From Wonso Pond (38 page)

She got up quietly, opened the door, and came out into the corridor. At the other end of the hallway the moon cast a long beam of light through the window, making it look as though someone was actually standing there. Kannan froze in her tracks and quickly looked to either side. She heard the sound of a door opening, and pressed herself against the wall.

96

With bated breath Kannan looked in the direction of the creaking door. There seemed to be a single factory girl tiptoeing towards the room where the supervisor did night-duty. Drawn by a sudden curiosity, Kannan followed stealthily behind her.

The girl stopped in front of the duty room. She hesitated, then opened the door and went inside. Who could that be? wondered Kannan, but she didn't have the slightest clue. One thing was unmistakable—a factory girl had just entered the duty room for a tryst with the supervisor. Kannan remembered what Sinch'ol had told her the day before: it would only be a matter of time before many of the innocent young girls working in the factory would fall prey to the charms of the supervisors. She understood now why she had to open the eyes of these foolish girls as quickly as possible, and she truly felt a sense of responsibility for leading all one thousand girls into a collective fight for humane treatment and financial benefits. She remembered how, long ago, she had resigned herself to Tokho's immoral behavior. She broke into a cold sweat at the very thought of it. Having stood there lost in thought, she then tiptoed up to the duty room and put her ear to the door. She couldn't hear any voices. If it hadn't been for the importance of her own mission, oh, how she would have pounded on that door and made enough noise to turn this factory upside down in order to expose the truth to the other factory girls! Just then, the glass windows in the corridor started to rattle, and she saw the shadows of falling leaves floating downward. She quickly hid herself by running to the back door.

From the factory floor came the loud noise of the machinery. It was then that Kannan finally mustered the sort of do-or-die determination that was almost too much for her to bear. In a breath she had dashed
outside, and began skirting the base of the wall in search of a hole. No matter how much she searched, however, her fingers felt nothing but cold bricks. Not even the tiniest of holes was she able to find. There were a few drainage vents at the base of the wall, but nothing else. She might be able to fit her hand through one of them, but of course a whole person would be unable to pass through. And since these vents were quite conspicuous to anyone's eye, it would be highly dangerous to make contact with somebody by means of them. On the other hand, it might very well be precisely these obvious vents that would be easy for others to overlook. After mulling it over for a while, Kannan decided to spend a few more days looking for an appropriate place, and then later come to a final decision. She made her way back inside, just as the clock in the lecture hall was striking three. When she slipped back under her covers, Sonbi rolled over onto her side.

“Did you go somewhere?”

“Yes. You're not asleep yet?”

“No, I fell asleep all right . . . But then I woke up and noticed you were gone.”

“I just went the toilet.”

“Oh.”

“Sonbi. Did you believe everything the supervisor was saying earlier?”

Sonbi didn't know how she should answer under the circumstances, and she hesitated for a moment.

“Why are you asking me that all of a sudden?”

“I don't know . . . I was just wondering if what he said is really true.”

“How am I supposed to know that . . .”

“Sonbi! You've got to make a point of knowing about it. Just think about it, here they are making us work, sometimes all through the night, and all they give us to eat is this imported rice. They're trying to pull the wool over our eyes with all this sweet talk about savings and bank accounts, but the fact is that they're just trying to make sure that we never see a single coin of our own money. They're only interested in getting as much work out of us as possible, even if it kills us. All this talk about protecting the girls' future by keeping them from going outside, and about distributing daily goods to us at discounted prices—I'm telling you it's in the interest of their profit margin alone that they're setting up all these regulations. And what about all this garbage about picnics
and night school, and keeping our bodies fit by giving us a chance to exercise? I mean, it's complete nonsense, a total sham, meant to get as much out of us as possible . . .”

Sonbi couldn't understand why Kannan was going on like this. If she'd already known so much, well, they shouldn't have come to the factory in the first place. And, besides, they'd only just moved here from Seoul—why in the world was Kannan complaining like this when they'd hardly been there for a single day?

“Sonbi! I'm telling you, the supervisors who put us to work and all those people behind them—they're hundreds and thousands of times more frightening than Tokho.”

