She felt as though some of her burden had been lifted and continued washing the clothes. Her fingers had become stiff and numb from the icy water, so she rubbed her hands fiercely and blew on them. When her hands regained life, she picked up the clothes and started to head home.
Just then, Sun Hee identified a man with a bucket and a shovel hobbling along the upper section of the riverbank.
It was unmistakably Judge Jeong Jin Wu. He was shoveling some sand by the riverbank and tossing it behind him. He then took off his shoes and rolled up his pants.
When Sun Hee saw the judge step into the river in his bare feet, it gave her a cold sensation. She assumed the judge was planning to use the sand to fix his furnace. She was bemused to see a respectable judge slogging through the freezing water to collect sand. Jeong Jin Wu appeared helpless and pathetic. He could have called his apartment maintenance man and had him send some workers to fix the furnace for him, Sun Hee thought. But she also concluded that the judge was something of a handyman and liked to solve his own problems.
Although Sun Hee tried to mind her own business and return home, she felt sorry for him. She kept glancing over her shoulder to see the judge shoveling laboriously in the icy river.
It was not long after Judge Jeong Jin Wu rolled up his pants and entered the river that his feet and ankles started to sting from the cold water. Despite the pain in his feet, he continued to dig with his shovel. Soon, his feet became entirely numb.
He dug up a big clump of sand and took it out of the river. On examining it more closely, he was not pleased with the quality of the sand and knew that it was not going to work as casting sand. He slumped with disappointment and stared at the flowing river in defeat.
Many years ago, when he and his son had come to this river to rinse salt out of seaweed, he had seen an area in the middle of the river that had superb sand.
But, he thought to himself, if the sand is truly superb, then why hasn’t the factory already taken it?
Jeong Jin Wu stood still to let his feet regain feeling, but he did not want to waste too much time. He was intent on going into the deep section of the river, near the huge boulders. This time, he took off his trousers and thermal underwear.
Passersby saw Jeong Jin Wu in his underwear nearly waist-deep in the freezing river. They stopped to watch this unusual spectacle. Some muttered jokingly that he was out to catch the enormous legendary fish that dwelled in the depths of the river.
The water had come up to his waist. He huffed and puffed each time he took another step into the river. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, and his entire body became paralyzed with numbness. He gently lowered the shovel to the floor of the river and took a scoop of the sand from between the boulders. Carefully, he lifted the sample out of the water without dropping it back to the bottom.
As soon as he examined the clump of sand, he shouted with joy. The sand was translucent, fine, and firm, the same sand he had seen many years ago with his son.
As he waddled back to the riverbank, Jeong Jin Wu seemed to have forgotten about his frozen limbs. He pulled a long stick from the bucket, which looked like a fisherman’s bait container, and a rope from his backpack. He then tied the rope onto the bucket and hung it around his neck.
From the other side of the river, he heard women giggling.
Jeong Jin Wu looked at the path where people were standing and then boldly went back into the river. The icy water did not bother him as it had before. His body had become used to it by now.
He dug up the sand and placed it in the bucket. It took some time to fill it halfway. He came out of the water and placed a large plastic bag on the ground. He then poured the sand into the bag. He rubbed his legs to get his blood flowing again and then returned to the river. He repeated this a few more times and collected enough sand to fill the bag. He then put the bag in his backpack.
The people standing by the road, curious at first, decided Jeong Jin Wu was an eccentric. They shook their heads in disdain and went about their business. They did not understand why he had to go so deep into the freezing river when there was abundant sand on the riverbank.
Jeong Jin Wu quickly put on his pants and threw the heavy backpack over his shoulders. He put the stick back into the bucket and held the shovel in his other hand. The backpack was filled with wet sand, which made it extremely heavy. He started to feel the weight of the sand on his lower back. As he walked down the path, he felt the backpack weighing down his shoulders, causing him to drag his feet.
He had done this to help Seok Chun, but he was having second thoughts, wondering if all this trouble was absolutely necessary. Judge Son had once complimented Jeong Jin Wu for going out of his way to do things for others. He could not accept that kind of compliment from Judge Son. If he could prevent a divorce and regenerate the couple’s lost love, then going out of his way for them was no trouble. How wonderful would it be for Seok Chun to appreciate what he had done for him, and for him to complete the new machine with this sand? Seok Chun would be able to complete the remote control, improve the multispindle machine, and come home with a sense of accomplishment. Seok Chun would then be able to spend more quality time at home with his family. Family and work may appear to be different at times, but affection was the thread that held the two together. Therefore, the duty of the law lay in restoring dysfunctional families and not only in arresting criminals. That was why, even though the backpack was burdensome, he continued trudging along the path.
Jeong Jin Wu stopped by a tree on the side of the road to rest. He put the heavy backpack down and leaned the shovel against the tree. Without the weight of the backpack, his shoulders felt as if they were going to float toward the sky. He pulled out a cigarette, took a deep drag, and blew out the smoke. He felt his frigid body warming up.
On the pathway, a woman was walking with a book under her arm, completely preoccupied with her thoughts. It was the coal miner’s wife, the schoolteacher, who lived on the second floor of his apartment building. She had committed her life to helping her students and had always worried about her husband’s addiction to alcohol. She was wearing the same old sweater that she had worn on that rainy night when Jeong Jin Wu saw her waiting for her husband to return from work.
When she saw Jeong Jin Wu, she smiled. Then she stopped, utterly perplexed.
“My friend needed sand, so…” explained Jeong Jin Wu, pointing to his wet pants.
The schoolteacher tried hard not to look at Jeong Jin Wu, and tried harder not to look at his pants.
“Has your wife returned from her field research?” asked the schoolteacher, searching for another topic of discussion.
“I imagine she will come back when the weather gets warmer up there. By the way, are you just coming back from a student’s house?” Jeong Jin Wu asked.
“Comrade Judge, you make it sound like you were following me.”
“I even know what you were thinking as you were walking back.”
The schoolteacher peered at him with curiosity and kept her eyes from glancing at his wet pants.
“You were thinking about how to punish the students who didn’t come to school today, right? Am I right?” Jeong Jin Wu chuckled.