Vol 6 Ch 15

Just as I lifted my phone to take a picture of the back of the stone, I heard rustling footsteps in the grass and suddenly a voice.

“What are you doing there?”

The sound came from the narrow path we had climbed up. A man was staring at Wagner and me with a face full of suspicion. Seeing a white man here must have been strange enough—he was clutching a sickle tightly in his hand.

“Who are you?”

We were just as startled and didn’t immediately answer, so the man raised his voice again.

“Ah, I’m—”

He didn’t move, as though he were facing a dangerous beast. When I tried to approach, Wagner stepped in front of me first.

“We are good people.”

With his skinhead and menacing look, Wagner’s grin only made him appear more suspicious. I walked past him. Up close, I could see the man’s face under the straw hat pressed low. His sun-darkened skin looked healthy, but deep wrinkles lined his eyes and mouth. He looked about Baek Jaetak’s age, maybe older—a middle-aged man.

What I really wanted was to ask who he was.

“I am the descendant of the people buried here.”

“What?”

“The grandson, and the son.”

“What are you talking about?”

He must have been cutting grass—clumps were still stuck to the sickle.

“I heard they were all dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“That family. I heard all their descendants were dead.”

The man pointed at the graves with his sickle.

“……Who told you that?”

He scanned me up and down, then took off his straw hat and wiped his forehead.

“Who are you really? If you’re here to buy land, forget it. I’ve no intention of selling. Land reclamation, redevelopment—outsiders came in with hired goons, and now they’ve even brought a Yankee along.”

He clicked his tongue. I spoke to the man, who was about to go back to cutting grass.

“My name is Joo Hawon.”

The man’s head snapped around.

“I am the son of Jang Heeon, who rests here.”

Still holding the sickle, he stared intently at my face.

“You’re Joo Hawon? The son of Joo Sangkyung, Joo Hawon?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

I couldn’t understand how he knew my father’s and my name.

“If you’re lying, I won’t let it pass.”

Unfortunately, as someone who had immigrated to Macau for real estate investment, I didn’t have any Korean ID on me to prove I was Joo Hawon.

“Hawon. Yes.”

“You stay quiet.”

I stopped Wagner, who was about to step in.

“Who’s the white man?”

“He’s…… my friend. I don’t know if you’d know, but I emigrated to Macau when I was young, and I only recently returned.”

“There are white men in Macau?”

He still looked doubtful.

“Many races live there. Even more than in Korea.”

“I heard they were all dead……. That Sangkyung bastard followed Miss Heeon into death too.”

His guarded expression quickly shifted into a gloomy one.

“My father……. I scattered him in Macau Bay.”

“That greedy fool, in the end……. Tsk. If you really are Joo Hawon, then I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“Then why come now, after all this time?”

“I barely remembered the location of the graves, and I had almost no reason to come to Korea. I returned for the first time only last year, but I didn’t have the time then. All I recalled was the blue roof below, so I searched hard to find this place. I had some childhood memories too.”

I could see the tension leaving his grip on the sickle.

“You’re truly Joo Hawon?”

“I’ve been telling you so from the start.”

I gave a bitter smile.

“I remember a mother Jindo dog and two puppies at the house with the blue roof.”

“……Good heavens!”

The man dropped his sickle.

“They said you were dead! They said all of you were dead! That was a damn lie after all.”

He suddenly shouted, as if in anger, and for a moment it was me who felt wary.

“Yes, I’m the owner of that blue-roofed house. And I did see you once as a child, Hawon. How that little one has grown so tall. Look at me rambling. Come down. I’ll give you a drink.”

Speaking in a rush, the man waved for me to follow. I nodded at Wagner and went down the hill after him. The damp mud dirtied the tips of my shoes, and the path seemed even more slippery than before. The man moved quickly, accustomed to climbing this hill.

As we neared the blue roof, the dog started barking again. Seeing its owner and still barking, it seemed more like excitement. The man tossed the sickle on the ground and went inside without a word.

