“Then you won't have to go out begging any more, 'cause you can eat the rice that I grow in the fields . . .”
Yi Sobang stopped short in his tracks, and leaned heavily on his crutch. In all likelihood he had never in his entire life been touched so deeply. He had certainly never resented this heartless world so much as he did now. A servant ever since he'd been a child, he had suffered every kind of abuse until finally he'd had his leg broken. But, oh! How could any of that matter given what the boy had just said?
Ch'otchae, meanwhile, continued to talk with excitement as he walked along, then turned to find that Yi Sobang wasn't following him any more.
“Yi Sobang, why are you crying?”
Wide-eyed, Ch'otchae walked back toward the man. Yi Sobang wiped away his tears, then he set his crutch back into motion.
“Mom said something to you again, didn't she? Let's just kick her out of the way!”
The boy's eyes flashed with anger. Yi Sobang, shocked by his words, stared back at Ch'otchae. Could he still be angry about the fight they'd had earlier? Why else would the child be so hateful towards his own mother?
“Ch'otchae, don't let me hear you talk like that again.”
As he spoke Yi Sobang wondered if the boy already sensed something about his mother's bad behavior. He thought of the men who visited her: Yu Sobang,
a
Yongsu and then the blacksmith who'd also been coming by recently. Yi Sobang lost the courage to speak any further.
The two entered a narrow path along the bank of a wheat field.
“Yi Sobang, how much money did you earn today?”
The man had the courage to take on this one.
“Come on, boy, what money? There was a party over at the tavern today. I stayed there all day long, and only just got back.”
“A party . . ? So you brought back rice cakes, didn't you? You brought back rice cakes!”
Tapping his stick on the ground, he stared up at Yi Sobang.
“Yeah, I brought some back with me.”
“How many?”
The boy licked his lips and moved up closer to the man.
“Not too many.”
“You didn't give them to Mom again, did you?”
“No, I still have them,” he replied, not wanting to disappoint the boy, but fully aware of the nervous twitch in his own eye.
“Yi Sobang, wouldn't it be great if all we had to eat was rice cakes?”
The boy's mouth was watering.
“This spring I'll bring you so many rice cakes your stomach will explode! How about that?”
Ch'otchae laughed and struck a few rocks on the ground with his stick. At times like this, when the boy lowered his eyes, he looked more lovable than ever.
They arrived home in the dim light of dusk. Ch'otchae's mother was standing outside the front door when she saw them coming.
“Why can't a tiger carry off that little brat!”
She spoke without thinking, and was horrified by what she'd just said. How long she had waited for the boy to come home, and now these nasty words escaped her lips.
Ch'otchae let down his load of wood and sprang back up on his feet.
4
“My rice cakes!” cried Ch'otchae, looking back at Yi Sobang, who had followed him into the room.
Ch'otchae's mother quickly took down from the upper shelf a gourd bowl filled with rice cakes.
“You little brat, why are you always so hungry? Well, there's plenty, so eat your fill.”
Snatching the bowl, Ch'otchae grabbed a rice cake and began chomping away. His mother and Yi Sobang stared at the boy and felt pity for him, he must surely be famished to eat like this. In no time at all Ch'otchae had finished them off.
“No more?”
Ch'otchae's mother lit the lamp.
“No. Haven't you had enough already?”
“Just have some rice,” said Yi Songbang, who kept his eyes fixed on Ch'otchae's mother, her face scarlet in the light of the flame.
“Mind you, Yi Sobang.” Ch'otchae's mother slipped back into the shadows. “You've spoiled the brat rotten with everything you give him. He doesn't know what it means to have a full belly. The greedy little thing will eat us out of house and home if we let him.”
She had wanted to savor one more rice cake herself, and had left it in the gourd, hoping to eat it later with her son. But watching the hungry boy devour the treats made it hard for her to stick her hand back into the bowl. Now that she realized Ch'otchae hadn't left a single piece for her to eat, she felt somewhat offended.