Kannan wanted to tell Sonbi about the girl who had just snuck her way into the duty room, but she thought it better to wait a while before telling her too much. Sonbi herself had felt uneasy, even quite terrified of looking up at the tiger-like boss with that turned-up moustache, especially when he smiled at her with those ogling eyes. So when she heard Kannan mention him now, she could hardly keep the image of those his eyes out of her mind. She imagined the supervisor turning into Tokho, which almost plunged her into despair.

“Oh, Sonbi! You don't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about, do you? Well, you'll figure it out soon enough.”

As Kannan spoke to Sonbi, she wrapped her arm around her waist and embraced her. Then she thought again about the girl who'd just snuck into the duty room.

97

Several days later Kannan tied a straw rope to the end of a long stick and pushed it through one of the drainage vents at the base of the wall behind the factory.

From then on, whenever the girls woke up in the morning, they found funny scraps of paper under their bedding and in the corners of their rooms. What the scraps of paper had scribbled on them, in easy-to-understand words, was a commentary on each point the supervisor had lectured on during night school the day before.

Each time they found a scrap of paper, the girls huddled together and read over it with delight.

“Girls, I don't know who put this note in here, but it sure does make
sense! If the supervisor said that he was going to give out twenty chon a day in bonuses, why is it that no one's gotten any yet? That's nothing but lip service!” These were the words of one of the factory girls lying in bed in Room No. 4 on the top floor of the dormitory.

“That's right. I mean, Hyeyong is really good at her job, right? But from what I hear, she's never even once gotten a bonus . . . Why do you think they're telling us all these lies?”

“You know that new girl over in Room No. 7, the real pretty one? I heard she got a bonus alright.”

“Someone actually got one?” asked another girl who was always laughing. “Who?”

“Shhh, someone will hear! Speak softer, will you?”

The girl who was always laughing giggled, stuck her hand beneath the covers, and poked the girl next to her.

“Who's going to hear us at this time of night?”

“Think about it! The supervisor makes rounds every night. Didn't you know that?”

“Oh, who cares if he make his rounds! How could anyone outside hear what we say under the covers? Anyway, who is this girl? Do you mean the cute one who just got here?

In the dormitory they always called Sonbi the cute one.

“Hey, so listen. Hyeyong was just telling me something. . . You know the new girl who sits just opposite of her? Well, Hyesong says the supervisor keeps standing right in front of her with a big smile on his face! Can you imagine? I can't stand the sight of him! He used to do the same thing to Yongnyo too, didn't he?”

“Hmph! Well, this new girl is much prettier than Yongnyo. She's really beautiful! If I was a man, I'd fall head over heels for her. Those eyes, and that nose—just take a good look at her sometime.”

“Oh, what's so pretty about her? Have you seen her hands? I get the creeps just looking at them,” chimed in a girl who was hard of hearing.

“Hey, deaf ears! You actually heard something . . . Hee-hee. . .Well, look at these hands here!” The laughing girl grabbed the hands of the girl hard of hearing. She'd been listening to them with her hands cupped behind her ears.

“Oh, stop laughing. I don't see what's so funny,” said another girl, lying between them, who now put her hand over the mouth of the girl always laughing.

“Okay, Hyosun. Who do you think is leaving these notes in our room? They might have notes in other rooms, too, for all we know . . . I'll bet one of the girls here in the dorm is behind it all. In fact, I'm sure of it. In any case, what if all the factory girls got together like these notes say to do, and then . . .”

The girl who was hard of hearing went as far as this, but then seemed to be overcome with emotion. She pushed her bedding a bit and tried to catch her breath.

“Oh, don't start with that again. I used to work in a caramel factory in Seoul, you know, and our damn supervisor treated us cruelly, and hardly ever gave us our wages. So they tried to organize us all to strike, right? But some of the girls switched sides and ratted on us to the supervisor. And then what happened? He kicked almost everyone out of the factory. Somehow I was lucky and didn't get fired, but I hated that guy so much I couldn't stand it any longer, and got out. That's just how it is.”

