Lost Souls Read online

  Lost Souls

  WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA

  WEATHERHEAD EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

  WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA

  WEATHERHEAD EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE,

  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

  LITERATURE

  David Der-wei Wang, Editor

  Ye Zhaoyan, Nanjing 1937: A Love Story, translated by Michael Berry (2003)

  Oda Makato, The Breaking Jewel, translated by Donald Keene (2003)

  Han Shaogong, A Dictionary of Maqiao, translated by Julia Lovell (2003)

  Takahashi Takako, Lonely Woman, translated by Maryellen Toman Mori (2004)

  Chen Ran, A Private Life, translated by John Howard-Gibbon (2004)

  Eileen Chang, Written on Water, translated by Andrew F. Jones (2004)

  Writing Women in Modern China: The Revolutionary Years, 1936–1976, edited by Amy D. Dooling (2005)

  Han Bangqing, The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai, first translated by Eileen Chang, revised and edited by Eva Hung (2005)

  Loud Sparrows: Contemporary Chinese Short-Shorts, translated and edited by Aili Mu, Julie Chiu, Howard Goldblatt (2006)

  Hiratsuka Raichō, In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun, translated by Teruko Craig (2006)

  Zhu Wen, I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, translated by Julia Lovell (2007)

  Kim Sowŏl, Azaleas: A Book of Poems, translated by David McCann (2007)

  Wang Anyi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai, translated by Michael Berry with Susan Chan Egan (2008)

  Ch’oe Yun, There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch’oe Yun, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2008)

  Inoue Yasushi, The Blue Wolf: A Novel of the Life of Chinggis Khan, translated by Joshua A. Fogel (2009)

  Anonymous, Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou, translated by Patrick Hanan (2009)

  Cao Naiqian, There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night, translated by John Balcom (2009)

  HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE

  Carol Gluck, Editor

  Takeuchi Yoshimi, What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi, edited and translated, with an introduction, by Richard F. Calichman (2005)

  Contemporary Japanese Thought, edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman (2005)

  Natsumi Sōseki, Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings, edited and translated by Michael Bourdaghs, Atsuko Ueda, and Joseph A. Murphy (2009)

  Lost Souls

  stories

  HWANG SUNWŎN

  TRANSLATED FROM THE KOREAN BY

  BRUCE AND JU-CHAN FULTON

  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

  This publication has been supported by the Richard W. Weatherhead Publication Fund of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

  This publication has been supported by the Korea Literature Translation Institute.

  Columbia University Press

  Publishers Since 1893

  New York Chichester, West Sussex

  cup.columbia.edu

  Copyright © 2010 Columbia University Press

  All rights reserved

  E-ISBN 978-0-231-52050-8

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hwang, Sun-wŏn, 1915–

  [Short stories. English. Selections]

  Lost souls : stories / Hwang Sunwŏn ; translated from the Korean by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton.

  p. cm.—(Weatherhead books on Asia)

  ISBN 978-0-231-14968-6 (cloth : alk. paper)

  1. Short stories, Korean—Translations into English. 2. Hwang, Sun-wŏn, 1915—Translations into English. 2. Korea (South)—Fiction. I. Fulton, Bruce. II. Fulton, Ju-Chan. III. Title. IV. Series.

  PL991.29.S9A24 2009

  895.7′33—dc22 2008051527

  A Columbia University Press E-book.

  CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at [email protected].

  References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

  CONTENTS

  The Pond

  The Pond

  Scarecrow

  Adverbial Avenue

  The Players

  Trumpet Shells

  Swine

  The Broken Reed

  Passing Rain

  The Offering

  The Gardener

  Autumn with Piano

  Mantis

  Custom

  The Dog of Crossover Village

  Booze

  The Toad

  House

  Bulls

  To Smoke a Cigarette

  My Father

  The Dog of Crossover Village

  Lost Souls

  Deathless

  Lost Souls

  Pibari

  Voices

  Afterword

  The Pond

  THE POND

  It all began, this tutoring job of T’aesŏp’s, when the wife of his college instructor friend introduced him to the girl’s family. After the introductions were made and the friend’s wife had departed, the first thing the girl’s mother asked T’aesŏp was how long he had known the wife and how he had gotten to know her so well. When T’aesŏp responded that she was the wife of a friend, the girl’s mother asked him what he thought of a woman with three children who wore her hair short and frizzy and went around in a jade-green jacket. T’aesŏp had always felt that the wife’s short hair complemented her face, and he said as much, adding, though, that the jade green of the jacket didn’t go well with her unnaturally dark complexion. As he said this he became aware of the filmy gaze of the girl’s mother. He tried to make eye contact, but the girl’s mother promptly lowered her eyes. Her face with its impassive expression looked a bit puffy. And her labored breathing gave him the impression that she had a weak heart.

