WeTried Translations

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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 14

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A Glorious Homecoming (1)

The sun was slipping low over the mouth of the Lower Hamlet, where the path entered Sebeom Valley.

Go Tae-chon sat cross-legged on the stone marker at the entrance, spraying spit at Im Baechil and Kim Tae-yang in front of him.

"Look, that San brat still isn't back. How dare he, huh? Said he'd go to town all by himself. No fear in him at all, just like that."

One hand stuffed in his pocket, Kim Tae-yang chimed in.

"Ah, for real?"

"For real, of course! He tagged along to town with you lot a few times in a pack, huh, and thought that was his own skill."

"That San brat's lost it, totally lost it. He's always had a screw loose, that kid." Snickering, Kim Tae-yang took a deep drag on his Maco cigarette[1]. "But Uncle Tae-chon, why'd that brat even go to town? Did he get himself a woman?"

"A woman, my foot! And a town woman at that, huh? You think she'd give a backward bumpkin like him a second glance?"

"That's true. So why'd he go?"

"Why else! That brat went off with his cripple of a father about a badger..."

Go Tae-chon's words, building up with excitement, dribbled away and faded. The story had too many parts that embarrassed him, so he didn't really want to spell it all out.

But Kim Tae-yang's ears snatched at the words like a ghost's.

"A badger?"

"Yeah, that raccoon-cousin of a thing..."

"What about the badger? Did San's family catch a badger?"

The way Kim Tae-yang dug in made Go Tae-chon scowl. Why's this brat picking it all apart now?

"Yeah. They caught it, a badger. That badger oil, huh? It fetches a bit of money, see?"

"Ah, for real? That sells?"

"It does, of course. Good for burns, and pneumonia, you know? Good for that too, they say. The way I see it, it's all just savage folk medicine, but huh, this thing called capital-ism. The fellow called demand is what sets the price, see."

"So that's what he went to sell. Because it's worth money."

"Money, my foot! Watch, that brat, huh? He'll come crawling back flat broke, I'm telling you! You know how rough the road to town is!"

Just then, Im Baechil, who had been standing there listening like a borrowed barley sack, spoke up carefully.

"Uh... then isn't that bad? What if he gets hurt?"

Go Tae-chon waved a hand and only got more worked up.

"Bad, of course! What have you been hearing me say all this time? A person has to know his place, see. Know thyself! You ever heard that line?"

"Uh-huh..."

"Now, that line. It's known as something Socra-tes said, but that's what the unschooled types go around saying. The truth is it was just carved into a temple wall, see? Socra-tes, that brat, just plagiarized it! You know, on the wall of a temple to that god, Del-phi[2]..."

While Go Tae-chon prattled on, Im Baechil kept glancing toward the village entrance with a worried face. He spoke almost in a whisper.

"Tae-yang, should we go look for our San...?"

At that, Kim Tae-yang spat, ptooey, a wad of tobacco-stained spit. He shot him a sidelong glare and asked.

"Is your head really full of rocks?"

"Huh?"

"Baechil, come on, Baechil. I told you to do this thing called thinking before you talk. Go look for him, look for what? How the hell would you know where that San brat even is?"

"Uh... right, sorry..."

"You'd better be sorry. Ugh, Baechil. You blockhead, ugh, ugh!"

Kim Tae-yang ground the fist holding his cigarette round and round against Im Baechil's temple. An ember flicked onto his cheek and he flinched, but Im Baechil only managed a shrunken little smile.

Kim Tae-yang took another deep drag.

"Damn it, more to the point, that San brat had something this good going and didn't even tell his big brother here? When he gets back I'll have to whip some discipline into him."

Im Baechil couldn't even say Tae-yang, you're younger than San... In fact, of the three of them he himself was the oldest, so the whole subject of age made him uncomfortable...

Go Tae-chon looked up at the sky and swept back his greased hair.

"Look, the sun's going down. Going down. That little San brat, huh? Bet he can't even find his way back and he's flailing around out there. Ran off and got lost in the mountains. That's why a person ought to keep his heart pure. You know, like John Hobb-es said—"

That was the moment.

From the brushy trail near the Lower Hamlet entrance, a huge shadow burst out, parting the undergrowth.

Thump, BOOM!

"Wh-what is it?!"

