Everything Belongs to Us Page 18

  S4 was the radical group, many of whose members eventually went into garment factories, steel mills, and shipbuilding docks posing as ordinary workers. This was the most extreme decision a student activist could make, tantamount to renouncing the good life and a stable future, not only for themselves but also for their families, who had collectively sacrificed every resource to see them through the grueling years of college preparation. She watched fellow activists make heart-wrenching decisions to leave the university, knowing it was bringing crushing disappointment and disapproval from their families.

  Although it did not mean nearly the same level of sacrifice for her in terms of either future or family, Jisun wondered if she would ever be able to make such a decision. Factory work promised only mental and physical drudgery, social alienation, and a long, painful period of adjustment. It was not easy for former college students to fit in with the customs and speech of factory workers, but it was imperative for them to keep their identities hidden—or risk serious consequences. Last year, a male activist had gone missing after leaving the university to work in a steel mill. After his disappearance, his mother seemed to have a nervous breakdown and made daily visits to campus, begging anyone who would listen for information about her son.

  Stories like this only fueled greater fervor among the activists, who regarded each arrest and horror story as an additional casualty to be avenged on the political battlefield.

  Commit suicide as a class and be reborn as revolutionary workers.

  The men and women of S4 did not ask Jisun if she had read Lenin. They did not expect her to pass initiation rites or bow ninety degrees, as if they were brothers in some street gang. They valued work and sacrifice, a language Jisun trusted. She admired their ceaseless sincerity as much as she sometimes chafed against it. Was there any rule against cracking a smile every once in a while? Did it hurt to have a little fun? Among the undercircles, S4 occupied hallowed ground, and Jisun was genuinely awed by their resolve to live out their convictions with total action. But she sometimes missed the humor, however vainglorious, of Apple and the reckless spirit of self-expression among the other, less serious groups. The members of S4 scrutinized Jisun’s every word, every gesture, with an eye so severe that she felt like an ant being burned under a magnifying glass.

  Any small personal extravagance could become a point of contention. Clothing with English-letter logos. Going to the movies. Majoring in something as decadent as art history, which glorified aristocratic excesses.

  In Jisun’s case, it was a pair of round oversize sunglasses, inexpensive but overtly fashionable in the “maxi style” that was everywhere on campus and the streets. Jisun had bought them at the outdoor Namdaemun markets: a cheap plastic frame and flimsy lenses that wildly distorted her vision and gave her a headache. She would have discarded them sooner had she not seen how the girls of S4 reacted. They seemed visibly pained by them and refused to address her until she took off the glasses and hid them away in her backpack. “Thank you,” they’d say with exaggerated decorum, waiting a beat longer than necessary before speaking.

  Finally, one of the girls took a public stance. Kana was a tall girl with wide-set eyes and the short, blunt haircut everyone else grew out as soon as they were released from high school. The die-hard female activists cut their hair short in this unflattering style as a symbol of asceticism, believing that fashion was an elite privilege that needed to be disavowed until everyone could access it equally.

  “Personally I prefer a much simpler attitude without these bourgeois trappings. Clothing should be about honesty and utility. Anyway, do these even help you see? They certainly don’t help us see you.”

  “The factory girls are all wearing this style,” Jisun pointed out. “They’re wearing the whole ensemble: skirt, boots, hat, everything. The other day I passed a girl who looked just like Ali MacGraw. She had the entire look from head to toe. What do sunglasses have to do with honesty, anyway?”

  “We don’t call them ‘factory girls’ anymore,” Kana said. “They are workers who deserve respect.”

  “Of course I respect them. But that doesn’t mean we all have to dress like janitors and farmers. They don’t want to dress in their uniforms either, you know,” Jisun said, thinking of Namin’s sister. “Haven’t you noticed how they change into street clothes as soon as they have a chance? If you want to respect them, don’t treat them like ‘workers.’ They’re people, like everyone else.”

  “They change because they don’t want people to look down on them for being ‘factory girls.’ If we respected their occupation, they wouldn’t have to be ashamed.”

  “But that doesn’t change the fact that the uniforms are ugly. And some people actually care how they look.”

  Jisun knew she had hit her target. Kana said stiffly, “I guess you would know. I care about more important things.”

  “That’s very clear, Kana,” Jisun said. And even though they were inside, she flipped the glasses back on her face. Later she regretted it—was she a child that she had to act on every impulse, alienating everyone she met? But it was done.

  In less than a year, Jisun burned through the entire underground network, trailing a reputation as firebrand and liability. In the fall of 1977, she was arrested twice, and again in January 1978. Each time, she was immediately released after the police were alerted by someone in her father’s camp. Jisun always went straight back to activism, but these unusual episodes created rifts between her and her peers. A single arrest and long detainment would have raised her to martyr status, but this ongoing hide-and-seek with the police made the student leaders nervous. She was too visible.

