Yom Sang-seop - Three Generations

Looking right through Pil-sun, Gyeong-ae’s mother greeted Deok-gi warmly. “Why are you still out on a cold day like this?” Her eyes fell on the empty beef-soup bowl. “Is that soup all you’ve eaten?”

Deok-gi smiled.

Gyeong-ae’s mother bustled from one corner of the room to another, even swinging open the door to the toilet. “I could possibly live here in the summer, but never in the winter!”

Who asked her to come and live here? Gyeong-ae thought. Conscious of Pil-sun’s presence, she was mortified by her mother’s presumptuousness.

“Mother, please go home.”

“Aren’t you coming, too? Let’s go together.”

“I’ll come later. Don’t worry about me. Go home and get a good night’s sleep. What if the baby wakes up?”

“You should come home now, eat something hot, and get some rest yourself.”

While the mother and daughter were arguing, Byeong-hwa appeared, trailed by Won-sam’s wife. They all stood up to welcome the newcomers.

“I’m sorry that all of you had to go through such trouble, especially Deok-gi.” Byeong-hwa didn’t show a trace of fatigue.

“Lie down on the ondol floor. You need to thaw yourself,” Gyeong-ae urged.

Gyeong-ae’s mother averted her eyes.

“Yes, she’s right. Come on, let’s go to the other room,” Deok-gi suggested.

“No, I’m not cold or hungry because I ate what you sent me. But leave the talk for some other time. Let’s drink tonight to celebrate the opening of the store. It’s too bad that Pil-sun’s father is not with us, but since the rest of us are here. ” Byeong-hwa seemed to be in high spirits, having forgotten the pain in his hand.

Won-sam’s wife, standing in the corner next to Won-sam, urged her husband to go now. “The master is angry. He asks where my husband has been all day.”

By the way in which Won-sam was being summoned, Sang-hun’s discontent was palpable. Gyeong-ae’s mother found Byeong-hwa all the more detestable and scowled at her daughter, who was hovering over him. Gyeong-ae brushed off Sang-hun’s irritation.

Let him be angry if he wants to! Let him do as he pleases — buy this house or hold his money tight in his fist. Bastard! If he wants to wreak havoc, let him take my baby! There’s no guarantee that my mother will do a good job raising her. And what business does she have trying to supervise my affairs all of a sudden? She may be my mother, but what right does she have to oppose Byeong-hwa just because he has no money?

Gyeong-ae believed that her relationship with Sang-hun had started because her mother had whispered encouragement, tempted by Sang-hun’s wealth. If her mother had instead scolded her and married her off to someone else, Gyeong-ae would have never ended up where she was. She particularly resented her mother’s distaste for Byeong-hwa while she was growing increasingly attached to him, a rare sensation for her. After Won-sam and his wife left, Gyeong-ae nagged her mother to go home. Gyeong-ae felt she had to remain for Byeong-hwa’s sake. He was not in good shape, and someone needed to tend the store. Though her mother insisted on taking the bundle of clothes and the quilt she had brought to the police station, Gyeong-ae wrangled them away from her. Her mother felt like storming out but somehow couldn’t bring herself to leave. She pulled her daughter over to the doorstep.

“What are you thinking?” she scolded her, standing in the dark.

“What?” Gyeong-ae wore a pout.

“What do you mean, ‘what’? He’s finally changed his mind and opened a store for you. If you don’t acknowledge that and act accordingly, he’ll get angry. Anybody in his situation would lose their temper.”

“What did I do wrong?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Why else would he lose his temper over Won-sam working here, when the store is practically his? It’s because of Byeong-hwa, isn’t it? You should kick him out. What good will it do if you keep him and feed him? You will only be taken to the police station or get beaten.”

“Will you mind your own business and go home?” Gyeong-ae tried to suppress her rising anger, hoping to avoid a scene.

“How can I mind my own business? If you hang around with Byeong-hwa, you’ll lose the store and starve. Come to your senses! It would be better to mind your manners and talk Sang-hun into paying for this house, even if you end up parting. After that, you can do whatever you want.”

Gyeong-ae finally exploded. “Do you think I’m the sort who goes around squeezing money out of people?”

“Then what is this about? What is it that you’re doing?”

“What am I doing? Do you know who opened this store? Do you think I should kick out the owner? Do you think even a penny came from the Jo family?” Gyeong-ae said more than she had intended.

“Then whose money is it? Were you lying to me all along?”

“Why do you need to know? What can I expect from a guy who lost his father’s trust because he’s a womanizer and ended up inheriting only a few rice paddies? Sang-hun is mad about that, so he’s trying to cut ties with his own son.”

Gyeong-ae’s mother was aghast.

“If you don’t know what’s going on, just keep quiet. He’s trying to drive out his wife of thirty years, though together they raised a decent son. He hasn’t come to his senses in spite of his years, and he brings home a girl still fragrant with her mother’s milk and raises the roof. and you think he’s a respectable man?”

Gyeong-ae’s mother was dumbfounded, but when she asked for details, her daughter waved her away.

Later, on the streetcar, the mother wondered how much truth was in her daughter’s words. When the car reached the front of the Government-General building, she got off in a huff, intending to pay Sang-hun a visit. It was late, almost nine o’clock, but he would surely be at home, and she wanted to see for herself the young thing he’d taken in to drive away his wife. She wanted to vent her anger, and while she was at it, perhaps secure some kind of support for her, even if it amounted to just a few dozen sacks of rice a year.

I’ve got to get Byeong-hwa away from my daughter.

When she arrived at Sang-hun’s house, the gate was locked but when she shook it, a bellow came from the servants’ quarters, “Who is it?” Won-sam rushed out.

“What brings you here?”

“The master is in, isn’t he?” she hissed as she followed him inside.

“He’s just left.”

“That can’t be true! You just don’t want to wake him, but tell him I’m here because I have something important to say.”

“No, ma’am. He’s gone out.”

“This late?”

“This is early evening for my master,” Won-sam laughed.

“Then the young woman must be here.”

Won-sam laughed again. “What young woman?”

“Open the gate to the outer quarters,” Gyeong-ae’s mother demanded, annoyed to be speaking with a male servant in the dark.

“Even if you go in, you ain’t gonna find anyone there. The young woman came two days ago — maybe three — but left again.”

So it was true. “Then who’s inside?”

“The mistress. What’s this about?” Won-sam had no idea why this woman was so agitated.

“So you’re sure that the young one isn’t here?”

“If you don’t believe me, go in and look for yourself. She’s not here now, but he may bring her later. The first night he brought her here there was a big fight, so now he brings her home very late.”

So there had been a scene.

“If you want to see her, come early tomorrow morning.”

That made sense, she thought. “What sort of fight did they have?”

“The mistress can’t tolerate the situation silently, right? So she made a scene and told him to leave with her. She said he’d sullied her home, and she couldn’t raise her children in it. She’s right, but the master is no pushover, you know. He shouted back at her, saying she’s the one who should leave. I don’t know what’ll happen to this family. Before, when the master had a drink, it was in private. If he had affairs, nobody knew about them. But these days, he does it in the open, day and night. Is it because it’s time for him to follow his father to the other world? Or because he was pushed away? I don’t know.”