From Wonso Pond (36 page)

Kannan glanced at Sonbi and giggled.

“No, it's about twenty-five miles away by train, from what I hear.”

Sonbi felt the color again rise in her cheeks. Kannan was always learning new things from other people and saying smart things that she didn't understand. It really seemed like Kannan knew just about everything. Sonbi wondered if she'd be like that someday.

Then they heard a roar of laughter come from the room across the way. They stopped talking and glanced at the door.

“Looks like they're not going hungry today if they're laughing up a storm like that . . .”

Sonbi got up and began spreading out the bedding.

“What do those people do for a living?”

Sonbi usually felt too uncomfortable to leave her door open, and often wondered what those men actually did for a living, cooped up in that room of theirs all day long. Whenever Kannan went off to the factory, Sonbi was sure to keep her door shut and locked.

“Well, they're unemployed . . . What are they supposed to do?”

What does ‘unemployed' mean? wondered Sonbi, holding back her desire to ask Kannan yet another question.

“They're a good-looking bunch, don't you think? But no one in today's world is going to give them jobs, so what else can they do?”

Kannan stared blankly into the flame of the oil lamp. Yu Sinch'ol, No. 5 Sa-jong, she repeated, worried she might forget his name and address. Then very carefully she went over everything that T'aesu had told her. Sonbi thought it suspicious that Kannan retreated into her thoughts like this, whenever she came back late at night. It reminded her of what Tokho had done to her night after night when she'd lived in the countryside, which made her shudder. As she studied the expression on Kannan's face, she feared that Kannan was doing something she shouldn't be doing.

“Sonbi! It's been ages since you came to Seoul, but I've been too busy even to show you the sights. Want to walk to Namsan Park tomorrow?”

“Namsan Park? What do you do there?”

“You know how back home we have the ridge up over Wonso Pond? Well, it's a mountain just like that. Remember how we always used to climb up there and chew on sourstem? Oh . . . I wish I could go home and see my mother!”

What came to Sonbi's mind just then was that dirty hand of Ch'otchae's that had poked her so sharply in the brow long ago. She wanted desperately to ask Kannan if by any chance she'd seen Ch'otchae. But she suffered in silence, without letting Kannan know what was on her mind. Ch'otchae might even be right here in Seoul, she thought. Then she hung her head.

91

The next day they took a spin through Ch'anggyong Park, then made their way up Namsan.

“That's what they call the Choson Sin'gung.”

Kannan pointed up to the Shrine of Korea. Sonbi simply nodded in reply—she didn't understand the words Kannan was using. Then, feeling somewhat woozy, she looked back down at the steep flight of steps they had just climbed.

“ We're not going back down that way, are we?” asked Sonbi.

“ W hy?”

“Isn't there another way back down?”

Kannan caught on and smiled sweetly.

“Oh, Sonbi, you're such a country girl! Are you scared of falling down and breaking your neck? All right then, we'll take a different way back down.”

Laughing, they passed by the front of the shrine, then walked down into a grove of pines, where they sat down side by side.

As they rustled in the wind, the trees slowly showered the two girls with pine needles that gently grazed the hems of their skirts. Sonbi, lost in thought, clenched some of the needles in her hand.

“I can't believe it's already fall. Time passes so quickly,” said Kannan, glancing at the needles gripped in Sonbi's hand.

Sonbi looked at Kannan with a start and smiled. Kannan had taken the words right out of her mouth.

They looked at the view in front of them. There were red and white brick buildings soaring boastfully up into the sky, and off in the distance, at the base of Mount Pugak sat the White House, as though it were showing off the eternal nature of its might.
^e
Between them, like so many tiny crabs driven this way and that, crept all the lowly houses.

At the sound of the streetcars and taxis zooming to and fro, they shifted their gaze down to Namdaemun, which loomed darkly, as though whispering to itself the secrets of yesteryear. This was the center of a spider web of electrical wires that spun outward, lighting up the signs on the storefronts to a dizzying effect.

