The Owl Cries, page 8
“Tch. How do you know?”
“It’s printed on the sign outside.”
To keep up a façade of ignorance, An-nam hurriedly lowered his head and returned to mopping, pushing the mop with great precision as if it had to be completed immediately.
“Couldn’t you serve me something anyway?”
An-nam stopped mopping again and stared at Ha-in, waiting for him to plead a little more. Even with his mouth closed, there seemed to be an audible tch of An-nam clucking his tongue.
“I’m hungry,” Ha-in added. “I’m dizzy from skipping lunch.”
“Tch. Sorry, but this is my break time. I have to rest now if I want to keep the place open all night.”
“Just something simple, like a dinner roll, would do.”
“You can buy that at the grocery store. It’s not far.”
“I thought about going there, but I would have to eat outside, standing on the sidewalk. It’s a little cold for that. You can see for yourself that I’m so weak from skipping a meal I’m barely able to stand.”
An-nam studied the face of the person Chang-gi had referred to only as “that guy.” He did indeed look like he was on the verge of collapsing.
“You really don’t mind if it’s simple?”
“Is it a sandwich?”
“Yes, it is.”
“As luck would have it, that’s just what I was craving.”
“No fries or soup, though.”
“A sandwich would be plenty.”
“But I still have to charge you for the set.”
“Please do so.”
“Hang on.”
An-nam woke his wife, who was resting in the room off the kitchen. She vented her displeasure at this, but when An-nam’s expression didn’t yield, she went into the kitchen, grumbling the whole time.
“This building looks like it’s been around quite a while. The interior is so classic and well-maintained.”
“We opened it twelve years ago. Why? You interested in running a bar?”
“I have no knack for business. Did you live here before that?”
“Of course. Tch! About thirty years now.”
“Thirty years? What was it like back then?”
“There was only the research center. It wasn’t as big as it is now. First they built the road, then the shops, and then more people moved in. Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious what you would have done for work around here, thirty years ago.”
“There’s always one way or another to make a living.”
“That’s true. With a forest this big, how could you not find work? A lot of people work in the forest, right?”
“Everyone here does. Where else would they work?”
“But isn’t there also someone who keeps others from going into the forest? Like a ranger?”
An-nam looked “that guy” dead in the face. Why the hell was he asking him that? He shoved his hands into his pockets. By now his hands would be shaking badly or losing their grip on whatever he was trying to hold. He didn’t want Ha-in to see his hands shake.
“I suppose. I wouldn’t know, as I don’t actually go in there myself.”
“Why not?”
“You have no idea how much work tending a bar is, do you? This is the only time I get to take a break, and yet there’s always someone coming around demanding to be fed.”
“Well, they do say you serve the best food in the village.”
“At least someone knows what they’re talking about.”
“It was Ha-gyeong Jin.”
“Ha-gyeong Jin?”
“Yes.”
“You two must be close.”
“Only close enough to have talked about where to find a decent meal or cup of coffee. She mentioned a lot of the locals come here. Usually, the best places are the ones recommended by people you know.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“Does the forest ranger eat here, too?”
“Nope. Maybe he only eats at home. I’ve never met him. He doesn’t come here, and I don’t go there.”
“He said he started two weeks ago.”
“Has it already been two weeks? I’d heard he just moved in.”
“What about the ranger who worked there before him?”
“Before him?”
“Yes.”
An-nam kept his eyes fixed on Ha-in. Assuming he’d asked Chang-gi the same questions, he would have gotten the same answers. In fact, no matter who he asked, he would have heard the same thing. They would all have said that they’d never met the previous ranger. Any answer beyond that would be limited to something like, they’d seen the man but didn’t remember what he looked like.
“All I knew was that there was a ranger. But I never met him because he never came by here. You should ask at the research center. This falls under their jurisdiction.”
“I guess the previous ranger didn’t spend much time eating out or going for drinks.”
“He was probably very frugal and healthy. Because he never came here.”
“And you never bumped into him anywhere else? No memory of what he might’ve looked like?”
“This isn’t exactly the kind of town where you just bump into new people. Unless they’re coming here for a drink.”
“Do the tree cutters come here often?”
“You mean the loggers?”
“Yes.”
“Well, getting drunk every day is all they do.”
“They don’t work?”
“It’s not logging season. When it is, they eat and sleep under the trees, so we don’t see them in here drinking. But right now, their job is basically to get drunk. There’s nothing else to do out here.”
“There must be a lot of them here at night, then.”
“If there were, I’d be rich already, wouldn’t I? A lot of them eat and drink at home or in their lodgings instead.”
“Would you mind taking a look at this photo?”
“Who am I looking at?”
“My older brother.”
An-nam looked at the face that Ha-in was pointing to in the photo and swallowed hard. He feared “that guy” might have noticed that his Adam’s apple was trembling. The thought of it made his hands shake, too.
