INTERVIEW

• In Tune with the Times: Novelist Gong Ji-young Vol.8 Summer 2010

  The popularity of Gong Ji-young in Korean society goes beyond imagination. More than simply a novelist, she is a socio-cultural icon whose every move is regarded with interest by the public. Her novels and essay collections become bestsellers without fail. In addition, there is very little separation between the author’s life and her works. As a result, the interest of the readers often leads to their support of the dramatic life of the author. Reporter Shin Junebong seeks to reveal what it means to Gong herself that “the distance between the author’s life and her works is close,” and what are her keys to success.   On April 23, the interviewer and the interviewee met at Gong’s home. She had a meeting with readers, to be held at a large bookstore in Korea, ahead of her that day. I asked her how her book was doing in terms of sales. The classics of literature that go down through generations were bestsellers in their time, and the sales of a work is an important factor in estimating the caliber of a writer. Gong made her literary debut with the short story “Breaking Dawn,” which deals with her participation in the labor movement in 1988. Since then, she has published about 20 volumes of work, ranging from short stories and novels to essays. “In 2008, the total volumes of all my works sold were about 8 million. I’ve stopped counting since then,” Gong said. According to the author, the work with the highest sales record was My Sister, Bongsoon, a novel, which sold 1.6 million copies. Another novel, Our Happy Hours, sold 950,000 copies, and the novels Alone Like a Rhinoceros Horn, Mackerel, The Good Girl, and the essay collection, I Will Support You No Matter What Kind of Life You Choose, each sold about 700,000 copies. The short story collections, Respect for Human Beings, Tears of Existence, and The Field of Stars, each sold about 200,000 copies. The Crucible, published in 2009, has sold 250,000 copies in just 11 months. The numbers are relevant, for Gong is not a writer of popular literature who writes with a book’s commercial potential in mind. Gong, resorting to a Korean expression, is a writer of “pure literature.” I make no assertion that a work of art must be the bearer of truth, as Heidegger states, but I do believe that it must at least expose the truth, or be able to do so. It’s fascinating that novels and essay collections that seek seriousness, not frivolity, sell by the hundreds of thousands. It can be said that by seeking out sensitive social issues that the era requires or the public readership has an interest in, Gong has become successful in terms of both critical evaluation and sales. At least, the dominant assessment is that Gong cannot be excluded when speaking of the Korean literary scene of the 1990s. Her most representative work is Alone Like a Rhinoceros Horn, published in 1993. The novel deals—through the stories of three women in their 30s who were friends in college, and who opt for divorce or suicide after periods of serious domestic discord and violence—with the oppressive and unequal patriarchal institution of family in Korean society. The work is deemed to have played a vital role in establishing feminist discourse as one of the major trends of Korean literature in the 90s. Published hand in hand in 1994, Mackerel, the novel, and Respect for Human Beings, a short story collection, contributed to the coinage of the new term, “reminiscence literature.” The two novels were labeled “reminiscence literature” for their reminiscence of the 80s, in which hope and passion were still alive in the student movement generation, to the 90s, in which the prospect of revolution disappeared due to the collapse of the socialist Eastern European bloc.   