“Do people actually live in all those houses?”

Kannan turned to Sonbi.

“Sure they do. What else do you think lives in them?” she giggled.

When she'd first run into Sonbi, quite out of the blue, Kannan had been taken aback by her beauty. But now that several months had passed Kannan could tell that Sonbi had actually been quite pale at the time. Even though she had few side dishes to eat with her rice, Sonbi had put on weight since coming to Seoul, and Kannan was glad to see it. It was about time to start teaching her, thought Kannan, and to bring her into the light of class consciousness.

“Sonbi, don't you just hate Tokho?”

The color rushed into Sonbi's face. Kannan, it seemed, had guessed that something had gone on between her and Tokho, even though she hadn't until now said a word about it. It was for this reason that whenever Kannan even mentioned their hometown, Sonbi felt awkward, even afraid, and always seemed somewhat depressed.

“There's so much I want to tell you, Sonbi, now that I've got the time to talk. Things have been so hectic up until now that we haven't had the chance . . . For starters, what do you think of Tokho? Let's start with him.”

Sonbi's ears were bright red now and she hung her head. The only sound she made was with the pine needles, which she crunched between her tightly pressed fingers. Kannan, judging from her own experience, sensed that Sonbi still was having trouble getting Tokho out of her mind. Before meeting T'aesu and benefiting from his guidance, Kannan herself had had a hard time forgetting Tokho. She used to see him in her dreams: Oh, Master, I missed my period! I know I must be pregnant. She would cry out loud and then wake up in tears. But that wasn't all! She remembered how jealous she'd been before coming to Seoul when Tokho's affections had shifted toward Sonbi. Once, she'd been out walking in the middle of the night, and was so petrified by a man she thought was chasing her that she actually ran right inside Kaettong's house. What an utter fool she had once been! And this was why she felt so sorry for Sonbi. Sonbi simply sat there silently, her head down, far too ashamed even to show her face. Tokho's scary, disgusting face had flashed into Sonbi's mind, and all she could do was pray that Kannan would soon change the subject.

Kannan, too, felt distressed at the thought of Tokho. She shifted her gaze from Sonbi onto the view down below. But then another thought struck her: How many Tokhos were out there in that bustling city?

Suddenly they were startled by a loud, unpleasant sound, and they turned around. Below the pine trees they could hear two sets of
geta
, one big and one small, clamorously making their way up the stone stairs. As they turned, they saw above the pine grove, crafted out of solid granite, the massive
torii
gateway looming against the sky.

92

Two days later Kannan and Sonbi went to Inch'on, at first staying with a friend of Kannan's whom she had gotten to know in a factory. With the help of this friend, they found jobs in the Taedong Spinning Mill and easily got guarantees of identity at the police station. They also learned that the Taedong Spinning Mill didn't allow its employees to commute to work. It was a strict regulation that all female employees live in the dormitory. The three of them decided to enter the dormitory together the following day, and they wandered around Wolmido Island and Man'guk Park until the sun went down.

After eating a nice supper, they pushed aside their dinner table and chatted about this, that and the other. Then Kannan stood up.

“Insuk, I'm just going to make a quick trip over there.”

“Where?” asked Insuk. You're not going to go look for that man again, are you?”

On their way to Man'guk Park, Kannan had mentioned that she had to pay a visit to the older brother of a friend who had asked her to check up on him. After walking through Sa-jong, Kannan had figured out where Sinch'ol was living, but she'd pretended to have lost her way and said she'd have to come back later that night to find him.

“You're going all alone? Do you actually think you'll find him without the right address?”

“Well . . . might as well give it one more try. At least I can say I tried my best, right? I've really messed this up, though, haven't I? What was that damn number again?”

“Oh, Kannan! What are you thinking? How do you expect to find the place when you don't even know the right street number? You'll never find him.”

“Look, if I don't come right back, just assume I've found the place. And if I'm back soon, well, I'll just have to eat my words.”

