm. Ok-Hwa, let me have a look at you."

She inspected her daughter carefully, even checking her privates, but could find no evidence she'd been pinched or struck. The rice cake in her hands remained intact and there was no sign she'd been picked on, either. Given that her daughter was holding a bunch of picture labels that would appeal to children, there seemed no reason for her to be crying. And she was crying loud enough to disturb the neighbors. We could foresee her mother's next question.

"Why on earth is she crying?"

Hyeong-Ho answered. "Ask her yourself."

"She wouldn't cry for no reason."

"She grabbed the labels from me."

That made absolutely no sense. How could an idiot like Ok-wha get away with stealing something from a plucky kid like my brother?. But his story matched the evidence before her eyes.

"Was she making a fuss over these?"

"Yes." "She basically very greedy, you know."

"I see."

"You really didn't hit her?"

Hyeong-Ho didn't answer immediately, but turned around and asked me, "Brother, did I hit her?"

Of course, I shook my head until my neck ached, but she remained suspicious.

"How did she take your stuff?"

"She was bugging me for it."

"Well?"

"At first I was only gonna give her two labels, but she was so greedy she asked for them all."

"You need them?"

"No." "Then, how about giving them all to her?"

Hyeong-Ho stopped his peevish whining.

"You can collect them again, so let's just give these to Ok-Hwa, seeing as she's already holding on to them. Follow me."

As Hyeong-ho stepped through the main gate, following Ok-Hwa's mother, he quickly stuck his tongue out at me. That was the signal that the curtain had fallen on the performance and that I should wait where I was. Shortly afterwards my brother emerged triumphantly. In his hand was a lump of coarse flour cake much bigger than what Ok-Hwa had held. Only once we got back home did we celebrate over the booty.

"Let's divide the cake."

Hyeong-ho never forgot to suggest we split the spoils evenly. I went to the kitchen and brought back a knife. Meanwhile, Hyeong-Ho had been waiting quietly without eating a single bean embedded in the cake. We'd halve the cake, but he still always gave me an extra bite of his portion.

"Mom says you gotta eat more than me 'cause you're older, right?"

He would not back down to anyone, but he deferred to his only brother.

The only way I'd make it into the barbershop would be through Ok-Hwa. But as Hyeong-Ho knew, I wasn't her age and couldn't reason with her as he could. I might get the knack of approaching her by tempting my brother, but he wasn't interested in her when she wasn't holding rice cake. And even if I tried to explore the barbershop by luring Ok-Hwa, it was obvious Hyeong-Ho remembered Mother's warning that if we hung around the barbershop she'd get hauled off by the cops and would spoil my scheme by tattling to her. I could hardly come up with some clever plan to get him to join me. Moreover, when I watched how my brother had Ok-Hwa completely under his

control, I felt helpless.

I often saw Ok-Hwa playing around the gate by herself, but it wasn't easy to figure out how to approach her. Her mother's remark that she was like a tin pot always made me hesitate. Ok-Hwa was not then holding rice cake in her hands. No one thought of her that way; it was not her real self.

When she wasn't holding rice cake she looked very abstract. She glowered like an early winter sky threatening to snow and her stupefied eyes floated in the empty sky and forestalled anyone's approach. There was something ghastly and inaccessible in her aura. Hers was not a usual face I could grow used to and feel comfortable with.

Samson was completely different. You never could tell what Ok-Hwa was thinking, but with Samson it was obvious, no matter how he tried to disguise it. When he dozed off at the brewery gate, he hoped to lure the mischievous children who had their sights set on the drying rice. And when he busily roamed the empty lot, broomstick in hand, you knew his intimidating boss, the brewery owner, would appear sooner or later. A scowl meant that watchmaker Choi, his nemesis, had just made fun of him. We'd always be on guard when he had that expression, because if we stumbled upon the mat by mistake, we ran the risk of suffering a bitter insult.

I'd been wracking my brain for a plan and finally made up my mind to ask Samson for help. He was the only person in our village who could twist off the lock on the barbershop door at one go.

One day I waited for sunset and approached Samson from behind as he was weeding around the boundary of the brewery. "Hey, Mister!" I called out. He turned. But I could not come up with something to say which would keep his interest.

"Will you go on an errand for me?" I blurted out.

My blunt question was not well received. He stared me impassively in the face for quite a while. When he opened his mouth he looked nauseous.

"What did you say to me, you little turd?"

"How about going on an errand for me?"

"Me, go on an errand for you?"

"Yeah."

"I gotta do that?"

"Yeah."

"You little punk, don't go bossing me around! What's a pipsqueak like you doing, ordering an adult on an errand? I might do errands around here, but that doesn't mean you have the right to boss me around."

"I don't mean to boss you around."

"You're too much! You give me an order with your nose up in the air, and then you say you don't mean to?"

"Really, I don't mean to boss you around."

"You brat! You ain't supposed to order an adult around like a dog. What do they teach you at school, anyway?"

"I really didn't mean. . . " "No? Then what? Speak up."

"All I meant was to ask you to open the door of the barbershop."

"The barbershop?"

"Yes." "Why the barbershop? Are you planning to burn it down?"

"No!" "You got something to do there?"

"Yes." "Something to do . . . " Samson glanced toward the barbershop, but to my surprise, he didn't appear displeased.

Unlike my mother, he didn't seem to have a particular fear of the barbershop.

"Alright. I've been wondering what's in there. So you've been wanting to go in too."

"No, I haven't." "'No'? You want to go inside 'cause there's treasure in there, right?"

"No, I dropped a ball there."

"A ball, huh? Well, let's go anyway."

Samson got to his feet. He agreed so easily that he must have had his reasons. He talked as he walked on ahead of me.

"If it hadn't been for your help the other day, I might have been suckered by that bastard Choi.

Worse, everybody here might have turned their noses up at me."

Samson brought me to the front of the barbershop. He looked momentarily embarrassed to find a lock on the door, but at least he did not ask me more about the story I'd cooked up about the ball. Evidently once he decided to help he was not going to quibble over trifles. He looked carefully up and down the street. In the distance we saw some people crossing, but they weren't paying any attention to us. He took hold of the lock and twisted hard. The nail holding the iron ring linked with the lock came right out. As soon as Samson eased the door open, I stepped over the threshold, picked up the picture from beneath the fallen chair and put it under my arm.

"Hurry. People are coming."

Samson was on the lookout and spoke fast. I ran out. Samson immediately put the lock back on and tried to make it look as it had before.

"Everything okay now?"

"Yep." "A picture? What about the ball?"

I didn't answer.

Samson had no more questions. He strolled away nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened.

After we parted I came home, slipped the picture stealthily into an empty jug without letting HyeongHo know, and covered it with the lid. My heart throbbed all night. For the first time in my life I had a

secret all my own. Even my ferocious, quick-witted little brother didn't know. This enormous secret was absolutely mine.

I didn't have any particular plan for the hidden watercolor. Just hiding it in the jug lifted my despondent spirits, and I felt something akin to satisfaction. It made me feel strange to have a secret that kids my age wouldn't dare turn their noses up at made. I began to consider them trifling and thought I should think and act as if I'd risen above them. When they beat each other up over an eraser or a pencil stub, they looked trivial to me. A rumor that they had seen our teacher skulk out of a tavern at dawn like a stray cat no longer roused my curiosity.

In other words, I acted like a grown-up, and in my mind was the conceit that I was becoming an adult faster than other kids my age. But they didn't notice my abrupt transformation.

One Sunday about a month later, some laborers suddenly showed up at the barbershop, just as when it had first been set up. First they took the mirror down from the wall, brought it outside, and blew the dust off it. It no longer shined as clearly as when it was brought in. It had become useless, like the owner of the barbershop who had disappeared. The laborers loaded it up in a cart along with the broken wooden chair, and household goods.

That afternoon, the bespectacled Mr. Choi who was on bad terms with Samson marched in.

Under his arm he toted a signboard that read 'Seoul Watchmaker's'. On a wooden prop like the seat of a chair were laid two glass boxes in which watches, new and used, lighters, and so on were attractively displayed. A half dozen wall clocks now hung where the watercolor had been.

"Sweep all that stuff out of here. It's jinxed!" Choi barked at the idling laborers. He grumbled at each speck of dust and badmouthed the former owner of the store.

On the day Choi moved in, Samson stood a way off from the store throwing glances at the movers as they moved the furniture. They pleaded for his help, and, although he pretended not to hear, he hung around all afternoon. Choi, unable to fathom Samson's attitude as he kept watch, flexing his strong hands, tossed aside all neighborliness and cursed him, but Samson took no notice.

Regardless of whether Samson bore a grudge because of what had happened earlier between them and behaved coldheartedly or burst into a fit of rage, Choi was a new man. The day he moved in he cleared out of the rented room he'd lived in near the bus stop. His former shop could hardly accommodate two people, in comparison the former barbershop was like a stable transformed into a royal palace.

"Sweep all that stuff out of here. It's jinxed!" Although clearly satisfied to rent a store cheaply, he also seemed equally uneasy that its former owner was a Red. He kept dusting off the windowsill.

After Choi moved, he behaved differently. He had a new set of gestures for the people he met.

When he dealt with anything of any consequence, he communicated by motioning with his chin or nose. He frequently belched like he was about to vomit and walked with his chin in the air and looked at people askance.

Upon flinging open the door in the morning, Choi wound up the wall clocks and fed his watches. Their food was the bundle of keys in his pocket. As if he were feeding little birds that had

hatched at different times with a container of food in his hand, he visited them one by one. The hands of one clock pointed to six o'clock, another to o'clock, another to three. When Choi missed a clock, my brother, who was watching him outside the window, would point to the one he had skipped. Hyeong-Ho lost sleep those first several days so as not to miss seeing Choi wind the clocks. They would proudly announce their presence by chiming punctually every hour on the hour, for all the world like a baby bird feeding on what its mother brought and then flapped its wings to show off its growth. A three-month-old bird seemed to flap its wings three times and a six-monthold one flapped six times. We would awake abruptly in the middle of night to the chime of the clocks as they sounded the hour and drifted out into the silent night, resonating for a long time. Their eerie chime passed desolately into my heart and made me feel that where I now lay was not my home.

Sometimes they carried me to a dismal, uninhabited valley. When the clocks struck three early in the morning, the dreary, lingering solitude that followed the drawn out sound kept me from falling back asleep. Mother seemed to share my feelings. Sometimes when I thought she was asleep I heard her sigh in the dark.

"That bastard's clocks . . . How can something that isn’t even alive sound like it’s coming from the next world?"

I also hoped I wouldn’t hear their chimes, but after dark, the sounds penetrated my mind ever more clearly and drearily. However, Choi, unconcerned, wound the clock springs every morning without fail. One day, unable to stand it any more, Mother visited him. Her initial hesitation finally gave way and she started talking.

"Can I live without having to hear that damned cuckooing?"

Bent over his desk and absorbed in his work, Choi acknowledged her reluctantly.

"What do you mean cuckooing?"

"It's one thing if they cuckoo during the day, but they go all night too. I can’t stand it."

"Why? Are they asking you to feed them?"

"You know what I’m talking about."

"Really, I can't understand what you're saying. Clocks that don't chime are useless."

Choi looked down on everyone. Seeing no reason to treat him gently, she raised her voice a little.

"It's not like I'm asking you to kill them."

"Sure it is. If it's not, then what is it?"

"Alright, then. A man's gotta live, but what's the big deal about a clock dying?"

"What do you mean die, lady?"

Choi stood up from his seat and grabbed a duster.

"You can hear them cuckooing in the middle of night all the way over at our place."

"Let me see. I’m selling clocks that go off loud enough to be heard across the road. How come the blind and deaf aren't coming in to buy any then?"

"I don't care who buys your clocks. I don't need one. So please make sure that racket isn’t

going off in the middle of night."

"It's not like I'm getting up to clatter tin pots."

Mother pointed to his pocket. "Can't you wind them a little less?"

"What's the real reason you hate the chiming so much?"

"It’s depressing. It sounds like a heart being torn in two."

"The sound of the clock is tearing your heart in too?"

"It sure is. The cuckoo sounds go off at all hours and don't let me get any sleep."

Choi stared at my mother over his glasses. He didn’t reply right away. A curious smile played about his lips. His comeback was strange.

"Now I get it. Lady, you're tired of being alone."

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you want me to spell it all out for you? Your life is so empty that the noise breaks your heart, huh?"

"Are you trying to tell me you’ve been spying on me?"

"No, but there's all sorts of meaning in your complaint."

"Don't be such a smartass. Even if I don’t have anyone to talk to, you think I'd open up to you?"

"Might depend on how lonely you are, but if you insist on having your own way, you're going to wind up sick."

"What the . . . Are you making a joke or are you laying into me?"

"There you go again! Am I wrong? Let's be open with each other."

"Why should I open up to a man I hardly know?"

"You're trying to tell me you're not here to talk to me?"

"Don't be such a know-it-all. You might end up hurt, say, with a broken arm."

"You're trying to shame me, lady! Who's the one who told me the clocks make lonely people feel like their hearts will break?"

"Really, mister! You're out to slander a lot of innocent women!"

Mother's face was becoming flushed, and her hands were trembling. But there was still that curious smile on Choi’s lips, and the clocks behind him were busy marking time toward the night that the three of us so feared.

"Maybe I'm unlucky and my life has just become something for other people to talk about, but a real man wouldn’t make fun of a woman and criticize her problems. If I had a respectable man in my house, would you be making fun of me like this? So what if I’m alone and that ringing breaks my heart? Not only aren't you comforting me, you're making me ashamed. You look like an adult, but you got no tact."

