봄·봄

"Father-in-law! Now, you see, I was thinking…"

When I scratch the back of my head and say something like that — that I'm of age and he ought to hold the wedding for us — the answer is always:

"You brat! Wedding, my eye! She's not grown enough yet!" And that ends it.

The "not grown" part doesn't refer to me, but to the height of Jeomsun, who is to be my wife.

Since coming here I've worked three years and a full seven months without seeing a single coin. And yet she still hasn't grown — when on earth is this height of hers supposed to grow? Damned if I know. If he scolded me about working harder, or said I eat too much and ought to cut back, I'd have plenty to say. But once he says Jeomsun is still too young and needs to grow more, well — there's nothing I can do; I just stand there in a daze.

That's how I came to realize the contract was bad to begin with. Two years means two years, three years means three — you set a clear term and then you work. Without that, just promising "I'll hold the wedding once the daughter grows," with no one watching over it and no telling when her height ever stops growing — what kind of arrangement is that? And I'd always thought a person's height shoots straight up; who could've known there are bodies that stay stuck in place and only spread sideways. So I figured the time would come and Father-in-law would surely take care of it, and I worked away without a peep, just bowing my head. So all right — Father-in-law ought to figure it out himself and say, "Well now, you've worked plenty. Time you got married," and set us up with our own household. That'd be best for me too. But no — he plays dumb, and to keep that very thing from coming out of his mouth, he leaps in first, kicking up a fuss. So-called live-in son-in-law, my foot. The work is dull as ditchwater, and what I get out of it amounts to nothing at all.

And like a fool I didn't see through it, just kept blackly waiting for Jeomsun's height to grow.

There was one time, so beside myself with frustration, I thought of grabbing a measuring stick and going right up to her to check her height. But Father-in-law says we're to keep apart, so we don't even stand face-to-face for a single word. Whenever we run into each other on the path to the well, all I can do is take her measure with my eye, and every time, once she's a little ways off, I spit out — pwe! — onto the rice-paddy bank and mutter, "Damned height!" Try as I might, the most generous look has her barely up to my armpit (mind, I'm a bit taller than most), and that's how it stays, day in and day out.

Dogs and pigs grow up just fine — why is it people don't? For a while I racked my brain over it till my head ached. Aha, I thought — it must be those water jugs she keeps balancing on her head; the bones must be getting pressed down. So now and then I quietly went and drew the water for her instead. And not only that — when I went up the mountain to gather firewood, I'd lay a stone on the spirit-shrine cairn and pray, "Please, sir, let Jeomsun's height grow a bit. Next time I'll bring you rice cakes for offering, I swear I will." I made such offerings more than once or twice. But however her body's put together, none of it works…

So that's why I had the fight yesterday — it certainly wasn't because I hate Father-in-law.

Setting out the seedlings, I stopped to think and the whole thing struck me as nonsense again. If this rice were going to grow and Jeomsun were going to eat it and grow a little because of it, well, fine. But that's not what happens — so why am I planting it? It would only fatten Father-in-law's belly, that pot belly that bulges further out in front of him every year (he doesn't know it's from overeating; he claims it's some sort of chill in his innards), and I had no wish at all to plant the rice for that.

"Aigu, my belly!"

Right in the middle of setting out the seedlings I left it and crawled up onto the paddy bank, rubbing my stomach. I let the winnowing basket of rice that I'd been holding under my arm drop with a thud onto the ground, and dropped down with a thud myself. No matter how busy the work, when my belly hurts, that's that. Whoever heard of a sick man working? I plucked up a clump of grass that had pushed its tender shoots through, rubbed away the leeches on my legs with it — squish, squish — and looked up into Father-in-law's face.

From the middle of the paddy Father-in-law gave me a strange look and glared at me a long time, then —

"You brat — what's gotten into you again, eh?"

"My belly hurts a bit!" I said, and let myself slump quietly down onto the grass — at which Father-in-law went livid. He came sloshing up out of the paddy onto the bank, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and slapped me right across the face —

"You brat. Quitting work like that — what're you trying to ruin? You with that head of yours, you brat?"