Reportor Shin Junebong and novelist Gong Ji-young   The early 1990s, in which Gong published such novels, was a time in which the Korean literary world was touched by the wind of the so-called “introspective aestheticism.” As a reaction to the literature of the 80s, which some would say was overly ideological, “the solitary writing reaching out into the interiority of an individual, lonely freedom, and the manifestation of autistic fantasies” was a refreshing breeze for Korean readers. Compared to this trend, Gong’s attempt in trying to find the cause of the external breakdown or internal division of an individual in a social context, whether it be the aftermath of the democratization movement or the patriarchal family order, was clearly distinct. In retrospect, the early 90s was a time which required an evaluation of the accomplishments and failures of the 80s, even in the area of novels, when the 80s, a time heated with the longing for revolution, could no longer continue. Where had the intensity of the 80s gone? And how was the 90s, without a breakthrough, to be lived? People wanted answers to such questions. “Respect for Human Beings,” the title piece of the short story collection by the same name, depicts in detail, through the thoughts of the narrator, those bewildered by the two questions. To the narrator, the 90s is not a time of discussing what’s right or wrong, but rather, what one likes or dislikes.  It was also an era in which lonely, sleepless people found comfort in the questionable new philosophy which stated that being alive in the universe was worthwhile in itself, and so life was worth living. In a way, Gong provided a way for those who didn’t know where to turn, stuck in the gap between the 80s and 90s, to put an end to the 80s and finally accept the 90s. In other words, she’d hit the nail on the head. The focused interest on feminism, stirred up by Alone Like a Rhinoceros Horn, can also be understood in the same context. The procedural democracy of the late 80s andearly 90s, which enabled to an extent the transfer of political power, had put a dent to the existing order which had stood unshaken in the society, culture, and economy of Korea. The feminism of Alone Like a Rhinoceros Horn swiftly infiltrated the spot in which the order of patriarchal authoritarianism was being shaken. Let’s turn now to the questions at the beginning. First, there was the question about the key to her popularity. An experiential truth learned in the 80s of Korea was that when works of art, including novels, are reduced to a political message, the works themselves can be empty. A work of art that’s nothing but a slogan, a rough and thin framework, is meaningless. Even under the assumption that social and utilitarian values still appeal to the people of Korea, who obtained democracy by fighting against political powers in the 80s and 90s, and expressed their political stance on a large scale through the candle-lit demonstrations of 2008, those values do not guarantee the popularity of a novel. Touching upon sensitive and volatile social issues might increase a work’s potential for popularity, but will not secure it. A special feature on Gong, published in 2006 in Writer’s World, discussed the keys to Gong’s success. Im Yeong-bong, a critic, pointed out how speedy her novels are, like a TV show, with short chapters; how full of dialogue they are; and how they are without complex figures of speech or descriptions that interrupt the flow of the story. Choi Jaebong, a literary journalist, talked about Gong’s remarkable beauty and dramatic personal life; the clear distinction between good and evil, and the deftness through which dramatic scenes are arranged; and the colloquial form of speech. In the interview with Choi Jaebong, Gong said, “I try to write so that readers won’t get bored, because ever since I was young, I’ve disliked works that aren’t very readable,” and “I don’t try to embellish my sentences or twist them around. Great sentences arise from situations.” During our interview, Gong said, “I’ve always liked Hemingway and Herman Hesse, and when I was young, I thought if I became a writer, I would write short sentences like they did,” emphasizing the easiness of her writing style. She also said that she writes with the readers in mind, and in such a way that her words can be understood by all.  By Shin Junebong(reporter for the Joongang Ilbo) 1. Our Happy Hours (2009, published in Italy)2. My Sister, Bongsoon (2006, published in Bulgaria)   3. One Very Light Feather (2009, Hankyoreh Publishing Company)4. It’s Good, It’s All Good (2008, Alma Publishing Corp.)5. I’ll Support You No Matter What Kind of Life You Choose (2008, Openhouse)   6. My Sister, Bongsoon (2010, Openhouse)7. Our Happy Hours (2010, Openhouse)8. My Happy House (2008, Prunsoop Publishing Co., Ltd.)9. Mackerel (2006, Prunsoop Publishing Co., Ltd.)10. The Crucible (2009, Changbi Publishers, Inc.)11. The Field of Stars (2004, Changbi Publishers, Inc.)  