Mother fled home and wept silently for a long time. There was no one to calm her. But while Mother and Choi were bickering, a man had watched from beginning to end. Samson. While Mother was whimpering at home over her miserable lot, Samson strode slowly to the watchmaker's

and entered it for the first time. He stood there, arms folded.

"Now I know you're scum."

Choi was taken by surprise. He watched Samson, with a grin on his face. "What brings you here? I thought you’d be dead before you came into my store."

"A man shouldn't act that way."

"Hey, pal, what are you talking about? Don’t go sticking your nose in so fast."

"I saw everything."

"Like what? Are you so sharp-eyed you can even see the dick on a bird that's flying by?"

"If you keep being so mean, you’re gonna get what’s coming to you."

"Oh, now I get it. You’re all going to gang up on the newcomer, right? Is that any way to treat someone you'll have to get along with for years to come?"

Choi was in a rage. He arched his eyebrows and took a duster to wipe off the display case, but Samson stood there, arms still folded, and did not budge.

"This ain't ganging up on a newcomer. A man ain’t supposed to be so mean."

"Hmph. I haven't even made my first sale. Just my luck! Business is going to be bad today if all I get are troublemakers instead of customers. You guys shouldn’t treat me like this. I may look like small fry, but one of my uncles is the chief of Yecheon County. If a dragon falls into a ditch, even a mosquito attacks. Now I'm stuck selling used watches in the countryside and anyone and everyone thinks he's got the right to tell me what's what. Just my luck!"

"I saw everything. You’re gonna get what’s coming to you."

"You bastard! Are you threatening me? All I did was give some advice to a woman who said that her heart would break living alone. Are you a pair of crutches for her or something? Don’t you have anything else to do?"

"You're not supposed to do that."

"Now I understand why you're getting involved. Are you intimate with that lady, Widow Park?"

That was the wrong thing for Choi to say. Up to that point, Samson's expression had been more that of someone who was being sarcastic, but he flushed as red as a ripe tomato. Choi was lighting his cigarette. He didn’t notice Samson reach over the display case to grab him by the throat.

His cigarette fell from his mouth to the floor before he could light it.

"What did you just say? I already knew you were a mean-spirited prick. And now I see you're going to cause a lot of trouble for a lot of people."

Choi didn’t come close to Samson in strength, but he was obstinate and flew into a rage at the slightest provocation. Choi’s petty quarrel had now gotten him grabbed by the throat, but he looked as though he intended to stand to the last. With Samson clutching his throat, he jerked his chin up and down and repeated what he had just said.

"All I did was ask if you were intimate with Widow Park. So what?"

"You son of a bitch! I'm gonna smash your teeth in. You think you can shoot your mouth off like that?"

"Bastard! You once bragged so much about your strength that you didn't know what was going on. Now you barge into my store and make a scene. You bastard! How dare you! My uncle is the Chief of Yecheon County. Maybe you have something on your conscience and want to cover it up.

But your shit still stinks."

Samson cut through the air with his enormous, rough hand and slapped Choi hard enough for tears to well up in his eyes. Choi's glasses fell to the floor, and blood flowed from his nose to the dimple in his upper lip. Despite the blow, Choi did not put up a fight. He just railed at Samson through his thin lips.

"All right! You hit me? You gotta be out of your mind, hankering to go to prison. Okay! If that’s what you want, hit me some more!"

"I'd stomp on you and teach you a lesson you'll never forget, but I'm afraid you'll kick the bucket. Don't piss me off."

"You're gonna kill me, huh?"

"You rat! You oughtta have died for what you did last time."

"So you’re admitting you had a plan to kill me? Fine! I can see to it that you go to prison and not see the light of the day for the rest of your life."

"When did I say I planned to kill you?"

"You scoundrel! Am I the only one who heard what you said? I have a witness."

As he wiped the blood from his lip, Mr. Choi pointed at me, standing outside the window and staring at them. The moment Samson turned his bloodshot eyes on me, I fled home, but their argument continued for some time. I didn’t hear any windows being shattered but reconciling the two of them wasn’t going to be easy.

Several days after the incident I was passing the brewery on my way from school. I saw Samson motioning to me in the distance. Our relationship was no longer pursuer and pursued with the rice on the straw mat as bait. Of course even then, the little rascals still went to extremes as they aimed for the rice. However, without realizing it, I was no longer one of the gang. The kids bugged me to join them in order to shore up the line of battle, but I'd act like I didn’t hear them.

I don’t really know when I became estranged from them. I imagined it started the day Samson and I stole the picture from the barbershop. From that point on I was obsessed with not upsetting our peace treaty. Once I stopped trying for the rice, Samson often signaled to me confidentially when I passed the brewery, and handed me some he had squeezed into a lump. I couldn’t have joined the gang again. I did not want to disappoint him.

The first day he signaled to me confidentially was not one on which rice was being dried. Sitting on the threshold of the brewery as usual, he gave me a big hello as if he’d been waiting for me.

However, something unusual and uneasy lurked within his welcome. When I came up to him, he pointed to the watchmaker's with his chin right off.

"Do you know that that guy made a complaint about me at the police station?"

I couldn’t figure out immediately why he’d been accused, but judging from his stiff expression

and the impatient way he spoke, it looked as though he might in trouble soon. I tensed when I heard the words 'police station.' I had never been, but through rumors I’d come to associate it with vague fear and horror.

Samson said he was supposed to go there. "It's all over for me," he uttered in desperation.

"Detectives came to take you?"

Samson shook his head slowly. "They haven' come yet."

"So why did you say it’s all over?"

"If I get taken in, I know they'll beat the shit out of me. They'll thrash me half to death."

"Why?" "Because of that bastard. When I’m lying in bed at night, I can hear him grinding his teeth. It makes my heart pound."

"That ain't him grinding his teeth, it’s his clocks."

"No, that's him grinding his teeth, all right. That guy is needling me, grinding his teeth all night long without sleeping."

"You should scram."

"Knock it off! In a tiny country like ours they’ll find me no matter where I hide."

"And then what'll you do?"

"It's up to you whether I suffer or not."

"Huh?" "You were watching when I beat that bastard up and got him all bloody, right?"

"Yes." "That's the problem. The detectives might be looking for you. You were the only one who saw it. You should run far away."

"You should too."

"I can't run away."

"How come?"

"Who'll take care of the brewery?"

"I can't run away neither, ‘cause of school."

"Then hide."

"Where?"

"Now you're asking me? When I chased you, you knew a pretty good place."

"Well, when then?"

"Well, that's just the trouble I'm in now. Anyway, take good care of yourself."

"People say that if you lie, hair grows out of your ass."

"Don't worry. I'll pull them out for you."

Samson had asked me a personal favor. It was the first time in my life someone had asked for my help in such a friendly, earnest way. I couldn’t turn him down flat. If I had, the bridge of reconciliation we'd built between us would have given way. After I promised to do everything he’d

asked, I went home but I was uneasy. I wound up telling Mother the whole story. She listened but did not make much of it.

"Seok-do looks strong, but he's a little stupid and people who aren't so swift get nervous really easily. Since he got into a mix-up with that good-for-nothing Choi who's notorious for hurting others, he must be very scared these days. I bet he could stuff himself and not gain weight."

"It was on account of you, Mom." "Maybe, but he stuck his nose in when it wasn't any of his business. He may have done it 'cause he got riled up even though he was looking in from outside. When you meet him, tell him not to worry. What difference does it make if Choi’s uncle is a county chief? Does he have so much time on his hands he’ll be able to deal with a nephew getting slapped on the face? What kind of real man relies on his uncle?"

But Samson was agitated. He grew noticeably haggard and his energy wasn’t what it used to be. He’d stopped gathering young men in front of the brewery for tests of strength. Without Samson the street in front of the brewery seemed as dreary to me as a house suffering from a plague.

Many days went by, but detectives never descended on the brewery to bind the criminal with rope. The real reason Samson no longer feared being arrested was not that he thought it would all blow over as time passed. It happened by accident. A friend of Samson's, a peddler by the name Lee who made his rounds on a bicycle, once badmouthed Choi, calling him a nobody. Samson rolled his eyes and spoke in a low voice.

"Don't say that. Country boys like us'll have their noses rubbed in it if we mock Choi. Get that out of your head."

"Why? That bastard is a hick. You think he's special?"

"You don't know a damn thing. His uncle is the Chief of Yecheon County."

"What? Chief of Yecheon County?"

"And Yecheon is less than forty kilometers from here."

"Who told you that?"

"I heard it straight from his own mouth."

"He said that himself?"

"It must be true, if he said it himself, right?"

"You're ridiculous! That's why kids call you a blockhead."

"I'm a blockhead?"

"Yeah, you're like a kid who can’t tell the difference between the truth and a lie."

"How can it be a lie? He said so. You shouldn't even lie about other people. How could he tell a lie about himself?"

"You moron, you need to get some sense into you! Because of idiots like you, folks think the y can talk tough and things look like they're going to hell."

"Because of me?"

"Can't you see that from what's going on? I might as well talk to the wall."

"I can't live in a world where the truth is a lie and a lie is the truth. They should be separate.

Isn’t the world for honest people?"

"These days it's gotten so you can't tell a fake from the real thing, just like you can't tell apart a male and a female crow. I guess the one-eyed gets to be king in the land of the blind. That guy was threatening you because he's supposedly got connections, right?"

"I'm not so sure, but that's what he said."

"Let's go together. I'll make it clear that that bastard tricked you."

"You go."

"You're a dolt! Stand up right now!"

Lee peddled to the watchmaker's but Samson was reluctant to follow. He practically had to be pushed. Lee didn’t enter the store, but stood outside and shouted.

"Hey, Choi! Look over here!"

Choi was absorbed in repairing a watch. He stuck his face out the window. His put upon expression made it clear he was wondering why a small fry like Lee was annoying him.

"Hey, Choi! I hear you've got an uncle."

But Choi had already forgotten his offhand remark to Samson. He hesitated for a moment, obviously thinking that it took all kinds.

"What the hell are you talking about?" He said in an odd voice.

"You threatened Seok-Do about your uncle, the Chief of Yecheon County, didn’t you?"

Only then was Choi reminded of the incident several days before. He hung his ruddy face on the windowsill. Lee, having set about putting Choi to shame, got in another dig.

"Hey, bastard! Where do you get off threatening Seok-Do like that? Nobodies like you and me live hand to mouth. How much did you pay the Chief of Yecheon County to be able to call him your uncle?"

"When did I pay . . ?"

"Then did you buy an uncle? Everybody knows Seok-Do is an honest, simple man. You shouldn't toy with him or you'll pay for it in the end."

"Why are you getting all worked up? It was ridiculous for him to believe me."

"Listen, bastard! I know you were living from hand to mouth while you were away from home.

Since you've come back to our village to make a go of it, you first better get rid of that wicked mind of yours and stop making trouble for innocent people with cheap tricks."

"Shut up! Don't you have anything better to do than take that half-wit's side? Don't get him all worked up about something when there's no point. A half-wit is happy to be a half-wit. A crayfish has to crawl sideways. If it crawls forwards, it'll drop dead soon enough."

I heard the sound of grinding teeth. Samson had become a behemoth and looked as though he was about to root up a village totem pole from the earth and hurl it. He rushed from Lee’s side towards the shop window where Choi hung his head. I’d never seen anyone look so brawny.

Superhuman strength had swelled his physique in a flash.

The windowpanes shattered. Samson landed a kick on Choi, causing him to shriek with pain.

Choi fell, his waist on the windowsill. Samson dashed into the shop, stamping on Mr. Choi's back and grabbed a clock form the wall. He brought it outside and smashed it on the street. Everything happened so fast there was no time to hold him back. Choi screamed in surprise. Lee did as well.

Samson was apparently not satisfied with breaking a clock and turned back toward the watchmaker's. Frightened by the sight, Lee followed Samson to restrain him, while Choi who had fallen from the windowsill caught hold of the cuff of Samson's trousers as he entered the shop.

"Seok-Do, please calm down. I was wrong."

"I'll kill you!"

"If it calms you down, then go ahead. But don't smash the clocks. If you do, it'll break me."

"Why? Is one of the clocks your uncle too?"

"Seok-Do, please calm down and spare me. I was wrong."

Choi grasped Samson's leg and clung for dear life. The ridge of his nose touched the floor as he pleaded with Samson.

"Are you begging me to forgive you?"

"Yes, please. Forgive me. I’ll never say anything bad about you again."

"Do you mean it?"

"I'm not lying."

"I'll smash everything and then pay for it, even if I have to borrow money at five percent a month."

"I won't ask you to pay."

Samson pointed at me as I stood watching outside the window.

"You heard this guy swear he wouldn't say anything bad about me, right?"

"Yes." However, the one who answered was Hyeong-Ho. He had snuck up beside me.

"You heard it for sure?"

"Yes." "And you swore in front of the kids, didn’t you?"

"Of course."

Samson’s legs had tensed with anger, but finally it began to dissipate. Lee lowered his arms from Samson's waist, but Choi wasn't ready to believe it.

"You've calmed down, right?"

Samson didn’t answer right away.

"If you don’t calm down, I’m not going to let go."

At last, a hesitant Choi released Samson’s trouser leg. He stole a glance at Samson and ran out of the shop. And then, unexpectedly, he began to wail loudly over the wreckage of his clock.

"I'm going to explode! How can I recover my losses? I picked out that unlucky site and now I'm faced with disaster. How am I going to get back my property?"

Watching Choi prostrate on the street wailing, Hyeong-Ho pursed his lips and spoke to me.

"Aren't you sad?"

But I wished that Choi would cry even more passionately. His sudden wailing made me feel a rush of pity, but it changed into an agreeable feeling. I clenched my fists in my pockets.

"Brother, aren't you sad?"

"No." "Why not?"

"How should I know?"

"I’m not sad, either."

"How come?" "’Cause you said you're not sad."