He knew he should keep his mouth shut. If he said anything at all, the tremor in his voice would betray him. His next words were going to be that he didn’t recognize the face in the photo. That much, at least, was true. He could no longer remember the face. He had no memory whatsoever of how tall or short the man was, how big or small, what his voice had sounded like, whether he’d been a big drinker or not. What he did remember about the forest ranger was not his face but his two violently trembling legs. The legs that had folded up like a bug’s to try to fend off the beating. When he’d grabbed those legs to pull them straight, his hands weren’t shaking like this, his sweat hadn’t poured out of him nonstop. He’d done it with relative calm. Though, in hindsight, he might have revised his memory of it over the years.
An-nam avoided having to say anything at all by turning to look toward the kitchen to see if Ha-in’s food was ready yet. Chang-gi had told him “that guy” was a lawyer. It was true that the word “lawyer” had made An-nam a little nervous. His first thought was that someone in the village had lawyered up. He tried to imagine what could have happened for someone to hire a defense lawyer and felt overcome with a vague sense of dread. But now that he knew the lawyer was the forest ranger’s younger brother, his fear quickly faded. If he was that coward’s younger brother, then Ha-in was bound to be a coward himself. An-nam regretted not having disguised his nervousness better.
But with a lawyer, there was always the risk they would use the power of the law to force answers to their questions or compel the authorities to dig for information. And Ha-in was not only a lawyer but also the ranger’s family. He could step up and do his own digging. An-nam’s palms began to sweat. Had he still been holding the photo, he definitely would have dropped it.
“Sandwich.”
An-nam’s wife’s voice floated over from the kitchen. He’d never been so happy to hear her voice before. Usually, he felt like she was only there to spy on him all day, a sensation that left him constantly on edge and sometimes made him hate her for no reason. He was convinced this was the real reason she insisted on working in the kitchen in the first place. But in that moment he was grateful for her presence. He rushed over to the kitchen and brought the sandwich to Ha-in’s table.
“Enjoy.”
“Hold on, ” Ha-in said, stopping An-nam before he could walk away. Slowly, An-nam turned to face him. The fact that he was a lawyer refused to fade from An-nam’s thoughts and left him feeling as nervous as if he were on the witness stand.
“I’d like a beer, too.”
An-nam’s face relaxed.
“Tch. No problem.”
As he walked away, he heard Ha-in take a bite of the sandwich. He brought him a beer and returned to his low stool behind the counter. His hand reached out in a familiar direction. He poured himself a shot of alcohol without looking, his gaze alternating between the back room where his wife rested and the front of the house where Ha-in ate. Pouring a shot without looking was a piece of cake to him now. He threw back the shot. The heat of the alcohol traveled the length of his throat and spread to the ends of his body. The ordinary, everyday sound of Ha-in eating his sandwich and drinking his beer put An-nam’s mind at ease. Everything was okay, for now at least. Because Ha-in was filling his stomach and he was filling his heart one small shot at a time. Because that’s all there was.
9
Ha-in Lee was four beers in before the first customers showed up, but soon enough the place was half full. Men went there not because they had plans to meet but because they knew that, simply by showing up, they would have someone to drink with. It appeared that way, at any rate, based on how each customer coming through the door sat with the first person they made eye contact with and began drinking. And yet, despite this, the place wasn’t loud or rowdy, as if the men had swapped far too many stories already and now had nothing left to talk about.
Ha-in saw An-nam pouring himself shots from the bottle he kept hidden below the counter. He could tell that An-nam had been in the habit of drinking this way for a long time now, based on the way he pretended not to notice Ha-in whenever their eyes met. Having decided to watch the villagers drink for the first and last time, Ha-in figured it was as good a night as any to have a drink, too, maybe even get a little bit tipsy. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed he ought to drink. After all, you couldn’t throw a funeral for someone without alcohol. Even if that funeral were only taking place in your mind.
“Sorry I’m late. I’m Jin.”
Standing before Ha-in was a small man with a reedy voice. For some reason Ha-in had pictured him as tall and heavyset, with a deep voice.
Mr. Jin sat down and took a quick look around the bar. Each time one of the men met his eye, they greeted him with a quick, humorless nod. An-nam brought a liquor bottle to their table, though Mr. Jin hadn’t summoned him. The bottle was half empty; Ha-in assumed An-nam kept this bottle on reserve for Mr. Jin.
“You specialize in family law?”
Mr. Jin opened the conversation by implying that he already knew about Ha-in, to some degree at least. Ha-in was familiar with people like Mr. Jin. The type who don’t bother to hide that they’re in control.
“It’s a small town,” Mr. Jin added. “Word gets around. A gentleman like you wouldn’t know any of the drunks in here, but they all know you. That said, I don’t rely on rumors. I heard about you from Ha-gyeong and read about you in In-su’s work log.”
“He did say he updates it daily.”
“I started it as a way of supervising things, since I can’t be there in person every day.”
“How long have you been keeping that log?”
“Since In-su started.”
“Do you know Gyeong-in Lee?”
