Dust and Other Stories Read online

  “There’s no doubt at all that it’s good to send him to school?”

  “Ah, well you really should. Even those who are really struggling to get by should try to send their children to school.”

  “That’s decided then … I just wanted to stop by and hear your opinion as I wasn’t quite sure.”

  The following morning, Mr. Son stopped by our house, wearing only his everyday chŏgori jacket, albeit washed and neatly ironed, and explained that he was on his way to the school.

  “If you have an old hat sir, I would greatly appreciate your lending it to me for a while.”

  “You mean to wear now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you not have a coat either?”

  “Does it matter? It just doesn’t seem proper to go and introduce myself bareheaded.… I mean, if his father were to go into the school bareheaded it might discourage him. D’you see what I mean?”

  “I understand. Please borrow my hat.”

  I don’t know whether his head was too big or whether he hadn’t put the hat on properly, but my felt hat perched on top of his head most precariously as he walked away in high spirits. His two sons followed close behind, looking up at him and giggling away.

  After that the little rascal Taesŏng would pass by each day clutching a bundle of books, apparently on his way to school, and Mr. Son showed his face much less often than before.

  “What’s been going on? We haven’t seen much of you recently.”

  I asked him one day.

  “Ah, everything’s changed now that one of them’s at school. First he asks for books, then the monthly tuition, he’s always asking for money. And then, well, it’s not so bad if we go hungry, but how can we send him to school on an empty stomach? That’s why I’m running here and there after all kinds of jobs.”

  With that he rushed off again. Once I met him walking back up the hill with blood dripping from his hands.

  “My goodness, what happened?”

  “I was doing some work at the quarry and scratched myself on some stones.”

  “That looks bad.”

  “It’s the thumb, phew … I don’t know if I’ll be able to use it again.”

  It wasn’t long after that I climbed up the hill behind us to go for my morning walk when I heard someone crying in the ravine over by the Buddhist shrine. It was a child’s voice and judging from the way he was screaming his head off, he was being caned. I quietly crept over toward the noise and saw that Mr. Son had brought his eldest son up there to beat him.

  “You little bastard.… Your dad goes without food to send you to … to send you to school and you, you little bastard, you skip classes to go roaming around the town in Chin’gogae …”

  Having tied his son’s wrists to prevent any escape, Mr. Son was holding a piece of wood so huge it looked more like a club than a cane, and he walloped his son on the back with a ferocity that made all the veins protrude on his own neck. Just then his pregnant wife, who looked as if she might be about to pop at any moment, staggered up to him dragging her feet.

  “What, why … are you trying to kill him? What’s he done wrong, eh? What’s he supposed to do if the school tells him to stay away, eh …”

  The son was immediately swept up into the mother’s arms, and Mr. Son could only spit and put down the cane, unable to continue.

  “And why did the school tell him to stay away? Oh, because we didn’t pay the monthly tuition, and we didn’t pay the support fees … that’s just the little bastard’s excuse …”

  “What do you mean, excuse … the kid from the bleaching place came by and said the teacher had told him to stay away because he couldn’t understand what teacher was saying, so that’s it … I’ve never heard of a damn school like that … if he can’t understand, why don’t they teach him …”

  Later that day I met someone from the school and asked about Taesŏng.

  “The kid’s mentally deficient. You can’t teach him much of anything. He’s just got a really thick head …”

  Several days later, Mr. Son dropped in, once again holding in his hands the nameplate on which was written all kinds of other things, to use his words. Naturally, Taesŏng and Poksŏng formed some kind of a line behind him.

  “Welcome.”

  “Thank you … I … Well, I had another son the day before yesterday.”

  “Really! And is your wife all right?”

  “Yes, she’s eating her rice and seaweed soup.”

  “Oh, I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Please sir, I was wondering if you’d mind making up a name? I need you to write it on the nameplate here anyway, so I took it down and brought it with me.”

  “A name?”

  “Yes.… Seeing that Taesŏng and Poksŏng both end with sŏng, could you write another one that ends with sŏng, please?”

  “You’re not asking the Village Head?”

  “He’s not around at the moment. If you could please choose a good first part, anything will do.”

  “Anything good? What do you hope your third son will become, Mr. Son?”

  “Who says that you turn out like your name?”

  “Still …”

  He stared at the hills in the distance for a while and then said, “I’d like him to be good at writing and earn a government stipend.”

  “Government stipend? Then, let’s use nok, the character for stipend. As nok can also mean happiness, Son Noksŏng will be a fine name.”

  “Noksengi … that’s a good one. Son Nokseng … just saying it sounds right.… So you’ll have to add Third Son Noksŏng on here.”

  “That’s right, and add one more to the total population.”

  I took out my ink stone and brush and wrote “Third Son Noksŏng” on his nameplate, and then I corrected “Total Population Four People” to “Five People.” Taesŏng wanted to play with the ink stone, so I asked him, “You little rascal, aren’t you going to school?”

  Mr. Son sounded surprised, and said, “Goodness! I meant to tell you but completely forgot.… I’ve decided not to send that rascal to school.”

  He continued with his explanation before I could ask “Why not?”

