Black Flower (31 page)

Bak Jeonghun ordered his food and offered her some. She looked back toward the owner. The fat owner nodded. Bak Jeonghun ordered far too much food for two people to eat so that she could sit as long as possible. Yeonsu realized that this man was quiet and prudent, and she was drawn to him. No, that’s not it, she thought. I am just happy to see a Korean after so long. She got up and went to the kitchen. Bak Jeonghun sat alone and snacked on pieces of duck as he emptied a bottle of Chinese millet liquor. And for the first time in his life, he decided to speak up. He pretended to make his way to the bathroom and stood in Yeonsu’s path as she came out of the kitchen. It was a narrow hallway. “Are you being confined here?” Yeonsu nodded. Not long away from the henequen hacienda, Bak Jeonghun grasped the whole situation in an instant. He spoke. “Since I lost my wife to illness, I have never given thought to another woman. But seeing you makes me think that all my resolution was for nothing. I want to live with you. I have become quite a skilled barber, so I can earn enough to feed you.”

She was torn between the young man whom she loved so much, but for whom there was almost no chance of returning, and the gentle retired soldier who stood across from her. The Chinese owner was beside her before she knew it. He could not understand Korean, but with his merchant’s intuition he immediately understood. He grabbed Yeonsu’s arm and dragged her back to the kitchen.

T
HE
Y
UCATÁN GOVERNOR,
Salvador Alvarado, who had supported President Carranza and General Obregón, received information that the armies of Villa and Zapata were attempting to seize the henequen fields, to appropriate them for military expenses. In a place where various forms of currency were circulated indiscriminately, henequen was truly green gold. All Villa’s and Zapata’s men had to do was get the crop to the port of Progreso and American importers would pay them in cash. The governor did not hesitate to order the henequen fields near Mérida and Progreso to be burned, including Ignacio Velásquez’s Buena Vista hacienda. Government troops came and doused its fields in kerosene and set them on fire. The fire caught the west wind and spread through the whole hacienda. With this, the first of the shaman’s prophecies came to pass: “When the wind blows from the west, the sun will be hidden even at midday.” Just as the prophecy said, the black smoke that rose from the henequen fields darkened the land, turning the sun red. Hundreds of henequen fields were reduced to black ash, and the laborers became jobless.

The American hacendados and henequen importers, who had lost their haciendas and all their property, petitioned Washington to intervene in the Mexican Revolution. An American fleet was dispatched near Veracruz.

O
NE MONTH LATER
, Bak Jeonghun received a few months’ pay in advance from José the barber. Then he walked into Yeonsu’s Chinese restaurant and negotiated with the owner. The owner took one look at Bak Jeonghun’s face and knew that he was determined. Not only that, he sensed that things would go terribly wrong if he ignored him. He was a Chinese merchant who lived and died by material gain. Bak Jeonghun handed him 150 pesos and took Yeonsu. “I don’t believe it,” she said, on the verge of tears. “What might have happened to me if you hadn’t come?”

With that, a new life began for Yi Yeonsu. She moved her belongings to the barbershop. José played the guitar to celebrate their new start. It was passionate music that would loosen up even the stiffest person. The shop regulars flooded in, drinking and singing and dancing. Yeonsu was intoxicated for the first time in her life and threw herself into Bak Jeonghun’s arms.

It is only natural that things that are not used for a long time should atrophy. Bak Jeonghun’s body was duller than his spirit; it did not react at all to the flesh of a woman. So their first night together was uneventful, and Bak Jeonghun was upset. But Yeonsu did not blame him. She thought that perhaps it was better that way. Her own body was not exactly unresponsive, but her feelings were not yet urgent. “It’s all right,” Yeonsu consoled him as she held him close. “It’s probably because of the alcohol,” he said. The former ace marksman drank some strong liquor and fell asleep.

All in all, they lived happily. Yeonsu’s life before that had been so horrible that she found joy in ordinary things. She delighted in the freedom to go about as she pleased, as when she went on evening walks with Bak Jeonghun. Yet there was still a problem that Yeonsu needed to resolve. She waited and waited, until one day she opened her mouth. “Do you think we could go get my child?”

“Ah, that’s right, you said you had a child, didn’t you? Then we must get him. But we’ll have to pay to take him with us.” Yeonsu bit her lip. “Don’t worry,” Bak Jeonghun said. “I’ll get paid two months from now. Then we’ll go to Mérida.”

