WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 156: The Story of the Brothers 【Classic of Mountains and Seas】 (8)
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14. 1980, Older Brother Sixty-Five, Younger Brother Fifty-Five
That year's spring was terribly short.
Emergency martial law was extended nationwide. Many people died, and many people were arrested.
Mr. Han Bada was arrested too.
The country's number one illicit fortune-builder through abuse of power.
Han San ran a finger over the article in the newspaper.
“...”
The older brother folded the paper and stood.
He headed for Seoul. There were checkpoints of a sort along the way, but they managed to work things out. The peninsula was a mountainous country, after all.
The body that had suffered in his youth was losing its strength now that he was past sixty, but mountains were not climbed with strength alone.
The older brother headed to the Security Command[1]. Seobinggo. They said his younger brother was there.
“Can I visit him?”
The military policeman did not answer. Instead, he picked up a radio and reported something to someone.
Before that report could draw people over, Han San immediately turned away.
Naturally.
It was the Security Command. Just because people called it the Binggo Hotel did not make it a hotel.
“What am I supposed to do?”
His younger brother's name carried no weight here. It was precisely because of that name that he had been arrested.
“Honestly.”
The older brother was sick of it. Back when his younger brother's name had been so influential, peddlers and petitioners had filled the place. Yet now, when he desperately needed it, he could not make use of it.
He took a room at a nearby inn.
For several days, he walked around the Security Command. With a mountain man's eye. He learned where the walls stood, where they were low, and what lay around them. He learned when the lights came on and went off. He memorized everything, from the guards' faces to the dogs' faces.
Then he climbed over the wall.
It was midnight when the younger brother, sitting quietly alone, heard his older brother's voice.
“Are you all right?”
The younger brother could hardly make sense of it.
He raised his head and turned toward the sound. There, he saw his older brother.
“How did you get in here?”
“It'd take a while to explain.”
“Then forget it.”
The younger brother knew as well as anyone that there was no time.
The brothers sat facing each other.
Well, they did not have much to say. That only left the younger brother even more at a loss.
“Why did you come?”
The older brother could not explain it well.
“Just...”
The older brother knew as well that he could not take his younger brother out of here.
There was no way, for one thing. His younger brother moved more slowly than he did, even though he was past sixty.
Even if they escaped, there would be a problem. The moment they fled, the new military junta would gladly put him on the wanted list, and if his younger brother was caught again, he would not be brought back here.
Even so, if asked why he had come...
“I wanted to see if you were doing well...”
The younger brother gave a laugh that sounded both hollow and clear.
“I am all right.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
That was what the younger brother said.
And it was true. Being detained, the newspapers shouting that he was the number one illicit fortune-builder through abuse of power.
The act had changed.
Like a deposed crown prince who might have held a fairly important supporting role while King Taejong was alive, only to become a third-rate villain after King Munjong died. The next act had arrived, new actors had taken the stage, and a new audience would come in carrying popcorn.
Still.
“Hyung, can I ask you one favor?”
The older brother stiffened. He immediately straightened up.
“Tell me anything.”
“Mr. Toono passed away.”
Han San froze.
He had heard the news too. In the newspaper.
June 12, 1980.
A man who had repeatedly helped himself to the post of secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, then served as the sixty-eighth and sixty-ninth Prime Minister. He had reportedly collapsed from angina during an election campaign and died suddenly.
Kannoizuna Toono.
Han San had first seen him in Chuncheon in 1938. After that, he had heard of him in his younger brother's letters, in the newspaper, and then again in his younger brother's stories.
[Not enough.]
He had met him only once.
[We will speak when you are no longer lacking.]
That time never came in the end.
“Even after liberation, Mr. Toono and I kept in touch. You know that.”
He did.
“In 1962, he and I wrote a memorandum. That memorandum became the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea[2].”
The Claims Agreement[3].
A Japanese tourist who had come to Seorak once said this.
“Why are you people still like this? You got the money. Isn't that enough? If you didn't want it, you shouldn't have accepted it. Once you accepted it, it was over. Stop dragging it out. Try living in the future.”