Lee then approached Choi and tried desperately to comfort him. But Choi shook off Lee as he grabbed his arm and kept crying, rummaging through the wreckage of the clock amidst clouds of dust. Gawkers would gather sooner or later. Choi might have anticipated this, as he had no one to appeal to for help. No one would stand up for his pitiable plight. However, Lee wanted to rebuke Choi before word of their quarrel spread through the village. As Lee grew tired of restraining him, he turned on Choi, waving his hand at him.

"Fine. Do what you want. Why are you so inconsistent? As you get older, you should know better. Aren't you ashamed others will see?"

"Now's the time for me to feel ashamed?"

"So what are you going to do? Set up a mourning altar for your clock in the shop or something?"

We stood looking at Choi for a long time. His lament was heavy with the sound of his ruin.

When he confronted Samson, he had maintained an arrogant dignity. Not only that, since he’d moved his shop, he walked with his nose in the air. He looked down on others and answered them with a sneer. In a sense, his arrogance had been his sole possession, but the figure he cut now as he wailed seemed very shabby.

But two different sides had coexisted within Samson as well. We could see it in his appearance during the several days when he was sure that Choi's uncle was the head of Yecheon County. They were both panic-stricken at the thought of an unknown force that had yet to seize them. Just imagining that mysterious power sapped their strength. It made them utterly pathetic. The intensity of their fear was sharper than a child's fear of the future.

Our family benefited from all this as well. After the quarrel Mother was no longer afflicted by the sound that had been breaking her heart. At long last the three of us could lie sound asleep once more, savoring the solitude of the peaceful night.

From that day on, Choi kept his door locked and stopped appearing outside the shop. Some customers tried to poke around and make their presence known, but no response came from inside.

His wife's comings and goings through the door of the inn made it seem as if everything was normal.

Nevertheless, Choi remained fast indoors.

On the third morning after Choi began staying inside, my brother woke up suddenly and spoke to me in a sullen voice.

"I didn't hear the clocks last night either."

Mother responded offhandedly. "The clocks?"

"Yeah."

"You mean it bothers you not to hear the clocks?"

Hyeong-Ho's remark said he hadn’t heard the clocks was not mere grumbling. He'd been clearly waiting to hear them again. But Mother did not pursue it further. I guess she thought that it was a complaint she could ignore.

"Are you going to be a little pain? How come nothing ever works out between you and me?"

But Hyeong-Ho had never found the sound of the clocks heartbreaking or desolate. The sound flowed into his mind like water and settled there as something indispensable. My brother's sense of touch was as keen as a worm's and he used it to take in everything around him. Instead of rejecting anything that came to him, he assimilated it and made it part of his own flesh. That is why Choi's wailing, which disgusted others, moved him. The sound of the clocks, which had come unexpectedly one night, had dissolved for Hyeong-Ho and become part of the nightscape. His complaints had made Mother aware of the part of the night she had lost, but since he could not get a satisfactory answer from her, he went to the watchmaker's as he used to do. Every day he'd peep like an alley cat through the cracks in the door with greedy, sharp eyes. Full of silent anticipation, he’d watch as if he had said, "Open sesame!" When he came home, he fretted about trivial things all morning before breakfast. He wound up getting a hard time from Mother frequently. Sometimes when she noticed that he was getting ready to go to the shop, she pretended to look for a switch to give him a whipping, but he would speak to her coldly.

"I'm going."

"Where? You’ve gone nuts. How come?"

"I don't care if you say no, I'm still going."

Mother finally burst out laughing. She couldn’t have been aware of Hyeong-Ho's motive for being so stubborn about something so trifling. Mother was relatively generous with Hyeong-Ho compared with me, the first-born. Any time I did anything wrong, she’d be meticulous in pressing me about whether it was a reasonable mistake or not. But when Hyeong-ho fretted or grumbled, all she'd do was lightly chide him or quibble a bit.

Choi finally reopened his store one week later. H'ed been struck by the village dolt, so he had no one to appeal to openly. He boiled down some packets of herbal medicine and after taking it, he began to get his energy back. However, Mother told us a different story.

Choi's build was slight compared to his well-proportioned wife. He pestered her like a baby.

Supposedly whenever he had a good excuse, he would lie in his sickbed and eat into the pocket money she had scraped together. People said that he behaved like a spoilt child with his gentle,

sincere wife so often that she felt sick at heart knowing he was taking the hard time he’d had with Samson out on her, but she did her utmost to care for her husband by preparing herbal medicine without begrudging the money.

Hyeong-Ho spent most of the day the watch shop reopened pacing in front of it. From Mother's point of view, he was standing face to face all day long with a person she was on bad terms with. She told him to stop being so foolish, but he wouldn't listen. Choi avoided looking out the window that day, never once acknowledging my brother. Choi hated the very sight of him, because Hyeong-Ho had seen Samson curse him and heard him promise he would not ask Samson to pay for the broken clock. On top of that, Hyeong-Ho had offered himself as a witness to Samson.

And thus Hyeong-Ho also come to be on bad terms with Choi. But it might have been for the best, for through those experiences, fear and ordeal, which had been away from us, slowly began to reveal themselves. We began to feel that we were actually making our way into the world of adults, and came to realize that growing up is not achieved under a chin-up bar or a clothesline, but by following the chimes of clocks through the night. And just as each clock keeps its own time, we realized that we also had to start on a long journey, following the striking of the clocks with our own grief and sorrow. From then on, every night time brought its handcart over to our home from across the street and set prickly loneliness in the minds of the three of us, as we slept side by side like packed sausages.

Fishing Doesn't Break Reeds

One day two men in shabby work clothes approached Choi's shop. It had been less than two months since he had taken over from the barbershop. They stepped inside and scrutinized the place with icy eyes but took no interest in Choi. Choi noticed that they were detectives, but he just watched the intruders because he did not see any reason for their presence. Eventually the shorter of the two rummaged in a jacket pocket and took out a memo. He stuck his chin out at Choi as he sat behind the repair counter.

"Choi Dong-Su?" The man looked Choi over. As soon as his gaze reached Choi's forehead, Choi got to his feet.

"Yes, I am, but . . ."

The man crumpled the memo and slipped it back in his pocket. Then he blew the dust off the narrow counter attached to the wall and sat down on it.

"When did you move here?"

"About two months ago."

"Two months or three months?"

"Let me see. . .If I do the math, it's five days short of two months."

"Why did you move here?"

"That's . . . My old shop near the bus stop was too cramped. So when I heard this place was vacant . . . " "Wouldn’t a shop near the bus stop with all those people passing by be better for a watchmaker?"

"There might have been more traffic, but . . . " The man quickly interrupted at Choi’s hesitation.

"Why were you in such a rush here to move here when the old spot had better traffic?"

"Rush? I didn't rush."

"Don't lie. We’ve learned that you really got cracking out of fear that this shop would fall into someone else's hands. And that originally a carpenter was going to move in, but you came up with a devious plot to cut him out. Isn’t that right?"

"Mr. Kwon the carpenter? But I only asked him to make a concession, I never plotted or anything."

"Didn't plot? We hear you’ve got a knack for schemes that set people at each other's throats."

"What son of a bitch told you such trash? Look at me. What kind of trouble can I cause?"

The taller one had only been listening to the exchange up to that point, but he interrupted his partner with a wave of his hand.

"Be clear, please. First, tell us what the real reason is you moved here and left behind a good

location for business. Second, why were you so insistent that you pushed out someone who’d already been negotiating with the former owner?"

Our village was so small that even a loud cough drew attention. Three or four villagers had noticed the unusual goings on and were watching from a distance. Choi was momentarily struck dumb at what the tall man said but he then made his excuses. Rubbing his palms together, he spoke in a hushed voice.

"I don't have any cut and dry answers for you. A watchmaker's shop is different from a fruit store or a restaurant. Location isn't crucial for good business."

"Anyway, what's your little scheme in giving up your old spot and moving here? Tell us the truth before it gets hard on you."

The man pressed. Choi hesitated.

"It doesn’t make sense that you’d suddenly come back to this village. You must have done pretty well in the city with a watch store, but you came back to hicksville, after trying so hard to escape from it. What's the real reason?"

"People can go back to their hometown if they get tired of being away from it, you know."

"You mean your business failed?"

"Failed? Watches aren’t perishable goods. Even if stock piles up, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed."

"That makes your coming back here even more suspicious. You renovated this shop before you moved in, didn’t you?"

"I didn’t renovate it, I just took the mirrors off the wall, beat the dust off and brought my stuff in."

"The porters who helped you move in say you complained all day long that the shop was unlucky and that you handled all important matters with your own hands. Is that true?"

"I did more than complain. I even put a charm over the door frame."

"A charm? What for?"

"To ward off evil spirits."

"What do you mean evil spirits?"

"Ghosts. What else?"

"You mean ghosts that haul in communists?"

"Why would a ghost haul in communists?"

"You mean communists aren't supposed to be hauled in?"

"That’s not what I meant, officer."

"What did you mean, then?"

"Reds must be taken in."

"I’m asking you again. Why did you butt in and move into a shop if you thought it was so unlucky?"

Choi was speechless.

"What do you think? This isn't a place you can just put up in for a day or two. You pay rent, so why bother with somewhere so unlucky? You must have some ulterior motive. You laid down a smoke screen by saying it was unlucky place just so the porters would hear it, didn’t you?"

"Good heavens! Officers, what are you talking about? Why are you trying to collar an innocent man? The previous owner was taken in as a Red. Of course, it’s an unlucky place. I moved in and was just babbling a little."

At that, the short one, who had been sitting on the counter, jumped to his feet, stood on his toes and slapped Choi hard. Choi's glasses dangled from the tip of his nose. As he readjusted them, the man who had struck him retorted.

"Buddy boy still doesn't get it. Why did you move here and push out the carpenter? Tell the truth. If you keep feeding us a line, I'll rip your tongue out!"

The sliding window of the room connected to the watchmaker's was ajar. I looked and saw the pale face of Choi's wife. The man continued to press the speechless Mr. Choi.

"You're a close associate of Seol Yeong-do, aren’t you?"

"What?"

"What's your connection to Seol Yeong-do?"

"Who's Seol Yeong-do?"

"You've got a lot of talent with the excuses. Are you really going to keep playing dumb? Don't you know Seol Yeong-do?"

"I don't, sir."

"Shall I tell you who he is?"

"Yes." "He was the owner of the barbershop. Are you trying to tell us you didn’t know? The whole village was in an uproar about it and now you’re in his shop, and you’re going to act like you don’t know? Are you making fun of me?"

"Make fun of you? I knew his last name was Seol but that was it . . ."

"Now I see, pal. You sucker punch somebody and say you're sorry, huh? You mean you knew about the head but you didn't know about the body."

"I don't understand why you’re doing this to me. I had a feeling things would end up like this.

Like I said, it’s an unlucky shop and now it's all turning into a mess."

"Look at buddy here. He gets slapped once, and he talks about everything turning into a mess.

If I’d whacked him on the calf, he'd have screamed about being struck by lightning, huh? Are you going to tell us the truth or what?"

"Don't beat around the bush. Get to the point. This is like a guy who gets cussed out for doing a lady a favor and covering up her privates. Am I guilty of a crime because I rented an empty shop?"

"If I get to the point, will you tell the truth?"

"I’ve been telling you the truth!"

"How dare you talk back to me? All right, if I get to the point, are you going to tell the truth?"

The phrase they were tossing around that was most familiar to me was "to tell the truth." I heard it more often than Hyeong-Ho. At school things often wound up lost or stolen. Trifling little items went missing practically every other day, so the teacher could hardly give each case attention. But if it was somebody’s tuition or fee money, it was different, and the teacher did what he could to find the kid who’d picked up or stolen the money. Class was put on hold, and all the children were forced to take part in the search.

However, in this case, 'take part' is something of a misnomer. Sixty students, who’d been innocent moments before, turned into suspects. Only the teacher and the pupil who’d lost the money were exempt from suspicion.

As soon as money was reported lost, our class became a wild den. The miserable reality of a den of thieves enveloped the entire classroom. The pictures on the walls became roads, mountains and streams leading to the den of thieves. The bulletin board graphs that showed the improvements in our grades seemed to display the results of theft.

Laughter vanished from the classroom, and only dry coughs were to be heard, which tried to sound calm as they subsided. All the children put their books and writing utensils down and rose from their seats. Then, following the teacher's instructions, we stood with our hands on our heads, elbows out, eyes closed, and waited for the typhoon caused by the lost money to pass. The teacher began to poke through our belongings, accompanied by the child who'd lost the money.

We had to stay like that a long time. Sometimes the search lasted through the bell that dismissed class and the one that signaled the beginning of the next hour. Although we weren’t allowed to open our eyes, we often stole glances through narrowed eyes. I was afraid of the fix I’d find myself in if another kid spotted me, though. I knew it would mean becoming a prime suspect and an interrogation: why was I watching the teacher's movements? We’d seen kids dishonored as thieves, and so we waited for the teacher's voice to tell us we could open our eyes.

Some of the girls would tire of standing with eyes closed and start to blubber, while some boys played tricks by giving the kids in front of them a slight kick. But for all that, it was so much more comfortable to stand with our eyes closed. I didn’t have to be absorbed in studying, which I hated, and I never stole money so I wasn’t especially afraid of being stigmatized as a thief as long as I kept my eyes shut. I spent my time in the air hovering above it all.

Dozens of meters below me were a teacher inspecting kids’ belongings and sixty black heads.

As long as my wings arced past my shoulders as if I were drawing a bow, I was not afraid of falling.

I refused to land while the classroom was a den of thieves. As I gazed from above a still tranquility descended upon the classroom like a late spring sunset. The sound of an organ wafted upwards.

