Hwang Sok-Yong - The Guest

A group of about ten young men come marching from the direction of the town. They leave two people at the entrance to the village, and some others climb up the ridge of the hill that rises up behind the village. They are on the lookout for anyone trying to leave. The remaining handful start searching the houses.

Right around the time Uncle was first brought in from Some, I set out to Ch’ansaem with a group of my men. I was in charge of the neighborhoods in Ch’ansaem and Palsan. As you can imagine, the ones I wanted to get my hands on most were Illang and Uncle Sunnam. The people who lived on the outskirts of town still had no clue about what had happened the night before, but if we were going to clear the area there was no time to lose. We wanted to try and capture the two men themselves, but if they were already gone we decided we’d bring in their families instead. We weren’t going to let the same thing that happened in Chaeryŏng happen to us. We would either gain supremacy over the town from the very beginning or take the families as hostages so that the Reds wouldn’t ever get the chance to really rally their forces.

I took the lead when we entered Illang’s house. We’ve talked before about how Illang used to live alone in the village sarang , and for quite a while, too. After the land reform, though, when he became the chairman of our little People’s Committee, he got himself a plot of land and built a house. He built it, actually, on the same spot the sarang had once been. The original structure had been nothing more than a thatched hut with one bedroom, almost like a shed, but Ichiro had his new house built with walls of cement brick; he even put up a decent slate roof. It was a two-bedroom house with a spacious office on one side. Without a word, I walked up onto the wooden floor ahead of the others. I could see that three large bundles had been packed — they were planning to flee at daybreak. It was still in the wee hours of the morning when I burst through the sliding doors. The whole family was asleep, lying side by side.

Wake up, you son of a bitch, I growled, my voice low.

I poked Illang’s face with the tip of my gun. Illang looked up at me, his brows knitting up for a second, then sat bolt upright. His wife woke up, too. He’d married late in life, but his wife was still young. I knew her face. She used to work at the hot springs, doing laundry. They had a girl who was about three years old and a newborn baby.

Drag them out!

At my command, my men rushed into the room and hauled them all out into the yard. Illang’s wife started to cry, and the children sat up screeching as if they’d been stung by bees.

The county hall contacted us the night before. They told us we needed to evacuate — we were all going to fall back and retreat towards Sariwŏn the next morning. We were supposed to gather at the county hall with our families. We packed our bags before we went to bed that night — who knew they would attack so soon, before sunrise? I was asleep. Then I felt something cold and metallic poking into my cheek. I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was Yohan’s face. It just didn’t look. human. His eyes had a weird glimmer and the cold-blooded smile on his face made all my hairs stand straight up. They dragged us all out into the yard while we were still half-asleep. My babies were crying. One of the men, the one who had my little girl — he just picked her up and slammed her back down. I couldn’t tell if she was still alive. She just lay there on the ground, so quiet. My wife ran to her and something whizzed past me. I heard a thump. Right in front of me, my wife collapsed to the ground, blood seeping out of her cracked skull. I just gave up. It might sound strange, but I wasn’t that scared. I wasn’t even very angry. I was calm. The newborn kept howling, lying beside his mother on the ground.

Shiiit. I can’t stand this fucking noise.

One of Yohan’s men threw my baby, the same way he might kick a soccer ball — my child flew up into the air a little bit before falling back down to the ground a few steps away. Before I knew it I was up, grabbing for his throat. He shoved me off and I fell onto my back, but I was up again in an instant, trying to get to him. Everything suddenly went white. The whole thing was over in minutes. If only I’d died then, when I blacked out — then I wouldn’t have had to go through everything else. When I woke up and tried to rise, the way we all do when we first wake up, something struck me across the back.

Get up you stupid piece of shit!

It was Yohan, spitting the words out, standing over me, gripping a pick with both hands. I raised my head slowly and looked up at him. I’d known the children in that family since they were very young. I even knew their birthdays, their anniversaries. I hadn’t been to their house for some years, not since liberation, but whenever Yohan came to visit at the sarang I always roasted him a couple sweet potatoes or taught him how to weave straw mats. I can’t be sure, but I don’t think I looked up at him with spiteful eyes. My eyes might have asked him how he could do these things to me — for one split second, he seemed to waver. He turned his face away, took out his revolver, and pressed it against my temple. I could see the firing pin of the gun, wide open like the teeth of a snake. I closed my eyes. He spoke.

You son of a bitch, you took our land — thought you’d be Party chairman for a thousand, ten thousand years, didn’t you?

I could hear the others trying to stay his hand.

This son of a bitch was the chairman — he tried to enforce the Land Reform Order. He doesn’t deserve such an easy death.

Listen, the others are going to want a turn with him, too — come on, let’s take him into town.

One of the animals pounced on me with the end of a wire in his hand. I was still pretty dazed, but when he pierced the wire through my nose and tugged it, my eyes and cheeks felt like they were being torn apart. Every time he pulled the wire my face felt like it was bursting. Yohan spoke again.

All this is punishment, rained down upon you by our God.

Swallowing the blood that kept rising up in my throat, I gurgled, Believe in the God of Chosŏn.

I could hear Yohan laughing behind me.

Goddamn bastard. Still have breath to spare, eh? An illiterate fool, but now that you’ve listened to a couple of lectures you talk ready and smooth, is that it?

Just then, a shout rang through the village.

We caught the Mole!

Yohan turned to his men.

All right. Haul this piece of shit Ichiro back into town.

And so I ended up living one more day, hanging on just long enough to experience that fiery hell.

It wasn’t me that saw them coming — it was my wife. She was in the yard hiding some of our food in a hole we dug the night before. Our house was pretty close to Illang’s, but we were a little bit higher up. I’d been away from home for a few days, but when I got the order to evacuate from the Department of Defense, I came home to pack the things we couldn’t do without and dig the hole so we could hide the more important stuff, like the sewing machine, our radio, and a bagful of rice. We didn’t actually get to bed until after midnight. Then suddenly my wife was opening the door of the bedroom, yelling up a storm.

Men! Lots of them! They’re coming into the village, and they’ve got guns!

I sprang to my feet, put on a shirt, and rushed out into the yard. I could hear crying and wailing coming from all over the place — it had already begun. My wife pushed me back inside.