FICTION

• The Crucible Vol.39 Spring 2018

  49 Jang, the section chief of Social Services at City Hall, stared off into the distance as he slurped coffee from a paper cup. He was a middle-aged man of middling height, thinnish frame, and magnificent wavy hair. He scratched his head as he heard Yujin out with a look of extreme displeasure on his face. “This is a school matter, so you should take it up with the Education Office. Over here, we deal with children’s social welfare.” Would it have been less infuriating if she had come here first instead of the Education Office? Yujin stepped right up to Jang. Doing her best not to show her seething fury, she spoke in a low voice. “I went to the Education Office and was told to go to Social Services because it happened after classes at the dormitory.” Still not deigning to look at her, Jang cocked his head and took a noisy swig of his coffee. Where had this man learned that foul habit of not looking at people when he spoke to them? But Yujin kept in her demure posture. Jang cast a sidelong glance at her. “So you’re saying it happened at the Home of Benevolence?” “I have a video of the victims’ statements and an affidavit, too. You’ll understand when you see the video. You see, after the children finished their classes . . .” Yujin took a deep breath. She was explaining this for the third time already. “After they finished their classes, they were going to the dormitory . . .” “Right, it’s not for me to look into or understand the rest, so let’s stop right there. What I’m asking is did this happen inside the dormitory?” “The location was the school. First, the restroom on the first floor. Then the principal’s office, then the administration office . . .” Yujin shuddered as she remembered Yuri’s statement. Jang slurped his coffee loudy before responding. “You need to go to the Education Office in that case. We only deal with children’s social welfare, budget allocation, stuff like that. Go to the Education Office.” Jang took another slurp and swiveled his chair around, turning his back to her. If only she could punch that back. As she stared at it, Yujin thought that maybe violence was not always a bad thing. “The Education Office says it happened after classes so it’s not their jurisdiction. Besides, the children were abused inside the dormitory too. How can you say it’s not under your jurisdiction?” As if it was too noisy for his liking, an official at the next desk slowly got to his feet and walked to the window, dragging his slippers. Yujin felt like a peddler who’d barged into the office. “Listen,” she said. “The School of Benevolence and the Home of Benevolence receive four billion won in subsidies from the government. That money comes out of the taxpayer’s pocket. Isn’t it your responsibility to ensure the disabled children are well looked after? Do you understand that children were abused at the dormitory? Children! And by the teacher who was supposed to be their guidance counselor!” Yujin’s voice rose a pitch. Jang’s brow puckered as though offended by her tone. “I told you, any teacher abuse comes under the Education Office’s purview. How can Social Services monitor teachers? And the City Council decides whether the budget has been used properly, so take it up with them if you want,” he shot back. The middle-aged man next to Jang returned to his desk and spoke in an undertone. “Jeez, all this talk about abuse first thing in the morning is upsetting. Especially coming from a young lady.” Unable to hold it in anymore, Yujin challenged the two men. “How can you say that? You must have kids of your own. And, besides, aren’t you all paid to keep an eye on the Home of Benevolence?” “I told you, go to the Education Office. Just because you show up here in the morning and raise your voice doesn’t mean we can take on what’s outside our jurisdiction . . . I realize the circumstances are pitiable, but there’s nothing we can do.” Both men swiveled their chairs around. Jang drained the rest of his coffee. His slurps rang out like thunderbolts.   As she pushed past the doors of the Social Services office on her way out, Yujin felt her knees go weak. She directed her trembling feet to the car park. Her phone rang. It was the assistant. He’d gone to lodge a complaint at the City Council, but he’d had no luck either. She weakly climbed into her car and sat there awhile, unable to start the car. She snapped her phone shut and buried her face in the steering wheel. The phone rang again. It was Inho this time. “So I met Song Haseob. He’s hearing impaired, but he can speak. Remember I told you about him once, the guidance counselor who helped Yuri go to the cops. He was holding a one-man protest in front of the school gate, so I gave him your card. Are you listening?” She paused a beat. “Uh-huh.” “Can you talk to him if he comes? Yeondu and Yuri managed to sidestep the school’s questions, but there’s going to be trouble soon. What’s wrong? Are you crying?” “Inho . . .” Yujin spoke his name quietly. She could feel him pause on the other end of the line. “I always knew our country wasn’t that great, but I never thought things were so bad. We have a difficult fight on our hands. The Education Office, City Hall . . . they’re all in it together . . . Mujin Girl’s High, Mujin High, the grade school, the We Love Mujin Club, the