Black Flower Read online

  When the day’s work had ended and it grew dark, the shaman packed some corn pancakes and cabbage kimchi and secretly climbed over the hacienda wall. He walked thirty minutes to a ramshackle hut that was used for quarantining the sick. A stench wafted out from the hut, which was barely sturdy enough to withstand a stiff wind. “Hey, Mr. Bak.” He went inside to find Bak Gwangsu Paul lying on a mat, sunken-eyed. The shaman slowly raised him, offered him food, and said, “Do you intend to die in a foreign land?” Bak Gwangsu shook his head to say that he wasn’t hungry, but then he ate a bit of the cabbage kimchi. “What’s that?” The shaman pointed at a small mound of earth in the field, and Bak Gwangsu laughed, saying, “Do you know what I did for the first time since I came here?” The shaman narrowed his eyes. “So you buried a dead body. But with what?” Bak Gwangsu lifted his hands and laughed weakly.

  “You had no choice,” the shaman said. “You couldn’t very well sleep among rotting corpses.” He looked blankly at Bak Gwangsu. “Still the same as always?” “Yes. I cannot do anything because I have no strength in my hands, and there is not a spot on my body that doesn’t hurt, but then again it’s not a fatal illness. I can’t sleep at night. I see too many things. When I close my eyes, everything turns white. It feels like someone is gnawing away at my bones.”

  The shaman grimaced and closed his eyes. “That’s why you need to listen to me. There is no other choice. I don’t do this because I want to either. But there is no other way.” Bak Gwangsu shook his head. “I cannot do that.” But the shaman pressed him: “Why on earth can’t you?” After a long silence, Bak Gwangsu opened his mouth. “I was a Catholic priest.” There was little change in the shaman’s expression; he didn’t understand what difference that made. That put Bak Gwangsu at ease. The shaman said, “No one knows. The spirit just comes. You cannot resist him. You’ll die. You have no choice but to receive him. The spirit says he wants to come in, so you have no choice, do you?”

  The shaman left and Bak Gwangsu’s suffering continued. When night fell, a woman came. She was not from Buena Vista hacienda. “Who are you?” The woman wordlessly prepared a table for him. She fried a yellow corvina and laid it on white rice. Next to that she put crunchy cabbage kimchi, red chili pepper paste, unripe chili peppers, pickled oysters, pickled clams, and steamed crab. Bak Gwangsu glanced at the woman as he wolfed down the food. It was a table of which he could only have dreamt. He dug into the yellow corvina and grabbed a large, steaming chunk of its white flesh with his chopsticks. The woman went outside to boil water in the rice pot. He called out to her, “Mom?” The woman laughed and shook her head. “Do you not know me?” Bak Gwangsu, now full, slowly examined the woman’s face. She set down the tray with the boiled rice water on it and sat quietly next to him. He gripped the woman’s wrist; it was warm and comfortable, an indescribably pleasant feeling. He closed his eyes. Far away, he saw a single tree. “Let us meet there.” He ran with all his might. From the great spirit tree, which grew clearer in the early dawn mist, something large hung and swayed, like a branch that had been struck and split by lightning. He realized what it was. Suddenly a pain like a squeezing of his limbs washed over him. Here was the woman who had hanged herself, the woman who had become a young widow at the age of twenty and who whirled about him every night. He did not understand. Early one morning, she had invited him to the entrance of a foggy village and showed him her corpse, though he had done nothing wrong. Had she waited, weaving her web, just to show him that? The absurdity of it took his breath away. It was like a trap that God had prepared to test and punish him. The judgment had already been handed down when he had succumbed to temptation. Perhaps everything that had happened after that was the tedious process of carrying out the judgment that had been handed down.

  Time passed by again in a flash, and twelve spirits galloped on horseback into his hut, waving swords and flags. On another day, an old man appeared and fed him, but when he received the food he went up to heaven and shared it with the birds and beasts. Finally, the horrible shamaness from Gomso Ferry appeared, thundering, “It is no use to run away. I chose you not because I liked you, but because I needed your body. Now I have come for it!” The religion that had saved him when he fled from Gomso Ferry had no satisfying reply to a situation like this. At last, his eyes met those of the woman who had hung like a fruit. He recoiled in fright and opened his eyes. There was nothing in the dank and gloomy hut. No yellow corvina, no beautiful woman.

