Sonbi's breath tickled her mother's ear, and the woman cocked her head slightly to the side.
“Those two are at each other's throats day and night. Did anyone get hurt?”
“Remember how Master used to beat up his wife? Well, this time he beat Sinch'on Taek just horrible. I felt so sorry for her.”
Looking rather sad, Sonbi stuck her hand inside the rice-filled gourd without thinking and swished the kernels of grain.
“A concubine needs a good beating now and then, you know. Is it fair for his wife to get it all the time?”
The woman stared at the face of her daughter, who seemed somewhat distant. There was a pink hue to Sonbi's cheeks, which had blossomed with the arrival of spring.
“But Mom, Sinch'on Taek told me that she didn't even want to come here. She said her father sold her for a lot of money and that she had no choice in coming here.”
“Well, I do remember hearing that . . . Just goes to show, money's the most frightening thing of all.”
Sonbi's mother pictured Sinch'on Taek sitting on the floor in tears, and once again she began worrying about the future in store for Sonbi, this beautiful bud just beginning to flower.
“Now, you get on back to work. What are you doing just sitting there, anyway? You've got laundry to starch today, don't you?”
“I guess so.”
Sonbi reluctantly rose to her feet at her mother's words, then took another look inside the gourd. She smiled.
“Hey, Mom! If you hull all this rice, I bet we'll get a good quarter bushel.”
“Okay, enough from you. Now go on!”
Sonbi put down the bowl and headed out of the yard. Her mother watched as she walked away. How fast time flew by, she sighed. She realized with a broken heart that she couldn't keep Sonbi living with her for much longer.
The woman let out a deep sigh, stuck out her hand to grab another bunch of thatch, then stared at her hands for a while absentmindedly. Her fingers had been scraped by the straw and were covered with tiny red scratches. Thoughts of her husband immediately came to mind.
As poor as they were while he was still alive, she had never done outdoor chores this like before, whether it was plaiting thatch or rebuilding reed fences. She had gone about her own business unconcerned with these repairs, which she'd assumed were somehow naturally taken care of by springtime.
But after losing her husband, she'd had to do everything with her own two hands. Not only did it take her twice the effort to complete the chores, but she was never satisfied with her handiwork.
The housework was, well, housework, and even in a small two-room hut, the tiniest stone had to be returned to its proper place, and not a single husk of grain could be wasted.
While her husband was alive, she had never appreciated the gray loam with which they used to plaster the walls or the brooms with which they swept out the backyard; she had used them as necessary and then thrown them away. But these little things she had once taken for granted, she now could not use as she pleased. She had nothing unless she made it with her own two hands.
With so much on her mind, Sonbi's mother worried herself no end trying to figure out whose help she could enlist to climb up her roof and rethatch it. She had stayed up for several nights to make the straw rope she would need, and she had only just managed to finish four coils of it. By tomorrow she would be finished plaiting the thatch as well, but she still needed to ask some of the men in the village to help her. The ridge thatch placed along the center of the roof had to be cut in a special way; the thatch itself had to be laid out over the roof; and then all of it had to be tied in place with rope.
She'd gone over and over in her mind whom she might get to come help her. But in the end, she reconsidered. Oh, hell, expert or not, I'll just try doing it myself, she thought, glancing up at the roof once again.
She had neglected the job the previous year, which explained the green tufts of grass she saw sprouting here and there where the thatch had given in.
“Why did he have to go and leave me all alone?” she said softly, jumping to her feet. She spun her head around and looked out at the other
houses around her. Well-kept houses, all around! Big or small, each of them was neatly thatched with brand new straw!
The sunshine now bathed them in a brilliant, yellow light.
7
Roof after golden roof, glowing in the brilliant spring sunshine! How soft and lovely they were!
She closed her eyes tightly, but the roofs appeared even more vividly in her mind. And then among them appeared an image of her husband's rugged hands, followed by the face of the dead man himself. He had refused to close his eyes on his family even as he gasped for his last bit of air.