Church of Glory . . . It’s four billion won, Inho. Four billion! Those people took four billion of our taxes in a year and this is what they did. I sent an assistant to register a complaint at the City Council where they oversee the budget, but it was pointless. Some of the council members themselves have been booked on charges of sexual assault and harassment. One of them is accused of molesting an elevator operator. Inside the elevator . . . Isn’t that a hoot? Are we supposed to raise daughters here? In this country in heat?”   50 The fog had lifted, but the road was still covered in a milky haze. Yujin closed and opened her eyes several times but still found it hard to see the road, as if she needed to open yet another eye. A fog like a witch’s gray hair, this was Mujin’s fog that made people fervently pray for the sun and wind to cast it off. Even as she raised two kids on her own, Yujin had never felt lonely. Each day she prayed for her children to not fall sick that night, hoped to clear her apartment maintenance fee dues the next day, and was happy eating out at a pork-rib restaurant once a month. She felt she was rich if she didn’t feel a stab of fear when the children asked to order another portion of ribs. She would allow herself to feel lonely only after her children had grown up, after her second child born with a heart defect became healthy—this she’d promised herself long ago. But at this moment, the grains of the moisture-laden wind rushing in through the open window stung like countless thorns on her skin. She was so lonely her cheeks smarted. I took Yuri to the ob-gyn yesterday. I had her examined by a doctor and had a medical report made. Her hymen is ruptured, and she has severe abrasions and lacerations on her vulva. Infection has set in, so she didn’t sleep a wink last night . . . Listen, Yujin, do you think maybe Yuri was able to live through all that happened to her because she’s intellectually impaired? Maybe it’s better for her she’s that way, right . . .? Yujin recalled what the head of the counseling center had recounted to her over her sobs on the phone last night. Unconsciously, she pressed her foot down on the accelerator. The reeds in the bay that extended all the way to the sea seemed to have turned pale in fright after being bitten by the retreating fog. The last time she’d seen a clear sea rolling under an azure open sky was long ago. She learned she was pregnant with Haneul when her first child, Bada, was still young and she and her husband had already separated. Her bloated belly hung on her small frame, and her face was covered in dark patches and had taken on a dull sallow color. In that sensitive state, the thought of suicide would come to her several times a day. One day, she was looking at books in a large bookstore when she felt a tap on her stomach. Thinking she must have bumped against the bookcase, she checked but that wasn’t it. It was too early for her to feel the baby moving, so she ignored the sensation and continued her browsing. She felt another tap. She stopped and felt her belly. With that soft touch, Haneul announced her presence, like a sprout breaking through the frozen ground on a spring day when the wind still had bite to it. She stood in a corner of the big bookstore and cried. It wasn’t out of sadness. Nor despair. They were tears of awe that anybody would have shed in the presence of something grander and more majestic, the moment when someone proud realized her own smallness. She gave birth to the baby alone. With no money to go to a hospital, she called a midwife to her small apartment. More frightening than the misfortune that was upon her was the prospect of other people learning about it. She couldn’t deny this played a big part in her decision to move to Mujin with her infant baby. The baby was tiny. Its blue lips troubled her. Feeling it was all her fault for not getting proper prenatal care, she made up her mind that night as she lay the baby down to sleep beside her. “Mommy may not be able to dress you up like a princess. She may not be able to buy you a lace bedspread. You may never get to take family pictures at the amusement park with Daddy. I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry . . . But Mommy can promise you this: By the time my Bada and Haneul have grown up, I’ll have made this country better. I’ll make it so that you girls can walk tall. Even if it’s just a little, too little even to feel, Mommy will work her fingers to the bone to make this world a better place where people can live the way people should.” The phone rang again. It was the office. Yujin turned on her wipers because of the fog that still rushed toward the windshield and answered the phone. The voice of the assistant came on. “Good news! I got word from Seoul. The media is going to do a special report on our case. The producers were about to start for Mujin, so I said yes. Can you get over here quick? We have to sort through all the documents and we’re short-staffed. I also heard from the National Human Rights Commission in Seoul. They said they’ll look into our case and they want us to send them more materials . . .” She made a sudden U-turn. Crossing the yellow line was a clear violation, but Yujin barreled toward the Mujin Human Rights Center without a second thought.  pp. 127-134

