The Owl Cries, page 19
The last part was interesting. It was about poisonous plants that actively defend themselves by generating substances deadly to animals. Seong-su read this with great attention. Usually, these were herbaceous plants that didn’t live longer than a year. Once injured by a predator, herbaceous plants had no way of preserving their seeds, and so taking an active defense was their only option. Woody plants, which lived for many years, could afford to take an occasional hit, as they always had the next year to catch up, but annuals weren’t afforded that chance. Toxicity, therefore, was a means of survival.
The book took a particular interest in Claviceps purpurea, a parasitic ergot fungus that grew on rye and other grasses. The fungus resembled a stark black grain and was seen only in winter. The book cited a case of ergot poisoning in a country in Europe in the 1950s. Rye millers and bakers had ignored warnings that the village’s rye was contaminated and baked bread from it anyway, after which fifty or so of the villagers who’d eaten large amounts of the bread exhibited signs of mental derangement. The afflicted experienced terrible hallucinations, laughed and cried uncontrollably, vomited and seized, and continued to suffer from painful spasms and convulsions when they sought bed rest. A few cried out that they were trapped inside the bodies of snakes. One was hospitalized only to tear his way out of a straitjacket seven times, break the leather straps that bound him to his hospital bed, leap from a third-story window, and run away on a broken leg. The symptoms were caused by vasoconstriction brought on by ergot poisoning; without treatment, gangrene set in, leading to the loss of fingers and toes, or an entire hand or foot. C. purpurea grew well in damp places with lots of rain and warm days, conditions that forests were eager to meet.
A passage about lumberjack deaths had caught Seong-su’s eye. A scholar had theorized that the high rate of fatalities among lumberjacks could have been caused by alkaloid- or ergot-induced hallucinations. Judging by the damage found on corpses, the scholar strongly suspected that the lumberjacks hadn’t been crushed by falling trees or fatally wounded by errant saws but rather that they had turned their saws on each other and driven up their own death rate while under the influence of violent hallucinations.
As he read this, Seong-su felt an intense sense of déjà vu. Wasn’t that what had happened to him as he was beating the ranger? He had felt a cold dread come over him, like a snake climbing his body, and had swung wildly at everything he saw. It had happened while cutting trees, too, when he’d swung his axe over and over without a hint of pain, as if lost in a vision. But Seong-su knew damn well that what had kept him so enraptured back then was booze, not drugs.
To keep the book from prying eyes, Seong-su slipped it into a stack of other books stashed under the counter. He’d had no intention of selling it to Ha-in, but the man never returned to the bookstore anyway.
Seong-su heard the news about Ha-in from an unexpected source. He was closing up for the day when An-nam dropped by, the side of his jacket bulging. When Seong-su looked pointedly at the bulge, An-nam patted it proudly and pulled out a liquor bottle with shaking hands. He was already drunk.
“What’s going on? Who’s watching your bar?” Seong-su had asked.
“Tch, who cares? The bar can watch itself. I’m more worried about you, trapped in here day after day. Have a drink with me.”
“I was thinking to myself all evening how nice it’d be to have someone to talk to. Wouldn’t mind being able to drink, too.”
“So you do miss drinking.”
“Sure, but it passes. You drink. I can get drunk by pretending to drink.”
“What the fuck does that mean? Getting drunk without drinking? You were never like that before.”
“You stop after one bottle now, too. Hell, one glass seems bad enough for you.”
“True, true. And why wouldn’t it be? One glass is risky. If I have another, I’ll be completely drunk. But seriously, I wonder what would happen to you now if you were to drink. I mean, you already know what happens when I’m drunk.”
“That’s because you always ended up wasted before me, no matter how much I used to drink.”
“Used to, as in you really don’t drink anymore? At all?”
“Yeah, I don’t drink anymore at all.”
“Tch, since that night?” An-nam asked, sucking his tooth.
“Huh?”
“That’s when you quit drinking?”
