Festival for Three Thousand Women (21 page)

When the doctor told him that because of his positive reaction to the skin test he would have to stay in Seoul for further testing, he felt no surprise, taking the news as if he'd been expecting it. But the further tests had to be spaced apart, and as three days grew to a week and then longer, a certain understanding began to take hold. If he, like his grandmother at home, was to be an exception to the family habit of early death, then this would be his proving ground. He could barely remember his parents' deaths, but they had been no more than a decade older than he was now at the time. What had they known of life before they died? Had they come to any of the conclusions that were hovering about him now, beginning to make him take notice?

Bobby decided that he would not succumb to despair but would defeat the disease, making it a natural culmination to the beginning he had so tentatively explored all those months in Taechon, the beginning of his life as a man.

There was a Korean woman working for the Peace Corps, an exceedingly fine person whom everyone considered to be the real boss. Bobby hadn't known her when he'd first come to Korea, but now that he was at the office every day they were becoming friends. Her name was Mrs. Shin, her English was excellent, and she was proud of the Peace Corps volunteers who spoke Korean well.

One day Mrs. Shin brought Bobby an article in Korean, suggested that reading the article might keep his mind off his lungs, and said she'd be back later so that they could discuss it. Though Bobby smiled and assured her that he'd read it straight away, he soon discovered that the article was full of Chinese characters and written in an erudite style that was missing from most of the food packages and bottle labels he was used to reading. He had been concentrating on speaking, not reading, and this wasn't fair. But Mrs. Shin was gone by the time he realized the difficulty of his task, so to avoid embarrassment, he borrowed a dictionary and went on back to the inn to read.

The article was in a women's magazine, and claimed that two decades of hard research had proved that Korea was the world's leading producer of geniuses. There were photographs of several geniuses in the article: a three-year-old who knew algebra, a seven-year-old with the meanings of thirty thousand Chinese characters on the tip of her tongue… Bobby had apparently gotten in on a latter stage of a series of articles, for the one he read spent no time discussing whether or not the research was accurate, but rather took issue with whether Korea's geniuses were in abundance because of the diet or because of something in the genetic pool. The writer seemed to think that genetics caused the geniuses but that
kimchi
, the omnipresent Korean cabbage, played a large part too, working as a kind of gray-matter cleansing agent, readying the brain for fine reception and for quick retrieval from its hindermost parts.

It was an impressive article, all the more so because Bobby could read it. There were statistical tables that showed how well Korean immigrants in America had faired in standardized school tests, and there were dietary evaluations of the brain power locked within various soups and stews, one dish tasty for mathematics, another a godsend for farming and mechanical skills. The article was serious but its tone was amusing, and Bobby was captivated. Here was a level of study that he had completely ignored. Reading! The charm of the spoken word transformed into careful thought, a new grammar in which he might find a pattern for his emerging new life.

Bobby read the article several times and waited to discuss it with Mrs. Shin. Maybe she was free for dinner, he thought, or at the very least she could find time for tea. But though he saw her often he could never catch her eye.

It turned out that Mrs. Shin had given Bobby the article toward the end of his stay in Seoul, for one day the doctor called him in and told him that he had run the tests several times to be sure, and that there had been no error. Bobby had tuberculosis. Some people were more susceptible to the disease than others, the doctor said, and Bobby's susceptibility came from an unfortunate heredity and the unfortunate situation in Taechon, namely, the grandmother in Policeman Kim's house. He was also recommending that Bobby go home.

When Bobby came out of the doctor's office, Mrs. Shin was there. “Tell me,” she said, “how did you like the article?”

“I read it right away,” Bobby said. “We could have talked about it much sooner than this.”

“Ah well,” said Mrs. Shin, “I've been so busy.”

Bobby told her he was going back to Taechon and that he would spend his remaining Peace Corps time learning how to read.

“Come,” she said. “I'll walk you down the stairs.”

The building had two elevators, but one was out of order and the other was slow, so everyone took the stairs. When they got to the street Mrs. Shin said that she had to meet her husband, and Bobby asked if he was a genius, making her laugh.

“Far from it,” she said. “He's an engineer.” She then asked Bobby if he'd run into any geniuses in Taechon.

“Two,” Bobby said.

Bobby offered to buy her dinner, but she said she really had to go. Then she darted off into the pedestrian sea, waving above the heads of all the geniuses, or of those whose diets were making them so.

When Bobby returned to the inn he checked out and headed for the station. There was a train leaving at seven that would get him into Taechon just before curfew, and since he had had far more money than before, his per diem for the past month of staying in the capital on Peace Corps business, he bought a ticket for the second-class car. When he stepped out onto the platform the train was already there. And though there were already many people in the third-class section, the one he and Miss Moon had used when coming to Seoul, the second-class car was empty except for a boy asleep next to a tray of hard-boiled eggs and dried squid. The doctor had ordered Bobby back to Seoul within five days, allowing him this trip merely so that he could pack his bags and say good-bye.

Bobby found his seat and automatically tried to take up as much space as he could, the habit of a third-class traveler, though it was clear that the car would remain empty most of the way down. On the seat next to him he had the four bottles of pills that the doctor had given him and a note for Headmaster Kim, explaining the conditions of his early dismissal from his Peace Corps job.

The train was still minutes from departure when Bobby crumpled the note up and threw it out the window. He would finish his Peace Corps term. That was a condition of his own.