• Tall Blue Ladder Vol.37 Autumn 2017

  1. Everyone has memories they can’t erase. Because they are painful. Because they are beautiful. Because they leave behind vivid scars that continue to ache. Like cold, white mushrooms that sprout behind your racing heart whenever you think back on those days.   2. I lost three people that year. Of course I went on to face other difficulties, and other deaths, and even at times other separations that seemed unbearable, but none left as deep of a mark on me as those losses. Of course, my youth was probably mostly to blame for that. Back then, I was a young Benedictine monk preparing to be ordained as a priest.   3. The monastic life is difficult to explain, even to other Catholics, regardless of whether you’re a Benedictine, Franciscan, or Carmelite. I guess you could put it in secular terms and say the monks live in a commune where everyone abandons worldly possessions, takes a vow of chastity, and never marries. Someone once referred to monks as “people who leave the world in order to listen to a deeper voice hidden within themselves.” A young Spanish monk in the early twentieth century said we were “people who give up everything in order to gain the most precious thing in the world.” But can any of these one-line definitions come anywhere near to explaining the life of a human being? I prefer to use a quote from Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, who referred without any hesitation to the visionary poets Baudelaire and Rimbaud as “Christians turned inside out.” He also alluded to Heidegger, Camus, and Sartre as ascetics, because they “have looked into the face of death, have plumbed the abyss of man’s nothingness, have probed man’s inauthenticity, and have cried out for his liberation.” I like his analogies best. Explaining one life by comparing it to another seems the most appropriate. Or to put it another way, how could you compare anything to a flowing river unless it’s also something that flows? Like years, hours, life, or wind and clouds.   4. The first thing you have to address when you talk about the monastic life is, of course, silence. What I have learned from living here is that silence is not simply quiet, not simply the absence of sound. Nor is it the gaps in between sound but rather a state of very active listening. Silence is necessary for perceiving the sounds beyond sound, the senses beyond our senses. During my early days at the abbey, whenever I was out walking, I would pause to take in the sounds I couldn’t hear over my footfalls. Despite the fact that the bottoms of the sandals I wore back then were rubber and barely made a sound, there were still countless tiny whispers that were concealed by even that small noise: snowflakes slipping from the arms of a pine tree, leafless branches trembling in the wind, squirming insects twisting and turning deep underground, tree roots slowly stretching their thin toes deeper into the earth. Was that slight breeze brushing past my ears the friction generated by the earth as it rotated on its axis? Those moments I experienced back then felt like sly glimpses of the universe, or God, or human life, revealing themselves ever so slightly. Whenever that happened, the sky opened up and something like an indescribable peace cascaded over me.   5. Up until that year, the monastic life more or less suited me. I grew quite fond of the five daily calls to prayer, and the courses in theology, which I’d continued studying after transferring to the seminary, were difficult but refreshing. I’d also earned the trust of the priors and the monks senior to me. I wanted to plumb the depths of the universe and wrap my mind around the world. I loved the tall bookcases that reached all the way to the high ceiling of the abbey library. There, books containing over two thousand years of the compressed wisdom of Christ’s followers awaited my hands and eyes. I sat in that library every day, determined to read every book in there. In the afternoons, when I tired of reading, I walked the grounds of the abbey. Large trees over fifty years old stood quietly in rows as if to cheer me on. Some days brought letters from friends who were still living on college campuses, getting drunk, attending cram schools, and studying for standardized exams. I felt like a mountaineer who’d left them all behind in the playground of a national park and set off alone for the highest summit. It was the luxury of one who has been chosen and I, of course, had all the arrogance of one who has chosen himself. Every season, nature showered its sumptuous gifts on me as someone who’d already learned in his early twenties the art of silence. Well, up until that year, that is.   6. Of course, having grown up in the noisy world outside, the silence of the monastery did not come easily at first. Silence is probably why I remember my first day there so clearly. The abbey was located right behind the train station in Waegwan, less than a five-minute walk away. When I showed up at the entrance to the main building and told them why I was there, the gatekeeper said the abbot had been waiting for me and led me inside. I assumed my grandmother had called them. I’d been visiting the monastery with my grandmother ever since I was young. But it felt very different to actually live there. Settlers always notice things that tourists overlook. The inside of the abbey was much simpler than the outside. It was very dark and quiet with many long corridors. Posted above the entrance was a placard that read Ora et Labora, a famous Benedictine motto that meant pray and work. Another read, If you love truth, be a lover of silence. “Please turn off your cellphone,” the gatekeeper added, his voice sounding rehearsed. I took my phone out of my pocket and powered it off—the effect was like standing in the middle of downtown right as someone flips off the switch to your auditory nerve. The atmospheric pressure inside my heart changed in an instant, and inexplicable sobs rose up to my weightless vocal cords. Once the curtain of noise had been drawn aside, silence entered.     