The three of them jolted at the heavy footsteps that seemed to rattle the entrance marker.

The bulk and weight called to mind a wild boar, no, a bear, and they thought a wild beast had appeared.

But the wild beast spoke.

"What are you all doing out here?"

"Uh..."

It took the three rattled men a little while to realize the thing that had appeared was not a beast but a person. It had only looked huge because of the house-sized load on its back.

"...San?"

Im Baechil recognized him first. Then Kim Tae-yang, and last of all, Go Tae-chon's mouth dropped wide open.

"You, you, that thing!"

Stacked on the A-frame carrier Han San bore were a big sack and a small sack, meat, rubber shoes, some kind of metal, and a large gray gunny bag.

Flat broke? He looked like he'd hauled the whole town market back in one piece.

"Ah, Go Uncle. Hello."

Han San grinned. That impudent way of addressing him made Go Tae-chon flare up, but boom, the footstep of Han San coming one step closer made him flinch again. The load was so heavy that just walking made a sound like that.

He carried all that on his own?

Over that rough mountain road?

And above all, that white, plump, lovely thing tied to the very top of the A-frame carrier...

"Cluck-cluck!"

"A, a Leg-horn!"

Go Tae-chon shrieked.

The very breed the badger had savagely devoured in his own chicken coop. That expensive, rare, noble Western chicken, now riding on the A-frame carrier of that unschooled bumpkin.

"H-how did you get those..."

"How? You think I stole them? I bought them."

"Where would you get the money..."

"The badger oil turned out pretty good. I took it to the herbal shop, received some of those scraps of paper that society calls currency, handed them over to the merchants, and that's how I got these."

Han San's smooth talk turned Go Tae-chon's face beet red.

Have those townsfolk gone mad? Can't they see at a glance he's a slash-and-burn bumpkin? And they paid that kind of price for oil a fellow like that brought in?

And on top of that, what? They sold him goods? Why? Is taking the money all that matters to them? Capital-ism addicts, every last one of them!

A Leg-horn, at least! You don't sell a precious foreign fowl like that to a bumpkin like him!

Go Tae-chon wanted to march down to town this very moment and have it out with them. Fine phrases bitterly condemning the merchants' worship of money flashed through his head like the subtitles of a moving picture.

Han San, of course, paid no mind to whatever was running through Go Tae-chon's head.

"Goodness, this is heavy! Go Uncle, I've got to get to the house, so I'll see you later."

Han San slid right past him. "Cluck-cluck!" the white chicken cried mournfully, and the gust kicked up by the mountain of cargo brushing past nearly knocked Go Tae-chon onto his backside. The heat that had been rising in him sank right back down.

"R-right. Uh, see you later..."

Backing away inch by inch, Go Tae-chon turned and strode off toward his house, leaving the spot empty.

Watching him go, Kim Tae-yang flicked away his spent cigarette and snickered.

"That Go Tae-chon, his mouth's the problem, that mouth. Going on and on about how you'd come back flat broke, and look at him now. Made a real fool of himself. No idea why he's got such a rotten streak."

Han San didn't take the bait, only smirked.

'And your streak's so fine, is it?'

Kim Tae-yang.

A hooligan who threw his weight around on the strength of his fists and his family connections. The moment anyone got their hands on anything, he latched on like a leech to needle them. He'd squeezed plenty out of Han San too.

'In the end he became a gangster.'

A mob boss who made a name for himself across all of Gangwon, as Han San recalled.

Through several gang crackdowns he somehow dodged punishment and kept swaggering around, until decades later his worn-out old body was dragged off somewhere and word of him simply stopped.

True to that nature, Kim Tae-yang stepped up without asking and looked the load on Han San's back over, this way and that.

"Wow, but seriously, that's a lot. Of stuff. Is it that expensive? Badger?"

"..."

"Why so quiet... oh? Wow, damn, isn't this binding wire? Hey! I'm taking this!"

Kim Tae-yang grabbed the bundle of steel wire loaded on the A-frame carrier and cackled.

Han San, who had been watching to see how far he'd go, nearly burst out laughing. Get a load of this brat.

"Kim Tae-yang, what do you think you're doing?"

"Huh?"

"I said, what do you think you're doing right now. Put it back down."

Han San glared at him as he spoke.

Kim Tae-yang's eyebrows shot up. This scrawny brat who usually couldn't even meet his eyes?