Ha-in knew it was a bad move to toss a name out first like that. But Mr. Jin was so plainspoken he couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“Gyeong-in Lee . . . Gyeong-in Lee . . . I can’t place the name.”
“He was the previous ranger. Timewise, he would have worked here right before In-su Park started.”
“Before In-su, the post was vacant for a very long time. There wasn’t exactly any need for a ranger then.”
“How long was it vacant?”
“We stopped filling the position after the forest was closed to visitors. I’d say for about two and a half years, give or take.”
“That’s strange. According to Ha-gyeong Jin, that position has always been filled. She didn’t even know that the person had changed recently.”
“That’s because Ha-gyeong is a pencil pusher. Most likely the very first ranger is still listed in the personnel records as working there.”
“Why might that be?”
“That’s a difficult question to answer with any precision, owing to the personal circumstances of the rangers who were hired after him. To put it briefly, there’s a lot of red tape. We’ve had applicants who were perfectly capable of doing the work but didn’t have a college degree or, worse, had criminal records. I personally find it deplorable not to offer those people a second chance at life.” “So where is the person who’s listed on paper as the ranger?”
“He has a different position now.”
“They can just switch jobs like that?”
“We need as many people as we can get who know the forest.”
“I guess you don’t feel obligated to follow the rules when it comes to managing personnel.”
“It’s completely out of my hands, but yes, I’ve been told repeatedly that if we’re ever audited, it would not escape scrutiny.”
“If the position was left vacant, where did the monthly salary go?”
“We put it toward other forestry management expenses. It takes quite a bit of money to maintain these woods. Though that, too, could be a problem for us if we’re ever audited.”
“Why suddenly hire In-su Park to fill the spot?”
“The forest was temporarily reopened, which meant we started getting more visitors.”
“A lot of visitors?”
“A fair amount on the weekends. This forest is quite famous for its Geumgang pines.”
“Even in winter?”
“On warm weekends, yes, we get the occasional hiker. But more importantly, we needed to hire someone now so they would have the hang of things by spring, when the hikers start showing up in droves.”
Ha-in pictured the car that had been heading down the mountain the first time he visited the ranger station.
“So the ranger’s job is to keep people out.”
“In a word, yes.”
“I understand you were also in charge of managing the loggers. Can you recall whether any of them was named Gyeong-in?”
“The loggers change frequently. This forest is very old. You can’t cut these trees down with machines, like what you see on TV. Almost all of the work is done the old way, by hand, which makes it very difficult and impossible to do long-term. Even though I’m personally in charge of the loggers, there’ve been so many that I can’t possibly remember all their names. In fact, I don’t even bother to call them by their given names anymore. Most of the time, I get as far as their family names—Mr. Kim, Mr. Lee—and then suddenly never see them again.”
“What do you mean you suddenly never see them again?”
“I mean exactly that. They just stop showing up. It’s understandable—it’s backbreaking work. And we don’t hire them through an employment agency, so if they don’t answer their phone when we call, that’s it, job over.”
“Would you take a look at this?”
Mr. Jin took his time carefully studying the photo before handing it back to Ha-in. His expression showed he didn’t recognize the person.
“His face doesn’t ring any bells. Of course, if he worked with us only briefly, then I might not have had time to learn his face. Plus, they all wear hard hats, which makes it even harder to recognize them without a hat on.”
“Is there still logging happening right now?”
“Not during the winter.”
“What do they do during the off-season?”
“Same as other day laborers. Some of them head to different parts of the country to work. Otherwise”—Mr. Jin looked around the room—“they come here to drink or get drunk in their lodgings all day instead.”
“Are there a lot of loggers?”
“At the peak of the season, there are more loggers than locals.”
“How many trees are cut down?”
“That depends on how dense the forest is. Have you had a chance to hike through the woods?”
“No.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t have.”
“I only made it as far as the ranger station.”
“Once you take it in a bit, you realize just how big the forest is. The trail meanders like a maze, and the trees are as dense as the letters in a Bible. Everywhere you look, it’s nothing but trees.” Mr. Jin paused. “That’s why we have no choice but to fell them.”
“What happens to the trees you cut down?”
“We sell them.”
“You must make a tidy profit.”
“Everyone thinks thinning trees destroys the forest. They don’t know anything. They think we’re tearing down the forest. But new trees are always growing. Logging helps make that happen. It’s part of the natural cycle.”
“I don’t know. That sounds like an unproven hypothesis.”
“Unproven? Nature can’t be proved or disproved through logic. Nature is simply what happens.”
“You mean time solves everything?”
“Exactly. As time passes, new trees grow in the spot where others were cut down, and the shape of the forest gradually changes.”
“So logging actually helps the forest’s natural cycle.”
“Don’t tell me you came all this way to question the legitimacy of logging?”
“I ask out of mere curiosity.”
Mr. Jin took a swig from his glass before changing the subject.
“You said Gyeong-in Lee is your brother?”