As he sat there, Bobby remembered the answer he'd given Mrs. Shin when she had asked him how many geniuses he'd known in Taechon. He had said two. Who in the world had he meant? He thought of Mr. Kwak immediately, of course, and then of his son, Bo Peep. Yes, Mr. Kwak for certain, Bobby thought. He learned a new language every time he had a child and he always seemed deep in thought. But Bo Peep was another matter. The child's precociousness was nothing more than the kind of cleverness hundreds of children had. Who, then, was the other? Certainly no one he had met at school.

Suddenly the train lurched forward and the Goma popped into Bobby's head. The Goma was the second genius. He had mastered the English of Mr. Nam's book without a day of schooling in his life. At the very least, he was a genius of survival, a genius without portfolio.

So there it was. Sixteen months in Korea and Bobby was traveling home to finish what he had begun, with two geniuses waiting to help him see it through.

The train had moved out of the city before Bobby looked up and around the car to see who might have joined him. There was no one, only the boy who'd been asleep, the egg man, who was awake now and coming his way. “Eggs have yes,” said the boy. “Squid have yes, tonic have.”

Bobby had a pocket full of money so he bought four hard-boiled eggs and a bottle of liver tonic with which to wash the first of his medicine down. There was something about the boy, the way he'd spoken perhaps, that reminded Bobby of the Goma. Eggs Have Yes.

There were more than four hours left of his journey, so Bobby put everything out of his mind, took Mrs. Shin's magazine up again, and turned past the article on geniuses, looking for something else to read.

The seasons are very distinct this year. There is not a blend, not the usual few days of spring with summer in them, or summer extending its fingers into fall.

My children are preparing my
hwangap
party, which is to take place after the academic year ends. My wife and my daughters-in-law have been sewing for weeks already, and my eldest son, who must pay for everything, has bought me wonderful shoes and a hat.

Since I have looked forward to the end of my career for thirty years, it is strange that I am not now more excited. Of course I realize that it is the events at school and the situation of our American that have made me feel this way. There is too much speculation about the impending transfers of Mr. and Miss Lee, too much discussion of Headmaster Kim's firing and rehiring of Mr. Kwak. Were I headmaster, would I have done things differently? At first I thought my answer to that question would have been yes, but after consideration I am not so sure. And it is not my job to second-guess the headmaster; that is not my job at all.

Ah but the situation with our American, concern about him is certainly a part of my job. The headmaster, though he didn't see fit to let me in on the identity of the spy, wisely told me that our American has contracted a small case of T.B. It is a secret—at Mr. Bobby's request none of the other teachers know—but it is a silly secret, for all anyone has to do is open their eyes and look at him. When he arrived so many months ago he was built like a barn, but now all his fat has fallen into the air, and the man that has come out of it is frightening to behold. He looks like he's been scooped out. Who would have thought that such an ordinary thing as tuberculosis would affect a man so?

What I am going to do, I think, is this: when my
hwangap
comes and I am actually retired, I will suggest to the headmaster that I invite Mr. Bobby to retire with me, though he will officially have another term left on his obligation to the school. I would not propose such a thing if it were not a question of his health, but since it is a question of his health, if he agrees then he can join me in the countryside, where I will go to live with my son. Think of it, since Mr. Bobby's Korean is now quite wonderful we can discuss the nature of the world and he can rest until the time comes for him to go back to America again. What else, after all, are friends for? If not for help in time of need, what does it mean for men to be brothers in the world?

Written in Mr. Pak's clothing store, while waiting for my first daughter-in-law to select material for my undergarments.

Six at the top means: The influence shows itself in the jaw, cheeks, and tongue
.

 

T
here was no substitute teacher at the school, so when Bobby's tuberculosis kept him away, Mr. Kwak was called back to work. Since no one had ever been hired to replace Mr. Kwak, the load for Mr. Nam and Mr. Soh had already been heavy, and with Bobby gone it was unmanageable. And no one seemed to see any inconsistency in Mr. Kwak staying once Bobby had returned. What better replacement for the spy, after all, than the man who had refused to take part in his capture?

Bobby had not told his friends, or Policeman Kim's family, about the disease in his lungs, but he did tell Headmaster Kim privately, without Mr. Soh around. And when he wrote the Peace Corps doctor telling him of his intention to stay, he enclosed a note from the headmaster, endorsing his decision. “What's the big deal?” the headmaster's note said. “Half the country's got T.B.” Perhaps the doctor would try to force him out, but Bobby didn't think so. He would have to come to Taechon to do it, and leaving Seoul was something the doctor did not want to do.

All the same, Bobby took his medicine religiously, and during the last weeks of winter and beginning of spring he took up the gauntlet of Mrs. Shin, that of systematically learning how to read. So that he wouldn't leave holes in his learning, he started with readers from the primary school and soon he had finished all those of the middle school and was borrowing books from Mr. Kwak, who had so easily become his friend again that Bobby was slightly miffed. He had wanted Mr. Kwak to take his previous weakness of character as seriously as he, himself, had, but Mr. Kwak hadn't been surprised at all.

It was a snap, really, learning to read. With spoken Korean he had had to rely on the inroads that sound and syntax made across the ridges of his brain, and that had required social contact, but with reading he could use memory and study, the handy standbys of his college days. Bobby made flash cards of the twelve hundred Chinese characters he had learned and taped them to the walls of his room. During February he put himself on a schedule of twenty new characters a day, and in March he began writing on the ruined surfaces of the blackboards at school. Poetry, slogans, the diaries of Confucius and Lao-tzu; with these writings he mined the language, staking his claim.