Hwang Sok-Yong - The Guest

Gunshots start ringing out as evening draws closer, and voices ring out from every direction, calling and searching for one another. I listen to my husband’s warnings and never set foot outside after dark. Father-in-law, my husband, and now little Brother-in-law, too — nobody really comes home too often anymore. Judging from the eerie silence in the main quarter of the house, it seems like they’ve left again. I light the fire to heat the floors and go into the bedroom to lie down and warm my back. I’m so sleepy. Since the start of winter life has become much better than before the war — we have as much rice as we could possibly want and the children can nibble away to their hearts’ content. My husband even brought home a sewing machine and radio from somewhere. My two daughters are only one year apart — they’ve filled their tummies with white rice for dinner and they’re asleep beside me, sprawled out across the floor. My belly is so big, all the way up to my sternum, so big I can’t even turn over in bed anymore. I’m expecting — any day now, but there’s no sign yet.

In the dead of night I’m startled out of sleep by gunfire — a lot of gunfire, coming from somewhere very close by. I am thirsty. It takes me forever to get out of bed and actually stand up. I have to drag my body towards the wall and brace myself against it with one hand, placing the other on my knees to slowly raise myself up. Taking one little step at a time, both hands on the wall, I make my way towards the door. Opening it I come out onto the little wooden veranda. It would be so nice if someone could be here, someone ready to fetch me a glass of water every time I rustle around in bed. Slowly, I crouch down onto the veranda, stretching one foot out, feeling around for my shoes. A sudden, thrusting pain shoots through my lower abdomen. Oh, God. This is it. Frightened, I crawl back to the bedroom. Just barely managing to close the door behind me, I stretch myself out on the warm floor. The pain disappears for a while, but then it’s back; it’s spreading through my entire body. The intervals between the attacks are growing shorter and shorter.

I hear footsteps coming through the front yard. Ah, that sound. The sound I won’t be able to forget for another fifty years. I hear my husband, his voice crisp as he calls from the front door.

Hey, hurry up. We have to go.

I can’t even respond. I moan. He bursts through the door.

What’s the matter? Are you sick?

Clicking his tongue, he takes off his army boots in the darkness and puts his gun down, resting it in the corner before he enters the bedroom. He snaps his lighter open and kindles the kerosene lamp with the flame. The room lights up. My entire body is already soaked — my face covered in beads of sweat.

I. I think the baby’s coming.

Huh, what timing.

Oh God, oh. it’s killing me.

What on earth am I supposed to do? You dying in childbirth is not the issue right now — they’ll kill me if they find me here. Not just me, either — they’ll kill us all. They’ll probably skin us alive.

I clench my teeth. The baby is coming. Gasping, I beg him, please, just. help with the baby. I’m dying. Just do what you did before.

Oh, shit. what the fuck.

Looking around frantically, he reaches over and violently pulls open the clothes chest. Clothes spill out everywhere. Grabbing one of the garments, he delivers the baby with it. I can hear it crying. He starts yelling, suddenly excited, Look! It’s a koch’u , 36a pepper! It’s a boy!

He goes out to the kitchen and brings back a wooden basin full of hot water. I think he’s washing the baby. He lays our first son down beside me and goes out onto the veranda to have a cigarette. Faint gunshots ring out in the distance. Shots are being fired nearby, too — rat-a-tat-tat — like the sound of a billet cracking in a fire. He rushes back into the room to turn out the lamp. The sound of his harsh breathing fills the silent room.

You stay here. I’m going to Sister’s house. I’ll check to see if we can leave the baby with her.

I can’t say a thing. What is there to say? I have given birth to a son! What more can I possibly hope for? I hear his footsteps crossing the front yard and gradually fading away, off into the distance. As the silence grows, I suddenly realize that he’s gone. He’s gone, gone to someplace far away, and he’s never coming back.

THEY HEADED FOR DOWNTOWNSariwŏn to meet up with the guide from Pyongyang once more. He was waiting for them at the city hall.

“Well, Reverend, you certainly are a lucky man. Permission for your second visit has been granted from above.”

Reverend Ryu Yosŏp clasped his two hands together and bowed politely.

“I thank you.”

All Back must have been rushed that morning — his hair was looking a tad bushy, and he kept trying to comb it back with his hand.

“So, what was it like to see your family again?”

Once again, Yosŏp bowed to the guide.

“I was truly surprised. My older brother’s family — well, as you can imagine, we always thought of them as the ones who were left behind — and yet they’re all doing so well. My sister-in-law even seems to be in good health.”

The guide’s response was surprisingly terse.

“They were not directly involved. The present and the future, that’s what’s important to us.”

Hastily changing the subject, All Back opened up his notebook.

“I see here that your uncle, your mother’s brother — his name is An Sŏngman. Is that correct?”

An. Sŏng. Man. Yosŏp had to repeat the name several times, muttering to himself, before he could nod his agreement.

“Yes, that’s right.”

It was correct all right, but just as the proper name of his own mother still felt unfamiliar, his uncle’s full name sounded like that of a total stranger. To Yosŏp, his uncle would always be Uncle Some. The guide looked up.

“I am told he is known to be a very fine man indeed.”

Uncle Some was a common farmer. The younger brother of Yosŏp’s mother, he, too, was the son of a minister. As such, he’d been baptized as an infant. In his youth, Uncle Some had left his home and gone off to Haeju, where he stayed all the way through middle school. Upon graduation, he came straight back home and started farming his father’s land. Yosŏp’s maternal grandfather had been deeply disappointed by the fact that his son did not go on to join a seminary. Yohan had always believed that Uncle Some might still be alive, even after he had given up hope and begun thinking that all the other relatives left behind were surely dead. That was why Yohan had told Yosŏp to go to Uncle Some in order to find out where the rest of their family had been buried. It was difficult for Yosŏp to picture what his uncle’s face might look like in old age. There’d been certain features in his sister-in-law’s old face that had pretty much matched his expectations, but Yosŏp had a hard time even remembering what his uncle had looked like as a young man. What little he did remember from his childhood was that his uncle was a quiet man and that when he visited his grandparents during the school holidays his uncle would simply stand behind Grandmother, grinning. With his nimble hands, Uncle Some used to make all sorts of toys for Yosŏp, using nothing more than a block of wood and a kitchen knife, or maybe a scythe. Once, he made Yosŏp a boat with royal gold sails to float in and out of Usanp’o Port. After the war broke out, though, Uncle Some never, not even once, came to Yosŏp’s house. Every now and then, though, Yosŏp’s mother would mention running into her brother somewhere in town. Yosŏp remembered most clearly the years that came after liberation, and by then his maternal grandfather had already passed away. Meanwhile, there’d been no news at all about his maternal grandmother. Everyone simply assumed she would be living in Some with her son, the aptly named Uncle Some.