7. Silence was a dark mirror that saw all the way through to the marrow of my bones, no matter how many layers of clothing I wore. I was frightened at first glimpse. I’d yearned for that silence while preparing for the monastic life, but I did not foresee its enormous power. I don’t remember if I actually did hesitate and turn to look back, but it felt like I did. The whistle of the train leaving, the same train that had brought me here, sounded like an auditory hallucination. I’d left my brief youth behind on that train when I got off at the station. Noise and hope, joy and nausea, nerves and tears, envy and jealousy . . . I took another step down the long hallway where a gentle darkness had settled. In that gap between the curtains of sound, I caught my first glimpse of my naked soul.   8. “Why did you become a monk?” “Why this monastery?” Those questions were harder than being asked, “What have you done with your life so far, and what will you do in the future?” Other than the fact that my grandmother was connected to the abbey, it was hard for me to explain why I’d felt that this particular place was where I would live. Maybe that’s why people call it a vocation. From the Latin vocare, to be called or summoned. Someone asks, “Why are you here?” And all you can say is, “Because I was called.” Yes, Lord, I am here.   9. A man was making his way toward us from the other end of the long hallway that led to the abbot’s quarters. (I didn’t find out until later, but it was Brother Thomas. He was in his seventies at the time. He’d left his hometown in Germany and settled in Korea many years ago, back when our abbey was located in Deokwon, South Hamgyeong Province—in what is now North Korea. Since he was elderly and retired from his duties, no one would have said a word if he’d chosen to rest and do nothing, but instead he passed the time reading and keeping those long hallways mopped clean. Pray and work—if that was the duty of the Benedictine Order, then he was a faithful member up until his dying day.) The image of him pushing a long mop down the hallway that day left a lasting impression on me. The light of the setting sun filtered in through the windows just then, tempering the darkness that pooled in the corridor, and he was like a sacred fish slowly swimming his way through it. I met his eyes as I walked quickly past. Short for a German, he raised his wrinkled face, which sat on top of his stooped body, and flashed me a smile. I still don’t know why but a tremor ran through me, from the top of my head down to the tips of my toes. For a long time I thought what drew me was the lucidness, or transparency, or perhaps even indifference contained in his gaze, and the simple blessing, or perhaps even a yearning, directed toward a young person that radiated from his smile. During my interview shortly after, when the abbot asked why I wanted to become a monk, I said, “Because I want to live and die like that elderly monk who’s mopping the hallway outside.” The abbot sipped his tea and regarded me for a moment. The crucifix dangling over his paunch shook. He looked like he was trying to figure out what I meant by that, and then he smiled and said, “Is that so? Well, let’s not be in too much of a hurry to die, shall we?”   10. I write this from my office at the abbey. The thing about life is that you never really see more than an inch ahead of where you are. I’ve always felt, but even right up until last night I would never have guessed, that I would find myself thinking back on things that happened ten years ago. After the evening prayer, I was summoned by our abbot, Father Samuel. The abbot who first admitted me into the monastery had retired and went on to serve as the head of a convent near the coast in Masan, and Father Samuel had been elected to take his place. The Benedictines have a unique way of selecting a new abbot for a monastery. Instead of candidates running for office, names are submitted randomly and whoever among them gets two-thirds of the vote becomes abbot and is responsible for the entire monastery. Some say that the papal conclave originated from this Benedictine tradition. Conclave comes from the Latin cum clāve, which means “with key.” When the cardinals tasked with selecting the next pope are all assembled inside the voting room, the door is locked from the outside. There are no candidates and no campaigning, and even debates are forbidden during the election period. It’s the same with the Benedictines. If no one gets two-thirds of the vote by the fourth round, then it continues on to a fifth and sixth round. Whoever holds the majority vote by then is elected. But if the majority vote is only won during the seventh round, then the successor is called a steward rather than an abbot, and the matter is voted on again after three years. This method for selecting a leader for life may be unusual, but it has its logical side. Anyway, my point is that Father Samuel was the successor to our previous abbot. I’d known him quite well ever since he was a young priest, and he had confided in me over the years. So there was nothing unusual about being summoned by him last night.   11. When I opened the door to the abbot’s quarters, I sensed there was a special significance to his summoning me this time. He stood with his back to me even though he had to know I was there. Outside the window, the evening fog was settling in. Judging from the set of his shoulders, it seemed he’d come to some grave and serious decision. You could say he had the body language of someone who isn’t quite sure of whether he’s about to do the right thing. His natural tendency to proceed carefully in all matters often came across as stalling or indecision, and he sometimes used that as a kind of trial by fire to test the patience of the more impetuous monks who resided at the monastery. But something about the way he held himself that day made me pause before jumping to any such conclusions. “You called for me?” I asked. He slowly turned around. His eyes—how can I describe them? They were the eyes of a man who’d returned from wandering in a far distant place. “Ah, yes, Father. Please come in and sit down.”     He looked a little surprised, even caught off guard, as if he’d forgotten having summoned me. He offered me a seat and sat down across from me. He lowered his eyes, his hands clasped as if in prayer. I had no clue what it could be about. He and I had lived together like father and son for the last twenty years. Known for being warm and gentle, albeit impassive, he’d never once displayed this kind of emotional agitation before another person. For all that I knew about him, it wasn’t much. “Let’s start with the easy task. Well, I don’t know that I can call it easy. There are two tasks: one business and one personal. That’s why I called you here. First . . .” He paused. Maybe the second, personal item was hindered by the businesslike simplicity of the first. “I received a call from the abbey in Newton, New Jersey. The United States government is putting together a history of the Korean War, and they want to include testimonials from the Heungnam Evacuation. Brother Marinus’ story will be included, of course, and since our abbey took over those records, they’re asking us to send them any documentation we have. Since you were my assistant at the time, I figure you must have more material and more memories of it than anyone else so I’d like to pass the request onto you.” “Of course. That won’t be any trouble. The files are still on my computer. And in my head.” I kept my tone light to try to offset the heavy mood in the room. Newton, New Jersey, and a certain autumn day, flashed through my mind. As if they’d become the backdrop to that chapter of my life. “Good,” the abbot said with a smile. He cast his eyes down again. His lips parted slowly. There was only one item left now. My shoulders stiffened for no reason. “I’ve thought and prayed on this over and over. But it seems the best thing to do is to just tell you . . . It’s about So-hee. She . . .”   