WeTried Translations

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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 71

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The Skirmish (1)

On the way home, the ox cart loaded to the brim with food, tools, cloth, and all manner of supplies.

Han San, sajang of Han's Myriad Commerce, stayed sunk in thought the whole way.

Once they passed the mouth of Sebeom Valley and turned into Lower Hamlet, that thought deepened. What came into his sight were water channels grown even more tangled than they'd been a few days before.

The ditches drawn over from Meokbawi Valley kept running on even after they'd crossed into Middle Hamlet.

"These are, truly... ominous water channels."

Looking at the channels laced together like a spider's web, Han San let a low murmur slip.

"Omi... nous channels..."

Chuk Myeong-su and Chuk Jae-seok, catching that mutter beside him, couldn't make sense of it for a moment, then stared at each other with their mouths hanging open. The two newcomers couldn't believe what they'd just heard.

Chuk Hong-cheol, the chief, smoothed the two of them over.

"See, our sajang... young as he is, he's a truly remarkable man, but, well, how do I put it. Everybody's got some rotten corner to them. There's that saying too, that somebody's somebody else's son of a bitch, isn't there? We've lived a while, so let's give him some understanding."

Han San passed over the hired hands talking nonsense and headed for the house.

"Father, Mother! Here are the two ajaes who've newly joined us. It'll be a bit noisy again from today while we raise the two of them a house, so please bear with it!"

In the yard, widened after the extension, the last two servants' quarters started going up according to the prepared construction plan.

"Sajang. Don't you think we're getting pretty good at building our own places? Is this what they call experience piling up?"

"Right. Hong-cheol-ajae here's the chief, but at this rate the chief's house is going to end up the shabbiest of the lot. Built it first with just the two of us."

"Tch, you're right about that."

"So? We're resting for a while anyhow, so touch up whatever needs touching up. Swarm it with people and it won't take long at all."

"Nah. The heart's there, sure, but is that the right order of things? If we're going to touch anything up, shouldn't we make the sajang's own house look proper first?"

At Chuk Hong-cheol's bit of banter, Han San grinned and wiped the sweat off his brow, well pleased.

While the sajang of Han's Myriad Commerce and the whole company thus quietly expanded their line of work into construction and remodeling, over at the washing spot the village women traded gossip.

"Aigo, that Han household's got real momentum these days."

"You said it. Especially since they got back, hardly a day goes by without that ox cart hauling in something or other from town. What in the world are they carting in?"

"Some shovels and cement and a big hammer and things like that, and food heaped up something fierce besides. You think they mean to open a rice shop or something?"

"Rice shop, my foot. Five great big dark-looking men just marched right in, didn't they. Think how much rice they eat in a single day."

"What did they used to do, those men?"

"Who knows. You try to ask them a thing and they clamp their mouths shut tight. Whether it's shyness or that Han eldest boy's got them thoroughly hushed up, I couldn't say. Rough as they look, too."

Even as they talked, the women didn't dig too deep into the Han household's hired hands. After all, was there a single soul in this Sebeom Valley without a story of their own?

So their curiosity about the outsiders swung off in a somewhat more harmless direction.

"Still, they're not all dark and rough. The two who just joined are fairly slender-looking, aren't they? And one of them's got rather fine skin, too."

"Heavens, are you setting your sights on them now? Then again, unni, you've been widowed a good while, haven't you?"

"Ah, look at the state of you talking. If I'd been born a hundred years earlier, this village would have ten chastity gates standing.

Anyhow. You know how last time my stomach didn't sit right, maybe the water didn't agree with me, and I went over to Baechil's mother's."

"And?"

"When I got there, the Han household's hired man was in there. That head of the hired hands. He'd banged up his hand raising a house, came to get some salve on it. And Baechil's mother, that girl, she was kneading that hand, squish, squish, so I swear I thought she wasn't rubbing salve on it, she was rubbing kimchi seasoning on it!"

The women stopped their laundry bats and nodded all at once. Baechil's mother was, well, a bit like that.

"But doesn't she only do that with handsome men? That head of the hired hands, from a ways off his nose and chin looked buried in beard, no different from a wild boar."

"That's just it, you're all behind on the news. That Han household eldest, San, that boy went and got scissors and, that thing they use in town, a barigang? The whirring little clipper thing, you know it.

Took those and cropped himself and his little brother and the hired hands all neat and tidy."

"The hair?"

"Yes! And then, boiling water and, you know that soap! And not just any soap, the pricey kind. The kind that lathers up! Scrubbed them all down like that, and aigo, every one of them came out looking clean and sharp."

One of the women clapped her hands.

"That's right, that's right. Now that you mention it, unni, it comes back to me. Yesterday I saw some strange fellow with his hair cropped close walk by, and that was the Han household's hired hand!"

"Now why'd they crop the hair down like that? They turn into soldiers or something?"

"Soldiers, my foot! That Han eldest said less hair means fewer lice. Fewer heat rashes too. In town talk it's some kind of modern hygiene, he called it."