When my Father-in-law gets riled, his hands are a wretched habit. And what son-in-law's father-in-law calls his own son-in-law a "brat" this and a "brat" that? Things are so bad that around the village they say anyone who hasn't been cussed out by him is bound to die young. Even the little children, once safely behind his back, point at him — "Cussbil! Cussbil!" they shout (his real name being Bongpil) — that's how thoroughly he's lost the goodwill of the village. But if he's truly lost the goodwill, it's less for the cussing than for being the land steward of Squire Bae's place down in the town. By all rights a steward ought to cuss well, beat people well, and be built like a squat, ugly mongrel — and Father-in-law looks the part to a T. Should you fail to send the steward a chicken or two, or fail to lend a hand at the first weeding, that very autumn the land falls clean away from under you. Whereupon some fellow who's been buttering him up beforehand with money and drink, scurrying about in a sweat, slips in and snatches the land. Thanks to which, into Father-in-law's cattle shed there crawls, of its own accord, a great big-eyed ox; and the village folk, taking all his cussing and all, still bow and scrape — for what else can they do?

But with me, Father-in-law isn't in any position to talk big.

After whacking me one across the face without thinking it through, Father-in-law stands there blank, swallowing his bitter spit. I know exactly what's going through his head.

In a little while there'll be reeds to cut and seedlings to set, the busiest stretch of the year — and if I drop the work and just walk back to my own home, that's that.

This time last year he picked a quarrel like this and threw a stone at me for sleeping in, hitting my ankle while I slept and spraining it. I groaned away for three or four days, mostly faking it, until in the end he was nearly in tears himself —

"There now, get up and get to work. Then come autumn, if the rice does well, we'll get you married, won't we?"

My ears pricked right up at that, and I got up that very day and, alone, puddled a paddy that would've taken anyone else two days — at which Father-in-law's eyes went round with surprise. So now, by all rights, when autumn came, he ought to hold the wedding properly, oughtn't he? But however many sheaves of rice I stacked up, he said nothing of the sort. Pointing his pipe at Jeomsun as she came in carrying a water jug on her head — "You brat, she's got to grow first; how can we have a wedding for that little thing!" — and that was that, leaving me red-faced before everyone.

In the heat of the moment I thought to bash that Father-in-law's head against the stepping-stone and bolt for my hometown — but I bit it back, and bit it back hard.

Honestly, I just can't bring myself to go home in this state. They'd point and say, "Off he went to get married, and what a sorry case he must be to come back with nothing to show…"

I sprang up off the paddy bank and stepped right up to Father-in-law, who'd lost a bit of his fight, and —

"I'm leaving. Pay me out the wages I've earned."

"You came as a son-in-law — since when are you a hired hand?"

"Then you'd better hurry up and hold the wedding. Day and night you just work me and say you'll do it, you'll do it…"

"Now, look — am I the one not doing it? It's that girl who isn't growing." And he hemmed and hawed, packing his pipe, trotting out the same old line all over again.

Whenever I press the matter this way, somehow I'm always the one who comes out short. Not this time, I thought, and I yanked at his sleeve and said let's go straight to the village headman and have him decide.

"Well — what's gotten into this brat, putting his hands on his elder?"

He digs in his heels and won't go and barks orders all on his own, but for sheer strength my Father-in-law is no match for me. Working me to the bone and not giving up his daughter, and on top of that thumping the table — what's all that about?

But it's not really that I hate Father-in-law, truth be told. The day before — wasn't I working alone, plowing that slash-and-burn patch up on the peak across from Sae-gogae? Each time I went round the edge of the field, an odd flowery smell came puffing up, hitting me in the nose; overhead the bees would now and then cry buzz, buzz. In a mountain hollow where you hear nothing but the spring-water trickling between the rocks, the spring sun in a clear sky was as warm as the inside of a quilt, and it felt exactly like dreaming. My body felt limp, and whether body aches were coming on (I don't yet know what that ailment was) or what, my chest was fluttering, fluttering.

"Whoa-up! Hey! Easy now, easy easy easy…"

Singing out like that to drive the ox, ordinarily my shoulders would sit up high. For some reason that day, before I'd even plowed half the field, the strength went out of me all at once and I just kept getting in a temper. Beating the ox for nothing —

"Anya! Anya! You damned ox" (it's Father-in-law's ox, of course), "I'll snap your legs off!"

