Ko Un - Maninbo - Peace & War

Within twelve days the finger healed.

Meanwhile he failed the medical, classed third grade.

Relieved, he set about selling tofu.

Putting the tofu trays on his shoulder

he left home early, before breakfast time.

Buy my tofu.

Buy my tofu.

He did evening rounds, too.

Buy my tofu.

Buy my tofu.

After his parents quit the world

he provided his four younger siblings with food,

fed them as well the tofu that was left unsold.

Putilovka village in far-away Hassan,

where three borders meet:

Korea, Manchuria, Russia.

In secret, Korean farmers

would cross into that region,

as yet free of bandits.

They built hovels to keep out wind and rain

and survived by grazing cattle and goats

every day on the grass of three countries.

There they lived, snaring birds

on the banks of the Tumen,

catching wild deer,

sowing grain and hunting.

While washing clothes by a stream,

hunter Jang Gil-seong’s daughter Ong-nye

met a man on a horse.

His eyes were hollow

with hunger.

He couldn’t even dismount by himself

Ong-nye wiped her wet hands and helped him down.

She went back home for some cold rice

and returned to feed him.

A Korean independence fighter,

he had crossed the river

on his dead commander’s horse,

pursued by the Japanese.

Actually, he’d rowed across,

the horse swam.

He hadn’t eaten for three days.

Ong-nye brought him home.

When her father returned from hunting, she begged:

Let this man become my husband.

Allow your daughter

to become this man’s wife,

Father!

Her father Jang Gil-seong

tossed his catch — two cock-pheasants –

at the stranger’s feet.

He goes about with a dog’s bone stuck in his belt.

He gobbles up earthworms

and frogs, too, all deftly caught

Heuh heuh,

heuh heuh heuh,

he laughs, looking at the sky,

the sky where hawks hover.

Neighbourhood kids

tease him,

throwing stones.

Heuh heuh,

he laughs.

At the sound of a plane he falls flat on his back.

Asleep

under the bridge beyond the village,

his face becomes utterly holy,

utterly peaceful.

When the curs bark at him

he bows his head obsequiously, twisting his hands, saying:

‘I did wrong.

I did wrong.’

Tae-sun’s grandmother explains:

‘He’s a fellow from Uitteum in Sangchon-ri

who went mad after losing two sons.’

One was conscripted in the Pacific War and never came back.

One was drafted in the Korean War and never came back.

Soldiers of the People’s Army

were despatched to every hamlet in the occupied areas.

One soldier arrived in Bongdong-myeon, Wanju, North Jeolla province.

A greenhorn soldier, always laughing,

he drank the liquor

that the villagers offered with a village girl,

then went into the bean-field with her.

This became known.

His comrades hastily shot him: no trial, nothing.

After that, not one but three soldiers

were stationed in Bongdong-myeon.

A little later, two left.

The third stayed for the last two months

of occupation, then left.

He never accepted a single leaf of tobacco,

let alone a free drink.

This greenhorn soldier left

firing blanks from his submachine gun.

At the foot

of the village’s clay walls and crumbling reed fences

balsam prospered, flowering

no matter who went or didn’t.

War

affects cows, too,

dogs, too.

The war

made not just the eyes of humans

but the eyes of animals bloodshot.

During spring plowing,

one cow would not obey.

Urged on:

This way!

This way!

it just flopped down on the ground.

Shin O-man of Gangneung put up with that.

As Shin O-man’s son

was pouring out the boiled cattle feed

he was gored

and one horn pierced his thigh.

Shin O-man couldn’t put up with that.

With his wooden club.

he gave the cow a blow on the back

War

drives humans mad,

cows too!

He considered selling it,

then, calming down,

decided to wait

a little longer.

Seeing as how the long-drawn-out negotiations for an armistice

are almost over, surely the war is heading away

from our cow, all that we have

and part of the family.

His mother,

his younger sister,

and his two younger brothers

were caught and killed by the departing commander of the People’s Army.

Kim Jong-ho, who ran away and so survived,

caught the commander’s daughter,

dragged her into an empty house,

raped her, then killed her.

He also caught another commie’s wife,

raped her, then killed her.

He killed in that way

three times,

or four,

or five,

then, on a full-moon night,

climbed to a hilltop and wailed.

After that he drank every day.

He smashed the window of the tavern.

He grabbed the bar-girl by the hair and swung her around.

The neighbourhood menfolk

carted him off,

his limbs flailing.

He went away. Somewhere.

His house was sold off.

The war was over.

The war had lasted three years which felt like thirteen.

The near-empty crocks on the storage terrace made whining sounds.

The blue sky descended

on the soy sauce left in the crocks

and wept salty tears.

Early summer,

on the sixth day of the Armistice,

she appeared at Daejeon railway station

wearing a nylon skirt

and a nylon blouse

she’d been storing somewhere,

and sporting a parasol:

Sim Bul-lye.

Almost all who intended to return to Seoul were back.

Daejeon too had gone back to being the same old Daejeon.

The sky alighted close by.

Sunlight poured down on the parasol,

repaired some days before;

sweat pearled on the young woman’s breasts.

Yi Song-won, the boy from Gasuwon

who had come visiting every night in her dreams

no longer visited.

He had come visiting every night

since being killed while fighting in the Iron Triangle.

His mother called a shaman;

only after a costly exorcism

was his soul set to rest.

That day she was off to visit her aunt in Jochiwon.

Her aunt who’d been inviting her at every turn:

‘Call on me,

call on me.’

So she set off.

She did the washing, cooked the rice,

finished the sewing, swept the yard,

nursed her father,

drew water at dawn,

drew water at night

Finally, free of housework at last,

she went flying along.

What kind of man did her aunt have her eye on?

She could guess why her aunt wanted her to visit.

She might look young,

but deep inside

she knew what was what.

Sim Bul-lye.

As a child, he was best at the Thousand-Character Classic.

Ikki eon, ikki jae, on ho, ikki ya …

as he finished the last line of the Classic,

his flushed face looked cute.

Bak Yeong-man,

a boy with a good-looking prick –