Han San, listening nearby, had said nothing. He merely thought of the five won Ham Byeong-cheol had given him.
[I paid back every last bit. Live well.]
Han San closed his eyes, then opened them.
His younger brother was speaking.
“Please go and pay your respects to him.”
The older brother looked at his younger brother.
“I can't go now. I'm here. If Su-jeong were alive, it would have been good to send her in my place, but she's dead. Now, you're the only one I have, hyung.”
The older brother closed his eyes once more.
For forty-two years, Han San had thought of one thing. The letter his younger brother had sent. I think that is a cowardly thing to say. The smile his younger brother had made when they met again. Because it is so pathetic. His younger brother's name in the newspaper. The first Director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, Han Bada.
The older brother opened his eyes.
He spoke.
“That bastard ruined you.”
The younger brother smiled.
He spoke.
“I was always like this.”
Han San could not accept those words.
He did not argue further. It was not as though he could ever beat his younger brother with words, and words had little value anyway.
“You'll go, right?”
The older brother accepted the request.
“I'll go.”
The younger brother smiled once again, then lowered his head.
“Thank you, hyung.”
Japan.
By the time he arrived, the funeral was already over. They said it had been a state funeral.
Han San went to the bereaved family's home.
As befitted the noble family to which the Empire's baron had belonged, the Kannoizuna family's residence was magnificent. Bamboo tubes stood everywhere, along with stone statues of foxes poking their heads out from within them to peer at the world.
“Mr. Han Bada sent you... Please, come in. Welcome.”
The bereaved family received Han San.
Han San stood before the memorial portrait. He offered incense.
The portrait of the Silver Fox showed a photograph from his youth. Han San did not know exactly how old he had been in it, but the smile at the corner of his lips was the very same smile Han San had seen in Chuncheon in 1938.
A smile that fit him like tailored clothing.
Or perhaps that had simply been his bare face.
Han San did not know.
Forty-two years.
The man who had sent his younger brother to school. The man his younger brother constantly spoke of, saying, “Mr. Toono said,” and, “If it had been Mr. Toono.” The man his younger brother had said was not pathetic.
Han San bowed.
He did not say anything as he bowed. He had nothing to say. Or perhaps too much.
[We will speak when you are no longer lacking.]
That sentence merely passed through his mind once more.
Night came.
Someone spoke to Han San as he sat quietly gazing at the memorial portrait.
“The deceased spent a very long time in Chosun, did he not? It brings back memories.”
The voice was cheerful.
Han San glanced over. Someone whose age he could not guess sat there.
“Were you in Chosun too?”
“Yes! Would you like a drink?”
Japanese liquor was brought out.
Han San reached out and accepted the cup. The other person drank as well.
They asked, “How is Bada?”
“You know my younger brother?”
“Hmm, we have some history! Is he all right? I have no way of hearing news from over there!”
“He is imprisoned.”
“Hmm, that is unfortunate. Practical politics! It is so tedious, yet impossible to avoid.”
They clicked their tongue, took a sip of liquor, then wiggled a slender finger.
“But do not worry! Bada will be all right. He does not let such things bother him!”
“...How do you know?”
“Let us say I heard it from the deceased.”
“How did you hear it?”
“Bada is an audience member. Even when the play changes, an audience member remains an audience member.”
Han San drank.
The next moment, he clenched his teeth.
“That bastard is the reason.”
His breath escaped. Hot breath. It was not the liquor. Heat rose from his heart. Boiling anger had remained inside him ever since he received his younger brother's first letter.
“Because of that bastard, Bada became like this.”
“Hmm.”
The other person did not blame him.
They knew well that “that bastard” did not mean the deceased.
That was why they said:
“Do not blame yourself too much.”
Han San raised his head. Perhaps his eyesight had worsened after passing sixty, but the other person's face looked blurred.
They were propping up their chin as they looked at the memorial portrait.
“The deceased, you see.”
Suddenly, they sighed.
A long, long sigh.
“He realized it not long after he was born. The first time he saw his reflection in the lake in the garden.”
“What did he realize?”
“How pretty I am. Unlike everyone else.”
“Ha!”
Han San let out a hollow laugh. The other person laughed too.