  “Well, you have to send them as far as university, don’t you? Otherwise, they’ll just end up temping at some company or store, and what’s the point? It’s more comfortable taking any job that comes your way. Isn’t that so? The school keeps telling me to bring him in and I was going to, but then last night I decided for good not to.”

  “I see …”

  I knew that Mr. Son was telling a lie, because I had seen him beat Taesŏng up on the hill and because of what I’d heard from the teacher at the school, but I could do no more than pretend to be listening properly.

  “Noksengi, Noksengi, I’ll have to practice saying that and it’ll come more easily. Ah … thank you very much.”

  Mr. Son took his nameplate, with the new son’s name added, and walked away at the head of his other two sons, looking very satisfied with himself. Before he went out the gate, he turned around and added, “Oh, don’t forget the day after tomorrow we have to fly our flags. They’re going to check up on everyone that day. Be sure to put yours out. Really …”

  First published in 1935; translated from Kamagui:

  Yi T’aejun tanp’yŏnjip (Hansŏng tosŏ, 1937)

  THE RAINY SEASON

  “Since you’re just lying around, why don’t you try opening up the closet?”

  “What are you moaning about now?”

  “Well, what will you do if all your books rot?”

  My wife is dusting the mold from the cord of her electric iron, which she keeps hidden away somewhere.

  “Why don’t you get the books out while you’re at it and dust them off too?”

  “Do you think I have nothing else to do?! Why don’t you take care of your own things, instead of keeping on at me …”

  “All right … that’s enough. If we go on like this, it’ll be last night all over again.”
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  I get up from the veranda floor and sit down in an easy chair. The chair is so damp it feels as if it has been boiled. When I wipe the armrest with the tie of my thin chŏksam jacket, it turns black with mold and dust as if a bug has been squashed into it. It’s only then that I remember I had put on a clean jacket this morning; I hurriedly hide the tie and glance in my wife’s direction. She’s still busy wiping the cord of her iron with a dry cloth. If she’d seen me, she would invariably have grumbled, “Do you have to act like a child? Someone else has worked hard to wash that for you …” If I’d uttered so much as one word in reply, ten or twenty would have streamed out from her mouth.

  Bickering like an old couple is generally a sign of having grown tired of life. But for a young couple like us, arguing back and forth as if trying to catch each other out in order to make some point, it seems almost a necessary tonic to clear the air from time to time.

  Perhaps it’s because of the rain that has kept me at home for the past couple of weeks, but our silly arguments have undoubtedly become more frequent. As a general rule, marital arguments come to seem trivial over the course of time (at least in our not-so-long experience), and so it was with our argument the previous evening, which had begun on such flimsy grounds. The flashpoint was our daughter, Somyŏng, having gone through four changes of clothing in one day. The child had been smacked for going out in the rain so often when there was no hope of the sun reappearing and all our wet clothes were sprouting mold; now she was wailing at full decibel. She was making so much noise I just had to stick my nose in. I told my wife that surely children have to play outside in the rain in order to develop resistance to things like colds, so what kind of nonsensical, irresponsible parent would confine them indoors just because it was hard to dry their clothes? But she was not to be defeated and countered that since I had brought up the question of responsibility, why was it that only mothers were held responsible and not fathers? Moreover, why was it that we could not buy any new clothes when the child was getting through so many outfits each day? And, why couldn’t we build a house that was perfectly equipped to dry wet clothes before they turned moldy? And, given this situation, what kind of nonsensical, irresponsible father and husband would do nothing but sit and lecture so loudly? She went on to point out all the imperfections in our home finances as if she had them memorized, placing special emphasis on the phrase “why couldn’t we” and rebuking me for all my inabilities.

  In these circumstances, the only way to shut her up would be to maintain full composure while asking, “And what kind of broken promise is this? Who was it who promised before we were married that she wouldn’t complain no matter what material difficulties we encountered?”

  And if she continued complaining even after that, I would launch my final shot, “Then just do as you please.”

  There were so many hidden meanings contained in this phrase that she would be unable to suffer it in silence.

  “Just do what as I please?”

  If she asked for an explanation, I could make so many explosive declarations in return that this proved by far the most effective way to make her really angry.

  Yesterday we’d reached the point where I explained the phrase with the result that she became so furious that her anger had still not abated by morning and rendered obsolete the saying that no one remains an enemy after a night’s sleep.

  Now it looks as if the rain might be drawing to an end. I take my shoes out from under the veranda. They are covered in white mold, both inside and out.

  “Hey, honey?”

  This is the first time since the previous night that I’ve tried conferring with her about something.

  She merely glances in my direction.

  “Honey?”

  “Can’t you say anything without calling me?”

  “Is mold animal or vegetable?”

  “Oh, you …”

  To tell the truth, I can sometimes be quite irksome.

  It’s a long time since I’ve looked in a mirror in order to straighten my tie, and I find there a beard as unruly as the weeds in our yard.

  Should I shave before I go out?