Was it the female teacher playing? She had left the school by that point. They'd hushed up asking around about her or even wondering what had happened. Where could she be?

"You can open your eyes and sit down now."

At the teacher's voice, I opened my eyes, startled, but we were not yet allowed to set foot outside of our den of thieves. The teacher's expression was still dark, and the children, expectant

over the teacher's inspection, remained sulky until school let out. Most of the time when a theft occurred I couldn’t just go back home like the other kids, as the teacher summoned me to the office after school was done for the day. He’d wait until the after school hubbub quieted down, keeping his eyes upon the playground, then turn to me and ask me to be seated.

I’d come to learn why the teacher lowered his eyes toward outside the window and brought me beside him after all the kids had left. As I sat on the chair, hands on my knees, he’d light a cigarette and hold it in his mouth. After three or four drags, he stared at me as if I were a stranger.

"Hyeong-Seok, if I ask you a question, you'll tell me the truth, won't you?"

Of course I nodded. Of course I said clearly, "Yes, I will tell you the truth," to show him how firm my will was even more clearly. But the mood of the words 'the truth' was unpleasant to me, and on top of that I thought that forthright answers were something that only fresh children gave.

Besides, the way adults spoke "the truth" often seemed upside down to me. Still, I did not shake my head.

"Good. You know that Nam Sun-Ae lost some money, don’t you?"

"Yes." How could I forget a mishap that had occurred only three hours before? On the contrary, once something became a thing of the past, it was etched in my memory even more vividly.

"And you know that Sun-Ae's family is dirt poor, just like yours, right?"

The teacher had placed his hand on the desk. Between his fingers burned a cigarette. Strangely enough, his hand was trembling slightly.

Of course I knew about Sun-ae. She and I had been in the same class for three years. I could guess that her family was very poor, because she was among the twenty or so of us who didn't bring a lunch box.

"It was her tuition money that she lost today, so you can understand what a fix she’s in."

I had been sitting still. I couldn’t think of an answer that would satisfy my teacher. I’d never lost tuition money. Since Mother had never paid any, it was a natural conclusion that I'd never possessed that kind of money. So it was hard for me to comprehend the tension Sun-Ae might be feeling.

But the teacher asked again. "You can guess how Sun-Ae feels well enough, right?"

This time I nodded because I thought if I insisted I couldn’t, I’d be whipped. There was urgency in the way the teacher spoke.

"When Sun-Ae gets home, her father will really yell at her. Think how hard it must have been for her parents to get that money together. You know that poor families have a hard time scraping together even a tiny bit of money, don’t you? And you understand how your mother just gets by from day to day, right?"

"Yes." "Okay, you understand me well. So let's talk about the truth. You don’t know where the money is?"

"Yes."

"Do you mean you know or don't know?"

"I don't know."

"I told you to tell me the truth. That's your only answer?"

"If I knew where it is, I'd have found it for her."

"Of course. But even if you know, you might find it for her before anyone else does or you might not be able to find it so easily. Do you know what the difference is?"

What was he talking about? If somebody could find the money, without knowing where it was, then it would have had to be money with feet. But I'd never heard any rumors about money with feet running around. All I could do was stare at the teacher with a look of vague comprehension. His expression was growing distorted by this trial. Silence was the only way to handle this delicate sitting face to face. But while silence might have been able to delay the result, it could not provide a solution. The teacher's cigarette had grown short enough to burn his knuckle. Grinding it out in the ashtray, he leaned close and spoke in a low voice.

"You said you’d tell me the truth."

"Yes." "If you tell me the truth, I'll keep it secret. But if you want to fool me, then I won't forgive you, because lying is worse than steal."

"Yes." "You picked up the money and kept it, right?"

"No." "I'm not saying you stole it. Somebody else could have dropped it and you picked it up."

I really didn't understand. Why had the teacher summoned me out of so many kids to ask me a question like that? If he thought I picked it up, then our classroom was stuffed with more than sixty children. What the teacher had really asked me was not whether I picked up the money but whether I stole it.

I held my ground.

"Maybe you picked up the money and are just pretending you didn't."

I was at a loss for words.

"You're not making fun of your teacher, are you?"

"I’m not tricking you."

"You told me the truth?"

"Yes." "Even adults who don't need money might hesitate if they found any that had been lost. If you found lost money, wouldn't you keep it?"

Of course I would, but I’d never had the opportunity. The teacher’s lesson for me was that I’d also reached the point of being greedy without realizing it.

I stayed silent, tentatively sensing for when I'd be released from the teacher's oppressive scrutiny. I expected him to eventually tell me I could go. But my expectations crumbled.

"Go to the classroom. Nam Sun-Ae is there by herself. Walk her home, okay?"

The teacher's order was a complete surprise. I looked outside the window over his shoulder, but there weren't any children playing that late. Quite a while had passed since school let out. It would be a late and lonely time for a dull-witted girl who’d lost her tuition to plod home by herself.

When the teacher noticed my hesitation, he spoke again. "You're a man, right?"

I put my hand into my pocket, pushed it deep through the open seam and touched my privates.

"Yes." "You’re trustworthy and resolute, I know."

I deserved the teacher’s description. When thefts occurred, he'd summon me and give me the third-degree, but I’d never lost my nerve or surrendered to him.

"You can make it home by yourself after dark, right?"

I suddenly remembered a a story one of the kids had told about the teacher. The teacher was singing the national anthem as he groped the breast of a young woman who sold drinks at the tavern at the market entrance. I grinned.

"You look confident. If so, you can go."

I was momentarily surprised when I went back to the empty classroom and found the girl there alone, just as the teacher had said. She was scribbling on the blackboard with a piece of chalk, but seeing me enter, she quickly erased it and turned toward me.

Without approaching, I said to her nonchalantly, "Let's hurry up and go."

The girl responded in surprise. "Go where?"

"Your house. Teacher told me to see you home."

The girl shot a glance toward the window. Twilight was spreading over the school grounds.

"What about my money?"

"I couldn't find it."

"What'll I do?"

"Where can I find the money you lost?"

She did not look all that discouraged. Maybe my sudden appearance had embarrassed her.

"Did the teacher tell you to walk me home?"

"Sure. Do you think I'm a mad dog? Why else would I do it?"

"Are you saying only a crazy guy would walk me home?"

"Shut up! If I go crazy, will you dance?"

"If you go crazy, why would I dance like a nut case?"

"Okay then, what would you do?"

"Nothing. What should I do?"

"If you went crazy, I'd dance."

"You wanna grab me and eat me, don't you?"

"I'm not a fox. How can I eat you?"

We had nothing more to say, so we fell silent until Sun-Ae spoke up again. "If you walk me

home, the other kids'll tease you. What will you do then?"

"Other kids'll tease me? No way! You expect me to hold your hand, don’t you?"

"When did I say anything like that?"

"If I don't hold your hand, why would they tease me?"

"They'll tease you if they see you and me walking together."

"You gonna go home by yourself, then?"

Her expression clouded over. She picked up her books from off the desk by the dirty cloth she’d tied them with. Not budging, she said tearfully, "I can't go by myself."

"Don't you care if a rumor gets started?"

"There can't be any rumors, alright?"

"I'll follow you from a ways behind you."

"No, you go ahead of me and I'll follow. How can I go ahead of you?"

"Have it your way."

I went out of the classroom. I knew the village where Sun-Ae lived. From the road west of the school, a path of yellow earth with a long hedge of hardy orange trees led to a gentle slope open to the north. The rising path was lined by long furrowed fields of corn and barley and so narrow that an ox cart could barely get through. From the top of the slope a rough path studded with stones plunged steeply down a cliff face. Rocks leaned into the path from both sides. After the descent came a silt levee where vegetables had been planted and awaited harvesting, and then a gravelly field. At its end a bridge over a small stream where I used to bathe led to the entrance of Gwangdeok village. I knew the way even with my eyes shut. However, the path that ran between two large boulders and over the hill was steep enough to catch a first-time traveler. Several times a year there'd be stories of drunken travelers who had lost their footing.

We left from the west side of the school and headed up the slope, wondering what the proper distance between us should be so that we wouldn’t be made fun of. About halfway down the cliff face, I heard something behind me that sounded like moaning. I turned back to look at her, and she was standing at the beginning of the cliff path. I shouted for her to hurry up and come down, but she gave no sign of stepping forward. Her face had turned pale. What was her problem? She must have gone up and down the path for three years, so she’d have gotten used to it. But she simply stood rooted in the ground. I was irritated. I shouted at her several times and then rained insults down on her.

"You pain in the ass, aren't you going to go home?" I yelled. I was getting hot around the collar.

"What shall I do? I can't come down."

"You're a pain. Why are you making such a fuss? Am I your enemy or something?"

"Don't say that!"

"Then why are you making such a big fuss?"

"My legs are shaking."

"You got such skinny dragonfly legs that you can't even make it down here?"

"That's not what I mean. I’m okay on the way to school, but on the way home I can't go down because my legs shake."

"Your legs are fine in the morning but they turn into dragonfly legs on your way home?"

She'd been giving me a lot of backtalk but at that she fell silent. Even from where I stood, I could see that tears were brimming in her eyes.

"I skipped lunch. I was starving, so my legs shook."

"You skipped lunch?"

I retraced my way back up and reluctantly grabbed at a hand. She squeezed her bundle of books under her left arm and offered me her right hand. Eventually we made it down safely, but beads of cold sweat stood out on her pale forehead. We got up on the levee path, once again maintaining a distance between us, but I abruptly found myself boiling with anger. I stopped and turned around. I waited until she came four or five steps further and then shot back.

"I skipped lunch, too, you know. You think you're the only one?"

She answered me dismissively. "I know that."

"So why did you make a big fuss? Just to be a pain in the ass?"

"I didn't mean to. I'm a woman, but you're a man."

"You said I'm a man?"

"Well, if you’re not, what are you?"

A man! This was the first time I'd been graced with such a dignified term. Of course I yearned to be a man, but no one had ever called me one to my face. I again pushed my hand into my pocket and felt my privates through the open seam.

"How do you know I'm a man?"

She answered quickly, covering the front of her skirt with her bundle of books. "Well, are you a woman?"

The word 'man' made me proud of myself. I changed my mind about leaving her from where you could see the bridge, and decided to cross it and accompany her to the entrance of the village, but she spoke to me in a low voice.

"I have something to tell you."

"Tell me?"

"Yeah. But you have promise to keep it to yourself and not blab."

"You don't want any rumors getting started?"

"I'll get kicked out of school if a rumor gets started."

"Why are you going to tell me something that could start a rumor, huh?"

"Anyway, I'm going to."

"What if one gets started?"

"It won't if you keep it to yourself."

"Are you that afraid of a rumor?"

"They say rumors are scarier than tigers."

"Okay, I won't tell."

We were now walking side by side, as if we’d brushed up against each other without realizing it.

"I didn’t lose my tuition money. It was a lie."

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't lose any money."

"You didn't?"

"I never had it to begin with, so how could I lose it?"

"Why did you do it then?"

"Because I felt sorry to the teacher."

"Felt sorry? I don't get it."

"I couldn't pay for a lot of months and felt ashamed. Going to school was scarier than meeting a tiger, so I made up my mind to lie and say I lost it."

I stopped walking and stared at her.

"But what would've happened if they found the money?"

"How can you find money that wasn’t lost in the first place? They'd be searching for the rest of their lives."

"Don't you know you'll be kicked out of school if you try to fool the teacher like that? I'll tell."

"You promised you'd keep it to yourself. Why are you going to tell?" "’Cause on account of you, the teacher got suckered."

"You've never paid a penny for tuition yourself. How are you going to tattle, huh?"

"How do you know whether I paid or not?"

"All the kids know. You think I'm the only one who doesn't?"

"Anyway, you'll be kicked out of school."

"You're a man. How can you flip-flop like a girl?"

"What do you mean flip-flop?"

"You promised you wouldn’t tell but now you say you’re going to."

"Telling the truth is bad?"

"If you don't keep your promise, you're a liar, too, right?"

I didn’t have a comeback for that one.

"If you let this out, I'll kill myself. And then you'll dance, right?"

"I don't know how to dance."

"Suit yourself."

The girl stared at me as if she would bite me then strode to the bridge, her cheeks flushed. This wasn’t the same person who had promised to kill herself. I grew confused. What was the right way: telling the teacher or keeping it to myself as I had promised? The answer wasn’t clear to me.

Choi had been grilled by two men from the police station, so our cases were similar. Anguish was the only way he could cope with the oppressive interrogation he faced. But he had the wits to

figure out enough so his anguish didn’t last long.

"Come to think of it, I did notice something suspicious."

Surprised, the two men came up to Choi.

"When I went to remove the door, the iron ring at the lock was already off."

"The ring had been removed? Are you sure?"

"Even the workmen know. I grumbled about it."

"The ring was removed!"

The two men looked at each other repeating what Choi had said. Their expressions brightened considerably.

"The shop was locked up. So you're saying someone had snuck in, right?"

"Well, I guess somebody might have come in when it was vacant."

"Don't act smart. Just answer the questions. Who was it? You belong to the same gang, so you must know."

"Gang? Don't go slandering me."

"If you're not part of the same gang, how do you know somebody came in when it was vacant?"

"When did I say that?"

"Have you forgotten what you just said?"

"I said it was possible. I didn’t say I saw anything, did I?" "Don't play games with us. Even if you didn't see anything, you must have a guess about who it was."

"Stop slandering me. If I were in the same gang, why would I bother going through such a hard time? I’d talk right away."

"Well, don't beat around the bush. Spit it out. Even a kid knows life is better outside of prison.

You didn't hear any rumors about who came in here?"

"Rumors?"

"Get it out in the open. If there was a guy who forced his way in, you must have heard rumors even if you didn't see it."