But really, it wasn't because of Anya at all — I was sour because of Jeomsun's height when she came carrying out the lunch.

Jeomsun is no great beauty of a girl, that much is true. But it's not as if she were ugly as a flat cake either; she has just the kind of stout, plain face that suits the woman who's to be my wife. She's ten years younger than me — sixteen this year — but in body she's a good two years behind the others. The other girls shoot up tall and lithe, but this one's blunt at top and bottom both, and to my eye she's exactly like a sweet-melon. Among melons, the sweet-melon is the best in flavor and the prettiest, you understand. Her round, big eyes are pleasant and warm, and the mouth, though a little stretched at the corners, is the kind that looks like it could put away a healthy bowl of rice — and that's a fine thing. Heavens, if a person can just eat well, what more of a fortune does she need? If there's one fault, it's that now and then her body (Father-in-law calls it her flighty way) moves a little too quickly, too quickly. So bringing the lunch out, she'll trip — splat — over a tussock of grass, then serve me rice covered in dirt as a matter of course. If I don't eat it she'd be embarrassed, so I sit chewing it, and what comes out is a steady crunch, crunch — am I eating gravel or rice?

But that day, for whatever reason, she set the bowls down nicely on the edge of the field with the rice still proper. And then, since we have to keep apart, she crouched a little ways off with her back to me, waiting for the bowls to be done.

When I'd finished and got up, she was gathering up the bowls, and I about jumped out of my skin. Head bent low, stacking the bowls into the rice basket, she muttered — whether so I'd hear or only to herself —

"Day and night just working — is that all?"

grumbling to herself. Just a moment ago we were keeping apart properly, and what's this all of a sudden? — my head went light. Even so, on the off chance there was some good idea in it, I spoke into the air myself, half to no one —

"Well — what'm I supposed to do?"

— at which —

"Tell him to hold the wedding, that's what."

She shot it out crisply, and her face flushed red and away she ran for the mountain.

For a moment I stood there blank, no idea what kind of judgment had just been passed, and only stared after her receding figure.

When spring comes, all the grass and trees take up their sap and put out shoots and the like. People too, I suppose, and the thought that Jeomsun had shot up by leaps and bounds in a few days (inside, anyhow) made me unspeakably glad. And here they go, brazenly insisting she's still too young…

When we went looking for the village headman, he was outside the wattle gate ladling slop into the pigs. Since coming back from a trip to Seoul, he's gone in for being dignified — both ends of his moustache stick straight out (at first glance like a swallow's tail perched on a roof) — and he has a habit of stroking it over and over, ahem.

Looking us blankly up and down, perhaps already guessing —

"What — quitting the work to come over for this?" — and he raised his hand and gave the moustache a quick stroke, ahem.

"Headman, sir! When my father-in-law and I first came to terms…"

Pushing aside Father-in-law, who'd jumped in first, I came rushing in headlong, and then thought better and started again — "No, when my honored father-in-law and I first…" Father-in-law likes "honored father-in-law" to his face, but if you say "father-in-law" outside, he gets all huffy for nothing. Even a snake doesn't like being called a snake, he says, and it's embarrassing — please, before others, say "honored father-in-law" and "honored mother-in-law," he keeps reminding me. But I keep forgetting it.

Just then I'd said "father-in-law" again, and only realized it when the foot beside me came down hard on mine and shot a sidelong glare —

The headman heard out my whole story and looked truly at a loss. Of course, that wouldn't only be the headman; anyone would feel the same.

With his pinkie nail, which he keeps grown out long, he dug into his nose, flicked something off — pip — and said,

"Well then, Bongpil — go on and hold the wedding, since the boy wants it that much…"

— just as I'd guessed he would. But at this Father-in-law glared bug-eyed and waved a finger,

"Oh, wedding, my eye — the girl's got to grow first, hasn't she?"

— at which the headman trailed off into nothing and just smacked his lips, smacked them and smacked them.

"There's something in that, too!"

"There you are — almost four years and she still hasn't grown, so when's that height of hers going to come? Forget all that, just pay me my wages."

"Look here, you brat! Did I tell her not to grow? Why are you taking it out on me?"