  That winter, S4 leadership passed her off to UIM, praising her with the overabundant generosity of people newly relieved of a problem. UIM needed interpreters, and Jisun’s English, the product of years of foreign tutors, was confident, if idiomatically haphazard—littered with overly obsequious phrases such as “Don’t mention it” and “Cheers,” which would later make the American aid workers smile at her strangely. But at this first meeting, the missionaries kept pumping her hands and calling her a “lifesaver.” The more she spoke in her fluent English, the more overjoyed they became.

  “You cannot imagine the trouble we’ve had,” they kept saying. Interrupting one another in their eagerness to be understood. “You see, none of us speak any Korean—”

  “Or enough Korean.”

  “And the culture is so difficult—”

  “Lovely, of course, but yes, quite difficult.”

  And wiping their brows as if they were stranded in a desert, streaming sweat. In fact the weather was raw and freezing. That day, Jisun met a couple from Ohio named Bob and Julie Anne. A portly older woman in a gray dress and white shoes who had the unpronounceable name of Beverly. And a young man her own age, who turned out to be Peter. He shook her hand warmly but did not gush like the others.

  Jisun understood that her former comrades had given the Americans rave reviews of her talents and reliability as both devoted worker and translator. She understood this because it was clear they did not want her back. We understand if your new duties keep you too busy to come to any more meetings. We understand completely.

  Falling headlong into that space between desperate people—the workers, local but disenfranchised from their rights; and the UIM staff, foreigners who had come to help but could not communicate the basic facts of their message—Jisun surprised herself. She discovered she had a talent for translation, which she had previously considered the domain of diplomats and stuffy tutors. In practice, she was exhilarated by the power of translated language to transcend boundaries of race and culture. All it required was her willingness to become silent in the conversation, letting other people’s words pass through her as through a sieve. Jisun was touched by the ways in which both groups gave themselves over to her, allowing her entry into their questions, answers, barbs, and jokes. She had never expected it to be so intimate.

  Within two weeks of working
with UIM, she had moved out of her father’s house into factory housing with the workers who ran the textile machinery. Twelve to a room lined with bunk beds. No windows, no baths. Just cold water in the sink and toilets that had to be emptied every week for the number of people who used them. The machines covered the girls with fine fiber dust the color of unmixed cement, marking everything they touched. Sometimes two girls rented the same bed, since one could sleep while the other worked. As long as they stayed on opposite shifts, they could share and save money.

  Although she shared sleeping and eating areas with the factory workers, Jisun’s days as a translator were quite different. Some days she trailed the UIM staff, touring factories and meeting with union leaders. Mostly she worked with Peter. They had a shared desk at the tiny unheated office where she translated the labor laws from Korean to English. She also translated his speeches and notes, which he planned to use during small group factory meetings, from English to Korean. When they met, he had been in the country only three weeks and his Korean was limited to basic body functions referring to eating, sleeping, or using the toilet. They spoke English, but he tried to use as many Korean words as he knew—a short but growing list that he kept in a battered notebook small enough to fit into his back pocket.

  “It’s about earning trust,” he said about his commitment to learning the language. Jisun wondered whose trust he meant. Was it that he wanted to earn her trust—?

  “The people, the trust of the people,” he said. She pretended that’s what she’d thought all along.

  Although Jisun was always with him to interpret, Peter insisted on giving at least a portion of his talks in Korean wherever he spoke. He organized lunchtime meetings at the steel mill, night classes at local churches, anywhere they were willing to have him. And when he had delivered the Korean part of his presentation, the workers broke out into applause as if they’d witnessed a wondrous circus trick.

  Jisun never officially dropped her classes at SNU—she had not gone to many classes in her pre-UIM days anyway, occupied as she was with her seminars and protest work. But she assumed eventually she would be withdrawn from the registrar and her status as a student rescinded. The prospect did not upset her in the least. Now that she understood what was possible for her in the world beyond the campus gate, there was no future for her at SNU. All her heady readings of theories, manifestos, treatises, declarations; all those nights spent in impassioned seminar debates that seemed to go round and round in an ever-tightening circle—all of it had been training for what she was experiencing now. Among her own people, in her own time, not reenacted from books written a hundred years ago.

  Jisun felt that she had finally joined the ranks of useful people, doing something that mattered. She had transcended the expected path that had been carved out for her, forging her own surprising fate.

  Once a week, then once a month, Jisun called the house when she knew her father would be out. By the end of each short call, ajumma always lost her temper and hissed into the receiver—This is enough—as if there were anyone listening in that endless, vacant house to even warrant lowering her voice.

  She always told ajumma to take care and hung up the phone. Her old life had receded so far into the distance that nothing could reach her. The house would never change. She could picture everything precisely. The sharp arrow points on the gate shutting out the world. The billowing camphor trees: mature specimens imported from some miraculous countryside that had managed to keep them safe first from Japanese colonial deforestation, then from the bombs of the Korean War. The lemon-eucalyptus scent of furniture oil, rubbed diligently into antique armoires and étagères. The heavy silk drapes that pooled at the floor like frozen waterfalls. All these things were as intact in her mind as if she were standing there herself.