  A few days later, the shaman, with a few dozen others, came to see Bak Gwangsu. To avoid being seen, they arrived after midnight. They took a great risk to witness the curious sight of the shaman presiding over the initiation ritual of another shaman. They had bribed the Mayan guards and made sure that Choe Seongil was asleep. They had also found out that Ignacio Velásquez had gone to Mérida and was not returning that night. Many people from nearby haciendas, including several musicians, had heard about the ritual and flocked to the hut. Among them was the eunuch Kim Okseon, who had grown very gaunt over the past three years. He said he would play the flute. Made from some unknown Mexican grass, his flute produced a sound similar to that of a Korean flute. If one listened closely, the high notes brought to mind a Korean small horn. Someone else brought a double-headed Mexican drum made of cowhide, so it was a proper ritual to a certain extent.

  The initiation took place in the yard in front of the hut, in the middle of an abandoned wasteland where even henequen did not grow. The land stretched out in all directions, with no mountains or rivers, and the ritual lasted for over five hours. The musicians and the shaman had never practiced together in their lives, but they performed in time with each other as if they had been a team all along. The palace eunuch, the spirit-possessed shaman from Incheon, and the leader of a folk percussion troupe from a mountain village played the flute, danced, and beat the drum for the former priest. The women, tired from their hard labor, surrendered themselves to the familiar melody that ran through their veins and to the rhythm that was engraved on their bones. In an instant, the yard was swept up in a carnival-like frenzy that transcended nationality. Laughing and crying as if mad, the women danced and the men drank for the whole five hours. Bak Gwangsu lost his senses. Like one in a trance, he did what the shaman said, undressing if he was told to undress and dressing if he was told to dress, standing up when he was told to stand up and sitting down when he was told to sit down. At the end, the vision that came to Bak Gwangsu was, strangely enough, a white horse. The white horse galloped toward him from the distant horizon and swallowed him. He immediately came out again and rode the white horse, carrying a red flag and a white flag. And he shouted, “I am the white horse general!”

  This was the spirit that the shamaness of Gomso Ferry had served. Suddenly, between visions, the groundless certainty that the shamaness of Gomso Ferry had finally died flashed into Bak Gwangsu’s mind and then disappeared.

  57

  IT WAS LATE AT NIGHT by the time Gwon Yongjun and Yi Yeonsu arrived at the port of Veracruz. They found a room in an inn near the train station. Gwon Yongjun, who had so much luggage that he had to hire a porter, felt good at the thought of leaving this loathsome land. He was also happy to be taking Yeonsu with him. He went down to the bar on the first floor of the inn and drank rum. He offered some to Yeonsu, but she refused. He drank one glass after another. When the sailors next to him sang a song from their hometown, Gwon Yongjun sang a song from his. He bought them a bottle of rum and they applauded him.

  Yeonsu helped him back to their room and he fell fast asleep. Yeonsu took off his clothes. She neatly folded his shirt and pants and put them in her pack, then threw his socks and shoes out the window. She took about 50 pesos from his pocket. The rest of the money he kept in a money belt strapped to his waist, so she couldn’t take any of that. Still, Yeonsu had enough to return to Mérida and pay for her son Seobi’s release. She quietly opened the door and went downstairs, going out through the side door of the bar where the sailors were chattering. She mad
e her way down a dark alley and walked in a daze to the piers. She did not know when Gwon Yongjun might come after her. Her clothes were sure to catch people’s eyes. And she didn’t speak any Spanish.