"Honored mother-in-law's no bigger than a sparrow herself — and how exactly did she manage to bear a child?" (My honored mother-in-law's ears are in fact even smaller than Jeomsun's.)

Father-in-law heard this and let out a great laugh — though for all his laughing it was the look of a man who'd just bitten down on a rock — and pretending to blow his nose he sneakily jabbed me hard in the side with his elbow, hoping to needle me.

Despicable. So I bent over pretending to swat at a fly on my calf, and gave his backside a hard shove. Father-in-law lurched forward and was about to topple at the wattle gate, but caught himself, and shot me a withering look. He'd have liked to spit out "you son of a bitch," but for the company present he couldn't, and the sight of him standing there like that was a fine thing to behold.

All the same, beyond this we got no sensible verdict, and we went back to the paddy and got on with setting out the seedlings. Why? Because after Father-in-law had whispered something in his ear and gone, the headman quietly took me aside and laid it out for me as follows. (Mungtae says it was because the headman had got a couple of paddies of land to till from Father-in-law and was being his man, but I don't see it that way.)

"What you say has its sense to it, sure — at your age the wish for a son is no foolish thing. But just now, when the farming's at its very busiest, if you stop work or run off home, that counts as criminal damages — and that's a prison sentence, mind! (At this my head snapped back into focus.) Didn't you see, the other day, how the fellow up in Sampo-mal got hauled off to prison for setting fire to a hill? Even setting fire to your own hill gets you prison nowadays — how much heavier the crime when you ruin another man's farming. And as for going to file a formal grievance (I'd said I would, to claim my wages) — go and do that, and you'd only be putting your own neck in the noose for nothing. And as for marriage too — there's a thing called the legal age, and one has to be twenty-one before one may marry. You of course are anxious that the son will come late, but as for Jeomsun — she's only just turned sixteen, isn't she? But just now your honored father-in-law said that come this autumn he'll set everything else aside and hold the wedding, so isn't that a kind thing? Hurry on back and finish the seedlings you were setting out, no grumbling now, off with you."

And so I came along quietly until this morning, not letting out a peep.

Looking back on it now, the fight Father-in-law and I just had was something I'd never have expected.

Father-in-law lately has wanted to put on airs in front of his tenants, going around saying,

"With money you're a yangban — what else is there!"

— and on purpose he sticks out that pot belly and walks with a swagger, that sort of stage. He's not the kind of elder who'd squander the family standing he's only just polished up, by knocking around the likes of me and risking somebody else's land. And as for me, oughtn't I to keep on his good side so I can hurry up and marry Jeomsun?…

If you put it that way, in the end the worst thing was going over to Mungtae's last night for a chat. How he came to know that Father-in-law and I had quarreled in front of the headman that afternoon, I don't know, but he was sneering at it for all he was worth.

"And you took the slap and just left it alone?"

"What was I supposed to do?"

"Idiot — ram Bongpil head-first into the seedling bed, that's what!" And taking the anger on himself for nothing in my place, he punched the air so hard he knocked the lamp over. The fellow's hot-tempered, sure, but having done that he turned right around and tried to strong-arm me into paying for the lamp oil. I was so dumbfounded I sat there in silence, while he kept on talking and talking,

"You going to spend day and night just working for him?"

"Yeongdeuk lived with his in-laws one year and got married — and you, four years in and still living on?"

"Did you know you're his third son-in-law? Third, I tell you."

"Even hearing about somebody else's troubles makes my blood boil. You brat — go drown yourself in a well."

In the end he was even telling me to slit my throat with my own fingernails, knocking me about as freely as if I were his own son. He came out with all sorts of things, more than I can repeat, but the gist of it was this…