12. What words could I possibly use to describe how I felt at that moment? It was like that gently talking face of his had spat out a metal club that bashed me across the cheek. Or like the earth itself had opened up and swallowed the building whole. I knew the abbot was studying my reaction carefully, but I’d lost the strength to try to force my face into a more composed expression. It was an ambush. I was melting in my seat like beeswax, but what had me even more agitated was the fact that simply hearing her name even after all these years could elicit such a reaction from me. “She’ll be here next week,” he said. “She’s asked permission to see you. As you know, her entire family emigrated to the United States over twenty years ago. I’m the last connection she has in Korea. But she’s not coming all this way to see me—she wants to see you.” He picked up his tea, which had grown cold, but he didn’t look like he intended to drink it. “I could tell how hard it was for her to ask me that,” he continued. “After all, she’s a respectable wife and mother now . . . But you’re both adults so you can decide for yourself. If you don’t want to see her, I can arrange for you to be somewhere else next week.” “All right,” I said and stood up from my chair. I wasn’t actually sure if the words all right made it out of my mouth, nor was I sure what was right about it, but I left it at that and turned to go. Shame washed over me and turned my ears red. How long had the abbot known about us? For the past ten years I hadn’t breathed a word of what happened between her and me to anyone. I’d thought that was the only way I could bear it. That I could endure as long as I bound my crazed soul and buried my young flesh beneath this black monk’s habit. But now—now, when those feelings were supposed to be long gone and even my memories had grown fuzzy—as I realized the abbot—her uncle and my prior—might have known about it from the start, I was transported back to ten years in the past, to my twenty-nine-year-old self who’d squirmed with mortification at the feeling of being mocked by God and man alike. In truth, it didn’t matter whether I saw her or not. I forced myself to imagine her telling me she had cancer. Not even so much as a weak laugh came out of me. Who was it that said that if you want to find your weakness, all you have to do is find the one thing you can’t laugh at? “Father Jung.” I was about to open the door when he stopped me. “I think she’s dying,” he said. A wave of guilt and mortification at myself for having just pictured her telling me she had cancer washed over me along with the shock of hearing that. I wanted to take it back, but it was too late. “That’s why I was so hesitant, but now I’ve told you . . . All I wish is for you to be free.” I glanced back at him for a moment. It sounded like he was holding back tears. His tone seemed to be implying, You’re not the only one who gets sad. I swallowed the words before I could ask, So? What’s the difference between seeing her and going to New Jersey?   13. Unable to bear the idea of returning to my quarters, I stepped outside and walked slowly around the grounds. The fog softened the edges of the buildings and filled the entire abbey with a sacred energy. I passed the red brick building that housed the novice monks and headed toward an inconspicuous corner where a sixty-year-old ginkgo tree stood. Back when I was a novice myself, whenever I missed home or simply felt sad for no reason, I would lean against that tree, or wrap my arms around it, or fall asleep underneath it. Sometimes I even climbed up into its branches. Off in the distance was Nakdong River, and closer to us were the train tracks. I thought about books I’d read as a child, like The Giving Tree or Hope for the Flowers. Back then I would devour anything printed on a page. On the backs of those books was an address: #369, Waegwan, North Gyeongsang Province. The name of the city was completely unfamiliar to me, having been born and raised in Seoul. Did the young me have any premonition that it would one day become my address? Back in those days as a novice, the first thing to rouse me from sleep was not the 5:00 a.m. monastery bell but the sound of the 4:40 a.m. train pulling into the station. That fuzzy twenty-minute gap between the two, when I would sometimes drift back to sleep and sometimes sit up from sleep, were hard both physically and mentally. It was probably also when I most seriously debated whether I could truly spend the rest of my life there—that is, when that 5:00 a.m. bell would wake me again from my restless half-sleep. Everything at the abbey began and ended with the ringing of the bell. Provided we hadn’t been excused for some special reason, we gathered five times a day to pray. As a matter of fact, some prospects ended up leaving the abbey because it was too challenging to rise at dawn every day and busy oneself with prayer. As for me, I didn’t hate the sound of that bell because the schedule was too rigorous. In fact, you might even say I loved it. The pealing of the bell echoed out of the tower that stood tall against the blue-gray sky at dawn. Whenever I pulled my black hood over my head to ward off the morning cold and looked up at the tower, I felt like the ladder that Jacob had witnessed, the one and only passage to eternity, was sliding down to Earth in time with that bell. A ladder that could not be felt or held onto and that could not stay but was nevertheless definitely there.   14. There were times when I grew sick of that bell and wanted to leave. Once, I ran to the station but the train had already left. As I was leaving the empty platform and returning to the abbey, a five-minute walk that on that day felt like an eternity, the bell rang out. The sound was like a heavy iron bar scraping across my heart, which felt as parched as the bottom of a dried-out well. Instead of tears, a groan escaped from between my clenched teeth. I cursed the sound of that bell. That day, and for a long time after. There was also a time when I thought I wanted to see her again to ask questions. I prayed to God to allow me to see her. But even those questions have long since vanished. The young monk who’d grown dizzy at the sight of the train door opening and the fluttering hem of her soft skirt brushing the tops of her shoes was now a gray-haired middle-aged priest. When I said my goodbyes to her, became ordained as planned, packed my bags, and left for the airport to study abroad in Rome, I boarded that train. When I got my degree in Rome and returned, I alighted from that train. And then, as well, the bell rang.  pp. 9-23 Translated by Sora Kim-Russell