“Come on Yi Sobang, let's go to bed!” Ch'otchae's eyes were heavy with sleep. However pleasant it was sitting across from Ch'otchae's mother like this, Yi Sobang couldn't refuse the boy, and he managed, though just barely, to raise his stubborn hips off the floor. Leaning onto his crutch, he pulled himself to his feet.
“All right. Let's go.”
Ch'otchae got up as well, and hand in hand they went into the room across the hall. The boy quickly sank down into the warmest corner of the room, and after tossing his limbs a few times was fast asleep, gently snoring. Looking over at Ch'otchae in the darkness, Yi Sobang thought about what the boy, all smiles, had said to him earlier so innocently. He let out a deep sigh.
Perhaps someone had already come into the inner room. His ears now seemed to pick up the sound of whispering voices. “I wonder which bastard's in there tonight?” he mumbled, bending his ear to figure out to whom the voice belonged. But they were speaking in whispers, and no matter how hard Yi Sobang tried to listen, it was impossible to identify tonight's visitor. All he could make out, from time to time, was the giggling voice of Ch'otchae's mother.
He kept his eyes closed in an effort to fall asleep, but the whispering in the next room kept him wide awake, and instead of sleep it was anger that overcame him. He simply had to get out of this woman's house! What sort of life was this, anyway? Yi Sobang lost his temper almost every night, just as often as he was forced to witness this abomination.
He jumped out of bed, lit some tobacco, and took a seat by the window. Beams of moonlight streamed through the torn paper window like a rainbow. He took a drag on his pipe and exhaled very slowly. Billowing up through the air, dissolving into the moonlight . . . that smoke seemed just like the bitter feelings surging up inside him!
Without thinking, he began to gently stroke the wooden crutch he'd placed on the floor beside him. Whenever he was upset he caressed this wooden leg of his . . . this leg with no response! This stiff and heartless crutch! And yet, this wooden crutch was his one and only true companion.
“The nerve of that girl . . .”
Yi Sobang turned around in surprise at the sound of Ch'otchae mumbling in his sleep. Could the boy really be thinking about some girl already? he wondered. If he'd had the power to keep the boy from growing up, he would have made sure Ch'otchae remained a child forever. Perhaps it was rather selfish to think so, but he knew Ch'otchae's future path in life looked no different from the one he himself had taken.
Yi Sobang moved over to Ch'otchae's side and stared down at the boy. He was still breathing heavily in his sleep. This moment in time would be the happiest, it seemed, that Ch'otchae would ever see. “I wish
I could work in the fields, too,” Yi Sobang remembered the boy saying. He then laid his cheek down on top of the boy's.
Oh, the warmth that passed from Ch'otchae's cheek to his own! And these heaving lungs full of life! If the boy had been made of his own flesh and blood, could Yi Sobang possibly have been more deeply affected?
Without thinking, he drew his arms around Ch'otchae's neck and embraced him. “I'm nothing but a cripple, my boy, but from now on I live for you, and for you alone,” he said, repeating the pledge several times over.
Just then, Yi Sobang lifted his head at the sound of something crashing.
5
“You filthy whore!”
The very pillars of the house seemed to shake with these thunderous words. Yi Sobang went to the door and crouched down beside it.
“What's gotten into you? Why say something like that?” said Ch'otchae's mother.
“Shut up you tramp, you filthy slut! As if shacking up with that crippled beggar isn't enough. Now you're screwing around with this moron. You no-good bitch!”
Yi Sobang then heard someone spit. But it was the words “shacking up with that crippled beggar” that rang in his ears. The life seemed to drain right out of him, and he lost the strength to lift even a finger.
“Oh, my, they're really going at it.”
He could hear the rough sounds of a scuffle. Yongsu and the new one, the blacksmith, seemed to be at grips with each other.
“They say, âNew-born pups don't fear a tiger.' Well, they must have made that one up for morons like you. You pathetic fool! Did you really think she was was pure?”
Whatever happened next, it was followed by a blood-curdling scream.
“I'll slice you up into pieces, you bastards!”
“No, not a knife! Not a knife!”
