Collecting the various papers and his plane ticket, Yosŏp paid Mr. Kim a lump sum to cover the airfare, travel expenses, and service charge.
Yosŏp called his older brother as soon as he got home. The phone rang for a long time before Yohan finally picked up. His voice was calm and rather subdued.
“It’s me, Big Brother. What took you so long to answer?”
“Um, I was sleeping.”
“What are you doing at night that you should be sleeping now?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get to sleep at night these days.”
“You should read the Bible, pray, and go to sleep.”
“Why did you call?”
“Ah, yes. How was Daniel’s name recorded in the family registry?”
“Well, I imagine it would have worked the same way as yours — we called you Joseph when you were young, but changed it to Yosŏp in Chinese characters for the official records. Likewise, Daniel’s name should just be Tanyŏl. Ryu Tanyŏl.”
Yosŏp told his brother that he understood and was about to hang up when he was seized by the urge to add one last thing.
“Big Brother, do pray to God for forgiveness. Then the dead, too, will be able to close their eyes in peace.”
“What did you say!”
Yohan began to shriek. Considering how poor his health had been of late, it was a wonder where so much energy could possibly have come from.
“Why should I beg for forgiveness? We were the Crusaders — the Reds were the sons of Lucifer! The hordes of Satan! I was on the side of Michael the archangel, and those bastards were the beasts of the Apocalypse! Even now, if our Lord were to command it, I would fight those devils!”
“Brother, disputes between the powers that be are different from those among men in this world.”
“Nonsense! The Holy Spirit was upon us back then!”
With the resounding crash of a receiver being slammed into its cradle, the line went dead.
Three days before he set out for the land of his birth, Yosŏp had an odd encounter.
It started raining in the afternoon. Judging from the fierce way the raindrops were slamming against the windowpane, it didn’t look like the kind of rain that planned to stop any time soon. The sheets of rain thinned out a bit as night fell but showed no real sign of letting up.
A call came from New Jersey. It was the minister of the church that Presbyter Ryu Yohan attended. He was young, the graduate of a first-rate seminary, and because his family had immigrated when he was still a child, his English was fluent and his sermons sophisticated. He was named successor and brought to the church when the previous minister retired and moved to Boston to be with his children. Ryu Yohan had served with the old minister for decades as a presbyter and continued to be revered for his long-standing service. For some reason, however, he and the new minister were simply not compatible. Gradually, Yohan lost heart with the whole institution and, as Yosŏp had been told during his last visit, became fed up with the Western way in which the church was run. Yosŏp, on the other hand, had studied for a second degree in the States. So despite the fact that he had actually been ordained in Seoul, he understood the young minister and had a favorable opinion of him and his ways.
“Something. something awful has happened to Presbyter Ryu.”
Anticipating what might be wrong, Yosŏp made an effort to calm his voice.
“Everything is as God wills it, and I am not easily surprised. Feel free to tell me what happened.”
“I’m so sorry. Presbyter Ryu passed away today at around 9:00 p.m. We were with him till the end.”
“I’ll be there soon. Have you notified the funeral home?”
“Please don’t concern yourself with that — our church has a steward who handles funerals. You can trust him to take care of all the necessary details.”
Yosŏp woke up his wife. She burst into tears and said again and again that they should have visited more often and that she felt guilty. Yosŏp left the packing to his wife and contacted his nephews, Samyŏl and Pil-lip, who lived in Washington, D.C., and Detroit. Luckily, Samyŏl was home, and Yosŏp asked him to call his younger brother to pass on the news.
It might have been on account of the rain, or maybe that it was the middle of the week — whatever the reason, the streets were practically empty. Yosŏp stuck to the main roads whenever possible and drove much faster than usual. By the time he pulled up to his brother’s home, a sizeable gathering of Yohan’s fellow churchgoers had already arrived. A good twenty people or so were crowded into the living room, sitting in the various chairs and milling about on the carpeted floor. The young minister sprang to his feet and greeted Reverend Ryu and his wife. Seeking out familiar faces, Yosŏp greeted several acquaintances. A bit dazed, he looked around.
“My brother.?”
“He’s upstairs.”
This time Yosŏp led the way and started up the stairs. A great deal of time had passed since he’d entered his brother’s bedroom. Like the miser he was, Yohan had apparently kept on using the same metal bed he’d bought years ago at a used furniture sale in his neighborhood. A cardigan sweater was draped neatly across the back of a chair, and a pair of dress pants lay on the seat. The late Presbyter Ryu Yohan was lying on his bed, covered entirely by a white sheet. Yosŏp went over to the head of the bed, pulled down the sheet, and looked at his dead brother. It might just have been the fluorescent light, but Yohan’s face looked to be made of old paper, discolored to a faded yellow; his white hair seemed nothing more than a fistful of tangled old yarn. A veteran of countless encounters with bodies of the newly dead, Yosŏp had come to believe that he was capable of reading the various expressions of death. Looking at his brother’s face, Yosŏp read a sensation of relief, of lightness, as if Yohan had finally set down some heavy load. Drawn towards it, unable to stop himself, Yosŏp reached out and felt his older brother’s cheek and traced the cheekbone with his hand. Cold, but not stiff — it was still soft. Could it be that his brother had actually known peace? He prayed for a moment and pulled the sheet over his brother’s face. The young minister and Yosŏp crouched down, facing each other as they squatted on the carpeted floor by the side of the bed. The young minister began to explain.
“Presbyter Ryu called me early in the evening, saying he didn’t feel well. He asked if I could come over and pray for him. I suggested that we go to the hospital together, but he insisted that wasn’t necessary — he said a plain service with me was what he’d like to have.”
We’re off to the stream — I’m tagging along after the older guys from the neighborhood. The banks are sandy, the water crystal clear as it gushes through the jagged rocks. Uncle Sunnam is leading the way, dragging a yellow mongrel along by a length of string. Odds are that he’s caught the bitch that wandered over from the other side of the hill — I bet it’s the same dog that was playing about in our village.
His swift tongue and practical jokes have long since established him as the man at our village sarang.4 Until Uncle Sunnam starts going off to work the mines over in Ŭnnyul, we go hang around outside the sarang every afternoon just to see what the older guys are up to. Ichiro, the longstanding neighborhood servant, is always there. Even we young ones use the casual, low form of speech to Ichiro. In the wintertime, everybody brings their work to the village sarang; they boil sweet potatoes to eat with cold tongch’imi5 juice while they do their work. Sometimes the little ones, pressured by the older guys, brave a taste of makkŏlli.6In the summertime, plans for stealing chickens and pilfering melons are cooked up in that room. One time, trailing after Uncle Sunnam’s gang on a river-fishing trip, I even learn — among other things — about masturbation.