From Wonso Pond (13 page)

“Please say something, Sinch'ol.”

Sinch'ol turned and looked at her. He was on the point of speaking, but then broke into a smile.

“Come on. You were about to say something, weren't you? So tell me . . . Say it.”

She was practically begging him like a child. Sinch'ol pushed himself back.

“Okchom, where do you see yourself living in the future? In a city like Seoul, or in a farming village like this one, for example?”

At this unexpected question, Okchom tilted her head to the side and thought for a while.

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Well, since we've got nothing special to talk about, I thought it might be an interesting topic of conversation.”

“Where would you like to live, Sinch'ol?”

“Me? Let's see . . . Well, I asked you first, so I think you should answer before me.”

“I think I'd like to live,” Okchom paused, “wherever you want to live.”

These last few words she said under her breath. The color ran to the very tips of her ears, and she turned her face away. Watching this, it suddenly hit Sinch'ol: Could this girl actually be in love with me? He remembered again what she'd asked him earlier: ‘Is this your heart?'

“Well, that's nice of you to say, Okchom. I think we should live in the same place then. We could find a quiet farming village like this, and plant our own melons and millet and beans. Wouldn't that be great?”

Sinch'ol was pretending not to have understood what she'd meant. Okchom smiled.

“So you like it here in the countryside?”

“Sure I do. I like the countryside a lot. I'd love to be able to farm the land and raise different kinds of livestock.”

“Oh, stop it!”

Okchom looked at him as though he were joking. Sinch'ol stared right back at her, looking dead serious.

“You're really going to get out in the fields and pull weeds?”

“Sure. Sounds like a great job to me.”

“Don't be absurd, Sinch'ol.”

“Why do you say that?” he replied, his brow rising.

“How could you spend your life working in the fields? You'd be better off . . .”

She cut herself off mid-sentence. It was now Sinch'ol who smiled.

“It sounds to me, Okchom, that you don't really like the idea of living in the countryside.”

“Well, I. . . .”

Okchom glared at Sinch'ol resentfully. Then she began chewing at her fingernails. Why couldn't Sinch'ol understand how much she was suffering inside? she asked herself, suddenly overcome with the desire to pounce on top of him and rip at his clothes. She quickly lifted her head.

27

Sinch'ol was still staring at the sky. Like a ball of cotton just released from its seed, one of the blindingly white clouds had grown into the shape of a mountain range, and enveloped the towering peak of Mount Pult'a.

Okchom looked at Sinch'ol. She wanted to say something to him, but that expression on his face she so resented—he was just staring into that sky, completely oblivious to her existence—that face held her under such a powerful spell that she ended up swallowing her words.

“Well, we might as well go home.”

Sinch'ol turned his head.

“Okay, let's go then,” he said, jumping to his feet.

Okchom's words had slipped off her tongue. All she'd really meant to do was continue the conversation; the last thing she wanted was to leave so soon. She needed time to probe Sinch'ol's feelings further, and had even entertained the faint hope of finding a resolution to her problems right then and there. And yet there was Sinch'ol, without any regrets, brushing off of his pants, lowering that sturdy body of his onto the ladder, and climbing down the rungs, one unsteady step after the other.

What Okchom wanted more than anything was to kick him in the pants and knock him to the ground.

Sinch'ol reached the bottom, brushed off his clothes and turned around.

“Come on down.”

Okchom now felt a flood of tears surging inside her, and only by biting down firmly on her lip was she able to keep them at bay.

“Just go back by yourself !”

“But Okchom, didn't you say you wanted to go?”

There was a sparkle of a smile in Sinch'ol's eyes as he spoke. Seeing him smile made Okchom even angrier, but at the same time, she couldn't help herself—she smiled back at him, and climbed down the ladder.

Only now did the owner of the hut slowly make his way back through the melon patch from where he'd been keeping himself out of sight. They paid him for the melons they'd eaten, then started on the main path.

After only a few steps, Sinch'ol turned to Okchom.

“Listen. Why don't we go back to the village separately?”

