Black Flower (22 page)

The crowd grew aggressive. Like a genie released from its lamp, they sought a victim. “Let’s beat those overseers to death!” someone shouted. They went to an overseer’s house nearby. Dozens of stones rained down noisily, breaking the windows. Joaquín, infamous as an evil overseer, more hot-tempered and rough than any of the others though merely twenty years old, boarded up the doors and windows and stayed inside his house. As the baptism of stones continued, he was so seized by fear that he dared not even breathe loudly. “He might have a gun,” someone said, but the fear this conjured up only stoked the men’s belligerence. To hide the fact that they were scared, the men attacked Joaquín’s brick house like fiends. A few young men ran forward and kicked the front door. “Come out, you bastard!” The heavy door didn’t budge. A few more climbed up onto the roof and began to tear off the roof tiles. When a hole appeared in the ceiling, the men shouted and threw the roof tiles into the house. A scream followed, and then Joaquín unbolted the door and ran from the house like a badger from his burrow. With every ounce of his strength, he fled to the hacendado’s house. A stone hit him square on the back of the head, but he seemed not to notice. The massive door of the great house did not open to his pathetic cries, so he ran toward the front gate of the hacienda.

Seventy Koreans had congregated before the hacendado’s house, which, having endured one hundred years of Mayan riots, stood more like a castle.

Rifle barrels poked out of the loopholes near the top of the wall. Shots rang out. “Sons of bitches!” The Koreans cowered and ran in all directions like a pack of rats. The sound of gunfire pierced the dawn, echoing through the hacienda. A short while later, mounted police raced through the front gate in a clamor of horses’ hooves. At that moment, the hacendado’s front door opened and the overseers rode out firing their guns, with Ignacio Velásquez in the lead. The mounted police struck the fleeing people with their clubs, seeking their next prey as soon as one had fallen. The hacendado and his overseers sealed the entrance of the hacienda and cut off the Koreans’ escape. Those who had fled to the pajas were eventually surrounded and dragged out one by one. Those who had been struck on the shoulders or back by the clubs of the police were the lucky ones, though they bled from where they were hit. Father Paul was one. Unable to open his eyes from the blood that ran down into them, he was dragged before Ignacio. “This is wrong!” he cried to the hacendado, making the sign of the cross. “This is wrong! Has the God you believe in not taught that we should side with those who are most shabbily clothed, those who are poorest, those who are most oppressed? Has he not?” The only reply he received was a clubbing. No one at Buena Vista hacienda understood Father Paul’s words that dawn. Even the Koreans did not understand. To them, Father Paul had been Mr. Bak. This Mr. Bak did not bend beneath the clubs but stood up with indignation and began to pray before Ignacio and his overseers in the Latin he had learned at the seminary in Penang: the Lord’s Prayer, the Doxology, the Hail Mary, and the Apostles’ Creed. He thought he had forgotten them long ago, but they all flowed freely from his lips. If there was a God, he would grant him dignity as his priest. Now more than ever, he needed God’s power and miracles. A strange Mass began. A few of the overseers unconsciously made the sign of the cross every time Paul shouted “amen.” But the hacendado resolved the confusion: “Look, Satan defiles the words of the Lord! The power of demons borrows his mouth to recite sacred prayers!”

In Ignacio’s eyes, this man—from a savage land in the Far East, wearing torn clothes that showed his knees and shabby straw shoes, his hair unwashed for a month and seething with lice, fluently reciting prayers in Latin and pretending to be a priest—truly appeared to be the soldier of Satan. At Ignacio’s words, a baptism of clubs poured down on Paul. He fell, catching a glimpse of Choe Seongil, who stood behind Ignacio, pointing directly at Paul.

In that moment, Paul realized that his God was without doubt a jealous God. God had shown no power whatsoever in this fight, which had begun with a shaman. Though he knew that these people suffered for all the sins committed by Korea, Japan, and Mexico, God was as jealous as a sulky little girl. Father Paul closed his eyes. No one would ever again call him Paul. He was no longer Father Paul. He was Mr. Bak, Bak Gwangsu.