Hearing Ch'otchae's mother scream, Yi Sobang jumped to his feet in alarm, grabbed his crutch, and dashed out of his room. The door to the
inner room had fallen into the dirt hallway, but without a lamp on it was too dark to see inside.
Ch'otchae's mother ran out into the hallway.
“Take this! Take it!”
Gasping for breath, she thrust the knife towards Yi Sobang. He took it and rushed into the kitchen, but not knowing where to put it, he shuffled back and forth for some time, finally hiding the knife inside a bundle of firewood. Then he returned to the inner room.
“Why are you two doing this? You're both decent men. Please control yourselves!” he shouted, trying to break apart the two men.
“Stay out of this, you fool . . . Oh wait, you're the cripple! So maybe you're just looking for a beating.”
One of them gave Yi Sobang a powerful kick and he crumpled to the floor. His crutch had flown to the side, and he began searching for it in vain. Only after crawling frantically over the entire dirt floor did he manage to find it. The bitterness that had built up inside him for many years was now at the point of exploding. He did his best to suppress the feeling, grabbed his crutch, and hurried outside.
Normally, there would have been a crowd of spectators gathered outside, but tonight there was no one, perhaps because it was so late. He made his way over to the woodpile, where he stood staring into the sky.
There, soaring high above dark Mount Pult'a, was the brilliant moon! Even that moon, it seemed, had come out in order to ridicule his crippled leg.
“Yi Sobang!”
He turned around at the sound of Ch'otchae's voice. The boy came running outside and stopped to relieve himself, squirting a long stream of urine to the side. Yi Sobang thought of Ch'otchae's bad temper and was suddenly frightened. “What if that boy ups and . . .” he thought, panicked. He rushed to Ch'otchae and managed to grab onto him by the seat of his pants.
Having finished peeing, Ch'otchae was on the point of running back to the house in a rage.
“You fucking idiots!” The boy was screaming at the top of his lungs, but Yi Sobang had been quick to grab onto him. The boy responded with several violent blows, yelling, “Let go of me!”
“Ch'otchae! Ch'otchae! Don't do it! You'll get hurt, do you hear me?”
“I don't care. Those bastards!”
This time the boy rammed his head into Yi Sobang's chest and kicked at him mercilessly. The man tumbled over backwards again. Ch'otchae flew over to his wooden pack, picked up his sickle, and ran into the house.
“No! No!”
Yi Sobang saw this was a matter of life or death. He scrambled inside on all fours until he managed to grab hold of Ch'otchae's ankle. Ch'otchae's mother, dashed out of the inner room and snatched the crossbar off the front gate.
“You little brat! Why aren't you in bed, instead of causing all this trouble?” she shouted at her son.
“Me? Those bastards in there are the ones causing trouble!” He yanked on his mother's long hair, pulling her head downwards.
The crashing sound from the inner room grew more and more violent. Yi Sobang felt goosebumps all over. If the men came any closer, Ch'otchae would likely end up with a broken bone. Yi Sobang vividly recalled how he'd gotten his own leg broken by fighting with the master of the household long ago, and he feared the boy was dangerously close to meeting a similar fate.
Yi Sobang took several good kicks from Ch'otchae, rolling this way and that on the ground, but he never lost his grip on the boy's ankle. A trickle of bright blood now ran from his nose.
“Ch'otchae! You keep this up and I'll never give you another rice cake again!”
He'd said the words without thinking.
“Do you mean it? Yi Sobang!”
His chest heaving breathlessly, Ch'otchae twisted to face him. Yi Sobang sprung from the ground and swept the boy's head into his embrace. Within an instant, tears were rolling down the man's face.
6
As she plaited thatch in the backyard, Sonbi's mother was filling a bowl at her side with grains of rice she'd removed from some straw. Sonbi came bounding toward her.
“Mom!” she shouted.
She looked up curiously at her daughter, who ran into the yard short of breath.
“Don't tell me you got into trouble again?”
Sonbi shook her head emphatically, then put her lips to her mother's ear.
“Guess what, Mom . . . Sinch'on Taek and the Missus up at the big house got into a huge fight, and Master scolded them something terrible.”