People who are leaving their hometowns usually have to try and hold back their tears; it’s only natural. We, on the other hand — well, it’s not that we spat on the ground and said good riddance, it’s just that we all knew we would never return. The place was doomed to become a hell on earth, a place where only devils would be able to thrive. Or so we thought. After that day at the resort, I didn’t see Sangho again. During those nightmarish days, though we pretended it wasn’t so, we hated each other more than our enemies. I knew only too well that he shot my sisters in a fit of rage. We killed anyone we decided was our enemy, and that was no different, really. We killed anyone who’d joined the Party or the Workers’ League — in fact, we killed anyone we could think up a reason for killing. That was why we hated ourselves.
As for Sangho, I returned the favor he’d done me. I had a pretty good idea of where Myŏngsŏn’s family lived in the village of Palsan. Myŏngsŏn and Sangho had become very close as they worked together for the youth group at church. They had probably promised each other to get married when the war ended, or if they moved down South. Pistol in hand, I headed for Myŏngsŏn’s house. When I got there, I knocked on the front gate. The second Myŏngsŏn’s mother opened it I smashed her face in with the butt of the pistol. I ran into the front yard, rushed into the main bedroom, and opened fire on the roomful of girls. It turns out that Sangho was one step ahead of me, though. On his way through Unbong, he’d already slaughtered my other sister and her entire family. Years later, as I got older and older, I began to see phantoms. At first, I would scream out loud, dripping with cold sweat, but as time went by I would just sit there and watch them, as if from afar. I wonder — was it that way for Sangho, too?
9. The Fork in the Road
SEPARATION
ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT.That’s enough. Time to go.
The phantom of Uncle Sunnam spoke, and Illang, standing at his side, agreed.
Right. Let’s go.
The other ghosts, both men and women, rose up quietly and began fading back into the darkness, disappearing like pieces of cloth quivering in the breeze. A voice, coming from someplace far, far away, reached Yosŏp’s ears.
Those who killed and were killed are bound together in the next world.
It was Yohan.
Finally, I am home. Finally, I am relieved of the old hatred and resentment. Finally I see my friends, and finally, I can stop wandering through unknown darkness. I’m off. Be well, both of you.
They all disappeared. Silence descended. The darkness was gradually withdrawing; daybreak was on its way — outside the window, beyond the distinct shadows of the mountain ridge, the milky sky was growing clearer. Only Ryu Yosŏp and his uncle remained in the second-story room with the wooden floor. Yosŏp’s uncle broke the silence.
“Those who needed to leave have left, and now the ones who are still alive must start living anew. We must purge this land, cleanse it of all the old filth and grime, don’t you agree?”
Ryu Yosŏp clasped his hands together and began to recite a passage from the Bible he had memorized long ago.
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.
He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
10. Burning the Clothes
BURIAL
SETTING OUT FROM his uncle’s place in Some, Yosŏp and the guide climbed into the car and headed towards town. Cautiously, Yosŏp asked the guide in the front seat, “Would it be possible to drop by Ch’ansaemgol on the way?”
“There’s someplace else you want to go, too?”
The guide grimaced, glancing at his wristwatch.
“We’ve got to be at the hotel by lunchtime.”
“I was just wondering if we could have a quick look at the place as we pass through. ”
“I say, Reverend, you sure do have a lot of requests.”
“I’m just curious to see if the place I used to call home is still the way it was back then.”
“It won’t be anything like the old days — everything’s been changed by the introduction of the cooperative system.”
“I’d be happy just to get a glimpse of the hill behind the village.”
The guide laughed.
“We have no way of even knowing where Ch’ansaem is.”
“It’s in the Onchŏn township, so it’ll be on the corner as we drive up.”
At that, the guide consented quite readily, saying, “Oh, well, if that’s the case, you can just tell us where to go.”
Just as they had a few days earlier, they drove along the town’s paved roads and empty streets. As they reached the outskirts of town and the rice paddies began to stretch out before them on either side, an open field ringed by the ridges of low mountains came into view in the distance. The orchard was exactly where it had been all those years ago. Standing along the ridges were the apple trees. Each fruit was ripening at its own pace, countless different shades of apples peeking through the green leaves.
“That’s it right over there. Just stop at the corner of that road for a minute, please.”
Stalks of corn lined the road, swaying back and forth in the autumn wind. Two-story duplexes made of gray brick stood at identical intervals along the hillside, surrounded by the orchard. Yosŏp was amazed to see that the village that had seemed so spacious to him as a child actually took up no more space than a small corner of the low hill. The levee where Yosŏp used to take the cow to graze had, at some point, been transformed into a cement embankment. Only the starwort blossoming by the cornfields was still the same. The tiny little flowers still seemed to be laughing out loud in the wind. Yosŏp stood there for a moment, looking up at the vast expanse of sky, then took the clothes out of the bundle he’d brought out with him from the car. The guide, who’d been smoking a cigarette off to the side, came up to him.
“What have you got there?”
“It belonged to my brother,” Yosŏp replied, waving his brother’s old underwear at the guide. “I promised my sister-in-law that I would help put some of her demons to rest.”
“Ah, you brought them with you from Sariwŏn.”
Yosŏp started off along the old levee path, cutting through the cornfields up to the base of the hill. The guide, having no idea what was going on, followed close behind. Avoiding the areas that were choked with weeds, Yosŏp chose a sunny spot where the dirt was visibly dry and crouched down to the ground. He reached down and gathered a handful of dirt.
“What are you doing?”
The guide seemed confused as he followed Yosŏp’s gaze towards the patch of bare earth. Yosŏp answered him with a question of his own.
“You have a lighter, don’t you?”
Apparently still unable to grasp what was going on, the baffled guide took out his lighter and handed it over to Yosŏp. Collecting a small pile of dry twigs from here and there, Yosŏp heaped them together and set the tiny pyre ablaze. The twigs flared up, crackling loudly. Above the flame, Yosŏp held the underwear that Big Brother Yohan had used to deliver his son Tanyŏl. The cloth fibers curled up, distorted, and the edges of the garment began to turn black, rapidly burning inwards. Holding it in his hand, Yosŏp turned the cloth over the flame, slowly, a bit at a time, so as to burn it all the way through. When all that remained was a square of cloth about the size of his palm, Yosŏp tossed the whole thing atop the miniature bonfire. It shriveled up and disappeared instantly.