A
FTER EVERYTHING HAD
calmed down, Ignacio Velásquez returned to his study, knelt on a satin floor cushion, and prayed. “Lord, why do you give me such trials? How can I bring your gospel to those ignorant people? Father, give me the strength and the courage to not submit to pain, and give me the wisdom to not fall to the temptations and wiles of Satan.” In no time at all, hot tears flowed from Ignacio’s eyes. His sympathy and compassion welled up for those poor people, those who refused to see his heart’s desire to lead them to heaven.

When his fervent prayer ended, a servant brought him coffee. Ignacio smoked a Monte Cristo. When the servant held a spittoon in front of his face, he spit out thick phlegm with a practiced motion. Usually, the coffee and cigar—the former made by the Mayans of Guatemala and the latter by the blacks of Cuba—brought him joy. But the excitement at dawn had not yet faded. In particular, the sight of the one who had challenged him, and recited through madness those sacred Latin prayers, remained strong in his mind. He had never heard a single story like this from his grandmother, his grandfather, or all his many aunts. It was certainly difficult to fathom the mysterious powers of Satan. He shivered and crossed himself.

A
T
Y
AZCHE HACIENDA
, they had no idea a riot had taken place at Buena Vista. Gwon Yongjun kept his mouth closed; he did not want any trouble at Yazche until the day he returned to Korea. During the harvest moon festival, the Koreans of Yazche assembled and performed their ancestral rituals. Yi Jongdo transcribed the written prayer and offered an interpretation of the complex rites. The festival was a traditional farmers’ holiday, so Yi Jongdo, who came from an old family of Seoul aristocrats, had no particular interest in it, but he was the first to bow in greeting as a representative of all. This was the natural duty of a Confucian scholar, and no one was as well versed in complicated Confucian procedures as he. His face brightened slightly for the first time in weeks at being able to confirm that his existence had some meaning. The ancestral rituals stirred up nostalgia. Those from peasant families, who placed great importance on the harvest moon festival, were already growing red at the corners of their eyes after a few glasses of ceremonial liquor.

Gwon Yongjun did not participate in these rituals. He had separated himself as far from the hacienda’s Koreans as possible. The way he saw it, the Koreans would lounge around as soon as the overseers looked the other way, so there was no choice but the whip. He was thinking like a hacendado and acting like the aristocrats of Korea. They didn’t like to work but they liked to give orders, and they struck and scorned the weak as if it were second nature. But they bowed their heads without delay to the strong. The aristocrats who had swaggered down Seoul’s Bell Street, going in and out of the gisaeng houses, were the only example he had, so it was natural for him to act like this. He had received the hacendado’s permission and brought in a Mayan woman to keep his house, but at every opportunity he pestered other women. He lay down on his bed and fondled the Mayan woman’s breasts, thinking of Yeonsu and eating corn.

When the ancestral rituals were over, the topic of conversation among the people shifted to Yi Jongdo’s letter. Yi Jongdo cleared his throat a few times and said that he had finished the letter and it would be sent soon. He added that they should not expect much of it, but he could not prevent their hopes from taking wing and soaring to the heavens. “A reply should come in three or four months, shouldn’t it?” someone said. “Maybe the government has already sent an official.” Hope spread rapidly through Yazche hacienda, the hope that this letter would be sent and a diplomatic official would be dispatched who, after seeing their situation, would strongly protest to the Mexican government and the governor of Yucatán. It would be revealed that the contract was not binding, and the workers would be sent home. Some expressed the hope that Japan would handle the matter instead of the Korean Empire, but they were reproached by the others and immediately withdrew their opinions.

Yi Jongdo returned home and gave the sealed letter to Jinu. “There are three letters. I wrote more than one because one might be misplaced. Give these to the interpreter and have him go to Mérida and send them.” Yi Jinu took the letters and went to Gwon Yongjun’s house. The Mayan woman stared blankly at him; she was naked. Gwon Yongjun took the letters. “Is this that letter?” The boy nodded, but his eyes strayed to the woman’s breasts. “Very well, I will go to Mérida and mail these myself. Life on the hacienda was too much for an aristocrat of such high status as your father anyway. And the hacendados of the Yucatán will have gotten their money’s worth from the Koreans by now, so they shouldn’t have too much to complain about. Don’t worry, you can go back now.”