Seong-su knew which night An-nam was talking about. After that night, Seong-su had quit alcohol entirely, whereas An-nam had started drinking more, even while at work.
“Where should we go?” Seong-su asked.
“Doesn’t matter. But there is one place we better avoid.”
“Where’s that?”
“My place. My wife will ruin the mood with her nagging.”
“Good point. And it’s nothing but booze over there. No way you’ll stop at one bottle. All right, let’s hang out here then. I’ll grab some chairs.”
Seong-su turned off all the lights except for one near the counter. They brought out two folding chairs and sat side by side facing the street. An-nam drank a glass, then pointed at the road.
“That’s where it happened.”
“Where what happened?”
“I figured you didn’t know. How would you, shut up in your bookstore all day? Can’t imagine anyone comes in here, either. It’s been nearly two weeks since it happened.”
“Since what happened? Does anything happen anymore that’s worth talking about?”
“Tch! Still no word from your wife, huh? If she were here, you’d have heard about it.”
“You know as well as I do that nothing a woman ever says is worth listening to. All they do is nag.”
“And there’s nothing as fast as a woman when it comes to spreading gossip.”
“So what juicy gossip did I miss out on?”
“The news of that guy dying,” An-nam said calmly.
Seong-su had never talked to An-nam about “that guy” but a well-developed intuition told him immediately who An-nam was referring to.
“How?”
“Traffic accident.”
“Huh.”
“Hit-and-run. They say it was a truck.”
“Trucks are all anyone drives out here.”
Seong-su leaned back in his chair. An-nam lifted his glass. His breathing sounded rough, and his hands were shaking. Seong-su didn’t have to look hard to see the shaking was bad. He wondered whether it was the alcohol or “that guy’s” death.
“I hate this place.”
An-nam tried to force a smile, but it only made his grimace worse.
“They say he was determined to find his older brother.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Tch. Ha-gyeong. She was shocked when she found out. Said they were supposed to have dinner together. She thought he’d be here longer. Well, look at me, blaming women for gossip when I’m the one sharing it.”
“What’s it to Ha-gyeong?”
“You know she’s nice to anyone who isn’t from here. She says her dream is to marry an outsider and get the hell out of here.”
“Some dream. What’d the cops say?”
“Hit-and-run, end of story.”
“Who reported it?”
“Mr. Jin.”
The two men stared at each other in the dim glow of the single lamp. The lines of their faces looked crushed and blurred in the darkness. Seong-su quietly brought his glass up to his mouth and wet his lips. He didn’t realize it, but his hands were shaking badly, too. An-nam grimaced in the dark. Seong-su had no idea what An-nam was thinking. But then, An-nam had no idea what he himself was thinking, either.
22
His son wasn’t answering. Chang-gi Choi was counting the rings. He would hang up when he reached thirty. He would have to. Because his tooth was starting to ache. He unclenched his hand from the phone and pressed it against his cheek. That helped a little. It had been a long time since his son answered his calls. For all he knew, he might’ve changed his number. But whether his son answered or not changed nothing. He would try again tomorrow and again the next day. Every single day. Until a recorded voice told him the number was no longer in service. Until it became obvious that his son had decided to hide from him. His son thought Chang-gi had neglected his sick mother, had caused her premature death. That was unfair, but he had no defense. On top of which, he was more than a father to his son. He was also a mountain of debt.
And yet, he continued to call, to remind himself that he had someone outside of this village. He had a place he could run to. His son was his hometown.
But wait. Did he really think that? What a joke. He’d lived in this town longer now than in the place he was born. He’d settled here after turning twenty and watched as this village of nothing but trees slowly turned into a village of people, watched the research center being built, the little shops open up, and the residents flock in. Other than the few days he’d spent burying his parents, he’d never slept anywhere but here.