  But Jisun was not there anymore. She had finally excised herself from the immaculate picture. And like a painting coming alive, she felt the discovery of the world rushing with fresh meaning into her veins. She was free.

  SNU was shut down all week following a student demonstration that had turned violent. For two days, there had been tanks parked at the gates and no telling when classes would resume. Namin briefly worried about how much work she would miss and how long it would take to catch up—just because their campus was closed didn’t mean the rest of the country did not go on with their studies. But between the full flush of spring and seeing Sunam nearly every day, it was hard to stay too concerned. Mostly they took long walks in the area around campus and in his neighborhood in central Seoul, which was lined with wide avenues perfect for strolling. They sat on park benches and snacked on street food. Mealtimes, they ate at casual noodle shops frequented by students. These were inexpensive treats that Namin felt comfortable letting Sunam pay for.

  That day, Sunam had suggested they meet at the fancy tearoom by Ewha University, a women’s college situated on a lush hillside. This time of year, the cherry trees were the main event and everyone made giddy plans to go “see the trees.” Namin was inclined to make fun of the breathless frenzy—every year people made a fuss, and every year she ignored them. But coming up on the hill and seeing the display transcended expectation. It was like peering over the edge of the mundane earth into a flowering paradise. Huge clouds of blossoms lined the avenues like heaps of organza thrown about by a giant seamstress. Couples posed under the branches, sniffing the boughs and miming raptures.

  She arrived fifteen minutes early, but Sunam was already waiting. A small bouquet of yellow tulips dangled from his hand, and he thrust them at her. “Here.” The plastic wrapping snapped and crinkled like tiny electric shocks.

  “I’ve never actually seen a man give a girl flowers before,” she said. “Only in the movies.” She tried to imagine him going in the shop and asking for flowers. “Were you embarrassed?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “A little,” he admitted.

  It was too glorious outside to go in for tea, but Sunam seemed disappointed when she suggested they just walk instead. Perhaps he had an idea of the proper date they’d have at the teahouse. It was the sort of place people went to prove they were truly a couple: girls wearing shiny lipstick and stacked boots. Boys with hair hovering in that perfect length between conservative and hippie—long enough to periodically fall over the eyes, but not too long to draw dirty looks on the bus. It was strange and wonderful to think of herself as half of a couple in a place like that. But it was also nerve-racking, sitting there as if on display for passersby to scrutinize through the window.

  “It’s still a date even if we don’t drink tea.” She rustled the bouquet at him like a shaman shaking sticks. “Look! I have this to prove it.”

  He took her hand in his and shook their joined hands, mimicking her action with the bouquet. “I have this to prove it too,” he said.

  Namin didn’t have a camera and Sunam hadn’t brought his, so they simply admired the trees without the pressure of posing. Twice, couples stopped them and asked if they wouldn’t mind taking a shot. Sunam complied, waiting for them to arrange themselves under the prettiest branch, giving them enough time to smile. One-two-three. For Namin, there was something deeply satisfying about watching Sunam from a distance, knowing he would return to her momentarily. Even with his back to her, they were connected. She knew he was thinking of her, that in some small way she was on his mind even as he focused on another task. These were ephemeral moments, insignificant and possibly meaningless. Namin would have laughed if someone else had described the feelings she was having. But she felt instinctively reassured by Sunam. By his boyish bravado hiding the outlines of seriousness, which she suspected frightened and exhilarated him just as her own ambitions filled her with jittery purpose. These were intangible hunches, impossible to explain or to prove. But Namin trusted them like stones in a river, each of which she could use to cross closer to the other side, the future she imagined with Sunam.

  Strolling hand in hand under the pink cotton-candy blossoms, she told Sunam about H
yun. Starting from the beginning, the second birthday, followed by the trip when he didn’t return. The dolls on the floor. The guilt. She described the village where her grandparents lived. How they used to carry him into the fields on their backs when he was small and how he loved to bask in the sun like a cat, wearing the hated hat that cast a shadow over his lap. As she talked, Namin almost forgot where she was, even whom she was speaking to. She was barely aware of herself and the slowly passing scenery while her memories rose up, one after another. Sunam listened quietly without interrupting. When she finally ran out of words, she felt as if she’d woken up in a warm but totally unfamiliar place. Telling Sunam about Hyun, she’d shed the protective layer that hardened her against outside opinions. Now she was totally vulnerable.

  “I don’t usually talk this much,” she said a bit sheepishly.

  “I don’t see how that can possibly be true,” he said—but he was smiling. “Every time I see you, it’s an Olympic event. I think you won all the medals this time. Gold, silver, and bronze. I didn’t even stand a chance.”

  “It’s your fault. You should have stopped me.” Namin tried to match his lighthearted tone, which seemed to say that nothing had changed between them—that her family troubles were not a mark against her. But she wondered if this was his way of avoiding the topic, speeding past it as quickly as possible. In some ways, Namin thought that would be worse than outright rejection. “Maybe I said too much,” she said.

  “I would have listened if you talked for ten times as long,” Sunam said. “It was an important thing to say. I’m glad you told me.”