Everything Belongs to Us Page 2

  Below, a male voice boomed from a bullhorn. It was the factory foreman in shiny black pants and company jacket, his large bald spot creeping out from beneath the bottom of his cap. “Ladies, you know this is an illegal protest. Let’s just get up and go home, shall we? Take the day off. We’ll get back to work tomorrow. Better yet, get to work now. We’ll get in a half day at least. You know what happens next. These men would rather not work up a sweat. Let’s not tire ourselves out for no reason….”

  Across the yard, the drums took on the slow, predawn beat. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum.

  The foreman’s voice warbled from the bullhorn. “This is your last warning.”

  The riot police stood ready, shields raised. A line of cops in regular uniform moved in, batons in hand. In the front row of the strike there was a sudden flash of movement. A young woman stepped away from the line, pulling the khaki blouse from her body and dropping it at her feet. Her white bra stood out for a speechless moment before it too was unclasped and thrown to the ground. For that instant, all there was was her body. Flesh. Pale breasts. Heaving rib cage. Her black hair was wild against her skin. Raising her fist, she resumed the chant.

  The effect on the ground was immediate. Cops froze mid-movement. The crowd seemed to lurch toward the topless woman, the collective attention shifting violently to her body. Sunam let out a gasp, stunned by the unfolding scandal.

  All around the first topless woman, her colleagues were following suit. Garments fell like discarded skin to the ground. Young, old, thin, heavy, pale, dark, taut, women stood with their breasts bared, united in defiance. The chanting hushed. Drums fell silent. No one moved. The sirens continued to spin, splashing red lights over the scene, but for an extended moment the women were captured in perfect stillness. They had become inviolable, their determination stronger than any army. A young voice screamed, “You call yourself men, attacking unarmed women? Touch us now if you dare.”

  The first man out was powerfully built, with short arms and thick, muscular legs. He moved in with firm, measured steps as if to say, Look, I’m coming. You’ve had your fun, now it’s over. When he grabbed the young woman by the arm, low near her wrist—a small mitigation toward her exposure—his manner was brisk, almost paternal. Sunam sensed the danger brewing under the surface, the kind of final-warning patience he recognized from his own father before a total explosion.

  It happened so quickly, he could process it only in retrospect. Wresting out of the officer’s grip, raising her fist against him, the young woman spit in his face. Sunam saw the unmistakable jerk of her head, the split-second delay. Then the response. The officer tackled her to the ground, folding her body under his as easily as if she were a reed. He had her under his knees, her face and chest pushed against the ground. His fists came down between her shoulder blades—three sharp blasts—until she went limp.

  The rest of the force rushed in. With only their bodies for weapons, the women threw themselves on the ground in an attempt to make themselves heavy. They clung to anything stationary and entangled themselves around each other’s waists like lovers. The men pried them apart with boots and batons and dragged them across the street into the waiting vans, two men to each girl, hoisting her by the wrists and ankles. Others who ran were herded back. The youngest workers hid their faces from the staring crowd and sobbed against each other’s slumped shoulders. One woman fainted and was laid out on the asphalt, her face strangely composed in the midst of the blood and havoc.

  There were girls who fought every step, who struggled and clawed and kicked to hold ground. One woman twisted like a trout on the line, her body a heaving muscle in protest. She was nearly naked, dark nipples flashing and the waistband of her pale pink underwear pulled low over her hips. Finally the men swung her down and kicked her until she curled up tight, arms wrapped overhead, exposing the pale contours of her ribs.

  There was no more center. Each was fighting for herself, running for herself. After so much noise, individual shrieks evaporated like weak echoes. There were hands everywhere, grabbing the easiest circumference: shoulders, necks, ankles, thighs. Clothed or naked, it made no difference. Everywhere, bloodied women were being pushed into vans. Behind the barricades, the mob grew rowdy.

  Sunam felt simultaneously paralyzed and hypercharged, as if his muscles would jump out of his skin and plunge into the mob below. The memory of those women, statuesque and strong, standing their ground against uniformed police, already seemed like a dream.

