Yom Sang-seop - Three Generations

“We met at the Joseon Theater a while ago. The maid she’d brought with her was the daughter of a servant who grew up in my family. I got to know Maedang a little while talking with her maid, and yesterday she insisted that I visit her house. I don’t have much leisure time right now, but I dropped by for a moment because I just couldn’t keep refusing.” The words rolled off her tongue like running water, seemingly without any effort.

“If that’s the case, it’s all right, I guess, but you shouldn’t go there too often. Men go there to drink — it’s something like a hostess bar.” Thinking she could actually be telling the truth, Sang-hun offered advice, though he knew not to take everything she said at face value.

“Really? A place like that? I shouldn’t have gone, then. She must be very well-off. Her house and furnishings looked expensive, and I’ve heard the master of the house is a gentleman. Why is she involved in such a business?” She cocked her head.

“Just don’t go there again.” Sang-hun stepped over the threshold of the outer-quarters’ gate, where he found Clerk Choe pacing along the wall, his hands loosely linked behind him.

The man could have overheard them. The group of people who gathered every day hadn’t arrived yet — who else could she have met other than Choe?

Choe had squandered his fortune on women. He was no different from the penniless men who talked about grand real-estate deals at Pagoda Park, but regardless of where he got his money, he was always decked out in gaudy clothes, and his brown shoes were always well polished. Dressed like that, he didn’t have to go to Pagoda Park to kill time.

Choe had introduced the Suwon woman to her husband, so he had scored points with the old man. Whether selling spurious real estate was his main occupation and matchmaking was a side job, or the other way around, nobody knew for sure. He just pounced on whatever came along.

Sang-hun had heard that the maidservant, who had been hired recently, had come on Choe’s recommendation. The three — Choe, the Suwon woman, and the maidservant — could be conspiring together. In fact, he had learned from his wife the morning after the ancestral ceremony that even on the day of the rites, the Suwon woman had been whispering with Choe at the gate and disappeared briefly. Sang-hun had heard a rumor that she had been intimate with Choe but had married Sang-hun’s father because she and Choe couldn’t make a living. Regardless of whether there was any truth to this gossip, whenever Sang-hun saw Choe, he found him detestable. Chang-hun, the cousin with whom he had quarreled on the evening of the rites, he also found despicable. Sang-hun vowed that he’d strip these two men of power when the time came. And the repugnance was mutual: the two reported Sang-hun’s every move outside the house to the old man.

“How are you these days? You needn’t sneak around by yourself. Bring me along — it couldn’t hurt.” Choe guffawed. He was older than Sang-hun by six or seven years but respectfully used a somewhat elevated form of speech.

Sang-hun snubbed him with a cold smile. It annoyed him to think that what had happened the previous night had already reached this man’s ears. “Where? I hear you go to Maedang House often enough! We should go together.”

“Sure! I’ve heard about Maedang, but I haven’t been there.”

“You mean you haven’t been where the Suwon woman goes? You’re not very up-to-date, not a real Seoul playboy, eh?”

“What kind of thing is that to say to an old man? Does the Suwon woman go to such a place? Who says so?” This pulled the rug out from under him, as if they were speaking of his own daughter.

“Didn’t you just hear us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind,” Sang-hun replied as he strode off.

Choe looked at him with a smile and shouted, “Let’s meet later! I never break a promise!”

In the main room, the old man wanted to know what the Suwon woman had talked about with Sang-hun.

“He says he is close to the master of that house I went to yesterday. I can’t believe he’s heard about my visit already!” Upon her arrival yesterday, she had recounted exactly the same story she had just fed Sang-hun.

“What does the master of that house do?” The old man was not suspicious, for had it been something fishy, she wouldn’t have mentioned her visit there in the first place. He merely wondered if it was someone he knew, since his son was said to be close to him.

“I don’t know. They probably go to the same church.”

The Suwon woman spoke with caution. If Maedang really had a “husband,” there wouldn’t be one but many. Anyone she described wouldn’t actually exist. She had concocted the story for Sang-hun and the old man.

“If he’s Sang-hun’s friend, he must be a disagreeable type,” said the old man. “The importance of having respectable friends should never be underestimated. Nowadays, every woman who dishonors herself has been goaded on by some contemptible sidekick. And she doesn’t end up humiliating just herself — she smears shit on her husband’s face and sullies the clan — ”

As the old man embarked on one of his long-winded sermons, the Suwon woman cut him short. “Are you worried because I’m such an innocent child? Well don’t be. I will keep to myself. That’ll make you happy, right?”

When Gyeong-ae returned home from Bacchus close to midnight, she was told that Byeong-hwa had left a while ago. Pi-hyeok’s room was quiet, and his doors were firmly closed.

“Are you sleeping?” Gyeong-ae called out, but he didn’t answer.

She wondered whether Byeong-hwa and Pi-hyeok had missed each other, but there was nothing she could do now, and she went to bed herself.

Early the next morning, someone shook the gate, which had yet to be opened for the day. Gyeong-ae’s mother, who was stoking a fire in the kitchen, went out to see who it was. Holding a parcel at her side, a demure young woman entered without introducing herself.

“Is Miss Hong Gyeong-ae at home?”

The mother stared at the visitor before she answered, “Come in, won’t you?” The old woman shut the gate and followed the visitor inside.

“Someone’s here!” the mother called. The door of Pi-hyeok’s room burst open, and he thrust out his tonsured head.

“Did you come from outside Saemun? That parcel is for me.” He quickly took it from the young woman. “Thank you for coming all this way in the cold.”

The visitor looked as if she wanted to meet the owner of the house by the way she planted herself, without acknowledging Pi-hyeok.

“Are you still sleeping? You have a guest!” the mother called out again.

Only then did Gyeong-ae slide open the door to the yard and peer out, her eyes still full of sleep. “Where did you come from?” she asked as she smoothed her hair into place.

“Outside Saemun. Kim Byeong-hwa. ” Pil-sun stammered.

Gyeong-ae’s face lit up as she slipped out of her bedding. “Ah, yes. Just a moment.”

Pil-sun waited for Gyeong-ae to get dressed and open the door for her. She hadn’t expected to meet Gyeong-ae so soon. Pil-sun thought she was pretty at first glance, but her overall impression of her wasn’t particularly favorable. She realized that anyone who’d just woken up wouldn’t look their best, but Gyeong-ae’s unmade-up face was attractive. Pil-sun had the impression that she’d known her for some time. Upon entering the room, she stood dumbfounded for a brief second, for it was magnificently furnished, and Gyeong-ae was wearing Western pajamas that looked like a man’s shirt or a Chinese jacket. Pil-sun thought Gyeong-ae looked beautiful in it, though she’d never before seen anyone in such an odd outfit.