Deok-gi entered the inner quarters and changed into the Western suit he had worn the night before. He didn’t feel like sitting alone in the outer quarters or staying inside to listen to his mother and wife discuss the Main Room or his father.
“Where are you going? You didn’t even eat your dinner!” Mother’s tone was almost reproachful.
“I’ll be back soon. I just want to get some fresh air.”
“Aren’t you going to see your father?”
“He was just here.”
“What?” His mother pursed her lips. She figured her husband had wanted to avoid her.
“Then why didn’t he stop by?” asked Deok-gi’s wife, disappointed on behalf of her mother-in-law.
“He must be busy,” Deok-gi snapped, not wanting to offer a long explanation. But he could see that he had hurt his mother’s feelings. No doubt she was thinking, So you’re on your father’s side!
“Mother, will you stay overnight?”
“What else can I do? I may be over forty, but I’m still under the iron thumb of my in-laws.” She stopped complaining to ask her son to stop by the Hwagae-dong house on his way out to inform the household of her plans and to ask that Deok-gi’s sister be sent over.
“I don’t know whether I’ll have time. I’ll try, but why don’t you send a messenger over anyway?”
Deok-gi had no particular plans, but he didn’t want to go all the way to Hwagae-dong. As he left, he mentally calculated how much money he had left in his wallet. He hadn’t yet received travel expenses and the money for his tuition, so it would be difficult to give Byeong-hwa enough for a month’s worth of meals.
Boarding House
Maybe I’ll go up to Jingogae and buy something. Deok-gi had nothing particular in mind, but was merely entertaining a thought typical of the idle rich. Then it occurred to him: Will Byeong-hwa be waiting for me if he thinks I’m leaving today? He vaguely remembered promising over drinks the previous night that he would bring money to Byeong-hwa’s boarding house.
Deok-gi hopped on a passing streetcar, got off at Seodaemun, and had to ask several times for directions before reaching Hongpa-dong. He took out his address book as he meandered from one alley to another, negotiating a maze of streets as twisted as animal’s innards. He had grown up in Seoul and lived there for more than twenty years, but never had he been to this kind of neighborhood. He wandered for more than half an hour until he found himself at a tiny gate perched on a rocky hillside. The winter sun was slowly descending below the horizon. He had seen many such houses in the neighborhood but had assumed that a boarding house would look better.
The place was a wreck. It wasn’t a hovel, strictly speaking, because there was a gate, albeit one on the verge of collapse. The entire house was wrapped in blackish, rotting straw mats, like a kimchi jar insulated against the cold.
So this is where he’s holed up, where he gets free meals! The thought made Deok-gi more inclined to despise Byeong-hwa, rather than sympathize with him.
He called out for his friend several times, but no one answered. He knew his voice had carried, for the yard was no bigger than a cat’s forehead. Finally he heard a voice ask, “Who is it?” He had not detected any movement on the other side of the gate, but when he peered in through its gap, he saw a disheveled woman, who, were it not for her pale face, might have passed for a weasel plucked straight from a chimney. She looked as short and skinny as a dark leg warmer. This, and the sound of her voice, suggested she was over thirty.
“Mr. Kim? He’s still in bed. He’s not feeling well.”
Deok-gi’s face brightened at the news that his friend was home. Since Byeong-hwa hadn’t come out to meet him, Deok-gi had been afraid that Byeong-hwa had already left and that the two had missed each other.
“Well, if he can’t come out, may I come in?” Deok-gi asked, pushing lightly on the gate.
The woman winced with embarrassment at the thought of inviting a guest into her shabby home. She kept peering out, trying to get a good look at her visitor. “Please wait here,” she said and went back inside.
In a few minutes, one of the windows slid open, and Deok-gi heard Byeong-hwa’s husky voice: “Is that you, Jo? Come on in!”
Deok-gi cleared his throat and entered the house. The housewife looked back at the guest as she opened the door to the main room. Deok-gi automatically returned her gaze. She looked like a gentle woman, after all, and he felt sorry for her.
Is her daughter not at home? Judging from the mother, I bet the daughter has a pretty face and is sweet, too.
Deok-gi stood smiling at Byeong-hwa for a while before he said, “What’s the matter? Does wine-loving Chinese poet Li Bai sometimes get hungover after having a few drinks?” He remained at the doorway, put off by the shabbiness of the veranda and the cavernous room.
“Come on in. It’s freezing out there!” Byeong-hwa shook his shoulders and buried his hands deep into the pockets of the pants he had slept in — the only pants he owned. Deok-gi gazed at the dusty trousers with a look of pity.
“Why are you standing there with your mouth hanging open? Does everything look that pathetic to you?” Byeong-hwa asked in the gravelly voice of someone who had drunk too much rice wine.
“Let’s go out.”
“We can go out, but why don’t you come in first? I can’t move a muscle yet. I’m sick and starving,” Byeong-hwa whined.
Deok-gi was at a loss. He noticed someone watching through a tiny glass pane in the main room and wondered whether it was the daughter of the family, who, according to Byeong-hwa, worked at a factory. He began to feel self-conscious.
“If you’re sick, take some medicine.” With this advice, Deok-gi jumped onto the narrow veranda.
“I’m starving to death. What medicine can cure that?” Byeong-hwa muttered angrily, as if his friend were to blame for how he felt.
“That ’s why I’m saying we should go out. Get some cheap drinks or some beef soup.” He finally entered the room from the veranda. The floor under his feet was icy cold.
His friend had been covering himself with a quilt, but it was so soiled that it was impossible to say which side was the cover and which the lining. A chill rose up through Deok-gi’s body, and a quintessentially male odor, a mixture of grease and old sweat, assaulted his nose and made his stomach turn.
Deok-gi stuck a cigarette between his lips and picked up a box of matches from the desktop. Several magazines were strewn about, but other than that the desk held only a bottle of ink. Newspapers were in open disarray at the head of the bed.
I guess some people live like this.
Deok-gi was shocked, but in the end he felt sorry for his friend, and his sympathy deepened when he realized how unswerving Byeong-hwa’s spirit must be for him to suffer such extreme conditions while he clung to his ideals.
I wouldn’t last a day here. I would have crawled back home and would be living off my parents.