My Father-in-law has three daughters; the eldest was married off the autumn before last. Or rather, she wasn't really married off — she too had a live-in son-in-law, then sent him away. From the time the eldest was ten until she was nineteen — ten years all told — Father-in-law swapped out live-in sons-in-law one after another. They call him "the man rich in sons-in-law" in the village, but fourteen lads is really too many. With no son and only daughters, until he can bring in a live-in son-in-law for the next daughter in line, he has to keep working the present one to the bone. Of course it would be nicer to hire a hand, but that costs money, so he keeps swapping out for the lad who works hardest. And on the other hand, the lads, getting nothing but a steady drubbing of curses and worked half to death, no doubt got fed up and lit out. Jeomsun is the second daughter, and I came in, you might say, as her third live-in son-in-law. The fourth in line behind me would have come along by now, but because I work well and am a bit of a soft touch, Father-in-law has hold of me tight and won't let go. The third daughter is just six now, and at the very least she'd have to be ten before he could bring in a live-in son-in-law for her, so meanwhile he means to work me to death. So now, the thing for me to do is wise up, lie down, and demand to be married off — that's the upshot.

Outwardly I went uh, uh, and let it in one ear and out the other. Mungtae, ever since he failed to get and hold a piece of land, growls as if he can't bear the sight of Father-in-law. If only, when Father-in-law had asked him for it, he'd handed over without a fuss that hat his family makes such a thing of (it's the sort the magistrates used to wear, they say — a moth-eaten old rag at the seams), things wouldn't have come to this…

All the same, I didn't take Mungtae's words wholly to heart. Had I done so, I'd have come back that very night and gone for Father-in-law — there's no way it would have stayed quiet. So if blame falls anywhere, it's on Father-in-law, who'd lost the goodwill even of his own daughter.

Truth to tell, until Jeomsun brought in the breakfast table, my one thought was — how much rice has she heaped on for me today? On the table there was bean-paste stew, a small dish of soy sauce, a bowl of millet rice, and a deep dish of mountain herbs heaped fuller than the rice itself. The herbs Jeomsun gathers in her free time, so I may eat two bowls or four, as I like; but Father-in-law has said no more than one bowl of rice, so that's the rule. And as Jeomsun set the table down before me, she muttered to herself,

"Going all the way to the headman and just coming back like that!" — sniping at me as sharply as she had on the mountain the other day. She had a point, I thought to myself — I'd been a bit of a fool not to push harder.

Turning away to face the wall on my own side, I said, as if to myself,

"He won't have it, what'm I supposed to do!" — and she shot back,

"Yank him by the moustache, just leave it like that, you fool!"

— and her face went red again and she huffed off into the inner room. Lucky no one saw it just then; if anyone had, they'd have said my face looked as pitiful as a chick that's lost its mother stork.

There may never have been a moment in my life as miserable as that one. People may say I'm no looker — that's all right; but if Jeomsun, my wife-to-be, takes me for a cripple, well then my prospects are sorry indeed. After eating I went to shoulder the A-frame and head out to work, then threw it back off and lay down on the empty straw mat in the outer yard, thinking I'd be better off dead.

If I don't work, Father-in-law's too old to do it himself, and the farming would just go to pieces. He gave a great belch with his hands behind his back and came out the gate, and seeing me —

"You brat, what is it now?"

"Got the colic, aigu, my belly!"

"Stuffed yourself with rice and now what colic? You ruin another man's farming, you brat, see if I don't have you locked up!"

"Lock me up if you like — aigu, my belly!"

Fact is, I didn't mind being locked up for refusing to work. Down the line, even when I had a son of my own, I'd be hearing him call me "fool, fool" — so today, come what may, I wanted to settle the thing.

When Father-in-law told me to get up and I wouldn't, the venom in his eyes rose, and he stalked off with a hiss to the other side and came back with his A-frame stick. With that, he poked at my flank and rolled me over, and then over again, the way you'd lever a stone along the ground. Each time, my belly, packed tight with rice and stiff as a board, would jolt and the gut inside would tighten with a cramp that pulled like fury. Even so I wouldn't get up, so this time he jabbed me square in the belly from above with the stick, and kicked me in the side with his foot. Father-in-law has a cruel streak from way back, but I took the kicks to my belly and gave no ground. I shut my eyes tight against the pain and lay there as if to say, you go on, I'm enjoying it; but when he came around and took a swing at my buttocks, before I knew it I'd jumped up and grabbed him by the moustache. But it wasn't really anger that put me up to it — the truth is, from a little while before, through a hole in the wattle wall behind us, Jeomsun had been peeking at us in secret.