Kim Minsu had been such a good man, so gentle and honest. Though he'd worked under Chong Tokho for close to two decades, he was the sort of person who had never pocketed a single copper. And no matter how tired he was, if Tokho gave him an order, he would rush off to work, be it rain or shine.
Everyone in the village, came to trust Minsu, even Tokho. And that was why Tokho entrusted to him, and him alone, any jobs that required the collection of large amounts of money.
Eight years ago this fall Tokho had sent him on just such an errand. Sonbi at the time was seven years old.
b
That morning huge snowflakes had been falling gently from the sky since dawn. Minsu rose early as he always did, and went to Tokho's. He had just swept out the house and the courtyard and was boiling feed for the cows when Tokho came up to him.
“Can you go over to Pangch'ukkol for me today?”
Minsu bowed his head submissively.
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, come inside then.”
Passing through the cauldrons of cow feed, Tokho made his way into the living quarters, with Minsu following. Tokho rummaged through a stationary chest placed in the warm corner of the room, took out his account book, and looked through it for a moment.
“This idiot in Pangch'ukkol owes me a good fifty won . . . I wonder if you'll get much out of him, though. He's a tough one.”
Minsu said nothing, his head still bowed.
“So you'll go? If you can't get anything out of him, I'll have to send Kkoltchi's father over. Come on now, speak up!”
Minsu didn't know what he should say; he just sat there hesitating as the color rose in his face.
“Why do you have to be such a fool? Just go, will you? Oh, and another thing. Make it perfectly clear that if he doesn't pay up this time, I'm pursuing legal action. And shake him up a bit, will you!”
Tokho stared at Minsu with bloodthirsty eyes.
“Stop by Myongho's house, and Ikson's, too, on your way over there.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Be sure to go today.”
Having pressed Minsu one last time, Tokho put his account book back into the chest and stood up. He cleared his throat a couple of times and then went outside. Minsu followed right behind him. The pleasant smell of the cow feed boiling in the work kitchen had already filled the air. By the time Minsu had scooped out all the feed from the cauldrons and carried it into the stalls, the cows had already caught a whiff of it. They were gently lifting themselves off the floor and moving to the side of the feeding troughs. Among clouds of warm rising steam, they happily chomped away at their meal.
After shoveling all the feed, Minsu headed outside. The snowflakes were still falling heavily, without even the faintest sound. He looked up at the sky anxiously.
“In this snow . . ?” he mumbled.
When he arrived home, Minsu scraped the snow from his shoes. Sonbi's mother looked at her husband with a questioning eye.
“You're not going out again, are you?”
“Yes. To collect some money.”
“What? On a day like this?”
“There's nothing to worry about. When the flakes are this large, it means it's warmer outside.”
Sonbi had been staring at her father, bright-eyed, but at this, she jumped up and ran into his arms.
“Daddy, can I go too?”
She looked up at him imploringly. Minsu gave his daughter a hug, then sat in front of his dinner tray. He made a gesture of eating some food, but then stood up again.
“I'll be gone for a few days, so keep a good eye on Sonbi. And keep the fire going so it's nice and warm.”
“What is he doing sending you out on a day like this? Does he think the rest of us are built of iron?” muttered Sonbi's mother, picturing Tokho before her eyes.
“Watch what you say in front of . . .”
Minsu glared at his wife. Her face colored and she took her daughter's hand into her own. Then Minsu stroked Sonbi's head a few times, opened the door, and went outside. His eyes were blinded by the brilliant white snow.
“Come back safely, dear.”
He could just make out his wife's farewell as he set out with long strides. With his eyes cast to the ground he walked for a bit, but then turned suddenly at the sound of Sonbi crying. She was running to him through the snow.
8
Minsu unconsciously took several steps toward Sonbi, before her mother grabbed her from behind. Minsu signaled with his hand for them to go back inside, then turned around.