  In her breathless tone the girl’s mother said that she and the wife had the same ancestral home and that their families were familiar with each other’s circumstances, including the fact that the wife’s family had voiced many complaints in opposition to her marriage, but ultimately she had shacked up with the man. The girl’s mother blushed slightly when she said “shacked up,” then related that the wife had not been able to return to her family and that all of this had come about because the wife had lost her mother when she was a child and had been raised instead by her stepmother.

  T’aesŏp felt uneasy listening to the woman and prepared to leave, saying he would begin tutoring the girl the following day, but the woman said there was no time like the present and asked him to begin that day instead. And then she mumbled to herself that the girl had never been this late coming home from school before, and with a fretful motion she reached inside her skirt and produced a cigarette from the pocket of her bloomers. But no sooner had she taken a couple of puffs than she started. Extinguishing the cigarette, she strained to listen.

  From outside the room where they sat came the sound of whistling. When the whistling, and the sound of footsteps that followed, trailed off toward the room across the veranda, the girl’s mother shouted, “Come here, girl!” In a solemn tone she asked the girl to present herself, and then she proceeded to remove herself farther from T’aesŏp even though they were already far apart. The girl slid open the door to the room and entered. She was holding a pair of track shoes and it was evident from her flushed cheeks that she had just finished a workout. Her face was round and the eyes beneath the long, dark lashes were small but sparkling with life.

  T’aesŏp flipped through the pages of her textbooks, familiarizing himself with her progress to date. He found him
self lighting a cigarette to block out her scentless but overwhelming sweat smell, which hung in the air every time she leaned forward to indicate something in one of the books. The girl’s mother sneaked looks at the two of them in turn and told the girl over and over again to pay attention.

  The next day marked the beginning of the tutoring, which took place under the watchful eye of the girl’s mother. The girl proved to be quick at memorizing her language lessons. But when it came to mathematics she was perversely stubborn; she seemed to consider herself innately incapable of solving the problems. T’aesŏp asked the girl if she had always disliked mathematics, and she vigorously nodded. And yet when she solved practice questions she did it without assistance and could explain her answers when asked to do so. And she understood perfectly the problem areas T’aesŏp explained to her—but only when she had made up her mind to. It occurred to T’aesŏp that he should make sure the girl understood the concepts underlying the math that he taught her. As he considered this he turned toward the girl. She was moistening the end of her pencil with the crimson tip of her tongue.

  T’aesŏp hastened to find the easiest problem in the girl’s homework and asked her to answer it. The girl looked at the problem, but all she did was continue to moisten the tip of the pencil with her tongue. T’aesŏp hinted at the underlying concept, but still the girl merely kept her tongue to the pencil. T’aesŏp realized he was devoting more attention to the tongue and lips of this healthy girl sitting in front of him than to the math problems, and he snatched the pencil from her. But before writing anything T’aesŏp likewise put the pencil to the tip of his tongue. He was surprised at his own action. His first attempt to solve the problem was incorrect. The girl’s mother, seated on the warmest part of the heated floor, scolded the girl for having a silly smile on her face. T’aesŏp felt as if the girl’s cold, playful smile was fixing itself on his forehead, and again he attempted in vain to solve the problem. Again the girl’s mother scolded her to stop smiling. But now the girl laughed; it was funny having to study when her mother was paying closer attention to the instructor than she was, she told her, and then she laughed more loudly.

  Again the next day the girl arrived home whistling and again her mother summoned her. And again the girl’s mother moved as far from T’aesŏp as she could—but the girl didn’t enter. The mother went out. When she returned a short time later, her body language said she had given up; she asked T’aesŏp to do his teaching in the room across the veranda.

  In that room sat the girl, quite graceful in traditional clothing, her legs gathered to the side. On the wall behind her was a photograph of a sprinter poised for the start. As he viewed the sprinter—the taut balance of the torso leaning forward and the toes dug into the ground, the eyes focused in an intense gaze—T’aesŏp drew in his mind an image of the girl’s hefty bosom hitting the finish-line tape, leaving the ends to flutter in the air, and instinctively his thin body shuddered. And when his gaze fell next on the girl’s fleshy knees he hurriedly collected himself, picked up the nearest textbook, and began leafing through it.

  The girl gathered her legs to the opposite side and abruptly spoke up: there was something in the eyes of others that made her feel there must be an emptiness in this house. T’aesŏp looked up from the textbook and asked what she meant, and the girl responded with a question of her own: did he think it strange that there was no father in this house? T’aesŏp replied that he was aware there was no father; his friend’s wife had told him so. The girl immediately responded that her mother told everyone her father had died, but in fact he was still alive. When she was old enough to know better, the girl continued, she learned that her father had taken a mistress and gone elsewhere to live, at which point he and her mother divided their assets equally and made a break with each other. Her father lived not far away but had lost all his assets and for some time had been laid up with rheumatism, and her mother had developed a case of heartburn that had led to heart disease. Instead of responding to this with comforting words, T’aesŏp opened the algebra book in front of the girl and told her she should study hard and try to make her mother happy, since it seemed her mother’s one wish was for the girl to be a good student. No sooner had he said this than the girl produced a cynical smile and said she was sick of hearing her mother say that. And then she opened the sliding door to the room, as if she had noticed someone eavesdropping outside. The girl’s mother was in the yard preparing ingredients for kimchi; she turned toward them, startled.

