From Wonso Pond (41 page)

This time he tapped Sonbi on the head a couple of times. If Sonbi had thought her roommate beside her was asleep, she would have surely been scared out of her wits, but she knew full well that the girl was wide awake, which made it a little less scary. It was still horribly embarrassing, however, to know that the girl next to her had seen the supervisor stroke her cheek like that and then tap her on the head. What she really wanted to do was to stand right up and sock him in the face. But as it was, she could hardly bring herself to wiggle her finger. Just then Sonbi had a flashback to the moment when Tokho had stolen her virginity, and she started to tremble.

After standing there idly for some time, the supervisor gave her blankets a tug and covered her up completely.

“Now, stop all this nonsense and get back to sleep.”

With this, the supervisor turned around and left the room. Sonbi let out her breath, laid her head on her pillow and stretched out again more comfortably. But that spot where the super's hand had touched her face
felt like an insect still crawling on her. For a long time the unpleasant feeling wouldn't go away.

Several days later, Sonbi was called into the supervisor's office. Sitting at his desk, the man was examining one of the little manifestos. He glanced up at Sonbi.

“Take a seat right there . . .”

He pointed to a chair beside his desk. Sonbi hesitated.

“You've got some of these too, don't you, Sonbi?”

The supervisor was staring at her unblinkingly, as though staring straight into her soul. Sonbi's face went a deep red.

“No, I don't.”

“What do you mean you don't? Don't lie to me, Sonbi. There's not a room in this dormitory where these notes haven't been found, so how am I supposed to believe you don't have any? Tell me the truth.”

Her head down, Sonbi thought about the notes that she had stuffed deep into her socks. Was he asking her these questions because he'd seen her put them there? She panicked.

“Now, come over here.”

The supervisor drew his hand through his combed back hair and then moved his chair a little closer.

“Listen. If you have any of these notes, you need to rip them right up and forget everything written on them. You're the only one I can really be sure of, Sonbi, so quiet and gentle, ha, ha . . . Anyway, you know that girl Kannan, the one who comes from the same village as you do? You haven't by any chance seen her going out at night, have you?”

This question took Sonbi by surprise. How could the supervisor, she wondered, actually suspect something that she herself, who had roomed with Kannan, wasn't even sure of? But Kannan might very well end up being kicked out because of these notes, so she thought it worthwhile to try to dispel the supervisor's suspicions. Since the supervisor held her in his good graces, it was probably still possible to defend Kannan, so long as he had no explicit evidence against her.

“She'd never do anything like that,” replied Sonbi, mustering all her courage.

A smile drifted across the supervisor's lips, and he moved back a little in his chair.

“You're both from the same village, so I know you're trying to protect her . . . Now, sit down! You hear me?”

Her whole body was clenched as tight as a fist. Ever so slightly she backed away from him. The supervisor glanced probingly into Sonbi's eyes and took a drag on his cigarette.

“How old are you, Sonbi?”

The man tapped away the ashes from his cigarette. Sonbi felt an unbearable tightness in her chest: she just wanted to get out of there.

105

Seeing how Sonbi was fidgeting, the supervisor took on a slight air of authority.

“Now, what did I say? Just sit down, will you? I've got plenty to ask you. Right there . . .”

He pointed to the chair. Sonbi was at a loss as to what to do. She felt an imminent sense of danger pressing upon her, and she knew that somehow or other she simply had to get out of that room. She was finding it difficult to breathe, as though even the air in the room was closing in upon her. She remembered how Tokho had first raped her, and it became clear to her exactly what the supervisor was planning.

“I, um . . . I was actually in the middle of working on something, so I . . .”

“Working on something?”

The supervisor looked sideways at Sonbi's flushing cheeks and smiled suggestively.

“Yes, well, a jacket . . .”