Wagner and I stood there staring at the dog behind the fence. It barked and wagged its tail, urging us to come closer. It was still a Jindo, but of course, it couldn’t be the same one I had seen back then. Probably the third or fourth generation descended from the mother I remembered. When I slipped my hand through the fence and stroked its head, it went wild with excitement. Its clumsy, restless energy reminded me of Jahan. A laugh escaped me.

“You waited a long time, didn’t you.”

The man came out with a jug of frozen sikhye and some cups. He set the tray down firmly on a large wooden table in the yard. Sitting cross-legged in his shoes, he poured sikhye into cups and handed them to Wagner and me. Wagner sniffed at it and then drank deeply.

“The best,” Wagner said, giving a thumbs-up.

“Not bad, for a white man.”

I stared down at the sikhye. In my memory, the owner had seemed a gentler, kinder man, but now he looked every bit the rough country elder. I couldn’t bring myself to gulp down the long-missed drink in one go. Wagner, meanwhile, had already emptied his and was pouring himself another.

“You’ve been living here all this time?”

As I asked, I clicked on the bugging pen tucked in my back pocket. It was the one I’d gotten back from Minling.

“That’s right. Where else would I go? It was President Jang who gave me a place here in the first place. Where could I leave? City folk move around easily, but for people like us raised in the countryside, going somewhere new is scarier. So, how have you been all this time? When Sangkyung died, someone came here trying to sell the land. I thought everyone was dead.”

The person who the man mentioned earlier was probably Kim Jaeyeon.

“My stepmother came here to sell the land.”

“She was in such a hurry to get rid of it cheap that I bought it. I figured no one but me would take care of the Jang family graves anymore. Not that they ever came to trim the grass even before they sold the land. You were just a kid back then, so I can let that slide, but that Sangkyung  fellow went too far.”

“Did you know my father well?”

“Of course. Everyone who’s still around here knows him.”

The man looked down at his cup with hazy eyes, as if recalling the past.

“Even as a kid, he was fierce. If someone picked on him at school, he’d smear chicken blood on their family’s wall. He was ruthless, beyond words. But I suppose, from his point of view, he couldn’t help but hold such bitterness. He hated President Jang so much that once, when he was about eighteen, he rushed at him as he was getting out of his car. He looked so sharp in that cadet uniform and cap that all the schoolgirls followed him, but in the end, they all fell away because he was too harsh.”

The man shook his head. This was something I had never heard before.

“I’d like to hear more about my father.”

“What, Sangkyung  never told you anything? Well, I guess it wasn’t something a man would say to his son.”

“I heard that my father… took my maternal grandfather’s company.”

It had been an open secret for a long time.

“‘Took’ might not be the right word. President Jang was a good man, no doubt, but to Sangkyung , he must have been the devil. Your grandfather was a well-known shipbuilder. From what I heard, he crossed over from the North during the war. As soon as it ended, he started working at a shipyard. I heard he developed something there… I don’t know much about ships, but I was told President Jang snatched what your grandfather created. He should have paid a fair price, but back then, things weren’t like that. He shoved a few hundred won at him and drove him out. After that, Sangkyung ’s mother fell ill and died without even proper medicine. It was a real tragedy.”

“……”

I stared at the man in bewilderment.

“You never heard any of this before?”

“I…”

I never did. My voice barely came out.

“Even among all those girls chasing after him, Sangkyung  only ever stayed by Miss Heeon’s side. You should’ve seen them, sitting under the chestnut tree, talking so sweetly together. She really loved him. That boy’s looks were so striking, he completely stole her heart. After they graduated, President Jang was dead set against their marriage. But after Miss Heeon had you, Hawon, he had no choice but to soften a little and hand the company over to her. By then, President Jang’s health had declined so much he was on his last days.”

I had only ever heard that my maternal grandfather died the year before I was born. Most likely, it was while I was still in my mother’s womb.