• My Sister Bongsoon Vol.8 Summer 2010

  My Sister Bongsoon is an autobiographical novel about a middle-class women’s reminiscence of her family’s maid. Told from the perspective of the 5-year-old narrator, this novel sheds light on the neglected servant class during Korea’s early stages of economic growth.   I was still squatting by a table at the window, long after I had hung up. The house I had moved in had windows facing south. The crisp sunlight of early spring was penetrating my frayed curtains, revealing old dust piled on the narrow gaps between the telephone buttons. There, between 1 and 2, 2 and 3… Only the corners between 4 and 1, 2 and 1, 8 and 9 were slightly safe from the dust. Probably, I pressed those buttons more often to call Mom. That reminded me I barely called anyone else. Once I had called Mom. It was when I had moved into this hilly neighborhood on a cold wintry day last month, after a blazing row with the movers over the extra charges. Oh, yes, I did call. I called the gas and the telephone companies for new services. But I used the landlord’s phone because mine was not working yet. I also called a Chinese restaurant once. After frantically unpacking my stuff for days and nights—as if I had been in a war with someone I had hated for long until the last drop of blood—I had fallen asleep around dawn. The blinding sunshine through the window woke me up and I stared absently at the unfamiliar wallpaper that smelled awfully new. Wondering why it was so quiet in this neighborhood, I got out of the bed, and called the restaurant. Of course no one answered; it was seven-thirty in the morning. I called that particular Chinese restaurant for no other reason than to get some spicy soup delivered. But I would not have dared to call, if not for the phone number sticker of the restaurant on the windowsill—a legacy of the previous tenant. Honestly, I must confess that I was so tired of my fellow human beings and I did not want to call anyone in this quiet and new neighborhood, except the Chinese restaurant for a delivery. I was even grateful that no one there answered the phone. Actually, I had been thinking of Bongsoon by then—a sudden reflection after more than 20 years. Maybe, I had already expected what I just heard from Mom as my mind had raced back to Bongsoon out of the blue. “You see, Bongsoon disappeared again, honey.” Mom was saying each syllable carefully, not to stir up my nerves, which were ready to explode any minute. “Yesterday, your aunt in Moraenae bumped into someone from Daeji-gol Village at a wedding and heard… er… she eloped with a tramp dog-vendor. Really, doesn’t she ever feel ashamed of herself, leaving four children with different fathers?” “Her kids are still in school, aren’t they? Where on earth did she elope to?” “How should I know? Thank God, her first daughter got married and settled in Gwangyang! I heard the others are all grown up, too! She told them she would be back to get them soon, after making lots of money. No matter what she said, isn’t it outrageous? Well, I meant to ask more questions, but I did not, honey. After all, I can’t be responsible for her forever! No, no. I was only confused… I shouldn’t have told you… But I don’t know why I am having the jitters… I only heard that a man took her away. Honestly, she is not a sleeping beauty, is she? What kind of man will pick up a woman old enough to be a grandmother to elope with? Believe me, the man must have lured her out to slave her away. You know she is a hard worker. Don’t you remember the last time she was kicked out penniless, only to have one more child? After she had worked like hell at the construction site for that damn carpenter! I don’t know… She had such a miserable childhood, and she never had a heyday… Really, no… Never mind… How is your book selling, honey?” I didn’t say a word. I knew exactly what Mom refrained from saying to me. “I shouldn’t upset you when you are writing... It’s her fate, honey… It’s none of our business at this point how she lives or how her kids get along. After all, they are not our family… Just mind your business, honey. Just yours…” Probably, something like that. Mom must have sensed that I was very upset indeed, so she hung up after babbling few more words. When she was about to hang up, I called her abruptly, as if I remembered something. But the line was already off. What was I about to say? Did I mean to say something like “Oh dear, how could she do that at fifty, Mom? Leaving four children behind!” No, nothing like that… I knew it. I knew that Bongsoon could do it. She could do it even if she were in her sixties; that’s how she was. First, she ran away from her stepfather, next from a deacon’s house; then she eloped with a drycleaner guy, again with a tramp carpenter, and now, with a dog-vendor… Hesitating to pick up the phone again, a strange feeling of helplessness struck me. I could not even move a finger. It was a sort of premonition that struck me dead. I used to shiver over uncertain premonitions from time to time. Once, one of my college seniors, whom I hadn’t heard of for many years, had appeared in my dream. The very next day I was told that he had killed himself with poison. Another time, no sooner I had dreamed of strolling with a friend in my old campus, I got a call from her who was living in the U.S. I was thinking of Bongsoon as soon as I moved here, on that morning when I woke up after unpacking my stuff, wondering why it was so quiet in this neighborhood. All of a sudden, I felt I was turning into a fatalist. I was wondering if the soft skin of newborns was controlled from the very beginning by the massive power of the cosmos, the location of stars, the rotation of the Earth and the five elements of fire, water, wood, metal and earth. Then, people could never get away from those forces until they were re-born… If so, what was the point of grief and remorse, even if she ran away leaving four children, no, even if she died running away, no, no, even if I were dead right now? The only job left for us was to be thunderstruck at the new twist of fate and just mumble, “What is life anyway?” But, still… 

REVIEWS

• [RUSSIAN] The Journey through the Fog: The Crucible by Gong Ji-Young Vol.55 Spring 2022

• An Intimate Quest for a Memorable Woman: My Sister, Bongsoon by Gong Ji-Young Vol.39 Spring 2018

• The Song of Man: Jacob’s Ladder by Gong Ji-Young Vol.34 Winter 2016

• Struggling with Faith and Love: Blue, High Ladder by Gong Ji-Young Vol.23 Spring 2014

• Brave New Family: My Happy House by Gong Ji-Young Vol.1 Autumn 2008

BOOKS