INV 43

Mr. Gwak felt guilty for living comfortably during such times. He felt deeply ashamed to lead a decent day-to-day life as a so-called landowner thanks to the land inherited through generations. However, to become an independence activist, he had a wife and an elderly father. He lacked the courage to throw away everything he had and devote himself to the cause. It wasn’t as if the value of “family” was any less significant to other independence activists who were risking their lives and jumping into the fray…

In the end, whenever the thought struck him that using his family was merely an excuse and that he simply lacked the courage himself, his heart would tighten so much it became difficult even to breathe.

The irreversible past became a simmering resentment that drove him, and as sleep refused to come, he spent many days beneath the lamplight, pretending to read books only to end up in tears. Nevertheless, as the seasons passed, the mountain peaks were dyed red. In the season when maple leaves lingered like a flush on every roadside tree, just as the expectant mother’s belly seemed to grow fuller and fuller, the day to give birth finally arrived.

Mr. Gwak’s wife, who had possessed a uniquely distinct streak since long ago, had acted as if she knew this would happen ever since she felt the fetal movements were strange; she calmly called for a midwife and lay down.

She had even left various instructions for the maidservants, so by the time the midwife arrived, water had already been boiled and cooled, and a heap of clean cloth was prepared.

The elderly midwife, with frost sitting in her hair, walked through the wide-open main gate and spoke as soon as she checked the mother’s condition.

“…The mother is tough. The tougher she is, the better the child grows. Stay tough.”

Tossing out that remark as if it were a blessing, the midwife turned around and began to chase away the men who were lingering around the mother, slapping them hard on their backs.

“Dicks are of no use whatsoever, so get out! Get out!”

Although this old woman was a seasoned professional called the midwife of midwives, whom the Gwak family had recruited by scraping together every bit of their connections, the housemaids were inwardly anxious when loud shouting erupted from the very beginning. The Gwak family, who lived in a fairly large house in Gyeongseong while leaving their ancestral lands, paddies, and fields to tenant farmers, were easygoing, affectionate, and kind-hearted masters, but still… those words, that phrasing… they wondered if this was really okay.

However, the men of the Gwak family were pushed and chased out exactly as the midwife ordered.

At this quite rare sight, the midwife whistled inwardly before promptly sweeping away all distracting thoughts.

It was time to focus solely on the mother.

“Scissors! Did you disinfect them? Fetch water in the basin, and move quickly, quickly!”

While the maids hurried to do as the midwife commanded, they found it truly fascinating that Old Man Gwak and the elder brother Gwak had withdrawn so submissively just moments ago.

Since Mr. Gwak was of a disposition that considered it natural to follow the words of the one who would save his wife, there was no worry there; but the maids had worried that Old Man Gwak—Mr. Gwak’s father—and the elder brother might lose their tempers and talk back.

Yet, to withdraw so easily as the midwife ordered.

The young maidservant, wondering inwardly if there had been some change of heart, ran with pitter-pattering feet to fetch the cooled water from the kitchen; but upon seeing the expressions of the two men out of the corner of her eye, she immediately understood the reason. It seemed that “that incident” from before had been continuously pricking the hearts of Old Man Gwak and the elder brother Gwak…

“So even the birth is exciting. It is a pity that there are memories inaccessible due to defense mechanisms, though.”

“I really don’t want to know the intimate past history of my boss, so it’s actually a relief for me…”

However, contrary to Kwon Yihyeon’s wish, the intimate secret story of the birth continued…

In truth, Mr. Gwak’s wife had previously had a seven-month premature baby. It meant that the child was no longer here.

Old Man Gwak was a man of the old school, and the elder brother Gwak was a man who had declared early on, “You be the eldest son of this house,” due to a functional issue. In short, he had never married and thus had never experienced a childbirth. The elder brother Gwak was such a good-natured man that he intended to live his whole life serving Old Man Gwak, telling them to handle money and land matters themselves, and had even handed over the position of landowner to his younger brother; nevertheless, having the limitations of a man, he had assumed a child is simply born when it is born.

So, he hadn’t paid much attention when Mr. Gwak’s wife was pregnant with the first child. He had dragged out Mr. Gwak, who wanted to stay stuck to his wife’s side like glue, and they were tilting back bowls of rice wine at a tavern in the neighboring village when, of all things, her water broke; they arrived late, only after the child was already born. If there was an excuse, it was that he didn’t know the baby would be born in seven months instead of ten, so he couldn’t stay by her side, but out of embarrassment, he had even offered some reproach. He had blurted out the cruel words—without even realizing they were cruel—asking what the mother had done with her physical health for the baby to be born premature.

Afterward, he heard a whispered advice from the midwife that a seven-month baby wouldn’t live long, so he should help the parents by their side so they wouldn’t form useless attachments, but he couldn’t believe it because it didn’t feel realistic. Even when he relayed it to Mr. Gwak, he was simply cut off by a sharp glare and told not to say such jinxed things; and besides, the tiny newborn born at seven months was just so beautiful… Practically speaking, neither Old Man Gwak nor the elder brother Gwak could properly follow the advice to keep their distance. But it actually happened.