“What would Miss Heeon, who spent her days painting, know about running a company? The management rights were taken from her immediately, and Sangkyung  became president. Even then, he ruled with an iron hand, driving out Yang Taekseong, who had inherited shares before President Jang died. Everyone knows the story—Yang Taekseong killed himself right at Sangkyung ’s front gate, cursing him as he swallowed cyanide.”

‘Uncle Taekseong died right before our eyes. He was a man who devoted his whole life to Father’s company since I was a child. Please, can’t you let go of your greed a little? We already have enough, don’t we?’

I could almost hear my mother’s desperate cries.

The man put down his glass of sweet rice punch with a face full of regret and gazed off into the distance.

“I thought Sangkyung  had gone too far, but when I heard he killed himself, I grieved for days. Even after moving to Macau, he sometimes came to visit Miss Heeon’s grave. I used to scold him—why visit his first wife when he had a new one? But he’d just stand there for hours, bloodshot eyes, not shedding a single tear, just staring at the grave. Looking back, maybe he only pretended to be ruthless. Growing up under a father who had his work stolen and still accepted it, how much resentment must have built up in his chest? From what I heard, President Jang’s success really did come from that stolen work. Strange, isn’t it? He was a good patron to the people here, yet…”

The once-sweet taste of the rice punch turned bitter and astringent. Perhaps my maternal grandfather had been a man who was cruel to individuals but good to groups. Aeil Kwon’s grandfather, too, had a fine public image, known for good deeds. But for the majority to benefit, sacrifices from the few were always required.

Unlike my maternal grandfather, who built his reputation on what he took from others and gave back to society, my father had been the child of the ones sacrificed. That was why he tried to climb so high, why he tried to trample others—so he would never be trampled again.

“I never… once heard this from my father.”

The man smiled bitterly.

“Of course. After all, Hawon, to you he was your maternal grandfather. But that bastard cried once. That harsh man came to me only once, in tears. I remember it vividly—it was the last time we drank makgeolli together. Not long after, I heard he had killed himself. Do you know what day it was? The day they brought a stonecutter to carve Miss Heeon’s gravestone. I couldn’t read the crooked writing, but that day, Sangkyung  told me: if someday, far in the future, you ever came looking, I was to show you her gravestone. He also left a letter… but when I heard you had died, too, I burned it. After all, it belonged to the dead.”

“Did you… by any chance give it to Kim Jaeyeon?”

“Are you crazy? I’d never do that. She even tried to sell President Jang’s grave. If I hadn’t bought the land, she would’ve buried it all without even moving the remains.”

“So you never read the contents?”

“It’s been too long, I don’t remember well, but I think it was mostly about Miss Heeon. I vaguely recall it saying that if money was short, you should sell her paintings.”

“Paintings?”

“Yes. Paintings.”

“Do you recall if any were titled ‘The Way Home’ or ‘The Grave’?”

“‘The Way Home’…? I don’t remember any titles. Ah! But yes, Sangkyung  said there was a warehouse where he kept Miss Heeon’s paintings.”

I knew about that. And with the bankruptcy of our family, everything in that warehouse had been sold off.

“All of my mother’s paintings in Macau were sold.”

Perhaps my father left hints here as well, assuming that neither I nor Kwon Taeha would ever find WikiLeaks.

“No, not somewhere obscure like Macau. It was here, in Korea.”

“In Korea…”

“I burned it, thinking it unlucky to keep a dead man’s belongings. I must have made a mistake.”

“Have you ever told anyone else what you just told me?”

“You’re the first outsider I’ve spoken with in months. Who else would I tell?”

This man, who owed my grandfather, and who was also the village grave keeper—no one else could have reached this point.

“To be honest, I thought about selling it out of spite for Sangkyung , but I couldn’t bring myself to. He left it for his child, after all, and my conscience stopped me. I wish I remembered more clearly. I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s my father and I who should apologize.”

I looked toward the direction of the graves. Three tombs stood in a row. To my beloved lifelong companion… Those were the words he carved before taking his own life. Had he already been planning his death when he came to see my mother then? If so, he should have at least left her a will.

“Sir… my father.”

“Yes?”