  “The cars are full,” he said to Juno. He was surprised to realize his voice was steady and unchanged, as if nothing had happened. “They can’t take all of them.”

  “They’ll grab enough.”

  “Enough—for what?”

  “To make an example. Enough to get names on a blacklist. Those women will never work again in Seoul. Effective, I’d say.” Juno glanced at him. “Shocked? Get used to it, Sunam. Power always wins. That’s life.”

  “So this is what you wanted me to see? Girls being beat up?”

  Juno made a strange sound, sucking his teeth and releasing air in an explosive click as if closing a lid on the whole pathetic situation. “Don’t be melodramatic. I didn’t know this was going to happen. But it’s a good lesson for you, anyway. You see how it is when people make stupid decisions. They were in enough trouble as it is and now they’ve only made things worse for themselves. Bad gamble. They should have been smarter.”

  “But that girl you’re interested in—”

  “Is none of your concern at the moment.”

  “Did you see her? Was she…” It seemed too personal to ask if she was one of the women who had taken off her clothes. Surely Juno would not like to answer that question. Instead Sunam stuttered, “I mean, what if she got hurt? Were you able to see…?”

  “She’ll be fine,” Juno answered curtly. “I told you, don’t worry about it.”

  “But I could help you,” said Sunam. “If you needed me to do something. I could go down there. I could deliver a message or—whatever you needed.”

  Juno stared at him with unconcealed puzzlement. “Sunam, I can’t decide if you’re incredibly idiotic or some kind of savant. You must be a genius to be this dense. Do you actually think I want her to know I’m watching her? You think I’m going to send you down there to deliver a message? Tell me, what kind of note did you have in mind? ‘I know you’re in the middle of a police raid and all, but I just want you to know I have my eye on you’? Use your brain, man.” For a second, Sunam thought Juno would reach over and slap him as if he were a delinquent fifth grader who had failed to do his homework. Juno sighed. “Anyway, even if I wanted to send a message, what makes you think I would trust you with something so important? You haven’t even managed to deliver a bowl of soup correctly—” Sunam suddenly remembered the lunch he had abandoned on the stairs. It had slipped his mind completely.

  Sunam knew his face must have turned deeply crimson. The burn spread over his cheeks and blazed down his neck. Hot tendrils of shame wrapped around his throat. Of course Juno wouldn’t want to reveal his position to the girl. He, unlike Sunam, conducted his life with calculated, measured calm. He would never rush into impetuous action with some puerile idea of rescue. Just thinking about what he had suggested flushed Sunam with a new wave of mortification. “I’m sorry, sunbae. You’re right, I wasn’t thinking. But give me another chance. I know I can do better. Let me do something to prove it to you. Anything.”

  Juno peered down at the mob below, apparently considering his proposal. Sunam braced himself for whatever difficult task would be required of him. This time, he would not let his sunbae down. No matter what was asked of him, he would approach it with the utmost care and seriousness.

  “Doesn’t seem to be clearing up anytime soon,” Juno murmured. “It’ll be a mess for a while.”

  “Are you going somewhere? Would you like me to hail you a cab?”

  “Me? No, I’m fine where I am,” said Juno with an exaggerated drawl. He grinned. Whate
ver he had in mind, he was enjoying himself. “But you seem eager to get places. Bet you’ve never seen a naked girl up close, eh? Go ahead, Sunam. Enjoy yourself. Grab yourself a souvenir while you’re at it. I’ll wait.”

  “A souvenir?”

  “Sure. I see a bunch of ladies’ underwear lying about. Of course, it’s nothing fancy, but you’re not picky, are you?” He had never seen his sunbae look so happy; it was a task that had no purpose other than to humiliate Sunam. “I don’t want you saying I never taught you anything.”

  “You want me to bring up…underwear?” he asked incredulously.

  “And be quick about it,” Juno said in his normal voice. “After that you’re going to get me another bowl of soup.”