  Yeonsu sat down on a bench by the street. Her legs hurt. She felt dizzy and hungry. A night watchman carrying a lamp glared at the first woman from Korea he had ever seen. She forced her sore body to rise and continued to walk toward the nearest pier. A savory aroma flowed out of a small alley nearby. It was a familiar smell. She turned her head. A red lantern hung in front of a restaurant. On the lantern were written familiar characters: “Cantonese Restaurant.” She pushed aside the red curtain before the door. Inside, an old Chinese man who looked as if he had once worn his hair in a pigtail, in the style of the Manchus, stared at her. Yeonsu could not understand his Chinese. In Chinese characters she wrote, “I’m hungry. Can I get something to eat?” They wrote back and forth for a moment and he disappeared. Soon he returned and served her hot rice and egg soup. She ate quickly, then a sudden fatigue washed over her. It was far too strong for her to resist. As soon as the owner came and cleared away the dishes, her head dropped onto the table.

  As if in a dream, she saw a man moving violently on top of her. But she could not lift a finger. Then everything went black again.

  Gwon Yongjun only realized what had happened when morning came. He was seized by rage and cursed his foolishness. She would go back to Yazche hacienda to find her son. Gwon Yongjun paid the innkeeper and called a tailor. When his suit was finished a few days later, he went to the train station and demanded a refund for his ticket. He was denied a refund. He hesitated for a moment. What good would it do to go back and kill her? He would spend the rest of his life in jail. And he wouldn’t be able to drag her back with him. That vicious woman. He poured out every curse he knew, and then he carefully searched the piers and the area around the station, just in case she was still in Veracruz. A few people said they had seen an Asian woman walking about alone. But no one knew where she had gone. A few days later, Gwon Yongjun boarded the train alone.

  He arrived in San Francisco and stayed a week. Boats to Yokohama were not frequent. A week was too long a time to spend in a harbor inn. Gwon Yongjun went to Chinatown. It looked as if one of the Chinese markets he had heard of from his father and older brothers had been transplanted to San Francisco. The streets were filled to the brim with old men who practiced augury based on birds, acupuncturists, vendors selling the feet of brown bears and the teeth of Siberian tigers, ducks tottering about with their legs tied to fire hydrants, and the smell of stir-fried vegetables and meat, the fragrant aroma of licorice root wafting from herb sellers’ stands, and the nauseating scent of incense. As Gwon Yongjun ventured deeper into the alleyways, a feeling of tranquility seized him. A woman approached and grabbed his arm. She wore a fragrance that he had inhaled long ago. Men lay in rows, sucking on pipes with their heads turned languidly to the side. Opium. Gwon Yongjun took off his clothes. A woman washed him with hot water and laid him on a bed. Then she lit the opium and handed it to him. It was truly a simple affair. Without taking a boat to Yokohama, he could immediately return to his homeland. He met his father and mother, and he met his older brothers too. He could see Yeonsu slowly sucking on his penis, reassuring him that they made the right choice in leaving.

  When he came to his senses, a toothless Chinese woman was kneeling and pouring tea. “Will you be going now?” she asked. Gwon Yongjun shook his head. Then he took a fistful of money from his pocket and gave it to her. “Let’s do it again.” The woman, whose feet had been bound when she was young, hurriedly shuffled out and returned with more opium. When Gwon Yongjun came to his senses again, the ship had departed. But he didn’t mind. This type of life was as comfortable to him as an old shoe. For the first time in a long while he thought of the cruel military officer in his uniform and smiled vaguely.

  When Yeonsu woke up she was not in the Chinese restaurant but in a large house. An old Chinese man she had never seen before took out a piece of paper and wrote that he needed a concubine to bear him a son. Yeonsu calmly wrote that she already had a husband and a son and was on her way to find them. The Chinese took out a document and showed it to her: it recorded in Chinese characters the sale of one woman, Yeonsu. The old man pushed some silk clothes toward her. But Yeonsu stubbornly shook her head.

  The old man forced himself on Yeonsu every night. But not once did he succeed in taking her. On some nights, two women would come in and hold down Yeonsu’s arms and legs. Even then the old Chinese could not enter her, and would collapse to the floor. The women beat Yeonsu until she was bruised and gave her tea when she woke. When Yeonsu drank the tea, she lost consciousness. It was like one long nightmare.