“When you last saw him… did he say anything hinting at suicide, or anything like that?”

“Hm, I don’t think so. He just said things weren’t going well. You know, before he married Miss Heeon, when President Jang opposed them, the two of them once tried to hang themselves from a chestnut tree. People thought it was just for show, but I didn’t. If they hadn’t been allowed to marry, I believe they would have done it. So President Jang had no choice but to give in. Your father was the kind of man who, if he truly wanted something, would stake his life on it.”

To stake his life on a bet—that was so very like my father.

“Thank you for telling me.”

I drained the rice punch in one go. The ice had melted, but the coolness still lingered.

“Now that I look closely, Hawon, you both resemble and don’t resemble Sangkyung . No wonder I didn’t recognize you at first.”

The man studied my face for a long time.

“You take after Miss Heeon more. Especially the eyes.”

It was rare for me to hear that I resembled my mother. My birth mother had died when I was very young, and Kim Jaeyeon, my stepmother, shared no blood with me.

“Your eyes are just like the ones that used to look at Sangkyung ’s back—so deep. A woman in love could be both so beautiful and so desperate. If they hadn’t been enemies, they might have grown old together. Hawon, are you married? Living in Macau, did you marry a white woman like your friend here?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I suppose you do have someone in mind.”

“…Not exactly no.”

“Just don’t follow in Sangkyung ’s footsteps. Don’t lose yourself completely to someone the way Miss Heeon did. In the end, both of them left this world too soon.”

I didn’t know what the man saw in my eyes to give me such advice.

One of them had lived by reason, the other by emotion. Water and fire had met and brought me into the world. Perhaps that was why I existed at this lukewarm temperature, belonging to neither.

“I’ll take your words to heart.”

“Hawon, your life must have been hard, yet you still grew up upright and strong.”

“I’ll come visit from time to time.”

I replied with sincerity. I called out to Wagner, who was playing with the Jindo dog. His hands were covered in the dog’s drool. The man handed Wagner the rest of the rice punch in a plastic water jug.

“Half left.”

“Why? Want me to get you another?”

“Then thanks.”

“Strange how you Yankees always speak so short.”

“Sorry.”

Giving up on expecting honorifics from Wagner, the man went back inside to fetch more rice punch. Wagner drank straight from the jug, gulping it down.

“A warehouse…”

I rose from the table and brushed the drying mud from my shoes. Think carefully. My father had never left me hints in unknown places or objects. If there really was a warehouse in the country, there must be some way I could track it down. Crack! The sound of a plastic bottle being crushed snapped me back. I turned quickly to see Wagner, embarrassed, wiping sweat off his bald head.

“What kind of white guy likes rice punch that much.”

The man came out again, handing over two more jugs filled with rice punch. I took them, gave my thanks, and headed for the sedan parked on the shoulder. I told him not to see us off, but he insisted on at least watching us leave—the kind of farewell particular to country folk.

Heat shimmered up from the asphalt. The black sedan, baking in the sunlight, quivered like a panting black panther. Wagner quickened his pace toward it.

“So he wasn’t your friend but your driver. No wonder he didn’t seem like an ordinary guy.”

The man made the remark as Wagner instinctively opened the back door for me first.

“Still, you must have done well for yourself in Macau. Well, being the child of Sangkyung  and Miss Heeon, I suppose it was inevitable.”

“No. I was just lucky.”

“I’ll continue looking after this place for as long as I’m alive. You don’t need to worry too much.”

The man soothed me with a kindly tone, as if he understood everything. All I could say was thank you. I bowed once more toward the hillside graves where my mother and grandparents rested. Then I got into the sedan and shut the door. Lowering the window, I bowed again before Wagner started the engine. As we retraced our path, I glanced back. The man was still there, waving.

“Good person. Gave drink.”

“Yeah.”

“One for you, Hawon.”

“You can have it all. For now, let’s just head back to the hotel.”

“Okay.”

Wagner turned on the navigation, the voice directions coming out in German. It would take about two hours to get back to the hotel.