From Wonso Pond (46 page)

He had never before been guilty of idle thinking, but now he let his imagination run wild, for he had nothing else to do all day long. What he thought about most was Sinch'ol. Occasionally he heard news of him from Ch'olsu, though the news was never very comforting. Oh, if only Sinch'ol could get out quickly, so we could get back to work, hand-in-hand, just like we always used to . . . And with this thought, Ch'otchae again pictured that long line of factory girls walking out toward Wolmido. Then that startled expression on Sonbi's face came to his mind. It seemed likely that he might see her again someday, if it really had been her. He felt the sudden urge to find out about the report from the Taedong Spinning Mill that should have made its way to Ch'olsu last night. He was burning up inside now and couldn't stand being indoors for even a minute longer, so he decided to go to Ch'olsu's room.

“I've heard some news about Sinch'ol from a friend in Seoul,” said Ch'olsu, lowering his voice.

Ch'otchae looked up at him. His eyes were as round as saucers.

“Apparently they dropped the charges against him and he got out of prison . . . on grounds of ideological conversion.”

“Conversion?”

Ch'otchae took in the meaning of these words, but he couldn't make sense of them. Could he believe them? Was it right to believe them?
Suddenly Ch'otchae felt an indescribable tightness spread throughout his chest. Ch'olsu could see how hard Ch'otchae was taking the news.

“My friend! It's no surprise Sinch'ol converted. What do you expect from the so-called intellectual class? From what I hear, he found a job in Manchuria and married some rich girl just as soon as he got out of prison.”

Found a job . . . married some rich girl? With these new words, something pierced Ch'otchae's mind like a thunderbolt.

Just then, they heard the sound of footsteps rushing toward them. A door flew open and both men jumped to their feet.

120

It was Kannan. Ch'olsu glared at her disapprovingly. Kannan had to catch her breath before speaking.

“You . . . you've got to come now. Okay? Just hurry.”

Kannan had barely finished her sentence before she spun around and ran off again. Their hearts were still racing from the surprise. Kannan had looked quite familiar to Ch'otchae when he'd seen her there for the first time, but it hadn't dawned on him immediately who exactly she'd been. Ch'olsu looked back at Ch'otchae.

“Come on, let's go . . . It looks like she might die!”

Ch'otchae studied the expression on Ch'olsu's face and followed him out the door.

“Last night one of our women comrades was dismissed from the Taedong Spinning Mill on account of illness . . .” Ch'olsu told him.

Just then a bicycle sped by, and the stench of fish hit the air. Catching a glipse of the fish peddler, Ch'otchae repeated to himself the words Ch'olso had just spoken. Then he felt a sudden tightness in his chest.

“It's her lungs,” said Ch'olsu, letting out a deep sigh.

His tiny eyes narrowed as he glanced over at Ch'otchae, and his lips tightened. Ch'otchae was looking out into the distance at the smokestack of the Taedong Spinning Mill, visible just beyond a grove of trees. It kept spewing out puffs of jet-black smoke. Could Sonbi have caught a disease like that too? he wondered.

When they reached Kannan's house, she came out to meet them. Her lips were quivering and she tried to put something into words, but her voice cracked and neither of them could understand what she was
saying. They hurried into the room. Ch'olsu rushed to the patient's side and shook her.

“Comrade! Snap out of it, my friend!”

The patient's body was already stone cold and her face was deathly pale. Ch'olsu let out a deep sigh and turned around to look at Ch'otchae. He was standing anxiously to the side of Ch'olsu, that then took one step closer. And then he saw her.

“Sonbi!” he cried, standing paralyzed at the sight of her.

The whole world began to spin in front of him—he'd been booted off a cliff and was tumbling far below into the darkness. This was his Sonbi, whom he'd loved since he was a boy. This was his Sonbi, whom he had so longed to see again . . . And there she was right in front of him, dead and gone forever! Ch'olsu's comments about Sinch'ol now struck him like a flash of lightening.

“He married some rich girl and found a good job . . .”

That's it! Sinch'ol always had that luxury of choice! And that's what led him to an ideological conversion. But what about me? What choice do I have? What choice did I ever have? Sinch'ol has many paths to follow. That's what makes us different people!

Ch'otchae looked down at Sonbi again. Sonbi, whom he had loved since he was a little child! Sonbi, whom he had so longed to marry and have children with! Never once had he been able to talk to her. And in the end she'd become a corpse, laid out before his very own eyes!

It was as though someone had simply tossed her to him. Here, take her, now that she's dead!

And with this, a fire seemed to burn in Ch'otchae's eyes.

He trembled violently. His line of vision was fixed on Sonbi's terrifying corpse as it gradually transformed into a dark mass that swept before his eyes.

This dark mass! Slowly expanding in size, blackening out everything before him, indeed everything in the path of all human beings. If this wasn't the very essence of all human problems, what else could be?

These human problems! More than anything we need to find a solution to them. People have fought for hundreds and thousands of years in an effort to solve them. But still no one has come up with a solution! And if that's the case, just which human beings will actually solve these problems in the future? Just who?

Glossary

chon
(K.) a unit of currency; one hundredth of a won.

donburi
( J.) a Japanese dish made with a base of rice.

geta
( J.) Japanese wooden clogs, elevated several centimeters from the ground.

intelli
(J./K.) a pejorative term for intellectuals.

kake udon
( J.) a bowl of thick Japanese noodles, served hot.

kimchi
(K.) a spicy pickled vegetable, often made with cabbage.

kisaeng
(K .) a traditional Korean entertainer or courtesan.

li
(K.) a unit of currency; one tenth of a chon.

makkolli
(K .) a milky-white Korean alcoholic beverage.

mihari
( J.) a peephole in a prison door.

nyang
(K.) an older unit of currency, equivalent in the provinces to one chon.

