Hwang Sok-Yong - The Guest

For three days and nights, hundreds of us were crammed into that space. A solid iron door blocked the steep flight of stairs that led up to ground level. The air shaft near the ceiling measured about one span by three spans. There were two other rooms, one on each side, but the biggest was the room in the middle. The walls were concrete. The wind was soft, blowing in through the air holes in the ceiling.

From outside, all you could see was something like a chimney sticking straight out of a grass lawn. Young kids used to sit on it and let the goats graze while the grown-ups took care of their business at the county hall. They pierced my nose when they caught me in Ch’ansaem — the blood stopped after a while, but the next day my nose was so swollen — it was festering, I think. My throat still felt raw and split open. I know now that it felt so dry because all the blood from my nose had congealed in my inner palate. What I knew then was that I physically couldn’t drink a thing.

I fainted while Sangho was swinging his pickaxe. When I woke up I was already in the air-raid shelter. All I could see at first were some feet. Someone was standing on my thigh. My arm felt loose, hanging weirdly from my shoulder. It looked broken. Ah, I thought to myself, my whole life I’ve had nothing, no name, no nothing; I’ve worked my fingers to the bone without ever getting a chance to stretch my back — but at least I’ve had these past few years. They make it all worthwhile. So many people were squeezed into that cramped room, more than you ever saw, even on a village market day. People just barely had room to sit down, let alone stretch out. It was late fall, but down there it was steaming. You could feel the hot breath of the people around you. Little children fussing for water soon tired themselves out and fell asleep. Many of them died in that sleep. Men took turns standing so the women could have room to sit down.

You know, I never hated anyone, not once in my entire life. For a bowl of rice — maybe two bowls on a lucky day — I worked hard, and I kept working hard so that no one would have a reason to complain. And still, still I had to watch as my own family was killed right before my eyes. That was when I understood. If your heart isn’t in the right place, you’re no different from the beasts in the forest. Overcome, I just stood there, staring at a patch of blue autumn sky through the cracks in the air shaft. Out of nowhere, a stream of liquid began trickling down the sides of the shaft. Thinking some good-hearted passerby was pouring some water down to us again, we crowded up to the shaft, our mouths wide open. Almost immediately, one of the few who’d actually been able to get a mouthful stumbled back.

It’s gasoline!

The streaming stuff was faintly pink in color — it was the kind they used in cars. As the smell of gasoline filled up the small space, I noticed that little streams were flowing down through the air shaft of the room across from us, too. We all stood very still, looking up at nothing in particular, our eyes wide open and our mouths agape. We stayed that way, completely silent. Not a single cough. Suddenly a muffled, moaning sound, kind of like the “oooh” a crowd of people might make, rose up all around us like some sort of wind — and then, all at once, we were engulfed in flame.

That first day, the eighteenth, and then the following day, the nineteenth — all the way to the twenty-third — I think we all just went crazy. The dead, well, they may have nothing more to say, but those of us who survived can never go back to the way things were. You can’t stay crazy forever, you know. Time passes and before you know it you’re alone, old, all your friends have gone for good, and the world, too, has changed. Even then, though, even if nobody else remembers, it’s still there, deep down in your heart of hearts. It was this land, this land where our mothers buried our umbilical cords — this very same land that we dyed red with blood, transformed into a place we can never, ever go back to, not even in our dreams. And that was just the beginning — of the next fifty years.

Why the winter was in such a hurry that year has always been a mystery to me. The first snow came down in torrents, covering entire hills and fields. Of the defeated soldiers from the People’s Army, crushed in Haeju and Ongjin along the west coast, those who were quick and strong went up into Mount Kuwŏl, just as the Christian Youth had earlier in the game. They became guerrillas, continuing to wage family feuds amid freezing winds.

I returned to Some. People in the countryside were afraid to go any distance from their homes. You never knew when you might make a wrong impression and get yourself killed. You see, for forty-five days, the killing and the dying continued. It was all over the place. Over thirty-five thousand were killed, they say, and for all I know that may be true. Especially since a great many stragglers who’d been driven to the southwest and separated from their units were cornered and slaughtered when the snow blocked the north road out of Sinch’ŏn. And then there were the guerrillas. They’d come down from Mount Kuwŏl for provisions, killing anyone who got in their way. Then, in retribution, members of the Youth Corps would search out the families of the guerrillas and kill them. On top of all that, the massacre of 400 women and 102 children was simple fact — the dead bodies were there to prove it, as were a few surviving children. One fourth of the county’s entire population was killed — almost everyone in Man’gungni in Kunghŭng, more than half the population in Yongdangni in Onch’ŏn, and the entire male population in Yangjangni in Sinch’ŏn.

In our village, too, the men who’d been to town established a branch of the Youth Corps. The whole thing was organized by the township. The guys set up a sentry post on the street and on the pass over the hill, and they made their rounds every night, going from neighborhood to neighborhood. Big Brother Yohan stayed mostly in town, coming home to visit once every couple of days. Once, in a car, he brought home a huge slab of uncut beef, saying they’d slaughtered a cow. Our family invited all the men from the Youth Corps, and everyone made a huge fuss as if it was some sort of festival day.

Just like any other winter, I went to play up in the mountains with Sunho and the other kids. We’d set traps along the ridge or wander around, looking for sparrows to catch with our nets. Sometimes we might even find a gray mountain hare caught in one of our traps. It was around the beginning of November, I think. As soon as I got up that morning, I set out for the mountain as usual to check my traps. We set them in three different places, so by the time I finished checking all of them I would get pretty hungry. The last trap was up at the very top of the ravine, so I made my way up the steep mountain path, picking my way through the rocks. The stream that ran through the ravine hadn’t frozen over yet, and right next to my last trap there was still a little pool of water — it was the kind of place an animal might come to drink. Sometimes Sunho actually put as many as three of his traps around the pool, hoping we might get really lucky and catch a raccoon dog or a roe deer. Our traps were made out of bent wire, and we used sweet potatoes as bait, scattering barley or beans nearby.

Done checking my traps, I was turning away when I just happened to glance up into the deep forest behind the pool. There were people there. The first thing that registered was their shoes. Like Japanese jikatabi , they were cloth shoes that came up to the ankles. Every child knew that these were combat shoes, the kind worn by soldiers of the People’s Army. My eyes fumbled slowly past the shoes to discover two soldiers asleep in an embrace. One had a cap on so I couldn’t make out any facial features, but the other was a woman for sure — her bobbed hair spilled out across the grass. Lying beside them was a black leather case. It was only much later on that I learned all it held was a violin. I turned around, about to run away, when suddenly, with a resounding “Who’s there?” something jumped on me from behind, forcing me to the ground. In an instant I was flat against the earth, the soldier sitting astride my back and pressing down on the back of my neck.