WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 157: The Story of the Brothers 【Classic of Mountains and Seas】 (9)
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Fifteen. 1987, Older Brother Seventy-Two, Younger Brother Sixty-Two
From that day on, the brothers worked together.
It was nothing grand. When his younger brother gave him something, the older brother delivered it to someone. Sometimes it was a letter, sometimes money, and sometimes documents whose purpose he did not know.
“Mr. Han Bada sent this?”
“Yes.”
“That Mr. Han Bada? The one from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency[1]...?”
“Yes.”
“No... What on earth is he thinking? What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I don't know either. Just take it.”
To be precise, the older brother had tried to find out.
Yet no matter how much he listened, he could not understand why he was bringing something to that particular person, or why an item handed over in Masan would turn up in Jeonju three months later.
It was like how he could not understand where Mr. Han Bada, who had been released after turning over his entire fortune to the new military junta, kept getting money from.
The older brother could not understand.
So he simply did it.
Even after he had passed seventy, he did whatever his younger brother told him. No one suspected a shabby old man weathered hard by age. Even when someone did, the peninsula was a mountainous country, and the old man could easily shake them off.
As the older brother diligently traveled about, a rumor began spreading across the peninsula.
- Mr. Han Bada is supporting the democracy movement.
A dictator's vassal. The first Director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Rival to the two Kims. Yushin's first prime minister was supporting the democracy movement.
The reaction was as great as the symbolism.
Some called it betrayal. Some called it repentance. Some called it revenge. Depending on whom one spoke to, the same person might use all three words.
The older brother did not care which it was.
It was work he did with his younger brother. That alone made him happy. It gave him a reason to diligently travel about even after turning seventy.
The older brother liked that very much.
“Mr. Han Bada. There have been some strange rumors going around lately.”
Naturally, South Korea's two Simas glared fiercely. The big Sima, Baldy, and the little Sima, Average Joe, summoned Han San's younger brother in turn.
His younger brother went whenever called, and always walked back out on his own two feet. Then, laughing heartily, he said to his older brother:
“Hyung, shall we go do the next job?”
The older brother liked that very much.
It was June 1987.
People came out into the streets.
Han San was in Seoul. Jongno. He was there on an errand for his younger brother.
People came out from universities. From their homes. Soon, people got out of markets, companies, buses, taxis, even ordinary cars.
Their genders, ages, and heights differed, but there was no problem standing side by side.
The people walked in crowds.
A tear-gas canister exploded. A student collapsed. Their face was a mess of tears and snot, and they could not breathe. Han San crouched before them.
“Don't open your eyes. And don't rub them.”
“E-Elder...”
Han San took out a bottle of water and poured it over the student's face. The student drew breath.
“Rest for a while.”
“No.”
Resolve settled over that coughing face. The student rose to his feet once more.
“I have to go.”
The student walked on again.
Han San watched his retreating back, then went to finish his younger brother's errand.
Before long, South Korea's two Simas raised both hands.
The older brother returned to Sindang-dong. There, he told his younger brother what he had seen.
“It was an incredible sight.”
His voice was unusually excited.
“I saw something in the people's faces.”
It was what had surfaced on the older brother's face when he saw his younger brother crying after losing their parents.
It was what that bright boy, good at anything after trying it a few times, had thought when he decided he wanted to follow Teacher Baekbeom.
It was what must have surfaced the moment the Empire's Silver Fox looked into the lake in his own garden.
Something had to be done.
This could not continue as it was. They could not leave all of this alone. The older brother said he had seen the will to act in the people's faces.
His younger brother smiled throughout. Then he asked:
“Is that what you think?”
Han San hesitated. He raised his head and looked at that smile.
“If not?”
Mr. Han Bada only smiled and did not answer.
Or perhaps the world answered in another way.
Six months later, the presidential election was held.
The two Kims split apart, and the little Sima won.
Sixteen. 1988, Older Brother Seventy-Three, Younger Brother Sixty-Three
A new year came.
Han San had returned to Gangwon. New Year's Day. He looked at the faces in the newspaper and sighed.
Why had the 1987 presidential election turned out that way?
Everyone talked about their own reasons. We should have won. No, we should have won. No, only we should have won. No, we, we, us, us, us.
Only us.
But no amount of talk changed the result. The victor was the little Sima.
That was how a story ended...
It was difficult to accept.
Was it because all the things he had diligently done with his younger brother had ended this way?
That was probably a major reason. But no... Never mind. What more was there to say? Words had little value.
Han San felt bitter.
Yet even as he felt bitter, Han San tried to nod. Whether it was the two Kims, their supporters, or those who had voted for the little Sima for whatever reason, they had all gone to the polling station and made their own choices.
Those who chose had to bear the choices they made.
It took nearly a year to put that thought into practice.
At the end of that year, the big Sima, Baldy, shut himself away in a temple in Seorak, where Han San lived.
That made the older brother feel as though a conclusion had finally been reached, and he was finally able to finish nodding after more than a year.
The older brother went to see his younger brother. He told him what he had realized.
After hearing it all, his younger brother replied:
“Hyung.”
“Yes?”
“People forget.”
His younger brother was smiling then too.
It was the sort of smile someone wore as they checked an answer sheet and nodded.
It would be about a year before Han San learned the meaning of that smile.
Seventeen. 1989, Older Brother Seventy-Four, Younger Brother Sixty-Four
That October, a young man came to see Han San.
“Grandpa San.”
Han San looked up. Soon, a pleased expression came over his face.
