“So you don’t want to go out?” Deok-gi asked again.
“I’m sure an aristocrat like you finds this place unbearable for even a minute, but just sit down, will you?” Byeong-hwa pushed aside the quilt, but Deok-gi was reluctant to sit amid such squalor.
“Are you afraid you might catch something? I don’t have lice, you know.” Byeong-hwa sarcastic as ever.
“You’re crazy. Cut it out and put your clothes on.”
“I can’t go out. My head is spinning. Are you leaving today?”
“I’ve got to stay three more days.”
“Why?” Byeong-hwa asked in undisguised disappointment. If Deok-gi wasn’t leaving today, the money he had promised him might not materialize quickly.
“My grandfather wants me to stay until after my great-grandfather’s ancestral rite.”
“Did you ever actually meet your great-grandfather? Did you get some radio report from Heaven or paradise that your great-grandfather, whom you never knew, will be satisfied with his ancestral rite only if he has the pleasure of your attendance?” Byeong-hwa smirked.
Deok-gi returned his grin. “You are really, really crazy!” He pretended to frown.
“Anyway, this great-grandfather of yours is going to cause me trouble.”
“Why?”
“The sooner you leave, the quicker my financial situation improves.”
“Are you that desperate?”
“You better believe it. The owners haven’t said anything today. They’re nice people, so they don’t pester me. But I see what they want. That’s why I stayed in bed, hoping you would come by.”
Deok-gi felt bad for the family more than anything else.
“Hasn’t the daughter gone off to work?”
“She seems to, but what’s the use? She doesn’t bring back a penny.”
“What does the landlord do?”
“Absolutely nothing! His contribution to the household is reducing the number of mouths to feed by eating jail food.” Byeong-hwa took a cigarette from the pack Deok-gi offered him and lit up.
“Why?” Deok-gi asked in surprise. “Is he a bum or some sort of ideologist?”
“Well, that about describes him.” Byeong-hwa changed the subject to the one he found more urgent. “So you don’t have any money on you?”
“I haven’t gotten my travel expenses yet, but I guess I could give you five won anyway.”
“Fine. I’ll take it.” Byeong-hwa held out his hand as if in a great hurry. He took the five won and headed for the veranda, calling out “Auntie” as he went. The woman came out to meet him, and they began whispering loud enough so that Deok-gi could hear. In a low voice the woman kept repeating, “We’re so obliged to your friend.”
Deok-gi was pleased to have done a good deed and happy to look good while he was at it; but it all made him rather queasy. The miserable condition of the house was too much for him.
“Okay, let’s go,” Byeong-hwa said, as content as if he had solved a mathematical puzzle. He threw on an overcoat and led Deok-gi outside. Deok-gi felt as if he were leaving behind something essential. Realizing he would never have any reason to come to this house again, he wanted to catch a glimpse of the landlord and, better yet, his daughter. He was curious about this young woman who earned a living for her family and was widely praised among the ideologists for her intelligence. It occurred to him that half the reason for his coming here today was most likely his hope of catching a glimpse of her.
Deok-gi broke the silence after a while, but what he said was not what he had been thinking. “Your mother must know that you’re here. How can she let you live like this?”
“What else can she do? After all, my mother is a daughter of God, isn’t she?”
Do You Think You’re the Only One Suffering?
Deok-gi disapproved of Byeong-hwa’s mean-spirited comment, which was clearly meant to ridicule his own mother. It would have been another matter if the woman had been Byeong-hwa’s stepmother, but she wasn’t. During their secondary school days, Byeong-hwa’s father had worked as a pastor in Hwanghae Province, so Deok-gi didn’t see his friend’s parents much. Although they had visited the boys’ school around the time of their graduation some three years earlier, Deok-gi couldn’t remember them well. He did recall, however, that Byeong-hwa’s mother seemed like a nice woman. Since moving to Seoul, Byeong-hwa’s father had become acquainted with Deok-gi’s father. After graduation, though, Deok-gi had gone off to Kyoto for three years, and Byeong-hwa had left for Tokyo a year later and returned to Seoul only this fall — no, he should say last fall, now that they were in the new year. As a result, the two young men had not recently had many opportunities to see each other, nor spend time with each other’s parents. Deok-gi didn’t know the Kims well, but he doubted that Byeong-hwa’s mother would turn a blind eye to her son’s plight, now that they all lived in Seoul.
After graduating, the two young men had met on only three occasions — twice when Byeong-hwa had stopped off in Kyoto on his way to or from Tokyo, and this time in Seoul. While students, however, they had been particularly close, first getting acquainted through their parents, who were involved in the church, and because they themselves were churchgoers. The friendship deepened in their third year of school, when Byeong-hwa began attending Deok-gi’s church.
Teenagers’ friendships are supposed to be spontaneous, but theirs was cemented by their parents’ religious practice. Despite their close relationship, they kept a certain distance from each other, afraid to reveal too much of their lives. In their postgraduation years, both boys drifted away from the church, and having this in common created a new bond between them.
It was around this time that Byeong-hwa failed to gain admission to the Law Department at Keijo Imperial University and so decided to join his parents, who were living in Haeju. A year later, on his way to Tokyo, where he was planning to attend university, he stopped in Kyoto and confided in Deok-gi.
“My father told me I should try to get into the Theology Department at Doshisha University, and that if I can’t get in there, I should go to Tokyo to study. I said okay and left home, but I’d rather die than become a minister. A minister? I don’t even have a Bible in my bag.”
Deok-gi had been surprised to hear these words, and pleased. Unlike Byeong-hwa, he was hesitant about breaking away from religion, so when his old friend, whose experience was so similar to his own, voiced such opinions, he felt himself agreeing wholeheartedly.
Still, this was a matter of some concern for Deok-gi, knowing as he did that Byeong-hwa’s family was not wealthy. “If you don’t agree to study to be a minister, your father won’t pay for your tuition. And he was probably going to try to find you a church scholarship once you had gotten into college.”
“Believe me. I’ve thought about it more than you have. But I can’t sell my soul for a few years’ tuition. How can anyone just betray their convictions? What use is studying a religion you’ve lost faith in? Isn’t that selling out Jesus? Wouldn’t that make me like Judas? It’d be like preparing a funeral without the corpse. Come on. You don’t make a New Year’s outfit for a child that’s dead and buried, though they may make a shroud for a child who’s just died. Isn’t that the order of things?” Byeong-hwa spoke confidently, almost arrogantly. “The world is changing, my friend. Let’s say you put out a charity pot on Jongno Avenue and start to pray. Then some beggar, thinking you’ve dozed off for a minute, is caught taking a penny from your pot. Will you beat him up and send him to prison for stealing? Or will you pray all the more for his repentance and regeneration? You tell me. The world isn’t what it used to be — beggars steal before your eyes. And as for you and me — well, for your father and my father — is it right to keep a watchful eye on that charity pot while parading around in fur coats?”