Just like charcoal.
From behind, the other women would joke:
she’s walking fast as a mule
because she wants to hug her husband.
From ahead, Yeong-seop’s Mum replied briefly:
I have to nurse the baby first,
then hug hubby or swallow him.
A Mouse
After the bombing
a gaunt mouse came along.
He was glad.
‘How hungry you must be!’
Legless Gi-cheol threw his wooden pillow,
knocked the animal senseless,
cooked and ate it.
He cooked and ate the scream the mouse made
as it died.
When would the war end?
The Fiancée
Kim Sin-ok got engaged to Bak U-hwan
although her family objected.
If he goes off to war he’s dead.
You want to get spliced with him?
They got engaged regardless.
Because her second brother Sin-jeong
had been killed at the battle of Waegwan
or the battle of Yeongcheon, they reckoned
anyone joining the army was on his way to the other world.
Since they were engaged
their parents
and the couple met
to eat beef broth together in a local restaurant.
Bak U-hwan presented an 18-carat gold ring,
Kim Sin-ok bought a Seiko wristwatch.
Bak U-hwan visited Sin-ok’s house
and greeted his future father-in-law, mother-in-law,
then exchanged a few words in Sin-ok’s room, no more;
they had not yet once held hands.
She never wore her engagement ring.
The watch stayed in his inside pocket.
As Bak U-hwan was on his way back home
the sound of a jet plane swept the ground.
The day he joined his regiment
he was wearing a good-luck charm belt over his shoulder.
They went to Gang-gyeong station.
Both sets of parents saw him off
while Sin-ok waved standing behind her parents.
She felt shy and sad.
Two years later
on February 5, 1953,
Bak U-hwan came back home in Sin-ok’s dreams.
Joyful laughter.
The following day, February 6, he likewise came home.
One month later notice came from army headquarters that he had died in action,
with a letter of condolence from his commanding officer.
Next a box containing his remains arrived.
The vice-mayor put on a black tie and came
to offer his condolences on the death of private Bak U-hwan.
Sin-ok stopped eating.
Her drunken eldest brother shouted:
Stupid girl! Now what will you do?
I don’t want my sister to live as a widow.
Hurry up and find yourself a husband.
Stupid girl!
VOLUME 19
Orari
Three members of the punitive force in Jeju Island got bored.
They flicked cigarette butts.
They spat.
They called out old Im Cha-sun
who’d been caught in Orari village:
‘You, old man, come out!’
They called out his grandson, Im Gyeong-po:
‘Come out!’
‘Slap your grandfather on the cheek.’
His grandson refused.
They kicked him hard.
‘Come on, Gyeong-po, hit me, come on hit me.’
His grandson slapped his grandfather in the cheek.
‘Slap him harder, kid.’
They kicked the grandson.
The boy slapped his grandpa hard.
‘Old man, hit your grandson.’
This time the grandfather hit his grandson.
Then the old man got punched and kicked by the men around.
‘You bloody old red,
slap him hard.’
He slapped his grandson hard.
Grandfather and grandson,
weeping,
hit each other.
The red grandfather
slapped the red grandson,
the red grandson
slapped the red grandfather.
See? These are red games.
Then there was the sound of gunfire.
Grandfather Im Cha-sun
and grandson Im Gyeong-po
could no longer hit one another.
After the gunfire
there’s no knowing where the crows of Jeju Island went flying.
One Rubber Shoe
On a sandbar in Miho Stream
one rubber shoe that came floating down
got stuck
and stopped.
The fields along the Miho Stream seemed abandoned and empty.
Who knew
it was the shoe of Ha In-ae, a pretty girl from Yongin?
Who knew
it was the shoe of the dead Ha In-ae?
When she walked under her sunshade,
soon enough
her breasts got moist under her one-piece dress,
from this house and that
men’s noses would come out sniffing.
Who knew
it was the shoe of Ha In-ae who hanged herself
after being raped by Jeong Deok, a senior officer,
that summer under the People’s Republic?
Kim Seong-ju
Oaths made by slicing palms with a knife-tip
and mingling the blood.
Oaths made by each cutting off a finger
and burying the two fingers together.
Through such blood oaths, men of old
used to inscribe heroic aims in life.
Blood oaths could become blood betrayals,
and the two would be estranged forever;
sometimes one killed the other,
was killed by the other.
It happened to the men of ancient times,
to men of the Middle Ages,
to men of modern times.
Kim Seong-ju of the North-West Youth League
and Mun Bong-je were great friends.
Even though they made no oath in blood,
they did go up Mount Namsan, take an oath in liquor
and smash the glasses:
‘If you die, I die too.’
As for their loyalty to Syngman Rhee,
Kim Seong-ju was the more vehement,
and Mun Bong-je lagged behind.
When the allies recaptured Pyongyang,
the Americans appointed Kim Seong-ju, of all people,
governor of North Pyeongan province.
Later Kim Seong-ju dropped out
and Mun Bong-je swam upstream like a fish.
What happened?
Unexpectedly
Kim Seong-ju, in a fit of pique, became election manager
for Cho Bong-am of the Progressive Party.
For that, Syngman Rhee detested Kim Seong-ju more than anyone.
On June 25, 1953,
the third anniversary of the outbreak of war,
Kim Seong-ju was arrested by the military police.
Allowed no family visits,
he was killed by the military police
under the command of Won Yong-deok.
He was killed under Martial Law,
by authority of the recently enacted National Security Law
on the fabricated charge that he had conspired to assassinate the president
Kim Seong-ju’s path was that of the first Republic of modern Korea.
The Younger Brother Stayed Behind
In July that year