  I take out a razor blade, but it’s covered in rust. If anyone else had been using it, I would probably blame them, but this razor can only have rusted because I didn’t wipe it dry before putting it away. It would take a lot of scraping to clean it up. Asking for water to be fetched, and then for some soap, seems like all too much trouble. I think of Yi Sang and his beard, which stretches from ear to jaw just like Lincoln’s. A prickly beard with a hint of the wild is not such a bad look after all. But my beard is on the thin side. In photographs my father’s beard is quite long, but clearly he did not pass that on to me.

  It’s still only eleven o’clock, but if I were to go now to Nangnang or the Myŏngch’i Bakery I would probably find Yi Sang or Kubo, sporting far thicker beards than mine and sitting looking bored in front of coffee cups, being free from employment as they are. If I were to walk in, they would greet me enthusiastically, as if they’d been expecting me. And maybe they would even tell me a story or recommend something they had recently read to stimulate my creative impulses, which are now also covered in spores of mold.

  I leave the house. When I reach the front of the grape field, I look down at the stream without forgetting my usual thought: “If only the bus came as far as this stone bridge.” After several days of rain, the water is clear enough to brush your teeth in it. A woman walks by and exclaims, “Oh, it’s perfect for washing.”

  I lament the sad customs of Korea’s women, who can only look at such crystal-clear water and think, “It’s perfect for washing.”

  There’s not a single spot of blue sky in sight. As I climb up the hill, the sky seems to fall even lower. The windows are closed at Pockmark’s store, and an ice cream container forgotten by time has rolled out into the road, obstructing any traffic.

  “Who d’you think you’re kidding.… I’ve got all the orchids, just look …”

  Pockmark’s wife’s voice is as shrill as that of any twelve-year-old. I call it Pockmark’s store, but other people usually call it the hunchback’s store, on account of the wife. If only she weren’t a hunchback, she would have been a beauty far beyond the reach of Pockmark: her skin is as white as a roundworm, and her tiny eyes, nose, and mouth as pretty as can be. Once deformed she probably had no choice but to come to Pockmark and his ice shop here on the hill, but she still retained a sense of pride, which deep inside made her scornful of her husband. Judging from what occasionally catches my ears as I pass by, she’s often complaining in her childish voice about “the likes of you” doing this or that. Her husband, so dark and rough in contrast, then glares and chases after her, shouting, “You little …,” and grabbing onto her until a noise somewhere between a scream and a whine can be heard long after I’ve passed by. He’s all too large and sturdy compared to her slender body and legs, which are bent like those of a grasshopper. Once I saw him riding his bicycle back from the market carrying a full load of bananas and pop, among other things; he didn’t stop once between the Posŏng school at the bottom of the hill and the front of his store at the top. Maybe she finds some secret pleasure in being held roughly by such a strong young man while she screams in her whining voice. Perhaps they’re the ones living a blessed life in this world full of worries, for they sit together and play cards, betting on suits and the like, no matter whether they are running out of food or no customers show up on account of the rain.

  That rain starts to fall again. Namsan is shrouded in a light mist. Walking down the hill is always more pleasant and conducive to thinking than walking back up.

  Someone must have acted as a go-between for this disfigured husband and his bent-up wife, because they surely could not have shaken each other’s hands by themselves, all the while thinking, “Since I’m pockmarked, a hunchback is fine,” and “Since I’m a hunchback, a pockmarked husband will do.” The go-between would have visited one side first to report that
the groom was pockmarked and then visited the other to report that the bride was a hunchback.

  What thoughts passed through the young bachelor’s mind when he heard that the girl he would marry was a hunchback?

  Just thinking about it makes me feel sad.

  But I still have further to go before I reach the bottom of the hill.

  What about when we got married?

  I try to recall our own past. I was from Kangwŏn Province, and my wife from Hwanghae Province, and until I was twenty-six I had neither seen nor even heard of her. We had been brought together by an acquaintance of mine, a Miss Cho (now also a teacher), who was also a close friend of my wife’s. Yet, it was not the case of us seeing each other by chance because of Miss Cho and then a romance developing. Even if there had been such an opportunity, my wife does not have the slightest natural ability to be the heroine of a romance story, though I might. Miss Cho had brought us together from the very beginning with the question of marriage in mind. I don’t know how she had introduced me to my wife-to-be, but to me she’d said, “First of all, she is from a decent family, and though she has not suffered any hardships, she does have an ability to compromise that will help her cope with any situation. She is a new woman, but not at all a modern girl, and although she majored in music that was only as a hobby, she has no ambitions for the stage. She’s not exactly a beauty, but when you meet her I don’t believe either of you will be disappointed.”

  I asked for a chance to meet her, and Miss Cho had set up a date immediately. I shaved, shook the dust off my Western suit, polished my shoes, and set out. Because of my embarrassment at being looked at at least as much as I was doing the looking, I’d spent most of the time staring down at the table, but I could tell that in general she was not hot-tempered, seemed modest, maybe even a little shy, and that her face was shaped like Kujō Takeko’s. All in all, I was not disappointed.

  They say that you have to fall in love to be married. If that’s the case, then when are we going to fall in love and really be married? Since we met from the outset on the premise of marriage, there’s no way for pure love to raise its head. However much we come to like each other and play out the kind of love scenes that appear in movies, ours will always be a development from an arranged meeting with marriage as the goal, not a romance …