Chang-gi opened the door of his dry cleaning shop, stood on the threshold, and looked out at the street. The clouds had loomed overhead all day as if ready to pelt down snow, but it refused to fall. How awful would the snowfall be this time, considering how it was dragging its feet to get here? Most years, the clouds would hem and haw only to unleash a blizzard that would last for over ten days. This year was shaping up to be the same. The wind must have been blowing toward the forest; he couldn’t smell the gas from the filling station next door. It had been out of business for a long time, but it never stopped reeking of gas. Chang-gi pretended not to know that the smell was actually coming from the enormous dry cleaning machine in his own shop.
He took another look at the dark woods and the deserted row of shops before locking the door. He turned off all the lights. Anyone looking from outside would think he’d closed early and turned in. Not that there was anyone to look from the outside.
He loved the winds that carried the scent of the trees and forest. He also loved the villagers who walked the streets like ghosts, their faces as singed-looking as the trees. He loved the nights when he still had dreams that left him feeling like he’d been left behind in the woods. It made him feel like he was encountering his own intact self inside a nightmare. The dreams he had while napping during the day were not much different. In his dreams, he was always abandoned, surrounded by tall trees that towered so high above him he couldn’t see the tops. The forest was as cramped and quiet as an amniotic sac around an embryo. It was soft and wet. So tender and cozy he wanted to never wake up.
Ever since coming down out of the forest that night, he had never gone back. If Chang-gi had one regret, it was that he hadn’t left right away for another city, for where his son was living. If he hadn’t stayed at Mr. Jin’s house that day, would it have been easier to make a different choice? Of course, this was only hypothetical. He would never have been able to leave for another town on his own. It would have meant leaving his world behind. And Chang-gi was unquestionably a coward.
They had gotten disoriented when they were walking out of the forest for the last time. It was inevitable. Because they’d never walked in the woods like that before—hearts racing and in a hurry. As they began to go off track, they became convinced they were hopelessly lost. The very idea of people like them getting lost in the woods left them flustered. They’d worked for more than twenty years in that forest. They’d chopped down trees with double-headed axes at least twelve inches across from blade-tip to blade-tip. Their every move clinked with the chainsaws, hatchets, and felling wedges strung from their leather belts. Chang-gi was small but thick-necked. The perfect build for swinging an axe. He hadn’t chopped down a tree in over a decade, but his forearms still rippled with muscle, each bulge testifying to just how much time he’d spent with axe in hand.
They could never enter the woods again. Not ever. They especially couldn’t be caught there alone after dark. They knew the woods by day as well as their own faces but knew nothing of them by night. It was a mystery. Despite all the time they’d spent there. On the rare occasion night fell while they were still at work, they would set out booze and snacks on the stump of a tree they’d felled that day and sit around it drinking until they were good and drunk and falling asleep.
Lost, they’d leaned against trees in the dark. The thick bark was familiar at least. They’d chopped down countless trees. They would first cut a notch in the trunk, then another, and they would continue chipping away at that first notch until it was time to swing hard, bringing their shoulders all the way back and releasing their full force. Next came the chainsaws. But they prided themselves on their ability to cut a notch, drive in a wedge, and fell a tree with just an axe.
They were forced to accept that, in the twelve years since they’d left the forest, the trees had become a maze and a trap and a pit for them. To those unfamiliar with the woods, a forest wasn’t nature, wasn’t their natural environment. Every step they took, they concentrated on feeling their way with their toes. Roots tangled with branches and wrapped around their legs like snares. They measured every step as if crossing on stepping-stones.
They’d endured this sort of thing for countless hours in the woods. And yet, when they’d returned at night, the woods were as unfamiliar and terrifying as if they were entering them for the first time in their lives. They kept gazing up at the dark sky, kept their guards up. Having spent their lives in the forest, they knew that death usually came from above. A movement originating at the base would grow more apparent as it traveled up the trunk, while the top of the tree told them everything they needed to know about which direction it was going. Just seeing them stare in vain at the tops of trees they hadn’t even notched betrayed how much they were trembling with fear.