"Just rumors."

"Okay, and who was it, then?"

"Jang Seok-Do." "Who is that?"

"He's a bachelor who lives right next door. He's a hired hand at the brewery."

The short man slammed his clenched fists together in triumph.

"Are you sure?"

"Am I sure? I said it's just a rumor."

"Did you see him break in with your own eyes?"

"No! That's why I only know it as a rumor."

"Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

"If I knew who broke in, I’d have spoken up."

"You know the exact name of the person you said you didn't know. So now you're making a false accusation, are you?"

"No, sir. I only answered your question about whether I’d heard any rumors."

"So where did you hear this rumor?"

"I don't remember."

"You heard something but don't know who told you?"

"Yes." "That must be Seok-Du".

"Not Seok-Du. Seok-Do. Jang Seok-Do." "Yeah, got it. What does he look like? What kind of clothes does he wear?"

"Pardon?"

"What does he look like?"

"Well, he's got a crew cut."

9

"A crew cut on a stone head!"

"I mean Jang Seok-Do has a crew cut."

"Is he at the brewery now?"

"Maybe. I've never seen him away from it."

The tall man had already opened the sliding door and was running out. It wasn’t difficult for him to find Samson, because Samson was dozing, as usual, perched on the threshold of the brewery's makeshift tavern.

The tall man accosted him. "Hey, are you Jang Seok-Do?" Samson, not seeing any reason for the abrupt question, gingerly raised himself and put on his rubber shoes.

"Who?" "Jang Seok-Do." "Nobody here by that name."

"No?" "Nope."

"Nobody here by the name of Jang Seok-Do?" "Oh, Jang Seok-Do? That's me."

The tall man grumbled to himself with a defeated expression. "Damn! Practically doesn't know who he is."

"Excuse me?"

"Go on inside."

Samson was not used to dealing with somebody who had such an intimidating attitude. From

the way he spoke down to him on first meeting, Samson realized that the stranger was not someone who would let himself be taken in easily. Samson hesitated, of course, but wasn't bold enough to disobey. He was troubled by a vision of the man's power and followed him in reluctantly. The dimness indoors made the man's flashing eyes look all the fiercer.

The man sized Samson up with his sharp eyes. "You're Jang Seok-Do?" Although the man said the name several times, it sounded strangely unfamiliar to Samson, as he hadn’t heard it for a long time. The villagers didn't use his last name in addressing him. It took him a while to associate it with himself.

"Well?"

"Yes, Jang Seok-Do is right."

Samson bent forward in no particular direction as though he were bowing at the mention of his name, which he had only recognized with some difficulty. The man spoke firmly without smiling.

"If you lie to me, I'll see to it that you're in prison until your last breath. Got it?"

"Lie? What did I do?"

"Do you know what perjury means?"

"I have no idea."

"It means if you lie to me, you'll end up on bread and water."

Samson was speechless.

"You know the watchmaker over there, right?"

"Yes." "Before he moved to the shop, you broke the lock and snuck inside, didn’t you?"

"Yes." "What?"

"I went in once."

"Bless my soul! You really went in?"

"I said I went in. I mean it."

The detective flushed. His hand, which had been resting on his waist, began to shake.

"Are you're trying to make a fool of me?"

"No, sir."

"You think everything will turn out okay if you just keep agreeing with me? Bastard! If you aren’t making fun of me, why are you saying 'yes, yes' so thoughtlessly? Did you enter by yourself?"

"No, sir."

"Who did you go in with?"

"The older son of Widow Park."

"Really? Where is he now?"

"He must be at school."

"Is he a teacher?"

"He's a student."

"What! A student? What grade is he in?"

"Let me see. I ain't sure. Either the third or fourth."

The man's eyes shot sparks. Certain he was being mocked, he immediately put his hands under Samson's arms, a leg under Samson's crotch and got him in a lock. When he lifted his shoulders and straightened, Samson tilted and tumbled flat on his back onto the cement floor. The detective pounced on him, snatching Samson’s arms behind his back before he could react, and put on handcuffs.

"Ouch! Officer! Why are you doing this?"

"Why? You scoundrel! This is the first time in ten years on the job I’ve been made fun of by an idiot like you. What grade did you say he's in? Are you trying to pull one over on me?"

Samson's screams resonated in the tavern Villagers passing by the brewery began to stop at Samson's shouts. He sounded like an ox bellowing for a cow. Shortly afterwards they witnessed Samson come out, his arms handcuffed behind his back. The bulbous-nosed owner of the brewery came running, but upon seeing the man leading Samson, he hid himself in the spectators who had gathered there whispering.

"Look at Samson's trousers."

"He pissed himself. That guy must have really given it to him" "What the hell's going on?"

"It has something to do with Seol Yeong-do."

"Seok-Do? Can the jokes!"

"Like they say, who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? Things get crazier with each passing day. To imagine that Seok-Do is a commie . . . " "No way! There’s got to be a mistake."

"Go say that at the police station."

They all held their tongues. Word that Samson had been taken into custody spread through the village like wildfire. Our dinner table was so meager that we made conversation about Samson's arrest an additional side dish. Mother came into the room bringing the bowls of our late dinner.

Hyeong-Ho had an itch to talk and he spread out a feast before us, a feast of conversation.

"Mom, you know Samson was arrested, right?"

"I heard."

It was not yet time for Hyeong-Ho and me to talk calmly between us about Samson's arrest.

We were able to stay calm because we didn’t know why he had been arrested. But even though I was not implicated, it was not at all good news. To my surprise, however, my brother looked elated as he asked Mother questions. When Mother said she knew the truth, Hyeong-Ho spoke triumphantly.

"Mom, the police station will get smashed up, right?"

"What do you mean, smashed up? You little rascal, what are you talking about now so fearlessly?"

"The detectives will die now, you know."

"Samson was arrested. You could say he's on the brink of dying, but what are you talking about with the detectives?"

"Samson ain't gonna stay calm for long."

"Won't stay calm? It doesn’t matter how strong he is, it's not like he has some special power that’s going to let him smash up a police station."

"Samson's stronger."

"You're silly! I heard that when the detective tackled him, Seok-Do collapsed like a rotten log.

People might say he’s powerful, but he wasn’t a match for a nimble guy like that."

"Still, they're no match for Samson."

"What a know-it-all! If he's so strong, how come he got hauled to the police station?"

"So he can smash it up."

"Pipe down! You're talking as if you'd seen him demolish it."

"Anyway, he's going to smash it up."

"You're a little twerp who’s wet behind the ears! Don't act like you know something when you don’t. Just dig in and eat."

"You always scold me every time I say anything."

"Say something that makes sense and see if I scold you."

"I'll go check out the police station."

"No way. You'll get lost on your first trip there and not even send me a telegram."

Hyeong-Ho never could persuade Mother. She reprimanded him every time he talked. He looked up at me. "Brother, the police station is gonna come crashing down, right? Samson’s not just going to take this lying down, is he?"

I had no answer for him.

"Samson's the strongest man around."

"I don't know."

The room fell silent. After a while Hyeong-Ho flung his spoon on the floor. He sprang to his feet. "I’m not eating."

"My son, the silly little boy! If you’re full, don't eat. We won't have to envy others since now that we have a child who doesn't like to eat, there's enough to go around."

As soon as Hyeong-Ho went out to the veranda and started bawling, Mother sped up eating.

The louder he cried, the faster she spooned rice into her mouth. I couldn’t understand why she was being as cynical with Hyeong-Ho as if he were an adult. He could hardly have had a deep understanding of what was going on. The feelings that made him storm out of the room must have been similar to the sense of betrayal I had felt. I fell asleep exhausted, waiting for him to come in from the dark, but he did not budge until he heard the sound of the rice bowls being cleared away.

Later, I sensed the presence of someone and opened my eyes. From the far side of the room came a murmuring sound. There, to my surprise was Hyeong-Ho sitting and eating in front of

Mother. Every time he held his spoon, Mother gave him a sliver of kimchi. The solicitous look on her face was unfamiliar to me. I lay on my side, pretending to sleep, and peered at my brother's tearstained face in the kerosene lamp. Gray air blotted the window; it must have been deep into the night. Steam was rising from his rice bowl. Mother had obviously boiled it for him in a hurry. She watched with a satisfied look as he shoveled the food into his mouth.

"Chew your food right or you’ll get a tummy ache. Nobody’s gonna take it from you."

Hyeong-Ho rolled the rice around in his mouth and swallowed. "I'm chewing it okay."

"I know you see that we're just getting by. But if you sulk and don't eat, I get anxious. How can I sleep? When I come home after working all day long, I’m worn out and need to lie down, so sometimes what I want to say doesn’t come out right. I was born unlucky and don’t have anyone to talk to when I’m working or to massage my legs when I'm dog tired. And you're just a kid. How can you figure out what's in your mom's heart since it's become as dark as charcoal? Don't give me any heartache from now on."

"Mom . . . are you going to cry again?"

"Cry, why should I cry? I have two sons who are as big and strong as can be. Why should I cry? Eat up. Chew your food."

Mother wiped the film of tears off Hyeong-Ho's cheeks with her calloused hand. I swallowed and turned over with my back to the light. Someday Hyeong-Ho might throw his spoon on the floor and storm out one time too many. Mother wouldn’t have boiled rice and cajoled me to eat, if I’d pulled the same stunt. She drew a clear line, and I didn’t have the same leeway. Playing the baby had become nothing but the reflected image of a memory for me, possible only in my imagination.

But in entering the real world of adults from one where I got to play the baby, I had a cruel and callous encounter. It attacked me from out of the blue.

Two days after Samson was arrested, the teacher summoned me after class was dismissed even though no money had gone missing that day. I’d often been called to the teachers' office, but that day, for the first time ever, I was summoned to the quiet night duty room. I opened the sliding door to find the teacher and a stranger sitting with a table between them. The teacher pointed at me with his chin.

"This is the student."

The stranger observed me with sharp eyes and nodded. The teacher had me sit on the opposite side of the table. He took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He offered one to the stranger, but he shook his head with an expressionless face.

The teacher spoke. "Hyeong-Seok."

"Yes." "Don't be afraid. Make yourself comfortable. Nothing will happen to you."

The teacher's assurance that nothing would happen made me nervous. I felt awkward enough as it was, since this was the first time I sat with the teacher here and the man looked at me sharply and silently. I ran through my head what had happened at school that day but couldn’t come up with

anything to explain why I’d been summoned.

"This gentleman is working for our country, so you don't need to be afraid of him."

I wondered why I didn’t need to be afraid of someone who was working for our country.

"Just answer my questions honestly."

The man had been sitting silently, but he now got to his feet and smoothly slid th door in the back open. Four or five boys near the window fled, scattering like dayflies. The man shouted after them as they ran.

"If you come near one more time, I'll cut your balls off!"

He sat down again, taking care not to wrinkle his trousers. I realized then that the teacher was very agitated. He struck a match and held it to his already lit cigarette. I realized that his saying I didn’t need to be afraid might have been an empty assurance. The man was giving the teacher an unfavorable look as he hesitated before starting in.

"Hyeong-Seok!"

"Yes." "Do you know a man named Jang Seok-Do who works at the brewery?"

"Yes." "You know that he was taken to the police station two days ago, right?"

"Yes." The teacher glanced back and the man nodded.

"Do you know why?"

"I don't know."

"You may not know. You're particularly close with him, aren’t you?"

That was true. I didn’t answer right away, but it wasn’t going too far to say that we were particularly close, given that I regularly begged for rice at the brewery and had gotten him to break the barbershop lock so I could take the watercolor.

"You don't need to be afraid just because he was arrested. Did you sneak into the barbershop with him a while ago?"

"Yes." "And he went to you and asked you to enter with him, didn’t he?"

"No." "No?" "I asked him first."

"You mean you lured a behemoth like him?"

The man who’d been standing beside the teacher interrupted. "Use words the kid understands."

The teacher looked at the man, abashed, and smiled wanly. "That's a littlehard to believe. Jang Seok-Do is an adult, and he wouldn’t have done something so thoughtless, even if you lured him.

Did he brainwash you?"

The man interrupted again. "I said to use words the kid will understand. Why do you keep doing it your own way?"

"Jang Seok-Do must have used you as an excuse to break into the shop. How could you have lured a big, tough guy like that to go in?"

Only then did I remember the watercolor, for I’d forgotten it when the woman teacher disappeared from the school. I hesitated to disclose that I had removed it, because I sensed that something terrible might happen, but I eventually spat out the truth. I had nothing better to say.

"There was something I needed to do at the barbershop."

"Something you needed to do?"

"I needed to take away a picture."

"You needed to take away a picture?"

The teacher repeated what I had said and turned to the man. He raised his hand to restrain the teacher and drew closer to the table.

"Who picked up the picture? Jang Seok-Do or you?"

"I did."

"Did he make you do it?"

"No." "Really? Then who broke the lock?"

"He did."

"So you asked him to break the lock?"

"No, Samson twisted the lock open."

"Who's Samson?"

The teacher answered for me. "That's Jang Seok-Do's nickname."

"He even changed his name. That's an old leftist trick. The bastards change their names wherever they go. That's okay. You asked him to break it?"

"No." "You mean first you suggested going to the barbershop and then Jang Seok-Do broke the lock?"

"Yes." The man turned around and spoke in a low voice. "I shouldn't let this kid off so easy."

"What are you going to do with him?"

"You must have noticed his replies are inconsistent."

The teacher flushed and his expression distorted. "He's just a kid. A mere child can't make heads or tails of anything."

"I know he's a kid, but his talking isn't adding up."

"But that’s how kids can be."

"Do you think the kid is being candid now?"

"Speak in easy words, please, so that he can understand too."

"You're not living up to the promise you made to help us out, are you?"