Had Han San been there to hear this gossip, he'd have added inwardly that 'messing with hairstyle is the basics of hiding a wanted man,' but the women didn't think that far and just slapped their knees.

"That makes sense. Should I borrow those scissors and that barigang thing too? Maybe I'll go crop my husband's hair right off. Sick to death of watching him scratch himself raw picking lice every night."

While the lady of the house set led the raising of the great Sebeom Valley hair-cutting banner, the future bald men, not dreaming of the chill fate bearing down on them, were also gathered in the Middle Hamlet clearing whispering among themselves.

"Hey, you lot. You remember the story about that tree?"

Before them stood the Seonangdang shrine tree, set like a stone marker splitting the boundary between Upper Hamlet and Middle Hamlet. A zelkova, three branches spread, wound with a sacred rope.

"They said the three-headed Mountain Lord Mama took the form of that tree, didn't they? Water Tiger, White Tiger, Fire Tiger?"[1]

"Right. And what the Upper Hamlet folk have been quietly saying lately is that the Water Tiger head among them has grown wrathful."

At that, one of the Middle Hamlet men spat, ptooey.

"So? Are we supposed to show 'sincerity' to that blasted Mountain Lord Mama again?"

"That's what I'm saying. It hasn't been long at all since they hauled off one man from each household saying they had to burn charcoal, and already again..."

"That charcoal too, they said they were burning it for a rite. I was wondering what all the charcoal was for at this time of year, and, honestly, it's dumbfounding..."

"No, no!" The man passing the rumor waved his hand and corrected them. "They say there's no need to show sincerity by force."

"What? What's gotten into them?"

"Those people say that forcing it does no good at all."

The man passing the rumor glanced at the Seonangdang tree and lowered his voice.

"This time the Water Tiger head has grown so wrathful. To soothe the Mountain Lord Mama, it seems the people of our Sebeom Valley have to open an exorcism rite of our own true free will, in one united faith.

Only then, they say, when Old Woman Wangdae throws herself into the rite with all her divine power, can she somehow set afloat on this mountainside a treasure ship to save only the believers, or some such."

"So if there's anyone who later on gets truly frightened, who wants to pray to the Mountain Lord Mama from the heart, they're saying come at that time to show sincerity that wells up sincerely."

Even at such talk, the Middle Hamlet folk's reaction was cold.

"So in the end, isn't it just a ploy to scare us and squeeze us for it? What is this, playing word games."

"And on top of that, Water Tiger this, Water Tiger that. The monsoon season's about done with."

Even a few months back it would've been a hard reaction to imagine, but those with nothing to their name were the most grounded of all.

"Speaking of the monsoon season, this year's monsoon season didn't even feel like it came, did it? No proper rain to speak of, just whooshed right past."

"That's what I'm saying! If we hadn't gotten the water channels dug through from Meokbawi Valley this time, our whole crop would've been ruined."

"Crops, nothing. We'd have spent the whole day just hauling water to feed the wife and kids. Worn ourselves out and collapsed doing it."

The Middle Hamlet men's eyes drifted naturally off toward the Han household in the distance, hard at work on their extension amid rousing shouts.

"Isn't this all thanks to San getting the Meokbawi Valley waterway for us out of that old geezer Deok-tae?"

"And that's not all. This time, after he got back, busy as he was with his own extension, he still went around the village whenever he had a spare moment, looking after our water channels for us!"

"Ah, he looked after your channels too? And here I was strutting around thinking he'd checked my channels specially. Tch."

"Truly a diligent young man. Compared to him, those Upper Hamlet folk, with their blasted rites and treasure ships... anyway, I knew right off that the Upper Hamlet folk were the useless sort who spout that kind of empty nonsense."

"Me too! I saw it too!"

"That song of superstition echoing over Upper Hamlet...!"

Around the time praise for Han San and mistrust of Upper Hamlet were coming out into the open like this in Middle Hamlet,

Upper Hamlet, Old Woman Wangdae's shrine, was sunk in stillness.

One odd fact was that Park Il, who always stood planted before the shrine door like an Inwang guardian statue[2], was nowhere to be seen.

At that hour, Park Il sat facing a man.

In the inner room of a tiled house set in one corner of Upper Hamlet, the smell of ink and paper hung thick. A man of clean, refined bearing sat cross-legged.

That man spoke.

"Leave them be."

Pale fingers, knuckles standing out sharp, turned a page, riffle, of a book that held the words of the sages.

"Let them chatter as they please, let them kick up a fuss as they please. Isn't it a matter of watching just how well they manage? "

"Yun Cheom-ji."

Park Il called the man's name.

The man called Yun Cheom-ji simply turned one more page, riffle.

"When the people do not fear authority, then great terror comes upon them."[3]

The sages' words rang through the room borne on a clear voice.

"The little common folk who have ceased to fear authority are bound to meet with calamity. Once you've passed them through the sieve, you need only pull out those worth pulling out."