“A jacket? You should try to make more money and pay someone else to do that. Hah, ha, ha . . . Now listen, Sonbi, I just want to make sure that you're not tempted by these notes into believing any lies. We've planned everything in this factory with the interests of our girls in mind, so I really don't see how anyone can take these notes seriously. I think it's ungrateful. Now, if you find any of these notes, Sonbi, I want you to bring them to me, okay? Will you do that for me?”

“Yes, I will,” replied Sonbi promptly, happy to have him change the subject.

“Do you know who writes these notes and plants them around the dormitory? They're just a group of out-of-work idiots, jealous that we actually earn our own living. And Sonbi I just don't want you to get mixed up with these losers. So, I tell you what. You do what I say, and I'll
give you a bonus every day of the week. I'll even make you a supervisor, so that you can boss around the factory girls as much as you want. How about that, huh? You could be my representative, so to speak. Know what I mean?”

The supervisor smiled as though satisfied with how he'd put it. Sonbi looked down at her feet.

“I think you're a great girl, Sonbi, so just do what I say and all this power is yours for the taking.”

Sonbi could hardly wait for him to finish talking—but he kept going on and on with all this insincerity. As she stood there silently, it dawned on her that he didn't really have anything to say, and that he was just going to keep her there listening to the exact same things over and over again—until who knew when. Sonbi lifted her head.

“I should get back to my work now.”

“Well, actually I uh . . .”

As she turned around to leave the room, he was still trying to stop her. But she pretended not to hear him, and finally made her way outside. When she came back to her own room, she found that Kannan was there. They heard the office door slam shut and the supervisor's footsteps going down the stairs. Happily, Kannan and her roommates heaved a sigh of relief and looked over at Sonbi, hoping she would fill them in. Sonbi was glad to have their attention, but she was also somewhat embarrassed.

“Hey, let's go work in my room,” said Kannan after a while. She picked up the pieces of cloth they were working on and handed them to Sonbi one by one. Gathering them together, Sonbi followed her out of the room.

“Where'd everyone else go?” asked Sonbi, as she entered Kannan's room. Once inside, however, she thought, what a perfect chance!

“Well, where do you think? They all went off to work the night shift . . . Alright, Sonbi, so what did he say?”

Sonbi blushed, and then collected her thoughts for a moment.

“Okay, well, first of all he tells me to stay away from you. And then . . .”

Sonbi put her lips to Kannan's ear and then whispered into it for a while. Kannan nodded.

“Hmm, I suspected as much . . . Oh, Sonbi!” cried Kannan, the expression on her face suddenly grave.

Sonbi opened her eyes wide in concern, but Kannan couldn't bring herself to explain her sudden outburst. As Kannan looked up at Sonbi, it broke her heart to think that Sonbi hadn't become a trustworthy friend yet. If only Sonbi had a true class consciousness, she'd be able to accomplish so much. With just a little enticement, she thought, she'd have the supervisors eating out of the palm of her hand. Kannan had wanted to be able to entrust Sonbi with all of her important work, so that she might be able to leave the factory in case something urgent came up. And now Kannan had learned that she wouldn't be able to work in this factory for much longer, which made her sad. It was a moment of weakness that made her cry out Sonbi's name, hoping to tell her everything, but she knew that Sonbi still needed more time.

“What's the matter, Kannan? Come on, just tell me.”

The rims of Kannan's eyes were red.

“Someday, okay, Sonbi? Someday!”

106

Inch'on at dawn.

The crisp, fragrant air and the dark, blue-gray sky carried news in their silence of the spring to come.

Thousands of laborers had already gathered shoulder to shoulder on the wharf. They were gazing out to the eastern sky where morning was about to break, each one of them firm in their determination.

With his red bands in hand, Nickel-rims whipped his head this way and that, glaring at the laborers, as always, with those bulging eyes. On any other day the scene would have been an utter free-for-all, the workers vying with each other to get their hands on one of those red bands. But today, not a single one of them even blinked an eye as Nickel-rims paraded back and forth in front of them, showing off the red bands attached to his arms. Nickel-rims thought it strange and also somewhat frightening. He pretended not to notice, and called out to one of laborers with whom he was on friendly terms.