“Oh, it's you. What brings you here?”
Han San had lived rooted in Gangwon for a long time.
He rarely met people and had no one he would call a friend, but even a brown bear left hairs behind in the cave where it hibernated. Since he was a person, there were naturally people he had come to know.
The subordinates who had fought alongside him in the national war, and their families. The people of villages he had saved during that war, and then their families. His trading partners whenever he dug up and sold medicinal herbs, and then their families.
The old man, who had grown old with no family but his younger brother, often found himself watching other people's families for a long time. Because they felt that gaze, people would invite him to gatherings where their families came together.
The old man refused most of them, but there were some he could not refuse. That was how he came to know many children.
Sometimes, he saw some of those children again. At national elementary schools. Sometimes at middle schools. People would invite the old man to tell stories from the war, or have him lead experiential lessons in the mountains.
The young man before him was one of those children. Children became adults so quickly.
“Your family lived in Cheorwon, right? I think you ended up doing your military service there too. I caught a glimpse of you marching when I went there last time. You were skinny, but you did well.
“Are you home on leave?”
Though Han San greeted him warmly, the young man paid no attention to his words. He looked around anxiously before saying:
“Grandpa San. I, um, was working with the Security Command[3] because of something... Could we go somewhere quiet...?”
His face was full of fear.
Han San had seen that kind of fear before. Under the big Sima's government in 1980.
He had seen plenty of it before then too. During Yushin in the 1970s, the military government in the 1960s, the People's Army occupation in the 1950s, and the Japanese colonial era in the 1940s and 1930s.
But now, even if the little Sima was in power, wasn't this the Sixth Republic[2]?
Han San led the young man into a room. He looked around for a long while before taking something from inside his coat. His hands were trembling.
“Please look at this, Grandpa San.”
It was a photocopied document.
Han San accepted it and read. Since he had passed seventy, his eyesight seemed to pierce straight through the page. Only after drawing his brows together with all his strength could he barely make out the letters.
Even so, he read to the end without setting it down even once.
「Cheongmyeong Plan[4]」
It was a document created by the Security Command that spring. It contained the sort of things the Security Command always did.
What to do should emergency martial law be declared.
Whom to arrest, from the first person onward.
Politicians. Laborers. Pastors. Priests. Monks. Professors. Journalists. Beginning with the two Kims, down to people whose names had never appeared in the newspapers.
Their physical features, including their heights, builds, hairstyles, and whether they wore glasses. Their residences and the interior layouts of their homes. The shapes and heights of their walls. Expected escape routes and routes for cutting them off. Everything was recorded in meticulous detail.
But what caught Han San's attention most was the name written in the final entry.
「Chief Officer Responsible for Implementation: Han Bada」
Han San raised his head.
The young man was crying.
“Grandpa San... He's your younger brother, right? You told me when I was still young. You said your younger brother...”
My younger brother.
“You said he had completely changed, that he was supporting the democracy movement for people, and that you were doing that work too because of him.”
Had I said that?
Had I?
“Grandpa San... I, I'm scared...”
Han San put down the document.
He reached out and patted the young man's shoulder.
“You've worked hard.”
“Grandpa San...”
“You've worked hard. Rest for a while... Yes, rest here. There's food farther inside, so eat. Hide here. I'll protect you. I promise.”
Drip, drip.
Outside, rain began to fall. The sound of it striking the roof in a steady rhythm. The sound of rain.
Han San went through that rain to his younger brother's house.
Han Bada's front gate was already open. So was the front door. They stood wide open, as though there were no barriers at all.
A voice came from inside.
“Welcome, Hyung. You got rained on.”
Han San stepped in. Han Bada sat on the sofa, reading something. A Japanese manga magazine.
“What are you doing?”
“Reading manga. This began serialization this month. It's called Berserk[5].”
Han Bada handed the magazine to Han San.
“It's a manga you might enjoy too, Hyung. There's a man with a sword. A very big sword. He carries it around and cuts monsters with it. Whew. The art is really well done.”
Han San looked at the page Han Bada had opened. The Japanese literacy that had naturally seeped into him during the colonial era let him read the lines.
“It was too large to be called a sword.
“Large, thick, heavy, and rough.
“It was truly a lump of iron.”
Han San stared for a long time into the eyes of that sword-wielding man.
“Why does this guy go around like that?”
“Who knows? It's only the first chapter. Maybe he lost something. A lot of things. Isn't that why he bites at everything he sees, because he wants to get it back?
“What a pathetic mess.”
Han San knocked the magazine away.
Smack! The magazine flew across the room. It struck the veranda window streaked with rainwater, then shhk, slid down in time with the rain.
Han San looked at Han Bada.
Again, he asked:
“What are you doing?”
Han Bada listened to the question with a smile.
The autumn rain covering the world looked exactly like blood.
Footnotes:
[1] The Korean Central Intelligence Agency, founded in 1961, was South Korea's principal intelligence service and a central instrument of political surveillance under military rule.
[2] The Sixth Republic is South Korea's constitutional order established in 1988 after democratic reforms and direct presidential elections.
[3] The Security Command was the Republic of Korea military's counterintelligence and internal-security organization, notorious for monitoring civilians and political opponents.
[4] The Cheongmyeong Plan was a 1989 Security Command contingency plan for imposing martial law and arresting political and civic figures.
[5] Berserk is a dark-fantasy manga by Miura Kentaro that began serialization in 1989; the quoted lines are its famous opening narration.
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