In air that seemed cut loose from the flow of time, Yun Cheom-ji only then looked at Park Il.

"More to the point, it's the Inwang Gang side that's the problem. From the look of it, that fellow Imok has decided to go his own way?"

Park Il pressed his thick lips shut.

"Our roads were different from the start."

Yun Cheom-ji fell silent. Not for long.

"I'll have to get in touch with the people on the Russian side.[4] As it happens, one of them is about due to come back around."

As Yun Cheom-ji said it, his gaze was fixed beyond the paper-paneled door, toward Lower Hamlet.

At the very lowest end of Lower Hamlet, at the mouth of the village, at Modern-Bar Kill WOLF, which had gone through nothing but its daily lower limit without once meeting a rebound, a dramatic reversal was underway.

"Here, 200 won! This clears my oppa's debt in full, right?"

Pi Sun-dae, wearing a complicated expression, looked at Mrs. Go as she returned. A woman with languid eyes, wearing a long coat in the dead of summer.

Pi Sun-dae had known this Go couple a long while. Long enough that he'd figured it would sort itself out this way in the end, but...

"Well, damn it all. Hey, you... ever since your Chuncheon days with Lady Seong-ja, your taste in picking men has been, honest to god... foul, hasn't it?"

Mrs. Go made a hmph! and tipped her chin up.

"None of your business! What'd you ever chip in?"

"Heh... right. Then again, who but you would take on that bastard Go Tae-chon and live with him."

Pi Sun-dae stepped back with the face of a man who had plenty to say but wouldn't say it.

"Oppa! I've come to get you!"

At the sight of Mrs. Go standing bold with both hands on her hips, Go Tae-chon literally wailed.

"Uh-huhuk! Darling! I really, huh? There's nobody but you for me!"

"Yes, yes. Oppa, you've had it rough, haven't you?"

"Rough, of course! I really, I held on tooth and nail thinking of nothing but Jin-dong and you, darling..."

Mrs. Go, beaming, tugged and tugged at both cheeks of Go Tae-chon, who knelt on all fours sniffling with teary, spangled eyes. Like coddling the neighborhood dog (ugly, bad at fighting, a mongrel).

As she did, Go Tae-chon jerked his head up.

"But darling! You were in town, weren't you?"

"Mm. Why?" "There's San. That young bastard who threw me into this pit!

I heard he's been swaggering in and out of Inje town like it's his own home, so did you run into him or anything? He didn't do anything rough to you, did he?"

Mrs. Go smiled brightly and shrugged.

"Dunno? I was holed up at Malja's place. Never even saw him."

Only then did Go Tae-chon breathe easy.

"Right...! Thank goodness... I really aged like this from worrying over you, darling..."

"Oppa, you were already old."

"Ah, I'm not old! I've got seasoning! You know, they say a man's like wine, the older the vintage the finer the class, haven't you heard?"

"Sure, sure. Classy Tae-chon-ssi. Let's eat something. I'm hungry."

"Ah! Right, right. Hey, Jin-dong! Take your mother some water while I set out the food!

Darling, rest up good. See, huh? All that time when it wasn't selling, when it wasn't selling I studied gukbap, right? And so I went and figured out a certain, mecha-nism of flavor, is what I'm saying.

That borscht you love, darling! I'll boil you up a brand-new-era gukbap fu-sioned with that, piping hot!"

Go Tae-chon, heading merrily for the kitchen, suddenly stopped short at that moment and pressed the crown of his head. Frowning, he looked up at the sky.

"Huh?"

Tok, tok.

Patter, patter-patter.

Patter-patter-patter-patter...

"It's raining."

Fat raindrops began to wet the yard.

"It's August now. The monsoon season's all gone by, so why are the drops this big? Weather's a damn nuisance."

Toward Go Tae-chon grumbling like that, from somewhere, most likely from the far south, a wind blew in.

The afternoon of August 3rd, 1933.

The typhoon that would later come to be called Number 3383[5] passed Jeju and made landfall on the South Sea coast of South Jeolla. People did not know it.

Only at the Han household, its construction all finished, did the returner who'd come back from living the future quietly make certain preparations.

[1] The three legendary tigers of Korean folk belief — the Water Tiger, White Tiger, and Fire Tiger — were said to embody different aspects of the Mountain Lord's power.

[2] The Vajra guardian, a muscular temple gatekeeper figure from Buddhist iconography, often invoked as a comparison for a physically imposing, unmoving sentinel.

[3] A paraphrase of a line from the Confucian classic the Tao Te Ching (Laozi), warning rulers that a people who no longer fear ordinary authority will bring on greater upheavals.

[4] "The Russian side" refers to contacts in the Russian Far East, where Korean independence fighters, smugglers, and leftist sympathizers had long-standing networks.

[5] Colonial-era Korea used sequential numbering (rather than names) to track the year's typhoons, a system that continued the era's meteorological record-keeping practices.

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