"We might have different views on method, but there's no reason I can't assist you."

"Do you know that you teachers here are under official observation?"

"Of course."

"Anyway, better to cross-examine Jang Seok-Do than argue with just this kid."

"You can't take this child to the police station. You have kids of your own, too."

"This case is too important to let personal considerations get in the way."

"What we should be doing for our country is raising our children right without hurting them."

"You’re breaking your promise to help me if you insist on that."

"This kid is telling you the truth."

"Do you have any proof?"

"The kid himself is the proof."

"What are you talking about?"

"Does he act like he's nervous?"

"That's not the way to help him. Look how bold he is. The reason he isn’t nervous is because he’s so bold."

"That's a difference of opinion."

"Let's put off that argument. How much do you know about this kid?"

"A lot more than you do, I think."

The man took out a cigarette and had the smoke which he’d initially declined. He then spoke to the teacher.

"I'll try."

Silence hung in the air.

"You took a picture out of the barbershop, right?"

"Yes." "Did you tear it up?"

"I hid it."

"Jang Seok-Do told you to hide it, right?"

"No, I hid it myself."

"Where?"

"In a jar at our house."

"Can you find it if you go home right now?"

"Yes." "Does your mother also know where you hid it?"

"No." "Only Jang Seok-Do knows, right?"

"Samson doesn't know, either."

"You insist that only you know, but Jang Seok-Do already knew too."

The man turned to the displeased teacher with a look of triumph.

"You heard him, right? Now you understand how Jang Seok-Do won this child over to his side. He must have seen that this innocent kid considers morality and his word more important than anything else. The leftists are vicious enough to bring even an innocent child like this over to their side."

The teacher and the man led me home. Our house was empty, as usual. Hyeong-Ho was nowhere to be seen. I was never sorrier not to find him there, because I wanted to show off that I was among adults, and that hope of mine burst. The teacher and the man took the watercolor out of the jar. To my astonishment, however, the picture was now nothing but a blank sheet of paper. It had become so discolored I could scarcely make out what had once been on it. But neither of them had any doubts about the ruined picture. What was important to the man seemed to be that it existed at all, not what it was about.

"The picture's all messed up!" I shouted in surprise.

Looking at the teacher, not me, the man answered. "The picture is worthless, but it's important as evidence."

"The picture is evidence?" The teacher asked dubiously.

"The market is full of this kind of picture."

"What evidence can a blank picture be?"

"A secret message may show up once it's been treated with chemicals."

"Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions?"

"That’s not for you and me to decide. It's a matter to be handled by our superiors. Anyway, something should be done so the kid doesn't regularly get involved in stuff like this. To begin with, I need to have a talk with Park Sun-Nam." The teacher and the man left, leaving me at home. Mother did not come home that day even though the night was far advanced. Hyeong-Ho went to Wolcheon's house, but there was no way to find her. Nobok's mom came and went into our deserted kitchen. After drawing some water and pouring it into the kettle, she hastily prepared supper. Hyeong-Ho ran in and breathlessly asked her where our mother was. Nobok's mom might as well have gone mute. I knew that Mother's disappearance had something to do with what had happened earlier: Park Sun-Nam was my mother's name. And so the uneasy one was me, not my brother, who knew nothing about what was going on. When Hyeong-Ho looked like he would burst into tears, Nobok's mom spoke reluctantly.

"Haeng-O, don't ask so many questions. Your mom went to the county center on an errand for Wolcheon's family. She'll come running back home like her butt was on fire."

"How come she went?"

"It was an urgent errand."

"What errand?"

"How would I know? Something urgent must have come up."

"Like what?"

"His brother's home is in town and something urgent came up."

"Mom didn't say anything to us."

"She just told me, because she was in too much of a hurry to tell you two."

"Will she come home tonight?"

"If she can't come tonight, she'll definitely be home by tomorrow."

Nobok's mom was sweating, not so much from cooking supper as from soothing Hyeong-Ho as he tried to get to the bottom of what was going on. That evening, we just made a gesture of eating the dinner she’d cooked for us. It was the first time I could remember that the two of us had ever left anything over. We pushed our bowls aside and lay down with our ears toward the threshold.

Nobok's mom, making up her mind to stay with us, lay snoring below the wall opposite the door. A long time passed. The ringing of the clocks at Choi's was clearer on that night.

Hyeong-Ho drew closer to me without any rustling and whispered. "Brother! Women snore too?"

Nobok's mom was snoring naturally, like a man. Hyeong-ho had a point. I also found it strange that a woman snored. But that wasn’t the only thing that was strange. It was odd for that to be the first question my brother asked me as we were listening for Mother's steps.

I responded anyway. "A woman ain't supposed to snore?"

"Men snore, but how can a woman snore? If anybody hears, they might think a man's sleeping at our house."

I then realized why Nobok's mom's snoring set his nerves on age. My brother was also reaching an age when he was afraid of rumors and feared the same thing as Mother.

However, I was already becoming a hero in a rumor, purely due to Nam Sun-Ae. The month after I’d walked her to her village our entire classroom was once more in an uproar because she’d lost her tuition fee. But now two children out of sixty knew that she had not lost her money. And just this once the teacher did not summon me to grill me about where the money might be.

I’d grown used to being summoned, so I didn’t fear it. The teacher also might have been tired of me because of what had happened with the stranger. On that day the teacher did not order me to walk Sun-ae to her village. Instead, she was waiting for me outside the school. I hadn’t noticed that she was following me, because she’d hidden behind the wall of a carpenter's shop beside the main gate. I turned around, sensing someone's presence, and found her only four or five steps behind.

When I stopped, she did too.

"You little pain, why'd you do it again?"

Sun-Ae blushed, without answering.

"Did you think you'd fool the teacher again?"

But she was tough and determined. In a barely audible voice, she said, "Do you think I lied to fool him? I already knew he wouldn't be."

"You're crazy to trick him if you knew he wouldn't be fooled."

"I don't care if he was fooled or not."

"Don't you know you'll wind up like the boy who cried wolf?"

"I don't care."

"You pain, the teacher saw right through you. You're nuts if you keep lying."

"Don't pick on me. Do you know why I lied?"

"What, you mean you lied because of me?"

"That's right."

"But why?"

"To go to my village with you."

"With me?"

"That's right, you know."

"What a stinking schemer you are! Do you think I’m your flunky?"

"I never called you a flunky."

"If I ain't, why do you want to take me with you?"

"Who said anything about taking you with me? Last time you went ahead of me. I just followed."

Only then could I vaguely sense what she was thinking. But before I could work it out in more detail, she abruptly and embarrassingly started to cry. Fortunately, at least, she did not bawl, but stifled her tears, in striking contrast to Hyeong-Ho who could cry whenever and wherever necessary.

My brother was a crying machine. He knew how to cover the range from muffled whimpers audible only to those nearby to full-throated sobs that disturbed the neighbors. However, despite his skill, his crying lost value because his intentions were so transparent. Sun-Ae's crying, however, soaked into my mind rather than being something I could keep a distance from. It stirred violent emotions, distressing me, making me sad for no reason.

I used to hear Mother cry the same way. I can't forget how she looked as she stifled her tears in the middle of the night, burying her mouth in the quilt so as not to wake us. Her thin shoulders were visible shuddering in the dim light. But despite her wish not to wake us, Hyeong-Ho and I would eventually awake. We couldn't identify the sorrow that made her cry so, and pretending to sleep, we’d wait until she composed herself and went to bed. After a long time lying there, she'd inevitably fumble in the dark and wipe the edge of our eyes. She knew we’d weep along with her.

Even though we saw into each other's hearts, we thought that we fooled each other.

I waited quietly until Sun-Ae stopped crying. Her hiccups had scarcely stopped when she began to walk, book bundle pressed to her chest. I followed her in spite of myself. We said nothing to each other as we walked down the cliff path and passed the levee and its vegetable garden.

When we reached the bridge, I stopped. The girl threw a glance at me and crossed. I could see my mother in her face as she looked back, her expression very similar to Mother's on the day she came back from the police station, an expression too complicated to fully fathom.

Hyeong-Ho and I did not take a step out of our house while we waited for Mother that

afternoon. Around twilight, as our veranda began to darken, Mother stepped into the yard silently, exhausted.

"Hyeong-Ho!" Mother sounded like she was on the verge of collapse, but did not cry. My brother began to cry instead.

"Mom, where have you been?"

Taking her towel off her head, she wiped Hyeong-Ho's eyes.

"Did you eat?"

"Nobok's mom cooked for us and slept here with us."

"That was very nice of her. Since I had to go without letting you guys know, that one day seemed to me as long as ten. Let's cook supper."

Hyeong-Ho would not let go of her skirt.

"I thought you'd run away."

"Run away? That's not fair. Where would I go? Where'd you get such a horrible idea?"

"Then why’d you go without saying anything?"

"Because it was too urgent to let you know."

"Are you lying?"

"What do you mean, lying?"

"You went to the police station, right?"

"That's nonsense! Why would I go to the police station?"

"I know the whole story, you know."

"Watch what you say! Don't you know words can make things happen?"

"You met Samson there, didn’t you?"

"Samson? Why would I meet Samson?"

"I know everything."

"Oh, you're smarter than a fortuneteller. Let's cook supper first."

I'm sure Mother felt bitterly aggrieved about being taken to the police station. She moaned all night through, at times choking back sobs. Every time she tried to overcome her suffering and stifle her moans, I’d grope for Hyeong-Ho's hand and grab it. He wasn’t the only one who noticed that Mother had been brought in. I’d known immediately and expected to be punished before long, but also knew that I’d have to endure it staunchly. While I nervously waited, I made myself look as intrepid as possible to Mother. I regretted hiding the picture in our house, but it was much too late.

But the anticipated punishment never came. Mother got herself together and, two days later, she got up early and began working again. Even after several days, she didn’t say a word about what had gone on. I had no idea what she’d gone through in custody or even how she’d been released. Only her moans in the night made me guess how difficult it had been. Even Nobok's mom asked Mother to talk about what had happened, but Mother never said a word about the details.

She just smiled awkwardly.

"Why hold anything back between neighbors? Why are you being so tight-lipped?"

The two sat side by side, fueling the fire with dead twigs.

"It's no big deal. How come we gotta talk about it?"

"You got hauled in unfairly and had a rough time. I don't get why you don't talk. I know you got a temper. Don't you want to blow off some steam?"

"Why blow off steam? Was anyone cursing me out?"

"Well, they might not have cursed you, but maybe they smacked you around."

"Smacked me around? Did anybody see me get smacked around?"

"Rumors are flying that you . . . " "A rumor should at least make some sense. How do evil rumors like that get started?"

"What, did they take you in and feed you for free cause you’re pretty?"

"It's not like I went through any suffering."

"You just talk that way because you're afraid they’ll call you on it."

"Words turn into seeds, you know."

Some sorrow or agony lurked very deep, known only to adults and incomprehensible to us children. Only after we perceived the substance of this coiled sorrow visible only to adults, could Hyeong-Ho and I grow up ourselves. But there were all sorts of things we didn’t know. I could not understand why Mother had not punished me or why a pall now hung over our village, which had been full of life. In the midst of all this a piece of good news did arrive, however: Samson was set free. Lee, the bicycle peddler, was raced over to the brewery first to hear from him about his release.

"Had a hard time, didn't you?"

10

Samson was sitting on the threshold, playing gonu by himself. He grinned at Lee to find him out of breath.

"What hard time? I'd hardly call it a hard time."

"Not a hard time? You can dress well and eat well, but if you're away from home, you'll have a hard time."

"Wherever I lay my hat is my home. Only people who are fussy about food insist on their own house."

"Hey, knock it off. You sound like a Buddha. What kind of place is a jail to beg your supper?"

"The jail was built for men to sleep in. It’s not an animal pen."

"You really did gobble down a Buddha at that prison. Don't you have any guts?"

"Of course I do."

"Out of the blue disaster strikes an innocent man and he gets hauled into custody for more than fifteen days. And all you do now that you're released is spout bullshit?"

"There wasn’t any disaster. I got my ears boxed a few times and they gave me water out of a copper kettle. Okay, the water treatment might have been over the top, but I gulped it down like I

was told to. Damn! Those bastards got plenty of water."

"You're cheeky, all right! Do you know whose squealing got you taken in?

"I do."

"Who?" Samson motioned to the watchmaker's with his chin.

"Anyway, are you gonna just wait and see about that bastard? I got worked up but since I wasn't directly involved, I wanted to wait until you were free. He needs to be thrashed within an inch of his life, otherwise he ain't going to be cured of squealing on innocent people."

Samson turned pale and snatched Lee's belt as he was about to dash to the watchmaker's.

"Are you going to jump into the fire with a stack of kindling? If you get on his bad side, you gotta be prepared to stare death in the face."

"Why are you scared? All you have to do is watch. I'll let him have it for you."

"Listen to me. Choi's uncle is Chief of Yecheon County, right?"

"Right! You told me you drank water out of a brass kettle and now you're back. So did you lose your mind or did your soul leave your body?"

"Choi's uncle has got to be Chief of Yecheon County. If he isn’t, I'll eat my hat."

Lee had watched for a chance to get Choi but did not take one step towards the watchmaker's. It suddenly dawned on Lee that since Samson had not been a mere spectator, his assertion might involve facts he was unaware of. Samson had been to the shop just once, but he'd been arrested and only set free after fifteen days, while Choi continued to live at the shop and had never been arrested. That was what startled Lee. He drew a long breath, set a cigarette between his lips, and sat on a corner of the lot.

"These days the more the world keeps spinning, the more it's all mixed up like a kaleidoscope.

But that doesn't mean has to live like a kaleidoscope."

Ten days later, Samson caught up with me. He was waiting for me in front of our house.