The next day, Gwon Yongjun rode a carriage into Mérida. He ate a pork dish at a Chinese restaurant in an alley in Mérida’s southern market. His stomach full and his spirits high, he enjoyed the sunshine in the park that faced city hall and the cathedral. He looked around the cathedral. He admired the Baroque façade, which was completely different from the architecture he had seen in Seoul, and then went inside. Begun in 1561 and completed in 1598, the cathedral was built on a Mayan ruin, with stones taken from Mayan temples, but Gwon Yongjun had no way of knowing this. He was only impressed by the walls, so thick and strong that he wondered if it had once been a fortress. The stained-glass windows turned the intense Yucatán sunlight into brilliant colors and lit the dark interior. The cathedral, built during the colonial period, expressed the abnormal lust for power of Spanish politicians and clergy; it was far too large for the city of Mérida. Gwon Yongjun was exposed to that lust for power without any filters whatsoever. To him, the cathedral’s majestic size and splendid height were its clearest aesthetic message. The feminine charm of Korean temples that bowed low on mountain slopes felt like a symbol of weakness and servility.

He walked north along the city’s central road and found himself in front of another church. It was a Jesuit church built in 1618 for the order’s missionary and educational work in the Yucatán. Ignacio Velásquez’s ancestor José Velásquez had met his comrades here. Yet he drew a line between himself and the Jesuits, who had turned toward their peaceful work as he waged war on the native religions of the Mayans. Gwon Yongjun sat on a bench in Hidalgo Park, across from the Jesuit church. The Grand Hotel, along the south end of the park, tempted travelers with its magnificent exterior. On the hotel’s sign was written in large letters that it had opened in 1902. Gwon Yongjun counted on his fingers. It was a brand-new hotel, only three years old. Being a hotelier in Mérida wouldn’t be bad. If one had the money.

A university and high school were located next to the Jesuit church, and dozens of students were chattering in the small schoolyard. When one of them stepped up on a raised platform and began to speak, applause poured out. With his limited Spanish, Gwon Yongjun had difficulty following the speech, but because he heard the name of President Porfirio Díaz a number of times, and because of the heated tone of the speaker, he had no doubt that the subject was politics. People flocked to the square, and the usually dull city center of Mérida was suddenly transformed into something like a market swarming with hundreds of people. The speaker did not seem to be of the lower class—judging by his speech, his sharp suit, and his hairstyle. He looked like a successful bourgeois or a hacendado. His polished shoes shone dazzlingly in the sunlight. Students and citizens listened attentively to his words and shouted and clapped with every sentence.

As the speech reached it climax, mounted police galloped past the bench where the interpreter sat. A few carriages followed, clattering over the cobblestones. Decorated with gold and jewels, these magnificent carriages turned north and the mounted police split into two groups, one continuing to escort the carriages and the other swooping down on the meeting. The square soon became bedlam. The crowd, comprised primarily of men, scattered into the web-like alleys of Mérida. The mounted police blew their whistles and secured the area, but they did not pursue the crowd any further.

Gwon Yongjun approached a street vendor and asked, “What on earth is going on?” The vendor replied indifferently as he swept the ground: “According to the new law, it is illegal for ten or more people to assemble. Going to church is the only exception. Isn’t that ridiculous? The old dictator is shaking. What does he think would happen in this backwater town?” Gwon Yongjun asked, “What were those carriages?” “Those were the carriages of the governor of Yucatán. He’s scared stiff as well.”

Gwon Yongjun had an ominous premonition about the future of Mexico—from the mounted police’s uneasiness as they suppressed the crowd, from the sarcastic shouts of the students, and from the faces of those who took part, so full of conviction. No, this country might not last long. He returned to the bench and drew from his leather bag the letters that Yi Jongdo had taken such pains to write over a number of days. He read them slowly. After the formal salutations, including apologies for being such a dull-witted fellow to trouble the emperor’s spirit, there followed tale after tale of the woes his people suffered in Mexico. Yi Jongdo wrote that he would gladly take responsibility for his mistaken judgment. But he could not bear to look upon the suffering of ignorant people. He begged the emperor to have mercy on them and rescue them. Gwon Yongjun snorted. Aristocrats like this were precisely the reason that Korea had fallen. This Yi Jongdo had never once lifted a machete with his own hand, yet when he opened his mouth he was quite convincing. How much did he really know of suffering? All he did was sit in his house and recite the sayings of Confucius and Mencius!