Yom Sang-seop - Three Generations

“What sort of favor?”

“I’ve already spent almost a thousand won since I started this business. It took only four hundred to acquire the store, but there wasn’t any inventory to speak of, so we had to put in some five or six hundred to stock the shelves. ”

Deok-gi debated whether he should hear him out or cut him short. “Where did the money come from?” he finally demanded.

“That doesn’t matter. I told everyone it came from you. If something happens and you’re questioned, or if they bring us face-to-face, just tell them you lent me a thousand because I had renounced my ideology and wanted to start a business. Tell them that you took it from your grandfather’s money before he died and gave it to me at the hospital.”

Deok-gi let out a belly laugh. “No problem. I’ll give you as much as you need if we’re talking about make-believe money, but where did that thousand actually come from that you have to be so circuitous?”

“If I could tell you that, why would I ask for such a stupid favor?”

“Is it true that it came from inspectors?”

“Are you crazy? Is that what you think?” Byeong-hwa jumped up. “Why don’t you just leave?”

“You’re dismissing your guest? Come on, let’s talk a little more.”

“They’ll come again, and it wouldn’t be good for them to see you here.”

“All the more reason I should stay.”

“You think so? A cowardly bourgeois gentleman like you giving me a hand? You’d have a hard time staying in one piece if they got their hands on you.” Byeong-hwa went to his room, took off his Western jacket, and threw on a store uniform.

“Do you think the bourgeois have tofu for flesh and knitting needles for bones? Maybe you’re looking to get involved in a gang fight.” Smiling, Deok-gi put on his shoes and walked back into the store.

“To take on a gang and take care of business,” Byeong-hwa said with a carefree laugh.

Deok-gi lingered, not having the heart to simply walk away. As he took a closer look around the store, the door to the shop creaked open. The young man who had been there earlier beckoned Byeong-hwa with a tilt of his head. As if he had been waiting for him, Byeong-hwa followed him out, saying to Deok-gi, “Go home. I’ll see you in a day or two.” Noticing muddy footprints on the floor, Byeong-hwa called out to Pil-sun, “What is this mud doing here? Sweep it up, will you?”

Outside, the ground had already started to freeze over, though it had thawed during the day. Byeong-hwa and his visitor walked side by side toward the streetcar terminus, bathed in a slant of sunshine. Pil-sun and Deok-gi followed Byeong-hwa’s lonely back until he and the visitor disappeared past the terminus. Deok-gi told Pil-sun he’d be back soon and ran after them. She was afraid that Deok-gi might get involved in something dangerous, but she couldn’t bring herself to discourage him.

As they reached Chuseongmun, Byeong-hwa turned around and saw Deok-gi following them. At first he stopped short and waved him away. From a distance, Pil-sun saw Deok-gi run toward the two men as Byeong-hwa stood waiting for his friend to catch up. They spoke briefly, and Deok-gi returned to the store.

“What did he say?” cried Pil-sun, who, with her mother, had watched the scene unfold.

“He says he’s going to a friend’s house at 110 Samcheong-dong through Chuseongmun. He says we shouldn’t worry, that he’ll be back in an hour. I didn’t think I could do anything, even if I went along. Besides, I need to get home.” Deok-gi knew that his family was waiting for him to oversee the evening mourning ritual. Missing one might not be a great offense, but it wouldn’t have been proper to leave it to the women when the ceremony marking the first fortnight after his grandfather’s death had not yet been held. Still, it was not easy to leave Pil-sun and her mother.

“Of course. I’m sure he’ll be all right,” Pil-sun’s mother tried to assure him. She abruptly turned to Pil-sun. “Where did your father go? Why isn’t he home yet?”

“When your father returns,” Deok-gi advised Pil-sun, “tell him to go to Samcheong-dong to check on Byeong-hwa. I’ll come back again right after the ritual.” Deok-gi made a phone call to his house before leaving.

The electric lights came on after Pil-sun waited on a flurry of customers. Still no sign of Byeong-hwa, and her father hadn’t yet returned. Once dinner was out of the way, her mother came out to the store again. Neither of them could do anything but worry about the men. Their mouths were dry.

From the store’s glass door, Pil-sun frequently looked out in the direction Byeong-hwa had taken; Chuseongmun was bathed in hazy thirteenth-day moonlight. Her heart sank whenever a dark shadow approached, and her face lit up whenever she caught sight of a man in a passing streetcar who looked like Byeong-hwa, but it was never him. Deok-gi managed to phone around six o’clock. Hearing that they still had no news of Byeong-hwa, Deok-gi said that it would be a good idea to send someone to find him and that he would stop by after dinner.

Pil-sun couldn’t wait for her father any longer; “Mother, I’d better go.”

But her mother wasn’t about to let her young daughter wander around Samcheong-dong after sundown. Pil-sun was also afraid that her mother, left alone in the store, would have difficulty selling even a pack of cigarettes. With her father still absent, she was scared that he, too, might be in trouble along with Byeong-hwa. She finally made up her mind and went out, her mother unable to hold her back any longer.

Pil-sun had hoped that Gyeong-ae would come by, but they’d seen nothing of her all day.

After Pil-sun left, the telephone rang. It was Deok-gi again. When he heard that Pil-sun had gone out, her mother was relieved to hear him say that he’d go to Samcheong-dong before coming to the store.

After quite some time, a rickshaw with a shade over the passengers’ seat rolled into view, coming to a halt before the store. Hong Gyeong-ae stumbled out of it.

Pil-sun’s mother was disgusted, thinking that Gyeong-ae was drunk again. Even so, she was glad to see the young woman.

“Where have you been?”

“Byeong-hwa — is Byeong-hwa home?”

The two spoke at once.

“Early this afternoon, he went. ” Pil-sun’s mother stopped short, shocked. “What’s the matter?” she said, taking a closer look at Gyeong-ae’s left cheek. It was swollen with a bluish bruise. Under the light she discovered that her eye over the swollen cheek was bloodshot and had closed into a narrow slit.

A chill shot down her spine as her daughter’s face flashed through her mind.

“He hasn’t come back? Did he leave with someone?” Gyeong-ae’s voice was nasal and shaky, as if she were trying hard to hold back tears, but she was also somewhat drunk.

“Pil-sun went off to look for him. What happened to you?”

Tears welled up in Gyeong-ae’s eyes, but she didn’t reply. Collapsing in a heap by the doorway, Gyeong-ae said, “Please send the rickshaw away.”

Pil-sun’s mother asked the rickshaw driver where Gyeong-ae had boarded and was told that he’d picked her up in front of a Chinese restaurant in Hwagae-dong. After paying the eighty jeon he demanded without haggling, she rushed back in and asked who had been at the Chinese restaurant.

“Never mind. I was there by myself.”

Pil-sun’s mother was beside herself with worry; no one who had gone out tonight would come home safe and sound.

No matter how hard Pil-sun’s mother tried to get the facts out of her, Gyeong-ae remained silent, deep in thought, tears rolling down her cheeks.

After a long silence Gyeong-ae asked, “So where did your daughter go to look for him?” Her voice had steadied.