As it was, she already had me down for a man who can't get out a single proper word; and now if she saw me take a beating without even speaking up, well, she'd take me for a true fool, wouldn't she? And besides, this Father-in-law is a man Jeomsun herself dislikes, so it'd serve him right to lay into him; but out of consideration I only grabbed his moustache (since this was what she'd told me to do, Jeomsun must have been mighty pleased just then), and shouted, loud enough to carry clear to where she was — "I'll roast you alive, see if I don't!"

Father-in-law, his temper boiling up still hotter, brought the A-frame stick straight down on my shoulder. My head went giddy. When I lifted it again, the venom had risen all through my body. So this Father-in-law of mine, I thought — and with sparks shooting out of my eyes, I shoved him clean over the bank into the field below.

"You work me but won't hold the wedding!"

I roared at him like that. But if Father-in-law had said straight off, "Yes, I'll have the wedding for you tomorrow," I might have left off bothering — bother that it is. As for me, since this was no actual blow, I wouldn't be tarred afterwards with hitting my own father-in-law, and I could go on as much as I pleased.

At one point Father-in-law came scrambling up gasping, took aim at my trouser leg just so, snatched it in one go, and hung on. I let out a shriek, and the world went pinwheeling around me —

"Honored Father-in-law! Honored Father-in-law! Honored Father-in-law!"

"You brat! Eat me alive then, eat me alive!"

"Aah! Aah! Grandfather! Have mercy, Grandfather!" — and as I waved both arms about wildly, sweat broke out cold on my forehead, and I really thought I was about to die. Even so Father-in-law wouldn't let go, and only when I'd finally sunk all the way to the ground and was on the very edge of fainting did he. Despicable. Despicable. Is this any kind of father-in-law? For a long while I couldn't get up and lay there in a daze. But when I lifted my face (my eyes saw nothing at all), my whole body shaking, I crawled over to him too and seized Father-in-law's trouser leg in a tight grip and yanked.

It was for this that I got beaten about the head till it split. But here too is just the place where my Father-in-law shows himself uncommonly kind.

Anybody else would've paid me out my wages and chased me off on the spot — but he himself dressed the split on my head with cotton wool, then stuck a packet of fine tobacco into my pocket, and —

"Come autumn I'll hold the wedding for sure. So no more talk — go on out and hurry up and plow the bean field over the back ridge." — and clapped me on the back. Who else, I ask you, would do such a thing? I was so grateful to Father-in-law that before I knew it tears had come.

I'd been preparing to be turned out at last, leaving Jeomsun behind, and on hearing words I'd never expected —

"Honored Father-in-law! I'll never do it again, I swear!"

— I made my vow like that and shouldered the A-frame in a hurry and went off to work. But just then I didn't know yet — I took Father-in-law for an outright enemy and yanked at him with all my might.

"Aah! Aah! You wretch! Let go, let go."

Father-in-law flailed at the empty air with his hands, and the cry kept coming out of him like a chicken caught by a hawk. Why should I let go — since I was at it, I'd give him a proper scare, I thought, and yanked all the harder out of pure spite. But when I saw Father-in-law go down on the ground and tears come stinging into his eyes, I got a touch frightened.

"Grandfather! Let go, let go, let go, let go, let go!"

When even that wouldn't do —

"Hey! Jeomsun! Jeomsun!"

At that holler, Mother-in-law and Jeomsun came rushing out from inside in a single breath. To my mind Mother-in-law, being his wife, might side with her husband; but Jeomsun would surely side with me and inwardly cheer me on — — But what's all this (to this very day I don't know what came over her): the very one who'd told me to give her father a thrashing now came rushing at me —

"Oh heavens! This wretch is killing my father!"

— and grabbing my ear and yanking it behind, she went on bawling and bawling. With this, all the strength went out of me at a stroke and I stood there a hollow husk. Mother-in-law also flew at me, grabbed the other ear and yanked it back, and bawled too.

Pinning me so I couldn't budge, Father-in-law took up the A-frame stick and rained blows down on me without let-up. But I made no real effort to get out of the way, and only kept staring blankly at Jeomsun's face — that face whose meaning, for the life of me, I could not fathom.

"You brat! Did you mean to make even your father-in-law's mouth call out 'grandfather'?"