“Why?” Okchom asked, her eyes growing red.

“Because it's embarrassing.”

“What's embarrassing?”

“You know, the kids trailing behind us, the dogs barking. Ha, ha.”

Okchom laughed at this unexpected answer, but her heartstrings were by now stretched so unbearably taut that what she really wanted to do was hang her head and cry.

As they walked along the sorghum field, Sinch'ol asked,

“What are we going to do? Are you going to go first? Or do you want me to?”

Okchom sighed. “Oh, I don't care, Sinch'ol. I don't see what you're so afraid of.”

Without thinking, Okchom ripped a leaf from a sorghum plant and stuck it in her mouth. Sinch'ol noticed the long shadows of sorghum stems playing on her fashionable dress.

“I'm serious. What kind of human beings could possibly be more frightening than peasants? You go ahead.”

Okchom said nothing and just stood there pouting for a moment. Then she twirled around, tossing to the side the sorghum leaf she'd been holding.

“Be sure to follow right behind me.”

She spoke to him without turning back and headed off, walking through the sorghum field, climbing over the embankment and then gradually disappearing into the distance. Sinch'ol stared at her as she walked away, then he collapsed onto a patch of grass. He thought of the grove of trees at Wonso Pond. Sonbi had most likely made her way home by now . . .

Whenever the sun set like this, he recalled with fondness the sunset he'd seen at MonggÅ­mp'o beach. He remembered it as though it was a famous work of art: there he was standing with his chest bare, facing the brilliant sun as it slowly descended over the horizon, burning a giant pillar of flames through the vast Yellow Sea.

He also remembered the crashing sound of waves endlessly beating against the rocks . . . And he could almost hear the voices of the fishermen calling out, “oi-ya, oi-ya” as they rowed their boats over the softly rolling waves.

Sinch'ol smiled. As he gazed out at the sunset in the distance, he thought about Okchom's impatience with him earlier. By feigning ignorance, he had managed to get through the worst of it. The more Okchom reacted to him in this way, the more his own feelings toward her turned cold as ice, and strangely, the more fun he had watching her squirm. He was pondering the conversation at the melon hut when he again heard the sound of someone pounding laundry in the grove of trees near Wonso Pond. He painted a picture of Sonbi's pure, lovely figure in his mind's eye. Indeed, only at the place of work, he mused, could one discover the truth and beauty of human beings!

Suddenly, something whacked him in the face, and he looked up in surprise.

28

A single locust, flapping its green wings wildly, buzzed off toward a grove of trees in the distance.

Sinch'ol jumped to his feet, gently stroking the side of his face where the insect had struck him. Tomorrow he should go to MonggÅ­mp'o again, he thought, and spend a few more days there before heading back to Seoul.

As he reached the outskirts of the village, he saw Yu Sobang approaching him.

“They say to go inside.”

Sinch'ol nodded, then went into the house. Okchom was standing in the breezeway. She greeted Sinch'ol with a smile.

“It took you so long to come back.”

He had been out of her sight for only a short while, but once again Okchom felt herself overcome by an emotion completely new to her, something that seemed to sweep her toward that solid body of his.

“Would you like to wash up?”

Sinch'ol glanced toward the kitchen and shook his head. Okchom headed into the inner room.

“Come inside then.”

She pulled out a pink towel and tossed it into Sinch'ol's lap as he sat down. He caught the scent of perfume in the air. Sinch'ol placed the towel at his side and stared into the backyard. There was a load of white laundry hanging to dry on the reed fence. It looked like a blanket of freshly fallen snow. His own white shirt stood out among the other clothes.

“Who does the laundry here?” he asked.

“Son . . .” began Okchom. “Granny does it. Why?”

She stared at him.

“You've never done laundry, Okchom?”

She hesitated for a moment before replying.

“No, I've never done it.”

“Why should she care about laundry,” chimed in her mother from the backyard. “You don't think she does any housework around here, do you?” she chuckled.

Okchom's mother seemed to adore her, and certainly was proud of the fact that her daughter never worked. All Sinch'ol could do was smile. For some reason his smile made Okchom uneasy.