“Well, it's those snitches we've got to get rid of ! You know the whole bunch of them are sleeping with the supers anyway . . .”

“Think about it. Here they are working us to death, and we don't even get to hold onto our own money. I mean, just look at us now! Our parents spoiled us as kids so so we could end up like this? I came within an inch of getting my hand ripped off by one of those reels today. Before we got here, who'd ever have dreamt it would be this bad?”

She put her hand to her cheek and then shuddered. She could almost see all the reels, still spinning furiously, in front of her.

“I wish I could talk to the person who planted these notes here! How about we keep watch?”

“Yeah, but what happens if it turns out to be some man we don't know?”

All of a sudden they felt a sense of shame and horror that sent a tingle across their breasts.

“Oh, now I'm scared!”

Instinctively they snuggled closer into each other's arms.

98

The workmen were shoveling stones into iron-mesh bags to build an embankment into the middle of the sea, while on the opposite side of it others were carrying dirt to dump into the marsh land. Ch'otchae, too,
mingled among them, carrying a load of dirt on his back. As he worked, he thought about his discussion with Sinch'ol the previous night, when they'd talked about organizing the day laborers.

Ever since meeting Sinch'ol, Ch'otchae felt that there was nothing anymore that he didn't understand about the world. Everything that had puzzled him, immobilized him for half his lifetime, he could now understand clearly, as clearly as he saw this newly built road spread out before him. Even the path his life would take in the future now seemed as clear and as smooth as the newly built road. His once heavy heart was filled with a hope as bright as the sunshine that shone off the sea.

“Hey, man, take a look at that! Today must be a holiday, with all those students out here!”

Ch'otchae quickly looked back. Several hundred schoolgirls were walking toward them in a single file. He then remembered what Sinch'ol had told him the day before, after getting the report from the Taedong Spinning Mill. Maybe they're actually factory girls. They'd been given new shoes to wear for some outing to a shrine, hadn't they? he remembered, as he plodded off once again.

“All right, get back to work. And stop staring!”

Startled by the voice of their foreman, the workmen stooped over again to carry their loads.

“Holy shit! They're all chicks.”

“Well, why don't you go fetch one for yourself and run off with her.” One of them laughed out loud.

The men shot glances at each other and joked around as they caught sight of the passing procession. The girls were dressed alike in black skirts and white blouses
,
and they even had black shoes. As Ch'otchae made his way along, groaning under the burden of his load of dirt, he kept looking over at the procession with an indescribable pleasure, and wondering if they might really be factory girls. Then Ch'otchae's eyes met with those of one of the girls. He staggered back in surprise.

“Sonbi?”

The woman he was staring at shot him a look of surprise. She froze in her tracks before slowly walking forward again, swept along by the others in line. Ch'otchae wanted to throw off his load of dirt and follow her in order to find out if she was really Sonbi. It had been so long since he'd seen her, he couldn't be quite sure. Before he was even conscious of it, his feet had taken several steps in her direction.

“Hey, you! Get the hell back to work!”

Ch'otchae tried his best to hold back the unbearable sadness rising within him, and when he looked back at his boss, he could feel his heart pounding. Slowly he retraced his steps. Sonbi? But how could she have gotten here? Did Tokho send her to school? But why would he do that? And who knows what could have happened to her? She's so pretty, maybe sending her to school is Tokho's way of getting her to like him. No, that can't be it! I mean, but hell, what else could it be? She's got to be married by now anyway . . . With this, Ch'otchae took another look over at the girls. He remembered what Sinch'ol had told him last night, and realized that, indeed, these must be the factory girls from the spinning mill. Maybe Sonbi was working at the mill! All sorts of thoughts now raced through Ch'otchae's mind. He made his way to the marsh land, dumped his dirt, and when he looked up again, the procession of girls, now just a line of black dots in the distance, was disappearing into the gateway to Wolmido. Sonbi? A factory girl? Could they really all be factory girls? Well, let's just wait and see! They might pass by again on their way back, for all I know . . . Judging from the way they were dressed, they hadn't seemed a bit like factory girls to Ch'otchae.