He had never imagined in the past that obtaining a coffin to lay a newborn in would be such a miserable task.

He wished he could have gone on never knowing.

The funeral… was decided to be held simply among the family members. On the day the child was buried, Mr. Gwak wailed until he fainted, woke up and wailed again, then fainted again, continuing that cycle. It was a good thing Mr. Gwak’s wife held on while biting her pale lips; otherwise, far from seeing the child off properly, they might have all just sat clutching the coffin and crying. They endured that day thanks to the wife who tried so hard to be resolute.

But even after that, Mr. Gwak could not pull himself together at all. He cried and cried almost to the point of death, apologizing to his wife and apologizing to the child like a madman… Then, claiming this was all his fault, the fault of his wrong way of living, and the fault of not protecting her during the birth, he tried to kill himself.

If Mr. Gwak’s wife hadn’t slapped his cheeks and told him to snap out of it, they might have truly lost the head of the household, the landowner, and the pillar of the family.

“We lost a child’s life through our ignorance and incompetence; we cannot let that happen again.”

That memory remained even now…

“Well, with that level of resolve, there’s no way those men would have listened to her, anyway.”

The unknowing new maid thought the superstition that a more capable midwife has a louder voice must have started for this reason, but the experienced seniors prayed with all their might for the baby and their mistress to be healthy.

In any case, the men who were all kicked out were all on the verge of crying at the mother’s screams erupting from the house, but when the midwife shouted, “You useless things! Don’t bring bad luck and get lost over there to braid a taboo rope!”, they flocked together and began braiding the rope.

Even though the baby wasn’t a seven-month premature one, it had been struggling inside the womb and coming out before completing the full ten months, so the braiding of the taboo rope had been delayed. It was also something they hadn’t been able to do at all during the seven-month birth. The men’s regret and sadness were deep, but they braided the taboo rope while imbuing it with a profound prayer that such a thing would never be repeated.

They twisted two strands of rice straw into a left-hand rope the thickness of a pinky finger and were inserting chunks of charcoal; but since they needed to know if the baby was male or female to decide whether to insert red peppers or small pine branches, they hovered hesitantly near the delivery room. However, the midwife showered them with all sorts of nagging, asking what kind of nonsense they were talking when the baby hadn’t come out yet, telling them to chop wood and boil water. She even ordered a flurry of tasks that weren’t immediately necessary.

But the maids saw right through why the midwife was doing this.

That was why they did not stop the midwife from working the masters like slaves.

It wasn’t because the midwife was eccentric. Having seen so many husbands who changed their expressions depending on what was between a newborn’s legs—whether it was a boy or a girl—she had naturally developed a loathing for such questions. It was the midwife’s law and rule that until the umbilical cord was safely cut and the mother’s safety was guaranteed, she had to keep the “dicks” who tried to stick to her like slugs to find out the baby’s gender at a distance. The tactics of a midwife who had seen her fair share of trouble had such a harsh and tough side to them.

Finally, sunset drew near. The Gwak men, looking up at the sky that had turned blood-red, were sobbing while embracing one another as even the screams ceased to be heard from the inner quarters.

But then, the midwife, kicking the door open with her toe and sticking only her head out, suddenly said this:

“Put in the peppers!”

“Huh? That, those… where…?”

“…The taboo rope! The taboo rope! You said you wove it earlier. Pick only the firm ones and shove them into the taboo rope!”

Old Man Gwak and the elder brother Gwak’s faces brightened at those words, but Mr. Gwak was still trembling so much that the strength left his legs, and he plopped down on his knees.

Then, he looked up at the midwife as if he were looking up at a god.

“My wife… she is alright, isn’t she? Please tell me quickly. Please. I simply cannot live without my wife…”

“…She’s exhausted, of course! But there’s no threat to her life, and no issue with her health…”

“Wiiiiiiiiife!”

To Mr. Gwak, whether the newborn was a boy or a girl wasn’t the issue at all. If the baby was born well and his wife was healthy, that was enough! Mr. Gwak burst into tears and jumped for joy, then ran toward her saying he would hug his hardworking wife, only for the midwife to firmly kick him and shout at him to go wash up first. Mr. Gwak happily ran off to wash and change his clothes.

Old Man Gwak and the elder brother Gwak were simply pleased by that and smiled at each other before being scolded by the midwife, who asked what they were doing not hanging the taboo rope on the main gate.

Old Man Gwak, who suddenly found himself taking orders from an old woman who looked to be around his age, grumbled as he hung the taboo rope—studded here and there with red peppers—on the gate.

“You know. My son. Do I look older, or does that old woman look older?”

“Father. We’ve heard too much informal speech from her to start quibbling over that now. Let’s just let it go.”

“Ugh…”

It ended without incident, enough to make the maids smile.

If it were any other day, it might have been different, but this was the birth day of the Gwak family’s precious son.