Samson must have noticed I’d been avoiding him as I’d taken pains not to pass the lot. The moment we came face to face, I froze but I didn’t read any hostility in his eyes. He pushed forth a lump of rice that he’d been holding behind his back and brought me to the back yard of the brewery.

"They took away the picture, didn’t they?"

"Yes." "What was on it?"

"A waterfall and . . . " "Yeah. I saw it too. There are too many things in this world we can barely understand. A kid like you and a dummy like me can hardly survive. Whoever said the world's fine even if you roll over dog shit was a lying son of a bitch."

I kept silent and Samson continued, "What does 'red elements' mean?"

"I don't know."

"I heard that phrase one hundred times at least, but I couldn't understand what the hell it meant.

Didn't they teach it to you at school?"

"Nope."

"How am I supposed to understand something they don't even teach at school? You asked me to go into the barbershop because you wanted to have a picture and they humiliate people for that . . ."

Samson furtively raised his jacket. Bloody bruises coiled all over his back. He spoke calmly. "I managed ‘cause I was born tough to the bone. They told me to tell the truth, so I told the truth, but then they punched me because they said I wasn't telling the truth. You know, that’s what I couldn't stand, more than getting knocked around. I couldn't turn my head inside out, so I just bawled."

Samson then laughed loudly. That loud laughter that came as he told me he had cried gave me an abrupt premonition of separation.

I didn't know how the premonition might realize itself. Samson was leading a simple bachelor's life and could wrap up his work as the brewery handyman and suddenly leave the village one day.

Maybe not in the usual way, but a more unexpected one. He was so dispirited after being released that Hyeong-Ho and I sensed that the air was thick with separation. Samson did not manage his work at the brewery the way he used to. When rice was being dried, the chickens flocked to it and pecked away happily. Weeds grew thick around the brewery buildings, and odds and ends were scattered here and there. He wouldn’t even hurry to remove the piles of dung deposited by cows that passed drawing carts. Before, the young men gathered for their contests or collected money for drinking bouts almost every day in the brewery lot toward sunset, but all that just stopped.

Also, notably, there was a lull in little troublemakers aiming for the rice. Really, all that had changed was that Samson had become less vigilant. You might think this would have been for the better for the kids, but not so. What they wanted was not just rice but the challenge of breeching Samson's vigilant watch. They gave up once they realized they’d no longer experience the thrill of eluding him and rushing to the straw mat or sprinting away with the fear of him grabbing them round the neck. In our village a lightning strike was considered the biggest happening of the year, but it grew even more boring.

Hyeong-Ho's reverence for Samson had bordered on religious faith, so he waited patiently for Samson to shake off this lethargy. He hoped that Samson would roar toward the evening glow and dominate those games of strength at the lot, having recovered the power of days gone by. But his wait went on and on. Not only had the majority of brats lost interest in Samson, my brother now began to as well. As time continued to pass, bitter sediment began to settle at the bottom of his faith.

Eventually he tired of waiting for Samson to return to form and even started criticizing him.

"Samson is stupid," he would say to me. "Right? He can't hold a rock up in the air anymore, huh?"

What kind of answer did my brother really expect from me? If I’d agreed, he’d surely have attacked me, but if I’d cast doubt on what he said, he’d have argued. Hyeong-Ho was struggling. It was was painful to sense the stench of keen conflict coming from him. But I couldn't to come up with

an answer for him.

Meanwhile, the attention of the village turned elsewhere. While the brewery stagnated in Samson’s absence, Choi's shop grew crowded with customers. It was odd that the young men became indifferent to Samson and gathered around Choi, who was notorious for his shrewdness, but there was no doubt that his shop did better business after the incident. Instead of having mindless tests of strength like lifting a stone, the young men who gathered around Choi towards sunset now played Korean chess or cards. There'd be bursts of uproarious laughter, loud enough to shake our house. Even the arguments were different, coming when onlookers would butt into the chess games, get all worked up and provoke heated bickering.

Choi looked lean and sharp, but his wife was heavy-set. She was well known as a goodnatured woman, and far from disliking the gatherings, brought in some snacks from time to time. The watchmaker's became like a caterer's. Samson never mingled with them and was left alone, even though he was close enough to watch. Choi began to look down his nose on the ruined Samson once more, but Samson never took umbrage. He seemed hardened to the disdain. It was as if he even feared encountering Choi. But he wasn’t the only one being destroyed in mind and body.

Hyeong-Ho was also wasting away. He had a faraway look in his eyes and shook as if suffering from malaria. He did not eat as greedily as before.

Potato Nose, as we called him, the hot-blooded owner of the brewery, was always on the point of rage. He'd abuse people upon opening his mouth. Still, he’d never treated Samson harshly, in part because of his faithfulness on the job and also because even though Samson was no good at math, he never tried to cheat him. But now he suddenly treated Samson contemptuously and began to scold Samson for being so listless. He crossed the line of mere employee discipline and cursed him as a no-good bastard. He mistreated Samson to the point that even we felt humiliated as we observed from a distance. But Samson didn't care. He didn’t get huffy or come up with excuses or even talk back.

"You weren't born, you're a congenital freak that got pissed out! But since you got squeezed out looking like a man, pretend to act like one. You're in for a major surprise if you think I'm paying you with cash that fell from the sky. Damn it! Do you think I make money by pimping my wife? If you're gonna work that way, quit now!"

Samson looked down at his feet without a peep in his own defense.

"Even a dog or pig would understand if it were made that obvious to it…After a few trips to the police station, you ain't scared of anything, are you, you bastard? Why are you glaring at me like you want to eat me? Huh? Why are you giving me dirty looks?"

So far as we knew, Samson had never given Potato Nose any dirty looks. It was just an insult he'd cooked up in his anger. It enraged him to deal with Samson who had no response whatever, so he deliberately went overboard to satisfy his own rage.

"I have no idea what idiot made you, but one look at you makes it clear enough what kind of man your dad was."

Samson had meekly put up with Potato Nose's abuse till then, but now he jerked his head up.

"Jang Gi-Baek."

"What? Jang Gi-Baek? What are you talking about?"

"Gi means 'foundation' and Baek means 'white'."

"What are you talking about?"

"My father."

"All right. Your father's Jang Gi-Baek. That's just great!"

"I might be a good-for-nothing, but don't lump my father in with me."

"Well now, you've got real backbone. Bastard! If you've got backbone, you’ll know that you'll get treated like a man when you act like one. Your father deserves to be cursed for producing a dimwit like you."

And that last remark triggered it all.

"You’re the dimwit. I’ve been keeping quiet out of respect because you’re older, but there ain't nothing you won't say, you scoundrel!"

Brazen insults like that should have come from Potato Nose, but they were Samson's. The spectators were stunned. So was Potato Nose. He stood frozen, at a sudden loss for words. Hardly believing his ears, he asked again, "What did you just say?"

"I said you're a stupid animal. Why?" "A stupid animal?"

"That's right. Your feelings hurt?"

"You must have gone insane, bastard." Potato Nose spoke through grinding teeth.

He tried to slap Samson, but Samson snatched his hand and yanked his arm tightly to the back of his neck. Using the arm as leverage, Samson stepped into Potato Nose's gut and hoisted him onto his back. His voice cracked with his piercing cry. The young men poured out from Choi's shop.

Hyeong-Ho and I were just as startled. My brother's hand trembled on my arm. I hugged his shoulders tight.

The young men ran to the lot and stopped short when they saw what was going on. Of course, they knew that if two people come to blows, they should pull them apart even before finding out what the fight was about. However, the situation was so extraordinary, they could not figure out what to do.

Samson circled the lot with Potato Nose on his back. He walked around it gingerly, like a Buddhist circumambulating a pagoda, so that in itself was no cause for disgrace. He almost seemed pious. He walked rhythmically with careful steps as if bearing a precious load and muttered to himself like he was chanting a Buddhist incantation but so softly that we could not understand a word from where we stood. Samson was not in pain, but his changing expressions made his feelings apparent. But another reason the young men only stood there watching the strange game was that except for his short yelp Potato Nose did not ask for help. They watched in suspense as he was toted around the lot. How many rounds had he already made by that point?

Samson changed course, winding up at a narrow alley where there was a pitch-black cesspool.

We hadn’t noticed what Samson was aiming at, because his movements were natural, but when he reached the cesspool, he flung the man he’d been carrying into the center of it like he was tossing a stone. The onlookers let out a communal howl of defeat, as Potato Nose landed on his rear.

Looking like a pig in a sty, he crept to the edge, and the crowd surged toward him. The villagers had always treated the brewery owner well. Now for the first time they were seeing him disgraced.

But what happened next was more remarkable. Potato Nose should have been gnashing his teeth, but he just crept out with the help of the crowd and kept silent. The spectators wondered why a hothead would accept such a shameful insult from someone of Samson’s status lying down. They were unanimous that Samson should be taught a lesson. The lone dissenter, surprisingly, was the victim. Only Samson and Potato Head really knew the reason why.

People talked about the incident for a long time to come, but could not figure it out. Until then Samson had served his boss as faithfully as Hyeong-Ho had served Samson. It was an utter mystery. But my theory was that the foundation for it all was my earlier premonition that Samson would leave the village.

Three days later, early in the evening, Samson called at our house. He walked up as quietly as a shadow and sat on the veranda. Hyeong-Ho saw him first and in a quivering voice told Mother he'd come. Mother came slowly out of the kitchen to our main room and asked Samson to enter, but he knew that she was just being polite. No man outside the family had ever come into the room, including teachers who came to visit. Mother was more fastidious than necessary about such things, and even if it was just to be polite, Samson was the first man she’d ever asked to enter. When he declined, Mother opened the door. Hyeong-Ho, elated, shifted his attention back and forth between the two. Only my brother's eyes sparkled in the growing dusk. He was exuberant over Samson's visit and desperate to know what would occur between him and Mother.

Hyeong-Ho had been in high spirits since seeing Samson toss Potato Nose into the cesspool, because the incident confirmed for him that Samson had recovered his enormous strength. Samson gazed at my brother's beaming, opened his mouth, and stared off into space.

"I thought I had to say good-bye before I left."

Mother was not surprised by his words. She must have foreseen it just as I had. She answered sympathetically.

"I can understand why you feel the way you do."

"I don't care about anybody else, but I thought I had to say goodbye to you all."

"Have you got a place to go?"

"A place to go? From now on, I won't be staying long anywhere even if I do find someplace good. It took a long time to make my decision."

"You're single, so at least you can scratch out a living. But it won't be easy being a wanderer."

"True enough, but if I'm on my own, at least I’ll be able to find a place to lay my head anywhere. I feel ashamed of what happened the other day. There was no reason for them to hit you

when you were taken in. I'm coarse and ignorant of the world . . ."

"If you talk like that, it makes me feel ashamed too. You suffered because of my boy's thoughtlessness. How can I look you in the eye, when you talk like that?"

"I'm not here to figure out what’s right and wrong. I'm not worthy of my strength. I'm all brawn and no brains. I don’t know anything."

"It’s none of my business, but did you get the money coming to you when you quit?"

"No, I let it go."

"What do you mean, 'let it go'?"

"I talked it over with the boss."

"Talked it over? If it's money that’s owed you, as long as the math's right, that's all there is to it.

What's there to talk over?"

Samson did not reply immediately. He rubbed his mouth with his sleeve and lowered his voice so no one would overhear.

"I gave the boss a nice refreshing dip instead."

"So I heard."

"I reckon that payback is worth my annual salary."

"What? You're giving up the money owed you for letting him have it once?"

"If you put it that way . . . Yeah. I suggested it first."

"It's not like a kid's game of hide-and-seek. What a weird way for adults to talk."

"That's nothing! Even if I receive that puny amount, there wouldn't be a trace of it left. It's like farting in the wind. But I'll remember throwing him into the cesspool for the rest of my life. I'll still be able laugh about it if I get treated badly somewhere else."

"For one good laugh, you're throwing away money you broke your back to earn?"

"One good laugh? If my hunch is right, I'll be laughing about it plenty."

"And the boss just agreed?"

"No." "So you just tossed it all away?"

"Yes. I gave up on it. Like I said, I suggested it. At first he said no, but later he didn’t give an answer either way. Well then . . .Good-bye."

"Hold on! Eat before you leave."

"No, I already took care of dinner with a couple of bowls of makgeolli."

After Samson left our house, no one ever saw him again. No one saw him waiting at the bus stop with a knapsack. No one saw him from behind, in the distance, leaving the village. It was as if he’d vanished into the early morning fog.

The news that Samson had disappeared without a trace spread like lightning. Many villagers took a break from work and spent almost the whole day talking about it. Was Samson so important to our village? On the surface at least it hadn't seemed that way. In our village we had some influential men with high connections and others who'd won wide admiration for their character as far

as neighboring villages. As a matter of fact, Samson's existence was insignificant. He was illiterate and usually treated as a blockhead. But wherever people gathered throughout the village they wore an expression of failure about this insignificant topic. His good-for-nothing existence seemed summed up in his dozing on the threshold of the brewery.

But he left behind a gaping emptiness when he departed. And since the villagers were convinced he’d never return, that void grew even larger. I wondered if they had lost Samson or if Samson had turned his back on the them. No one came up with a clear answer. They’d believed that Samson would always be seated in front of the brewery like an inanimate object, like the rocks that lined the path to Gwangdeok. However, his sudden disappearance made the villagers realize that the petrified Samson could move. An enormous hole loomed before them, as if a boulder had been removed.

Strangely, Choi was disappointed once Samson disappeared. The day the news came he sat on the doorsill, chin in his hands, all day long with a faraway look in his eyes. Later, he would restlessly—feverishly—press customers about Samson's whereabouts. But nobody knew a thing.