The snow was falling more heavily than before. The giant, flower-like flakes landed on his lips and melted into his mouth. Each one felt like a refreshing sip of ice-cold water.
What path there was to follow had been completely buried by the snow, and the familiar trees alongside the road were obscured by the falling snowflakes. Even Mount Pult'a, high up there in the sky, was nothing more than a faint shadow.
When Minsu strayed from the path he would walk in the furrows of fields, or on the banks of rice paddies, until he located a village and managed to find the trail once again. His snow-drenched shoes had by now frozen solid, and they crackled as he walked.
Trudging through the snow like this, Minsu just barely made his way to Pangch'ukkol after stopping off at several houses along the way. It was now dusk, two days after he had first set out.
“Hello? Is anyone home?”
The doorframe was stuffed with rags to keep out the wind. When the man of the house opened the door, his face seemed to turn a shade paler.
“You've come all this way, in this weather? Please come inside.”
Minsu entered the room, but it was so dark inside he couldn't see an inch in front of him. He sat with his eyes closed for a while. Slowly opening his eyes, he found it difficult to breathe in the stuffy room. He should never have come here, he thought, with regret. It didn't look as though there would be food to serve for dinner here.
“You've come so far in this snow . . . I've been meaning to pay you a visit, but I've given only empty promises for so long now that I . . . It must have been awfully cold out there.”
The man was at a total loss as to where to begin.
“Set out a dinner tray, dear. Though we haven't much to offer.”
Smoothing down her hair, his wife slowly stood up and left the room. Minsu, trying to pull himself together, noticed something in the opposite corner of the room. He could hear little voices coming from under a dirty quilt, which lifted slightly to expose several pairs of dark glimmering eyes. Again he heard the sound of giggles. He couldn't tell exactly how many children were there, but he knew right away there were more than just two.
The storm must have picked up force, for he could hear gusts of wind sweeping up against the house, then fading away. The paper flaps insulating the window frames fluttered wildly in the wind, and the snow drove itself little by little into the room. Minsu was suddenly struck by the desire to leave this house and find a cave or a hovel to sleep in rather than spend the night here. Yet at this time of night there was no way of knowing where to find such a cave, and it was impossible to simply turn around and leave without good cause. He sat there apprehensively, in a state of extreme unease, fearing that more than one person in this room might die over the course of the night.
A dinner tray was brought in for him. Feeling hungry Minsu scooped up a good spoonful of the main dish only to find that it was gruel, not rice. It was made of millet, boiled down with dried radish leaves. Though Minsu had always lived as a servant, he had never in his entire life eaten anything like this before. The smell of millet hulls, in particular, made it hard to stomach, but he did his best to slurp it down.
Just then a few children jumped up, one after the other, out of the corner of the room.
“Mommy, I want some food!”
“I want some too, Mommy!”
The man of the house glared at them threateningly.
“I should beat the brains out of you little brats!” he said, and turned back to Minsu.
“Please finish your meal. Those kids will cry for more even after they've just eaten.”
Minsu's fingers trembled ever so slightly. He lost the courage to use his spoon any longer. He placed it down, and drew himself away from the tray.
“But . . . but why won't you eat? I suppose it's not good enough.”
The man scratched his head and pushed the tray to the side. All four boys and girls swept out of the corner and grappled with each other over the dishes on the tray. In the scuffle that ensued none of them managed to eat any food.
The man jumped to his feet, picked up a long pipe and began striking the children. At a loss as to what was happening, Minsu grabbed hold of the man.
“What are you doing? They're just kids. Come on now, put it down. Put it down.”
One of the children, in the meantime, had attached his lips to the edge of the tray and began sucking off the gruel that had spilled down its side. Ashamed that a stranger was witnessing this horrible scene, the man's wife grabbed the child and held him to her breast. Pretending to wipe away the snivel from the child's nose, she then dabbed the bow on her blouse into the corners of her eyes.