“Come over here! I've got a work band for you.”

Just then the electric lights flickered out.

“I'm not going to work!”

Nickel-rims scratched his head and climbed onto the deck of a boat.

A steamship entered the harbor and docked itself against the wharf.
But the workers just stared at it without moving a muscle. Then several of them went into the office of the Land and Sea Transportation Cooperative with the intent of submitting a list of conditions they were demanding as representatives of the laborers. The workers stood there in formation, staring intently at the office.

The steamships in the harbor sat there, sending out puff after puff of smoke. The sailors lined up on their decks, staring at the unusual sight. Normally by this time the harbor looked like a swarm of bees with all those men unloading the ships of cargo, but today it felt almost deserted. Even Nickel-rims, whose eyes were usually shifting faster than the spinning wheels of a wagon, today stood off in a corner, his head hung, like a bird with a broken wing.

The sun rose a brilliant red. And as the workers watched the sun rise, they learned how mighty a force their collective strength truly was. In their eyes the sun was casting forth its glorious rays to witness their solidarity. Those brilliant waves out at sea, glowing in the rays of sun, now seemed to cradle them in their embrace. Everything that caught their eyes appeared to them fresh and new. And they who had felt so powerless, who had known no glory, today at this very moment, held all the power, all the power to control the world. They had come together as one and succeeded—the broken-spirited Nickel-rims, the cranes on the steam ships, even all those sailors—everything and everyone else had lost the ability to move an inch.

“Hey, those factory girls over at the rice mill are a rough and rowdy bunch! They say all hell just broke loose over there. They took control of the siren and started getting violent.”

The man talking turned to look at Ch'otchae. Ch'otchae looked at him and smiled.

“Well, the same thing goes here,” the man continued. “If they don't come through for us and give us what we want, we sure as hell aren't going to just sit here!”

He made a tight fist and showed Ch'otchae the fire in his eyes. Ch'otchae looked back at him, his eyes narrowed in reply. But just then they saw off in the distance a throng of police in uniform rushing towards the wharf. Half of them surrounded the office of the Land and Sea Transportation Cooperative, and the other half ran up to the workers and set up a guard around the crowd. The very sight of the policemen sparked the flame of resistance within the men. But they were still
waiting for news from their friends inside the office, so whatever their frustration, they patiently waited it out.

The sharp-eyed policemen wove their way through the crowds, never letting down their guard for an instant in the hope of finding an agitator among them.

The citizens of Inch'on poured into the side streets in order to catch a glimpse of the longshoremen and their newfound solidarity. An endless stream of policemen sped to the scene on motorbikes. Throughout the area surrounding the wharf, the air was thick with tension—everyone could sense it.

One by one steamships loaded with freight pressed into the harbor, but they just sat there idly. Then the laborers who had entered the Land and Sea Transportation Cooperative with their list of demands came back outside escorted by policemen.

“They haven't accepted our demands!”

“
Kaisan
! Clear out!”

Before the full report had even been delivered, this order to disperse came from a police officer standing in the street, a man with several golden stripes attached to his shoulder. A horrible sound of angry movement filled the air.

107

The crowd grew excited and tried to demonstrate through the streets of Inch'on, but countless people ended up being arrested. When Ch'otchae made it back to his house, his landlady came out to greet him.

“Somebody just stopped by to see you.”

Ch'otchae had been running and was short of breath.

“Who was it?” he asked, still winded. “What sort of clothes was he wearing?”

Was it a cop? Or was it maybe Sinch'ol? thought Ch'otchae. The old woman smiled.

“Let's see. How was he dressed? Well, I don't quite remember . . . But he did say that he'd come right back, and that you should stay here and wait for him . . .”