“Then he immediately realized one more thing.”
“What now?”
“There is a lake in my family's garden. Unlike everyone else.”
Han San did not laugh again.
The other person still smiled.
“I am clever. I learn quickly. I, I, I. As time passed, the deceased realized it.
“That he was different from other people.
“He could not help realizing it.
“And because he knew, he could not help thinking.”
I have to do something.
“The capable should help those without ability. The blessed should help those without blessings. The educated should help those without an education. He thought he had to do such things.”
Han San made a sound through his teeth.
“What terrible arrogance.”
“Ah, that hurts a little... He did enjoy being impressed with himself!
“But the deceased had to find something in life to enjoy too, didn't he?”
Han San snorted, and the other person gave a soft little laugh, tapping their own lips with a finger.
“Then the deceased came to understand one more thing.”
“What this time?”
“That helping and loving are different. And so he learned that although he had helped people, he had not loved them.”
Help flowed from above to below, but love went from side to side.
Kannoizuna Toono had stood above others all his life.
He had been.
“Bada saw through that when he was thirteen. So the deceased was not truly that exceptional after all. At least not when it came to his mind.”
“...”
“You wondered why the deceased helped Bada.”
Had he asked that?
Han San did not know. He had drunk a great deal.
He drank another cup, and the other person answered.
“People suffering from the same illness recognize one another.”
Silence.
“My younger brother is the same as the deceased?”
“The symptoms are different! The deceased tried to help people, but Bada... Hmm, perhaps I should not say that!”
That was true. Han San did not want to hear others judge his younger brother.
Still, he asked.
“Can that illness be cured?”
“Who knows? The deceased did not recover.”
The other person said that, then smiled brightly at Han San.
“But Bada has you.”
The older brother opened his lips.
Then closed them.
He opened them again, then closed them once more. The other person smiled.
“Please give Bada a message.”
“...”
“Bada, can you hear me? It is me!
“I lost! Wow, there was no way I could win!
“People forget! All of it!
“They forget what they said! They even forget what they did, so of course they forget everything about others! Without batting an eye, they forget it all!”
Smiling without a trace of resentment, the other person propped up their chin and looked at Han San.
“But Bada may be different! After all, you have a good older brother!”
A good older brother.
“So come down from the audience now. Stop being a supporting character too.
“You do not have much time left to live anyway.
“Have some fun. To your heart's content!”
The other person raised their cup and drank.
“I will be waiting.”
The older brother raised his head.
The seat across from him was empty. Only an empty cup sat there.
The next day, the bereaved family said there had been no such person.
“No one entered the room with the memorial portrait. You were our only guest.”
Han San started to say something, then stopped. He stood before the memorial portrait.
He silently looked at that smiling face, offered one more stick of incense, and left the residence behind.
After he returned and waited a while, his younger brother walked out of the Security Command.
On his own two feet.
It was the price of surrendering all his assets. They said only the mansion in Sindang-dong remained.
The older brother handed him tofu[4].
“You've been picking things up from somewhere again.”
“Kim Tae-yang.”
“That man... Tell him to take care of himself. He will not listen anyway.”
Though clearly sick of it, the younger brother accepted the tofu and ate it.
When Han San conveyed the conversation he had had before the memorial portrait, his younger brother stopped chewing.
“I was told to have some fun.”
“Yes. It was a very strange experience.”
“It really was.”
The younger brother murmured.
“They'll be waiting...”
He chewed the rest of the tofu. Swallowed it.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
Silence fell.
The younger brother raised his head and looked at his older brother.
“Hyung.”
“Yes?”
“Would you like to do some work with me?”
That was the beginning.
Footnotes:
[1] The Defense Security Command was South Korea's military intelligence agency and a central instrument of the 1979-80 military takeover; its Seobinggo detention facility was notorious for interrogation and torture.
[2] The 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea normalized diplomatic relations between the two countries after Japan's colonial rule of Korea.
[3] The accompanying 1965 Claims Agreement declared property and financial claims between the two states settled in return for Japanese grants and loans to South Korea.
[4] In Korea, tofu is customarily given to someone leaving prison as a wish for a clean start.
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