  Four flights had seemed an interminable distance just a short while ago, but now Sunam wished it were much longer to save him from the humiliation of this fool’s errand. He paused on the step where the now congealed noodles remained where he’d left them. Yellow gray floes of fat clung to the bloated dough. Slimy onions lay slick and sweaty on the thickened broth. Only recently this had been a delicious meal. Now it was an inedible wreck. Somehow the awful state of the noodles seemed to mirror the mess he was always making of his own life. What should have been a pleasure turned grotesque. So much wasted potential.

  He had no choice but to go forward. Let me prove myself, sunbae. Ask me anything. Let me, let me! Downstairs in the lobby the door was crowded with onlookers, all the building’s employees and customers smashed up against the windows to catch a glimpse of the action. More police vehicles were arriving, sirens flashing. The first vans must be packed by now, but uniformed men were still herding the workers into custody and fighting back the crowd, which was growing thicker and more unruly. Sunam shoved his way to the building’s exit, still hoping to get out. The closer he got, the more unwilling people became to give up their spot, pushing him back with dirty looks as if to say they had paid good money to get these seats.

  “I need the door. I’m leaving.” Sunam jabbed desperately at the air above his head, illustrating how quickly he intended to disappear. “The door,” he shouted again. The folks guarding their positions finally relented, letting him pass.

  Immediately the crowd swallowed him up and swept him toward the barricades, the crush as powerful as a dragging riptide. Sunam threw his weight against it, but it was no use. There were moments when he felt his feet lifting off the ground, a sickening lurching sensation he had never experienced even during the worst commuting times. This was not a simple matter of too many people in a limited space. This was havoc fueled by the dark electric buzz of violence, the giddy tinge of sex.

  People he could smell but not see were shouting in his ears. Boots connected sharply with his ankle. His feet were trampled. A throaty voice yelled, “Move it!” and someone else laughed, a high, hysterical pitch. There were long minutes when nothing moved, every shoulder and elbow jammed in gridlock, followed by sudden slides when the crowd heaved in a collective stumble. These were the times to maneuver if he could anticipate them and move quickly. He tried to identify a path out, but the street was narrow and his only recourse was to push against the flow of the mob, back toward what must be its end. From the roof he had seen where it started, where it thickened and became a throng, but once he had stepped out onto the street, there was no sense of dispersing or ending. He was stuck in the middle, unable either to escape or to get what he’d come for.

  Sunam saw a wedge of space opening up in front of him and prepared himself. Maybe he could still make it to the barricades. And maybe once he got there the crowd, in view of the cops and contained by the metal gates, would be more manageable. With a huge effort, he twisted away from the shoulder lodged against him and hurled his weight into that tiny opening.

  Brown mottled teeth sneered in his face. “Relax, college boy—enjoy the show. What, scared?”

  Another voice. “Look at him, he’s never seen a woman.”

  Sunam caught a flash of oily stubble. The second man had on a blue jacket identical to his friend’s, same filthy sleeves. There were three of them, probably unemployed millworkers. The smell of their grease stung his nostrils.

  “College boy, time to become a man!” Two stubby fingers jabbed at Sunam’s groin. A gurgle of a laugh, like a cough bringing up phlegm, sprayed in his face. The fingers jabbed him again, harder. “Wake up! Come back when you grow something.”

  With the pretext of being shoved themselves, they slammed their bodies into him, laughing. They hit him repeatedly, slapping his face and grabbing his crotch with exaggerated, fake apologies. He knew these types, workers who hated college students for their educated privilege, who believed their own working-class backgrounds earned them the right to harass anyone they wanted, to assuage their sense of inferiority. Sunam shoved back, trying to put bodies between them. But the crowd shrank away, leaving a halo of space around them.

  Sunam was outnumbered three to one. The first guy was built like a ram, with a bulging brow bone and shoulders that seemed to round in with the weight of his muscles. “Get him a better view,” he taunted. “Let him get his first eyeful, at least. Help him, boys. There are things you don’t learn in college.” They poked and prodded, delighted with their new toy. “A day off from school today, a field trip? No girlies at school want to show you any of this?” He mimed squeezing a pair of nipples. “No fun in the library?”