Shikishima
( J.) a brand of expensive Japanese cigarettes; an ancient name for Japan.

torii
( J.) a Japanese gateway, made of wood or stone, located outside a Shinto shrine.

tubu tchigae
(K.) spicy tofu stew.

waku
( J.) the reel on a spinning machine on which thread is spun.

won
(K.) a unit of currency, equivalent to approximately two days labor on the docks.

yakiguri
( J.) roasted chestnuts.

yukata
( J.) a Japanese robe.

Ch'anggyong Park (Ch'anggyong kongwon) Once an imperial palace, turned into a zoo by the Japanese colonial government. Now called the Piwon, or the “Secret Garden.”

Choson Sin'gung (Chōsen jingu) The Shrine of Korea, built by the colonial government on Namsan, but removed after liberation.

Choson An older word for Korea, still used in North Korea and the area of northeastern China and Japan populated by Koreans.

Hwanggŭm-jong The area now called Ŭljiro in Seoul.

Kyongsong Imperial University Now called Seoul National University. During the colonial period and for sometime afterward it was located in the north of Seoul.

Man'guk Park (Man'guk kongwon) Now called Chayu kongwon, or Freedom Park, in Inchon.

Mitsukoshi Department One of the first modern department stores in Seoul, it once occupied the six-story building where the Sinsegye Department Store is found today.

MonggÅ­mp'o Beach Once a well-known holiday destination in Hwanghae Province, now part of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Mount Inwang (Inwangsan) A mountain west of the Kyongbok Palace in Seoul, and east of the Sodaemun Prison.

Mount Pugak (Pugaksan) A mountain situated directly behind Kyongbok Palace.

Mount Pult'a (Pult'asan) A mountain in Hwanghae Province, now in the DPRK.

Namdaemun The Southern Gate in Seoul.

Namsan A mountain located in central Seoul between the Han river and the Chongno district.

P'yongyang A center of industry during the Japanese occupation. Obliterated by American napalming during the Korean War, it has been rebuilt into the modern capital of the DPRK .

Pagoda Park The site in central Seoul where thousands of Koreans gathered for a historic independence march in 1918, which ultimately proved unsuccessful.

Pon-jong Honmachi in Japanese, the area now called Ch'ungmuro in Seoul.

Posong College Founded in 1905, it is now called Korea University (Koryo Daehakkyo).

Seoul The capital city of South Korea. Officially called Kyongsong (or in Japanese, Keijō) during the colonial period.

Sup'yo Bridge A small bridge now re-built over the reconstructed Ch'onggye River in Seoul.

Taedong Spinning Mill Most likely refers to the Tongyang Spinning Mill in Inchon.

Umigwan A popular movie theater in Seoul.

Wolmido A small island off of Inchon popular for its amusement park and salt-water baths.

Yongsan District in Seoul where Japanese military bases were located.

Acknowledgments

So many friends and colleagues have helped me shape this translation into a book—sharing their enthusiasm, their editorial assistance, and their practical advice—that I find it difficult to think of this project as anything but a collective effort.

The initial stages of this work would have been impossible without the philological expertise and generous mentorship of fellow translator Yu Youngnan. My deepest appreciation goes to her for reading early drafts of my translation in close consultation with the original Korean. I also want to acknowledge the crucial support of both Kyeong-Hee Choi, who introduced me to Kang Kyong-ae's fiction during my graduate training at the University of Chicago, and Janet Poole, who first encouraged me to take on the translation of Kang's novel.

I especially want to thank fellow Korean literature scholars Choi Wonshik at Inchon University, Lee Sunok at Sookmyung Women's University, and Lee Sangkyung at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) for the expertise and kindness they extended to me in Seoul during the early stages of this project. For their inspirational work as translators and for the value they have placed on translation as an intellectual and creative practice, I am deeply grateful to my professors of Japanese literature, Bill Sibley and Norma Field at the University of Chicago. I want to thank Jihong Pak, Chon Hye-son, and Ch'oe Chun-ho for their assistance in clarifying parts of the original Korean novel. And to my students and colleagues in the Department of East Asian Studies at Brown University, I am deeply thankful for the welcoming and supportive environment in which I managed to complete the final stages of this manuscript during my first year of teaching.

Preliminary work on this translation was made possible through a Graduate Translation Fellowship from the International Communications Foundation, and later through a generous grant from the Korea Literature Translation Institute. Additional funding to support this publication was provided by the Korea Institute at Harvard University as well as the Korea Literature Translation Institute. I would like to thank David McCain and Susan Laurence, in particular, for their support of this project while I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Korea Institute and the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University.

The cover art of Inch'on harbor by Yoshida Hatsusaburō was first shown to me by the staff of the Incheon Foundation for Arts & Culture, and a digital copy was generously provided by the Map Communications Museum in Japan.

My deepest gratitude also goes to The Feminist Press for agreeing to oversee the editing and publication of
From Wonso Pond
, and for helping to bring Kang's novel to a far wider audience than it might have had otherwise. Florence Howe first gave her support for this project after what must have seemed like unrelenting appeals from me. Her support was graciously followed by the editorial assistance of Gloria Jacobs, Theresa Noll, and Jeanann Pannasch, whom I thank for their patience in dealing with a first-time author.

Finally, to Kang Kyong-ae, whose fortitude and creativity have helped sustain me for so long, my thanks are everlasting.