Behind the sauce jars in the backyard the white balloon flowers hung their heads modestly. Behind them loofa vines climbed the fence, their tendrils beautifully extended and dotted with yellow flowers.

“What kind of flowers are those?” Sinch'ol pointed to the white flowers.

“Those?” Okchom replied. “They're called white balloon flowers. You can make medicine out of them, you know. That's why Yu Sobang planted them here.”

“He planted those loofas too?”

“No, that girl Sonbi planted all those.”

It was her mother who replied this time. Okchom felt uncomfortable even saying the name Sonbi in front of Sinch'ol, who, for his part, was now so endeared to these flowers that he would have jumped outside to pick one of them and caress his face with it, had Okchom not been sitting there.

Just then, from behind the fence, they heard the sound of children singing.

I won't hand it over—oh, but yes I will How about I catch a fly and offer it to you.

They listened silently to the tune. The singing gradually approached the reed fence, then suddenly came to a stop. A dragonfly net rose to the top of one of the fence posts, and then the newly caught dragonfly flapped its wings. “Yay!” From the other side of the reeds came the sound of several children shouting gleefully.

I won't hand it over—oh, but yes I will How about I catch a fly and offer it to you.

The song then disappeared into the distance.

As the singing came to an end, it struck Sinch'ol that his own childhood was now over. He let out a gentle sigh.

“I remember doing things like that, too, when I was young,” he said.

Okchom stared at Sinch'ol with a twinkle in her eyes.

That night, after they had stayed up late enjoying themselves, Sinch'ol wasn't able to sleep when he finally lay down in bed. He tossed and turned, felt aches and pains all over, and was sweating profusely.
He couldn't bear it any longer, so he got up out of bed, and quietly slid open the door to peer outside.

The shadow of the eaves was crisply stenciled into the courtyard. Sensing that the moon must be bright, he tried peeking out from under the eaves to catch a better glimpse of the sky. But the moon had already ascended beyond the roofline, and he couldn't get a good view of it. He threw on some clothes and went outside.

When he checked on the inner quarters, everything was quiet. All he found was a pair of Okchom's mother's shoes placed at the entrance to the breezeway, white rubber shoes that glowed in the moonlight. Sinch'ol turned and started walking to the outhouse.

29

When he arrived at the outhouse, he froze. The paper door to Granny's room was aglow from the light of a lantern. Wasn't she asleep yet? At this time of night? He felt drawn by a faint hope of some kind and made his way over to the door, constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure that no one was there. He searched frantically for a crack in the door, but found nothing even the size of a pinhole.

He put his ear to the door. Which one of them was still awake? Could Granny and Sonbi both still be up? Or maybe it was just Sonbi? But then again, maybe it was just Granny? Oh, if he could only figure out which one it was!

Had anyone seen him? he panicked, turning back to the outhouse. But he thought he heard someone talking, and stood still again for a while.

He didn't catch any voices, but he did hear the faint sound of someone rummaging through a pile of clothes. He went inside the outhouse, wracking his brain over how he could find out who was awake in Granny's room. For some reason he couldn't shake off the feeling that it was Sonbi who was still up working.

Sonbi—why did this name have such a soft, sweet ring to his ears? And that humble expression in those eyes of hers, which were always cast downward. And her face that seemed shrouded in mist. What he really wanted to do was throw open that door and march right inside. But that was simply out of the question. What am I doing here? Why
did I even come out outside? he thought. He regretted not having just dealt with the heat in his room.

He quietly opened the outhouse door and peered outside. The paper door was still aglow. But just then a shadow flickered over the doorframe, as though someone had stood up, and the door quietly slid open. Sinch'ol felt faint. There was Sonbi, walking straight towards him! He didn't know what to do, but he sprang to his feet. After calming himself, he stepped out of the outhouse. Sonbi was walking towards him, but froze at the sound of his footsteps, and looked up. Determined not to let this opportunity go by, Sinch'ol called to her as she turned back to her room.