  The others were smaller, barely any weight on them. If it weren’t for their bullnosed leader, Sunam might have considered fighting. But pinned in with no exit and outnumbered, he knew it was useless. The big one was squinting at him with an appraising eye. He flicked his flat bovine nose, releasing a wet-sounding sniff. “Now. Let’s have your jacket,” he said.

  Sunam wore a calfskin leather jacket, a graduation present from his parents. Our proud firstborn. Wear it well. The jacket fit him perfectly, the tan color creamy against his skin, the long sleeves and waist hitting his tall frame at just the right length. He felt like a young heir in that jacket, cosmopolitan and undeniably first-rate. The thought of losing it, and to these guys, made his jaws clench. “Funny,” he said. “I think your jackets suit you perfectly.”

  “A sense of humor on this one,” said Bullnose. “We won’t kill you because you’re funny. Now hand it over.”

  “Can’t do it,” Sunam said.

  A blow landed between his shoulder blades. A jab, not hard enough to take him down but serious. When he turned around, there was a switchblade in his face.

  “We won’t ask you again.”

  Slowly Sunam shed the precious garment and handed it to the sidekick, the one with the knife. Bullnose grinned with his bad teeth. “Come on, fellas, we’re done here.” Now the crowd parted. They split to let the gang pass as if for a presidential motorcade, huge margins opening up like a sea parting. Then they were gone and the mob swallowed Sunam up again.

  He didn’t know how long it took for him to get beyond the crowd. It was like wriggling through a tunnel blind. He did it person by person, pushing past one set of shoulders, then another and another. Their scents seemed to rub off on him, smells that lingered in his nose long after he had left them behind. Drenched in sweat and shivering, he stumbled his way out. The sound of the police sirens, people hooting and shouting, receded so gradually that he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it went away. Even after he faded into normal pedestrian traffic, he still sensed the roil of the horde as if they were pushed close behind him.

  At the first empty alley, Sunam sat down and fumbled for a cigarette. He lit it with shaking hands and inhaled deeply, feeling the hot smoke travel down his chest. He finished it and lit a second, hoping that the fire and nicotine would spur him to go back and fulfill Juno’s ridiculous task. He smoked it down to the last bit, his fingers pinched tight against his lips, but it was the same. No epiphanies, no new courage.

  Slowly he got to his feet. Juno would be waiting. Going back empty-handed was like delivering a resignation letter wh
en he desperately wanted the job. But not to show up at all—that was the ultimate cowardly act. To explain about the jacket would be just an excuse and make him look weak besides. He had failed. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault, that it might have been impossible to do what Juno had asked. He already knew his sunbae was interested only in sending him on impossible errands, apparently to see how he coped with the humiliation of failure. There was no need to demean himself further with sad stories.

  Sunam flicked the cigarette into the gutter and tucked in his shirt.

  “Wait,” a voice hissed from deep in the alley. “Don’t go.” Sunam looked behind him but saw nothing. He felt a queasy flicker of doubt—was he hearing things?

  Then he saw her.

  A young woman crouched behind a battered wooden pallet. She was barefoot and her khaki pants were shredded at the knees. Sunam saw a smear of blood on her bare shoulder. No shirt. He realized she must be one of the factory girls, escaped from the riot. She had somehow made it all the way out here in the initial chaos but could go no farther without attracting dangerous attention.

  “Please help me.” She was as small as a child, her body narrow enough to hide behind a box. She had the uncanny look of a hungry cat. Wide, unblinking eyes, as fierce as they were frightened. Warily he watched her, as if she might spring. She was as light as air. She could cover the distance between them in a single leap, disappear like a mirage. She said, her hands fluttering over the sharp ridge of her collarbones, “Please. If you could give me—I mean, I need—”

  “How did you even get here?” he interrupted. They were at least five blocks from the factory.

  “I ran.” She had a gulping way of speaking that made her words sound swallowed rather than spoken. Glancing at him, she gave her head a slight shake as if he had asked her a confusing question. “Are they looking for me?”