Conjectures conflicted with one another. Samson only said farewell to Mother, and she had no idea where he’d gone. When it became clear that Samson had left, four or five young men gathered at the watchmaker's at sunset but did not play chess or cards as before. They looked frustrated, spoke little, and sat watching each other with folded arms.

Abruptly one said, "We wouldn’t be this disappointed even if a county chief had left."

"This is a nowhere mountain village. If a chief gets transferred, it's a promotion. I’m worried if Seok-do can survive in a strange, coldhearted place."

"He's a widower. Do you think he'll go hungry if he has to put up with a lot of crap?"

"Don't talk about what you don't know. He’s a half-wit who can’t even count. Why are you saying that?"

"Half-wit? You're the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. Seok-Do isn't a half-wit, we are. If a half-wit can make up his mind to wander off, what are we? We just plopped down where we were born. We'd be afraid of starving to death thirty ri from home."

"Seok-Do didn't leave because he was brave but because he was impatient."

"You don't have a clue what you're talking about. Are we plunked down here because we’re so patient? We all know he didn't leave because he had something on his conscience. You're spewing nonsense. Do you know why he left? He went off in search of an honest man, you know."

"You're talking through your hat."

Unlike the discouraged adults, Hyeong-Ho did not give up hope. He alone believed that Samson would return. My brother maintained complete faith in him, just as one maintains faith in the existence of an invisible God. He never got despondent after Samson left. One month passed. Then a year went by. As the grown-ups had surmised, Samson did not return. We never heard any rumors about where he was living. Nevertheless, Hyeong-Ho never got discouraged, and Mother never doused his faith. On the contrary. She’d offer simple agreement.

Even ten years later when Samson came up in conversation, my brother spoke with an unflappable expression. "This is his hometown. He'll come. He must be an old man by now, but, brother, you know he isn’t the sort to betray us. I can't understand why people think he'll never return. Put the chances at fifty-fifty. It's ridiculous to insist he won’t come back. Do you know why they do? To put it bluntly, they’re afraid he’ll come back. They're afraid that a half-wit could survive in a strange, cold place. All the villagers ganged up and ostracized him, but for all that, they’ve always pretended that they protected him graciously. They’re afraid their lie will come out. They associated with him for the fun of teasing him, but he’ll come back. As long as he hasn’t died on the road, he'll come back."

Mother listened quietly and then spoke. "Hyeong-Ho is one hundred percent right. He even stopped by here once after he left."

Hyeong-Ho and I could hardly believe our ears. Samson had disappeared and never come back. Even Hyeong-Ho believed it. But Mother had just presented a stunning revelation, and I wasn’t sure how we should interpret the way she trailed off delicately.

"Mother, is what you just said true?"

"Why would I eat expensive food and then use cheap words?"

"What do you mean he stopped by? It can't be true. Not even his shadow ever stopped by."

"If you say so . . ."

"If I say so? When did he come?"

"About three years after the time he came here to say good-bye."

"That can't be . . ."

"There's no way I'm going to believe that. Let's say Jang Seok-Do did show up. How is it he came and vanished again with nobody the wiser? He wasn't some criminal on the run. The misunderstanding about him being a leftist got cleared up."

For a long time Mother did not respond to Hyeong-Ho's aggressive questioning. She spoke, holding out the needle and thread in her hands. "Thread this for me. These days I don't see so good."

Hyeong-Ho pressed Mother because she was beating around the bush. "Don't you see what I'm concerned about? How is it that he came back and nobody saw a thing?"

Mother took the needle and thread back. "Do you think only criminals live hidden away?"

My brother and I clammed up. The more we talked back, the weightier her pauses became.

We weren’t likely to get a handle on what she was really getting at. Mother stuck the needle and thread into a band of the bedding.

"It was the middle of the night. Both of you were fast asleep, and I’d fallen asleep with you but I heard footsteps outside the gate. Even now I think it's strange only I heard those quiet steps.

And even stranger, as soon as I heard them, I had the feeling they were his, you know. I crept to the window fast and looked out through a crack. There, in the dark, approaching our house was none other than Seok-Do. He was all skin and bones. I opened the door and went out in spite of

myself, like I was possessed. I sat down on the veranda and Seok-Do walked up to it and said in a low voice that he was passing through, so he'd dropped by to say hello. That’s all he said. Then he just stood there. But I was guessing he hadn’t stopped by just to say hello. I couldn't ask where he'd come from, but that night he was heading right to our place for sure. I caught a whiff of dust from his shabby clothes and immediately guessed what was in his heart. But even though I knew why he had come, what could I do? What could I say?

But how could I give the cold shoulder to someone who had stopped by in the night? I just accepted it as my fate as a woman without a husband and went to the kitchen. I boiled rice and set the dinner table on the kitchen floor for his meal. He'd been standing outside the kitchen door with his mouth shut and then he squatted on the floor. He ate everything—didn’t leave a side dish. It must have been when roosters were ready to crow, at least. For the first time I saw a grown man eat a meal crying. Tears were running down his cheeks. And then he went to the yard and bowed deeply to me. But I couldn't ask where he was living and he never said a damn thing except those first words of greeting. He’s the only man who wasn't in our family that I ever called into our house and treated to a meal, even if it was on the kitchen floor. After he bowed, he vanished back into the dark. I've never heard anything from him since."

Mother hadn’t sewn a single stitch. She set down her needlework and quickly went out.

Hyeong-Ho and I noticed that her eyes had gotten red. Mother must have sensed Jang Seok-Do's affection for her when he came to her looking so shabby. But a gulf separated them. Mother had made up her mind to focus her attention on bringing us up, so he couldn’t have moved her, no matter how warm his feelings for her might have been. On the contrary. Samson's attitude might have terrified Mother into thinking she’d be entrapped and misunderstood by others. Even though she was not in jeopardy of being frowned on as cut from the same mold as he was, Samson was not going to move her.

Ever since Father deserted Mother, she'd cursed men. She knew several tales in which a woman tracked a man who’d betrayed her to the ends of the earth and wreak her revenge. The man would wind up ruined and horribly shamed. In Mother's versions, these stories would be refashioned so that the man wound up killing himself in some gruesome way or becoming a leper. Sometimes Mother would tell us these tales and rain down lengthy curses on the male characters, not fully satisfied with their miserable ends.

Mother was on the verge of tears while she spoke about Jang Seok-Do. As Hyeong-Ho and I looked at her reddening eyes, sorrow burrowed into our hearts. Perhaps it was a piece of the resentment of a woman who’d endured a miserable life and exhausted her strength bringing up her children. Or maybe the stagnant pools of her barren, pitiful life of sacrifice. Only then did HyeongHo and I discover the remorse hidden in her heart. But there was nothing we could do at that point.

It meant a farewell, plain and simple. When Hyeong-Ho and I were kids, we experienced what we could never bring back as a farewell. There were many people who never came back once they left us: Jang Seok-Do who we called Samson; Seol Yeong-do who we called the Owner of the

Mirrors; Choi Yeong-Sun, a female teacher whose letter was lost; and Nam Sun-Ae, a poor girl who expressed her first love to me. None of them ever reappeared once they bid farewell. But what made Hyeong-Ho and I saddest of all was our parting from Ok-Hwa. In early winter of the year I entered fifth grade and my brother entered second, Ok-Hwa departed for good. One day on my way from school I found Hyeong-Ho shivering at the main gate of the inn. It was firmly closed. When I came up to him, he pulled me close without a word. We looked into the yard through a crack, but there were no signs of life. All that was to be seen was a haggard, young magnolia, its leaves fallen. But we could hear Ok-Hwa's mother's stifled sobs as she circled the yard and, amidst those sobs, her father’s angry shouts chiding his moaning wife. His shouts sounded as sorrowful to us as her moaning.

"Didn't you know she wouldn't live that long? How many times did I tell you to be ready for something to happen? She did well to live as long as she did. Stop your nonsense."

The moaning stopped when she told her husband off for his anger, but after a while, crying once again leaked out from the desolate yard. Her heartrending moaning gnawed on the old collars of our coats for a long time together with the miserable wind of early winter.

"Brother, is Ok-Hwa dead?" Hyeong-Ho's eyes were wet with tears.

"Yeah."

To my one-word reply, he asked again urgently. "How did she die?"

"How do I know?"

"Are they saying something she ate didn't settle right?"

Hyeong-Ho must have been thinking of the rice cakes she used to hold. Several times we’d seen her swallow a piece the wrong way, have a coughing fit and hack it up. You should drink water if you’re choking, but Ok-Hwa wasn't able to ask for it so she threw up habitually. She’d vomit the food that hadn’t made it down to her stomach. Witnessing Ok-Hwa’s wracking pains as she brought the food back up, I’d had a vague foreboding of her death.

"That woman had no regrets about feeding her kid nothing but rice cake so she'd become a ghost. Someday she's gonna get it for making her die early." Whenever Mother heard how Ok-Hwa vomited, she’d run through a list of cruel slanders. Even if a piece of metal went down our throats, it would make its way out the other end, so Ok-Hwa's vomiting was strange to us. That alone made her peculiar. However, Ok-Hwa's father's yelling made us realize that she'd had a disease. Just as Ok-Hwa vomited what she ate, so her mother vomited moans for a long time. We then sensed people behind us.

"Scram. You members of the funeral party or something?"

We stepped back in surprise at the blunt reprimands that accosted us. Two young men wearing A-frame carriers carefully shook the gate. Eventually Ok-Hwa's father, who hardly ever came out to the street, unbolted the gate. The young men bowed deeply and went into the house ahead of him without a word. Ok-Hwa's mother's stifled moans grew louder.

"Ok-Hwa’s going to go to the mountain, isn’t she?"

I nodded. Some other kids, realizing that we were on to something significant, pretended to watch what was happening through the cracks in the gate and then scattered into the evening glow. It was time for the short winter day to end and darken and for those desolate signs that tempt children to return home, but Hyeong-Ho and I remained. We did not expect anything to happen and were just loitering in front when the young men came back to the main gate. One shouldered an A-frame with Ok-Hwa's body, wrapped in baby's bedding. On the other's was a bundle of Ok-hwa's clothes. They came out and proceeded quickly into an alley behind the brewery. Ok-Hwa's mother followed, waddling like a duck. As soon as she disappeared around the corner, Hyeong-Ho caught me by the sleeve.

"Let's follow them."

"Go home. This ain’t for kids."

Before I had a chance to respond, Ok-hwa’s father interrupted. He was bidding his last farewell at the main gate. We glanced at him. He had deep-set eyes and a thin beard. Soon he turned around and bolted the gate shut. We saw the back of his grizzled head through the cracks as he walked back across the yard. However, Hyeong-Ho's attachment continued to linger.

"Brother, aren’t we gonna follow?"

I watched the evening glow as it spread over the mountain ridge.

"Even if you follow them, what are you gonna do?"

"What do you mean? I'm just saying let's follow them."

"There’s no point."

"Don't you want to see Ok-Hwa being buried?"

"If you follow them to the children's graveyard, you'll get lost. Can't you see it's already getting dark?"

"They're gonna bury Ok-Hwa in the children's graveyard?"

"When a kid dies, they bury him in the children's graveyard."

"Ok-Hwa must be sad."

"She's dead. Of course she’s sad."

"She must've cried a lot."

"She cried at anything, so of course she cried when she was dying. She must've cried for days."

"Did you see her cry?"

"Didn't you see her mom crying? If her mom cried that much, Ok-Hwa must have cried tons."

Several months later it occurred to me that my crybaby brother had stopped his weeping. Even after Ok-Hwa's death, hunger conspired with our thin bodies to make us shake and we still had to put up with Mother's undeserved sniping and harsh whipping. But Hyeong-Ho hardly ever burst into tears. I wondered if he held himself back because tears reminded him of the omens that foretold Ok-Hwa's death.

But I lost the chance to understand why my brother had changed since I realized it too late.

Maybe my observation that the change had to do with Ok-Hwa's death was too abstract to be true.

Moreover, the conclusion that Hyeong-Ho’s misfortunes were connected with Ok-Hwa's death was childish. Many people have childhood memories about death. Memories are displaced by newer, more shocking experiences, and lose their value, just as falling leaves carpet others and those below rot and become soil. One day I realized that even if fragments of our childhood come to us vividly, they’d soon be forgotten and not exercise a decisive influence over our destinies, and so the image of death my brother felt most strongly might not have been Ok-Hwa's, but her father who saw the body off at the main gate. I had felt something ghastly in him as he maintained an expressionless face after losing his own flesh and blood.

Hyeong-Ho must have been the same. He'd shown intense curiosity about Ok-Hwa's death but seemed to have forgotten it and inquisitively asked me about her father, although I knew nothing about him. Even Mother knew nothing. She just criticized him for being able-bodied and shamelessly idling away his days playing cards, dependent upon his wife's income. There was little wonder we knew nothing about him. It had been fewer than three years since he had settled in our village and he had been a homebody ever since.

No one knew he was restricted in his movements, because he'd been placed on a blacklist.

Conjecture about him often made its way around the village, but it was all equally groundless.

Notes [←1] Tradition Korean hypocaust heating system.

[←2] A traditional game involving piece of stiff paper folded into a square. A player has to turn over an opponent's ttakji with his own in order to capture it.

[←3] Traditional Korean clothes.

[←4] Mocking someone for doing something completely out of character

[←5] Means "uncle" in Korean

[←6] "Samson" in Korean indicates a hand with three fingers.

[←7] Samson is running through various consonantal combinations of the Korean alphabet.

[←8] The spirit who governs childbirth, according to Korean folklore.

[←9] The pronunciation of the name of "Seok-Do" is similar to "Seok-Du" meaning a stone head in Korean.

[←10] A simple game played on a piece of paper or on the ground with pebbles, twigs and blades of grass as markers.