  When she opened her eyes again she was in another Chinese restaurant near the Veracruz piers. Her head hurt. The baggage she had brought with her was gone. A short, fat man stared at her when she woke. He laughed smugly and gave her Chinese women’s clothing to wear. Then he held out another document. Unbeknownst to her, she had become indebted to this man for 100 pesos, and so would have to work for him. “What sort of country buys and sells people like this?” she wrote. “You must have been sold here like me once. This is not fair.” At that, they took away the paper and pen and never gave her another. From that day on, Yeonsu worked all day in the kitchen and served food. It was a large restaurant. The owner’s sons watched her so that she would not escape, and when night fell they locked the door to her room.

  Most of the customers were Cantonese, and whenever they came they brought news. Through them, Yeonsu gradually learned about what was going on in the world. Her Cantonese improved more quickly than her Spanish. Seobi appeared before her eyes every night. She also wondered about Ijeong. Where might he be? She would have to return to the hacienda to find him, but she could come up with no way of leaving Veracruz. Gwon Yongjun was right: perhaps following him would have been the best thing to do. There were many days when she regretted her escape.

  From time to time she even missed her younger brother, who had made a name for himself as a talented interpreter; her powerless father, who had spent years with his hand to his brow; and her mother, who suffered from depression and dreamed only of suicide. Thankfully, the restaurant owner, Jien, had no designs on her body. He seemed to have bought her without that in mind. But his wife, who had borne him many sons, never took her eyes off the attractive nineteen-year-old Korean maiden. Yeonsu made several failed attempts to escape. The Veracruz police caught her a number of times and returned her to Jien.

  58

  WAITING FOR IJEONG after his escape were heat, thirst, and yet more haciendas. It was a long way to the United States. It took money to get from the Yucatán to the northern border. He worked at haciendas here and there to earn money, and used that money to move forward. Contracts were for at least six months, and the conditions were better than they had been in the Yucatán. This was because there was no money to be paid in advance to brokers. Ijeong worked on chicle and sugar cane haciendas, and sometimes on henequen haciendas.

  A few years later, he spread out a map of Mexico and calculated the speed at which he was advancing north. From Mérida to Ciudad Juárez, on the northern border, over four years he had gone 2,100 miles, which made it almost a mile and a half a day. During that time he met countless Mexicans. Life was pretty much the same everywhere: his people had been deluded to think that only the Koreans of the Yucatán were suffering. Petty farmers all across Mexico shared the same plight.

  Every time he arrived at a hacienda he sent letters. Jo Jangyun at Chenché sent a reply from time to time. But there were no replies from Yeonsu. Dolseok, who was still living at Yazche, didn’t know how to read. The amount of time that Ijeong spent writing letters gradually decreased. He began to wonder if his love had been betrayed. His doubts consumed him and he became a more cynical person.

  Having finally reached Ciudad Juárez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, he came up with a plan to cross int
o the United States. He was nothing more than a Mexican migrant worker with no entry visa. Crossing the border would be no easy task. He had to make doubly sure of everything. At one point he had procured from Jo Jangyun the address of an organization in Los Angeles called the Korean National Association of North America. As soon as he reached the border city, he sent a letter to them. A reply arrived immediately. They said that since the contracts for the Koreans in Mexico were nearing their end, they had been about to send two representatives to help resolve any legal problems. They would go straight to Ciudad Juárez, so he should wait there.

  A month later, two men came to see Ijeong. One of them was Hwang Sayong and the other was Bang Hwajung. The two wore black suits and had their hair cut short, parted neatly and oiled. Bang Hwajung was an evangelist, and Hwang Sayong was in charge of affairs for the Korean National Association.

  “The contracts end in one month, right?” asked Hwang Sayong. Ijeong was momentarily stunned. Had it been that long? “What is the situation like in the Yucatán?” asked Bang Hwajung.

  “It’s been over three years since I left, so I don’t know what the situation is like now, but when we first arrived it was horrible beyond compare.” Ijeong showed them his cracked hands. “This is life on the haciendas. It is not only a problem in the Yucatán. There is no hope in Mexico. Only the hacendados fill their bellies, while the rest of the citizens suffer from hunger and hard labor. The citizens of this country are suffering, so there is no room for foreigners like us to squeeze in. We came to the wrong place.”