"Hey, Han San. What'd you just say?"

"Can't you hear? Put it down."

"I hear you fine. But what's wrong with those eyes of yours?"

Kim Tae-yang scrunched up his face and stepped closer.

Im Baechil, at a loss, tried to stop him.

"D-don't, Tae-yang... that's San's, and if San says put it down, you put it down..."

"Ah, Im Baechil, is your head really full of rocks? Damn it, that Han San brat's pissing me off something fierce! Huh?!"

Kim Tae-yang bellowed. When Im Baechil flinched and backed off, Kim Tae-yang puffed himself up even more and glared at Han San.

"Hey, Han San! The hell, you dare glare at your big brother here with eyes like that? You allowed to do that, huh?! Are you allowed to do that?!"

Han San didn't shrink back. Nor did he flare up.

He only spoke coldly.

"Quit barking. Your spit's flying and it's disgusting."

At that, Kim Tae-yang's eyes flipped over.

"Ah, you son of a bitch!"

Kim Tae-yang lunged. He meant to smack that cocky Han San across the face before he could even set the carrier down, then drum on the gut of a guy who couldn't budge under all that load.

Right then, Han San, glaring with ice-cold eyes, moved his left hand like a thunderbolt.

Whoosh!

"Gah?!"

Han San's hand clamped, thunk, around Kim Tae-yang's neck like wringing a chicken's.

He didn't need to set down the carrier. With a load on his back nearing the weight of a full-grown man, Han San choked Kim Tae-yang's neck with one hand just like that.

"Khh, gak! You, son of a... hey, Han San! L-let go of this!"

Kim Tae-yang grabbed at Han San's wrist and thrashed. He pounded at Han San's arm with his fist, but the strength wouldn't come, not while he was choking.

If anything, the grip in Han San's hand grew stronger.

'In-insane, what is this strength?'

Like a press. A crushing grip digging in as if to pulverize him.

All the while, Han San kept silently staring at Kim Tae-yang.

In the eyes of the once-swaggering Kim Tae-yang, fear suddenly began to settle.

"Hey, hey! Let, let go! Huh? S-San, gak! P-please, beg-ging you!"

Just as Kim Tae-yang's face was going purple—

"D-don't! Don't, don't! You can't fight, you can't!"

It was Im Baechil. Flapping both arms, he cut in and looked back and forth between Kim Tae-yang and Han San, his face on the verge of tears.

"We're the, the same village. No, fighting's... let's not fight, huh? Huh?"

Seeing Im Baechil, the biggest of the three, wearing a look like he might burst into tears any second, the expression on the ever-silent Han San's face grew complicated.

'Baechil hyung...'

Every village has its simpleton. The simpleton of Sebeom Valley was this very Im Baechil. He lived getting shoved around here and there while caring for his widowed mother, then a few years later, during the national general mobilization[3], he was conscripted and his whereabouts went unknown.

"Tsk."

The strength slipped from Han San's hand.

Flump—the sound of Kim Tae-yang dropping onto his backside and sprawling out.

"Kuh! Khek, cough, cough!"

Clutching his neck and dry-heaving, Kim Tae-yang glared at Han San for an instant with flaring eyes, then flinched right away at Han San's indifferent return stare.

A moment later, Kim Tae-yang gingerly turned up the corners of his mouth.

"Hey, damn... San! I was just... just joking around, why're you like this, really. Between friends..."

"Your joke wasn't funny."

"Ah, sorry. I'm a little mischievous, you know..."

Giggling, hee-hee, Kim Tae-yang set the bundle of wire back onto Han San's carrier with a touch as careful as tending a new bride.

Han San only kept staring at him in silence.

Unable to bear that gaze, Kim Tae-yang had no choice but to back away, stumbling.

"S-see you later! Friend!"

Dust rose and settled behind Kim Tae-yang as he scrambled off with his tail between his legs.

[1] Maco (마코) was a popular cigarette brand of the colonial period.

[2] "Know thyself" was indeed inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and predates Socrates — so Go Tae-chon's garbled boast is, by sheer accident, not entirely wrong.

[3] The national general mobilization (국가총동원) refers to the wartime mobilization Japan imposed across its empire from 1938; under it, countless Koreans like Baechil were conscripted for labor or military service.

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