When they were ready to give up entirely, what appeared before them wasn’t a way out. It was Mr. Jin. They didn’t find Mr. Jin. Mr. Jin found them, lost and wandering. They were discovered by him. Mr. Jin rescued them. In a word, they were “alive” thanks to him.
Mr. Jin was there when they’d first entered the woods thirty years ago and when they left the woods for the last time. No one else knew the woods as well as he. And they knew it, too. One of them had burst into tears when Mr. Jin appeared. That was An-nam. An-nam had wept like a baby.
It wasn’t the only time he’d helped put them on the path. He’d done as much twelve years ago. He had found new lives for them when they’d left logging behind. At least, that was how Chang-gi saw it. Because Chang-gi had put down his cold axe and picked up a hot iron. Because instead of a forest of trees, he spent his days in a forest of clothing. Because instead of the smell of trees, grasses, bushes, and decaying soil, he breathed in the smell of dry cleaning chemicals and the steam from the heated iron.
Everything had changed so much that they were unaware a new life wasn’t found the way one finds a house or a job or new clothes. They didn’t know that what they lost that day wasn’t their way but their lives. Now Chang-gi sort of knew, a little. Not that knowing made any difference. He had too many years behind him to care about things like new lives. He was old, old enough to hope his life going forward would hold nothing new. He was only in his late fifties, but he’d already caught himself thinking he had nothing left to do but wait for death.
Chang-gi was just stepping into the room in the back of his shop when he heard a sharp knock at the glass door. He stared at the people standing outside in the dark. That was one good thing about getting old. He was less afraid. There were fewer things to be afraid of. He had a pretty good idea of who all was out there, but even if they’d been strangers, he still wouldn’t have been afraid.
Chang-gi walked slowly to the front door. With each step he took, the plastic-wrapped clothes hanging from the ceiling rustled. The dark shadows outside his window did not sway or budge.
23
An-nam Lee, Chang-gi Choi, and Seong-su Han were all from different parts of the country but had moved to the village around the same time. Not a single one of them was born there. And yet none of them regaled the others with stories of their hometowns or their childhoods or the circumstances that had brought them there. Whenever they got together, they could talk nonstop and yet somehow never breathe a word of where they came from.
If Chang-gi had to choose one reason for coming to this village, it would be his father. His father handled metal. That was how Chang-gi remembered him. But he was no blacksmith or tanner. Chang-gi’s father was a laundryman. The only metal he handled was an iron. But ironing wasn’t all he did. His father also mended clothes. Back then, there was more mending than ironing to be done. His father spent more time frowning as he threaded a needle no thicker than a hair than he did gripping an iron puffing with steam. And yet, whenever he pictured his father, the first image he saw wasn’t his stony face or the white hair that covered his head but rather that hot triangle of iron. It was his father’s only weapon and was therefore everything. Chang-gi’s right arm bore scars from that iron. Most of the scars had started with Changgi’s own mischief, but he remembered them as coming from his father.
His unreliable memory made him swear he would leave his father someday, and sure enough, the opportunity presented itself. By the time he made the decision to leave home, his father was no longer a terrifying enough presence to keep him under his thumb. The strength that used to fill his father like steam inside an iron had all dissipated, and his once deep, powerful voice had grown as thin as a needle. Around the same time, the girl Chang-gi had been madly in love with married his best friend instead. Chang-gi had been jilted by his girlfriend and betrayed by his friend. That left him without a single other person in his hometown whom he had any desire to see. He had no regrets about leaving.
An-nam had arrived here with his wife. When she ran away with him, she was still married to another man. The wife’s husband was a hothead who never minced words. When he found out his wife was sleeping with An-nam, he took immediate action and pressed charges against both of them. He had no fear of involving the police and invoking the criminal laws against adultery. An-nam and his wife fled with only the clothes on their backs. Luckily for them, there was a wallet in the pocket of the coat his wife happened to be wearing, and inside that wallet was cash she had stolen from the man she was married to on paper. They used the cash to get as far away as possible for as long as possible. That was this village.