Kannan smiled, then went outside. After making sure the coast was clear, she headed towards Sa-jong.

Having arrived at No. 5, Kannan again looked to either side of her and went through the main gate. She looked around the place, wondering where Sinch'ol's room might be, but there didn't appear to be any rooms separate from the inner quarters. Assuming she'd entered the
wrong house, she went back outside. Then she had a change of heart and went back to try again.

“Hello? Could I bother you for a moment?”

The door to the inner quarters opened and a woman peeked outside. Kannan hesitated.

“I'm sorry, but you wouldn't happen to have a boarder staying here?”

Before Kannan had finished speaking, the woman came out onto the breezeway.

“Yes, yes, please go on back this way and see if he's in.”

She pointed to the small path leading behind the kitchen. Kannan entered the dark passageway and then stopped in front of a small door. Her heart started pounding and she was almost breathless. She could tell somebody was inside. A shadow flashed across the doorway and she heard the sound of somebody flipping the pages of a newspaper.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

The door opened and a man appeared. She felt she'd met him several times before.

“Are you Yu Sinch'ol?”

Sinch'ol was surprised to see a young woman standing in front of his door at this time of night, addressing him by name. Then he remembered the message he'd received from Ch'olsu.

“Yes, that's right. Please come inside . . .”

It wasn't until Kannan had entered the room that she realized that Sinch'ol was one of the struggling young men who cooked their own meals in the room opposite hers in Seoul. Sinch'ol, too, recognized Kannan as soon as he'd taken a good look at her.

“We used to run into each other all the time back in Seoul. You were in the room directly opposite from where we lived, weren't you?”

“That's right! This is actually quite funny, isn't it,” she laughed.

“Hah, ha. A friend living right next door and I hadn't the slightest idea. Tell me, when did you get here?”

Sinch'ol hadn't known that Kannan would be arriving so soon. Back in Seoul, she'd been nothing more than a simple factory girl in his eyes, but now that he was sitting right in front of her, he saw her courage and strength of character. Powderless, her rosy cheeks glowed in the light of the lamp.

“I arrived by train yesterday. But you, my friend, must be having a difficult time here.

Kannan studied the look on Sinch'ol's face. She was waiting for him to say something.

“Well, it hasn't been all that difficult . . . Tell me, have you come to town on some sort of errand, or are you moving here for good?

Sure enough, Sinchol was unwilling to let down his guard until she spoke first. Kannan thought for a moment and then replied.

“I'm here to work in the spinning mill. Or, perhaps you already know that?”

93

After a good night's sleep, the three friends moved into the dormitory at the Taedong Spinning Mill. All three were to stay in the same freshly plastered room, about six-feet square. They took a tour of the dormitory, which must have been some six hundred feet square in total, and then they peeked into the factory. Even the spinning factory outside the T Gate in Seoul was nothing in comparison to this place. The dormitory and the factory building aside, the mill was outfitted with all sorts of machines that one never saw in Seoul. There were generators and reeling machines in different places in Seoul, but everything here was of an enormous size, far bigger than anything they had seen before.

The cauldrons used to boil the silk cocoons had been nothing more than washbasins back in Seoul, and each person had a single
waku
(reel) to work on, but here the cauldrons were long and rectangular in shape, and seemed ten times the size of the ones in Seoul. It was set up so that each person controlled ten or twenty
waku
in front of them. Sonbi didn't know the difference, because it was her first time inside a factory, but Kannan and Insuk could hardly believe their eyes.

That morning Kannan and Insuk took numbers 500 and 501 and headed into the factory, where they set themselves to work. Since it was Sonbi's very first time, she stayed beside Kannan's station and learned how to reel the silk off the cocoons.

The noise coming from the generator and the rotating
waku
was so ear-splitting that it was almost impossible to concentrate on the factory floor. Sonbi stood there idly watching Kannan reel her silk. Since Kannan had always done this sort of work, it came to her quite naturally.