  On days when T’aesŏp arrived before the girl had returned from school, her mother would carefully slide open the door, enter, and sit, and then ask him how much the girl had learned at school. There wasn’t much T’aesŏp could say except that the girl was quite good at memorization. The girl’s mother would remain silent for a time, then fix T’aesŏp with her filmy gaze and say in a soft voice that studying was all to the good, but the important thing was for T’aesŏp to teach the girl to keep her distance from men; was there any man in this day and age who wouldn’t deceive a woman? T’aesŏp would avoid her gaze but at the same time, and without realizing it, nod in agreement.

  On one such day the girl’s mother seemed to realize it was time for the girl to return, and breathing heavily, she left. The girl arrived, and the first thing she did was suggest to T’aesŏp that they go on a picnic the following day, which was Sunday. Without waiting for T’aesŏp to answer, she slid open the inside door and called toward the kitchen that she and Teacher were going on an outing the following day. “Isn’t that right?” she said, turning back to T’aesŏp. T’aesŏp pictured the girl running around the picnic area in her spiked track shoes, and nodded yes.

  The following day was cloudy and the wind was blowing. Still, T’aesŏp went to the assigned meeting place—a road that branched off toward the outskirts of town—and waited for the girl. After a time she appeared. T’aesŏp started. Instead of the school uniform he had expected to see, she wore traditional clothing—a white jacket and a long blue skirt embroidered with pairs of mandarin ducks against a blue background. The skirt rippled and flapped in the wind. Skillfully gathering the hem, the girl smiled, looked T’aesŏp straight in the eye, and asked what he thought of her taste in clothing. Setting out on the road, T’aesŏp mumbled something about breaking the rules by not wearing the school uniform on an outing. The girl came up beside him and he discovered not a girl in a uniform with a rucksack and a pair of track shoes but instead a woman. All he could do was lift his gaze to the cloudy skies above.

  Without looking skyward as T’aesŏp had, the girl remarked that some bad weather must have come in overnight; they would probably get rained on, she said; maybe they should give up on the idea of a picnic. When T’aesŏp said he was open to suggestions, the girl took a quick look behind her as if they were being followed, then said, “How about a movie?” Here too the girl seemed to have made up her mind in advance, and she set out in front of T’aesŏp, telling him that her mother had been standing in the alley next to the fruit shop behind them to the left, and then suggesting that they follow the road leading out of town for a short distance before turning back toward the theater.

  T’aesŏp produced a cigarette and turned away from the wind to light it. Sure enough, there was the girl’s mother, observing them. T’aesŏp lit his cigarette, and as he turned back to the girl there registered in his mind the image of the girl just now, looking behind her as if they were being followed, and also an image of their study session at the girl’s home being interrupted by the sudden opening of the sliding door, as if someone had been eavesdropping outside. This realization sent a chill up his spine. T’aesŏp hastened to catch up to the girl, and remarked that it might be better if they went their separate ways. The girl produced a hearty smile and looked back once more, telling T’aesŏp that her mother had followed them to make sure her daughter wasn’t with a man other than him, and would now return home with her mind at peace. She then turned left down a narrow alley that paralleled the road they
had been walking. T’aesŏp followed, the path being too narrow for them to walk side by side.

  As they walked the girl said that her mother was always cautioning her about men, and this was only natural if you considered the impact of her father’s behavior on her mother; she was well aware that her father wasn’t comfortable seeing other women outside and that’s why he began bringing those women home, and every time this happened her mother would grit her teeth and spend a sleepless night weeping, and she herself would rise the next morning hoping against hope to find her father and the woman he had brought home both dead. At the end of the alley they came out onto a street. The girl’s skirt with its pairs of mandarin ducks flapped in the wind.

  This time the girl made no attempt to gather her skirt, and turned down another alley. She paused, and when T’aesŏp came up beside her she said that her mother’s resentment was, if anything, stronger now and that her mother held a grudge against her father; that while she was cursing those women of his she invariably lectured her not even to think of men; that she had only her daughter to rely on and had borne all kinds of suffering till now; that the woman who had introduced them to T’aesŏp (who himself had grown up without a mother) had chosen her own husband in lieu of the traditional arranged marriage and as a result had found herself not welcomed by her natal family, the poor thing (she repeated this over and over); and that she had made the girl pledge unequivocally that mother and daughter would live together, just the two of them, till death. The girl walked silently for a short time, then added that back then she had been of one mind with her mother, had borne a grudge against her father, and had found his women hateful, and that she had made a sincere decision to spend the rest of her life with her pitiful mother. But almost imperceptibly over time she had grown opposed to that idea, and although her mother would harp on the heartbreak she had suffered and say she wanted to save the girl from the same tragedy, the girl no longer considered her mother pitiful and had simply lost all desire to follow her lead.