“If you go there. look for them.”
Yosŏp, tempted to ask outright why his brother wouldn’t go look for them himself, decided to keep his peace. Until now, the two brothers had never discussed the subject of “home” at any length. It was likely that Yohan had already noticed how his younger brother found it difficult to forgive the man he had been in those days.
“What do you think about ghosts?”
The question had neither head nor tail. A presbyter asking a minister’s opinion on ghosts, of all things! Of course, Yosŏp knew that his older brother was asking him about phantoms, not demons.
“They appear in the Bible many times. That is, the possessed do.”
Yohan lowered his voice, as if someone listened nearby.
“I’ve seen ghosts. Many, many times.”
“This is talk I haven’t heard before.”
“I just never told you. Even in Seoul I saw them every now and then. Then, all these years in America, they didn’t show — not once — but now they’re back again. Ever since Ansŏng-daek1 died.”
Ansŏng-daek had been Yosŏp’s sister-in-law. She was Yohan’s second wife, the woman he married after he crossed down into the South by himself, the woman with whom he had lived in America until three short years ago. Not once had Yohan ever referred to her as “your sister-in-law” or “my wife.”
“You don’t go to church these days, Big Brother, do you?”
“Look, just drop it. The festive mood rubs me the wrong way. Those people just muddle through the church services — their hearts aren’t in it. All they really want is an excuse to use the chapel to drink tea, eat food, and brag.”
“That’s just the way they do things here. Do you still pray?”
“Sure. I pray and read the Bible everyday.”
“That’s good. It so happens that I’ve been visiting with church members today. Why don’t we hold today’s service here in the house, Big Brother?”
“Did you bring your Bible and hymnbook?”
“I’ll go get them from the car.”
“Don’t bother. We’ve got mine, Ansŏng-daek’s and even the kids’—we have sets to spare.”
They began. Yosŏp opened the Bible and began with a passage from 2 Corinthians:
Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance; for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us; For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves guiltless in the matter.
Trying his best to ignore his brother’s presence, Yosŏp began his sermon.
“We left our home forty years ago. Despite the unhappy events we faced there, we left because our faith allowed it, because our belief in the Lord taught us that we would find a new place, a place to build a heaven on earth. War was waged in our home as we left. Many, many innocents died. To live, people killed and were killed. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses reminds his people of the promise made to their ancestors regarding the land of Canaan. He delivers the law, teaching them how to win a life of victory in the land of promise. They said, Jehovah, let all the enemies of the Lord face this same end. Do not pity them or offer them promises, only annihilate them all. And yet, Jesus taught love and peace. I say again — those left behind in our hometown had souls, just as we do. It is we who must repent first.”
His reading glasses on, his Bible open, and his head down, Yohan seemed to be making a valiant effort to sit through the service. Yosŏp went on to speak of the peace that came with old age and what one must do to endure loneliness.
Unable to bear it any longer, Yohan cut short Yosŏp’s mumbling.
“Well now, how about a. why don’t we sing a hymn?”
His voice, piercing and powerful as he sang, hadn’t changed a bit.
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right man on our side,
The man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth His Name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
The hymn complete, Yohan took charge and began the final prayer that would bring their little service to a close. He didn’t mention a word about his younger brother’s upcoming journey. He did pray, however, for the health of his children and of Yosŏp — even that of his sister-in-law. He then added abruptly, “Please protect the souls of my wife, of Daniel, and of my daughters, and help me to join them in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.”
With that, the two brothers finished their family service.
It is around supper time so the air hanging low above the thatched roofs of the village and out over the alder forest on the hill is thick with the smell and smoke of fresh pine twigs set ablaze. Bluish tints still cling to the sky, but darkness has already begun settling in all around, hugging the earth. I’ve just finished up my business in the outhouse next to the hedge-gate and am about to pull up my pants. I can see the itsy-bitsy apples dangling from trees in the orchard and can just make out a cabbage field straight ahead of me. A boy is running towards the orchard, leaping over furrows in the field. He jumps over another. If he keeps it up, he’ll squash all the cabbages for this winter’s kimchi.
Hey you! What do you think you’re doing!
Uh.
Oh, it’s you, Yosŏp. Get on over here.
Realizing it was my younger brother, I slowly make my way towards him.
Turn around. Let me see. What have you got there?
I snatch up the bundle he has hidden behind his back and open it up. Out comes a gourd containing some cooked rice and a little china bowl filled with pickled radish and bean paste.
I just brought it out to eat with my friends while we play.
You little brat — tell me the truth! Where are you taking that food?
Big Brother. this is a secret just between us, okay? Promise you won’t tell.
I didn’t think much of it at first when Yosŏp came by and started talking about Ch’ansaemgol. Let me see, I wondered. Where was Ch’ansaemgol again? But then he started in with the let’s-have-a-service, let-us-repent, Commies-have-souls-too spiel, and so on and so forth, and later, after he finally left, I suddenly remembered the dead villagers. Out of all of them, Illang’s face was clearest — and he looked exactly the way he did back then. He’d been approaching forty. If he were still alive, he’d be over eighty by now. I had that bastard’s nose pierced with an electric wire, and we dragged him all the way to town.
The TVwas off. Slowly, stealthily, the face of that son of a bitch, Ichiro, began floating up out of the black blankness of the screen. It was the same face that had gradually come back to life so long ago, the one that slowly regained consciousness after I cracked his skull with a pick handle and knocked him out. The wretch must have been strong as an ox, no doubt about it — I hit him on the temple, right above the ear, and it didn’t even take him that long to wake up.