Not long after that, a man in a military uniform entered the barbershop and plopped himself down in an empty chair. His subordinates hurried in behind him. The man had a stylish black mustache and said that he wanted a shave and haircut. Bak Jeonghun tied the cloth around his neck, picked up his scissors, and began to cut the man’s hair. When he had finished trimming his hair and shaving him, Bak Jeonghun politely bowed his head. His customer smiled when he looked in the mirror. He said that he was very pleased with the haircut. One of his men paid the bill. After the soldiers left, José approached Bak Jeonghun with wide eyes. “That was General Obregón, President Carranza’s right hand. He may have retreated here to Veracruz, but you wait and see. He will return to Mexico City soon. A thief like Pancho Villa cannot defeat Obregón.”

From that time on, Bak Jeonghun was Obregón’s personal barber. The general showered him with money printed by the Carranza administration. Each of the revolutionary armies issued their own currency, and each faction prohibited the use of pesos issued by others in the areas they controlled, so people were not able to buy goods even if they stuffed their pockets with various types of currency. A murderous inflation ensued. Yet Bak Jeonghun diligently saved Obregón’s money. Eventually he went to the Chinese restaurant where Yeonsu had been confined and exchanged the bills for the 150 pesos he had paid for her. The restaurant owner did not resist Obregón’s barber. He even tried to refuse the money, saying that he did not need to give him the currency from Obregón’s camp. But Bak Jeonghun threw Obregón’s pesos in the owner’s face and returned to the barbershop.

One day, when Bak Jeonghun was passing a firing range, Obregón asked him, “Didn’t you say that you were once a soldier?” When Bak Jeonghun said that he was, Obregón promptly took an American rifle from a soldier standing nearby and tossed it to him. “Shoot for me.” Bak Jeonghun declined, saying that it had been a long time since he had fired a gun, but Obregón persisted. Bak Jeonghun shot ten rounds from the prone position and hit the target one hundred meters away with eight rounds. He was given ten more rounds at Obregón’s command, and he fired all ten into the center of the target. Obregón helped him up. “You don’t have to worry about being a barber anymore.” Obregón was fond of this taciturn Asian. He had always maintained friendly relations with the native peoples, such as the Yaqui Indians, so the barber’s nationality was of no concern to him. Furthermore, the man had no interests in Mexico, so there was little worry that he would betray him, and he could not understand complicated conversations in Spanish. Bak Jeonghun said to Obregón, “I have a young wife, so it will be difficult for me to go to battle.” Obregón smiled as he spoke. “It won’t take long. Villa and Zapata are both amateurs at war. They may be laughing in Mexico City now, but they won’t last. You will soon be able to return and go eat Chinese food with your young wife.”

C
HOE
S
EONGIL AND
Ignacio Velásquez knelt at the entrance of the cathedral in Mérida, dipped their fingers in holy water, and crossed themselves. Inside the cathedral were Jesuit priests, students, and those of like mind to Ignacio. With their weapons in hand, their expressions were so grim as to be comic. The bishop of Mérida blessed them, calling them crusaders who fought against atheists. The Mass was performed hastily, as if they were pressed for time. “Amen, amen, amen.” A nervous tension blanketed the cathedral. As soon as the bishop who had officiated the Mass said, “Go and spread the Gospel,” he retreated to the vestry and fled through the rear door.

Some of those in the sanctuary kept watch through the loopholes in the wall on what was going on outside, and when they grew fatigued from the tension and yawned, torches began to appear one by one from afar. As the torches passed by city hall and the park, they suddenly increased in number and speed. “They’re coming!” The sound of shouting in the cathedral echoed like the hymns of a choir. The cathedral was as noisy as a market, with the sound of guns being loaded and pews being piled into barricades. Choe Seongil went up to the belfry and looked down. The square in front of the cathedral was a sea of torches. Gunfire could already be heard. “Punish the landowners! Seize the Church’s property!” The torches flooded in with the shouting of slogans. Ignacio Velásquez’s gun spit fire. The fortress-like cathedral, built on the former site of a Mayan shrine, did not fall easily.

It was then that Choe Seongil realized that those like Ignacio were the minority. He had lived only on Buena Vista hacienda, so he had thought that most Mexicans were secretly fanatics like the hacendado. But that was not the case. They were put on the defensive.

Choe Seongil came down from the belfry and saw the cross above the altar. Jesus barely managed to hold up his body as he hung there, his face twisted in agony. Ignacio was cooling down the heated barrel of his long rifle with a wet towel as he fired. Having fought through all sorts of hardships, Choe Seongil had a foreboding that neither guns nor anything else would be able to stop those rushing torches. He went down to the crypt. Light and air came in through a slanting hole where the ceiling met the wall. He shoved his body into the vent, which was barely large enough for a person to fit through. When he had wriggled all the way through like a maggot, he came face to face with a steel grate. He shook it, but it did not open. Gunfire still rang outside. He only barely managed to crawl back down the way he had come.

The cries outside the cathedral gradually grew louder. He returned to the sanctuary. Ignacio was praying behind a fortification of sandbags. Choe Seongil sat down next to him. His mind was a flurry of thoughts. When they had entered the church, he had not imagined that the situation might turn so grave. They were completely surrounded by the mob. There was nowhere to run. The thief from Jemulpo grabbed a gun. Then he looked down at Ignacio. He had never been able to understand his God, but it was his God that had driven off the old man that had sat on his shoulders. Though Choe Seongil did not believe in God, he did believe in miracles, like the way his epilepsy attacks had disappeared when he’d met Ignacio. That blasted old man, who had appeared suddenly, choked him, mumbled nonsensical words, and brought him to strange places, had tucked his tail between his legs at a few drops of holy water from the fat Ignacio and that mangy priest.

Choe Seongil looked down again at the sea of torches surging outside the cathedral. There was no way out. He grasped the butt of his rifle. He pointed it at those who were thronging in to destroy the happiest time of his life and he pulled the trigger. In that moment he was an overseer in a leather vest and a soldier of the Lord and the adopted son of a fanatical hacendado. Ignacio and Jesus, not that mob, had given him his whip, his boots, and his sombrero. Ignacio finished his prayer, approached Choe Seongil, and gave him a bandolier. “Those cowards, if they take just a few rounds, they’ll run off screaming for the Blessed Mother and for Jesus. Don’t worry. If they break through the cathedral door, just keep shooting.”

Choe Seongil prayed in earnest for the first time. “Jesus, in truth I do not know you. But this has happened because of you, so please help me.”

Boom! “Raaaaah!” A log that played the part of a battering ram shattered the front door of the cathedral and hundreds of people poured in like water through a ruptured dam. The landowner crusaders pulled their triggers as one. But those in the rear knew nothing of the carnage taking place in front and continued to push forward. No matter how many they shot down, it was no use. Like David’s
Sabine Women,
the crowds climbed over the bodies and stormed into the church. The only difference was that there were no bare-breasted women. The brown-skinned crusaders retreated to the higher ground of the altar and choir and fired their guns. But the attacking crowd was much faster.

The looting began as soon as the barricade fell. The people carried out sacred relics and treasures, candlesticks and vestments. The riflemen who had defended the cathedral were being dragged out. The mob struck them on the head with clubs. Choe Seongil’s gun felled three more of them, but it was meaningless. He threw away his gun and fled toward the belfry. But the mob had already climbed up ladders and was entering the belfry through the top. They struck Choe Seongil in the chest as he ran up the spiral stairs, and he tumbled back down. He immediately lost consciousness.

Time passed. That acute pain and illusion that he had forgotten so long ago returned to him. The shapeless darkness spoke: “I am the one who died in your stead.” Choe Seongil waved his hands and shouted, “No! Who dies in someone else’s stead? Who on earth are you? Who are you?” The shape choked Choe Seongil. “I am the Jesus of those you killed.” Choe Seongil struggled. “What is my sin? I killed them because they deserved to die. And you choked me on the
Ilford,
before I killed them. Ah, please take your hand away! I cannot breathe!” The shape said, “My time and your time are different. There is no before or after for sin. Your sin is not acknowledging your sin.”

He opened his eyes and found himself in the square. His shoulder joints hurt so badly it felt as if his arms were being torn out. The tops of his feet burned as if someone were searing them with a hot iron. He looked around. It was amazing. He was floating in the air. Am I already dead? But he was not. People were gazing up at him from below. He looked to his side and saw Ignacio Velásquez lying on the ground, tied to a cross. A bald man smiled and drove a nail into Ignacio’s palm. Only then did Choe Seongil realize why his shoulder joints hurt so much. He was hanging on a cross with his arms spread out. Gravity kept pulling his body downward. The blood that flowed from his palms soaked his armpits. His feet, which were pierced by a large nail, hurt so badly it felt as if millipedes were gnawing their way into them. Choe Seongil shouted urgently, “Look here! I do not believe in Jesus and I am not even Mexican! I am a Korean! I am a bystander! Save me, please!” A man approached, pointed at him, and said, “You beat us and raped us and killed us. You must die.” Sweat trickled into his eyes. Choe Seongil recognized him: he was a Mayan laborer from Buena Vista hacienda.