The Patjuk Gathering
On February 7, 1955, Ki-jo invited to Myeongwolgwan the "Avengers," the team that had distinguished itself beside him in Busan. The pretext was a bowl of red-bean porridge for the first full moon of the lunar year. The real purpose was to thank them.
He was sitting alone in the room, waiting for his guests, when Lee Seong-ryong came in.
"Yeongsu's dad, the porridge will take a while to come to a boil, so I'll keep you company."
She dropped down across from him, let out a long sigh, and went on.
"I was right to listen to you and break up my gye early."
"Did something happen?"
"Don't even start. You heard about the seventeen suicides in Gwangju?"
Ki-jo nodded.
It had come of a gye collapsing—one of those rotating credit clubs that held so much of ordinary life together—and of a tragedy set off by an offhand remark from the chief of the National Police. In the 1950s there was nothing that man did not meddle in. Public order, of course, but the economy, education, culture: he meant to have a hand in nearly everything. He had declared that the gye had grown too large and become a problem, and the shock of those words burst, of all places, in Gwangju. The Gwangju police chief took the remark from Seoul far too seriously. He proclaimed that anyone who failed to settle every debt arising from a gye within a month would be severely punished, and the city plunged into chaos overnight. When the gye organizers all rushed at once to call their money in, defaults and midnight flights cascaded among those who had borrowed. The gye networks of the Gwangju region were scorched bare, and the shock rolled on into Gunsan, Daegu, and Seoul.
"Yeongsu's dad, you know the Sunday Teahouse in Myeong-dong?"
"Yes, I do."
Seong-ryong sighed again and continued.
"Madam Hwang's been locked up for fraud. She was just an ordinary gye organizer, same as me, and then she suddenly couldn't collect what she was owed, and that was that..."
Ki-jo nodded.
"I got through it safely by following your advice, but more than half the big gye in Seoul have gone under. So, by way of thanks, I won't charge you for lunch today."
"No. I'll pay for the porridge."
"Then just pay for the porridge. The liquor and the side dishes are on the house."
"We agreed we'd only eat porridge..."
"Aigoo. You think that'll hold? Hwa-ryong and Doo-han are coming. And from what I hear, President Cho Choong-hoon and President Chang Key-young both like their drink quite a bit."
No sooner had she said it than, as if speaking of the tiger summoned him, Lee Hwa-ryong shoved the door open and walked in. He traded a glance of greeting with Ki-jo and asked his sister, as if it hardly mattered.
"You eating the porridge with us too, big sister?"
"Me? As if I— Anyway, you did right, helping Yeongsu's dad in Busan. If it hadn't been for him, Myeongwolgwan would have gone up in smoke."
"I went because I owed Doo-han a debt. I don't owe President Lee a single thing."
Hwa-ryong dropped onto a cushion and loosened his tie. The debt he meant was this: Kim Doo-han had handed Myeong-dong over to him without a fight. Seeing no point in colliding with a man determined to carve the district off for himself, Doo-han had yielded it quietly. After that the two kept a friendly footing, and Ki-jo had reaped the benefit.
"Your wife takes a handsome living allowance off me, and you talk like that? And don't you come sniffing around for pocket money whenever you're bored? And still it's your debt, my debt?"
"Ahem. Is there anything you won't say in front of President Lee, big sister?"
The brother and sister were bickering again.
"Please take these."
Ki-jo drew two boxes from beneath the table and held them out to the quarreling pair.
"What's this, then?"
"Miwon."
"Miwon? And what's that supposed to be?"
"A seasoning."
"Your factory's already turning out seasoning, Yeongsu's dad? My! The wrapping's pretty!"
Where Hwa-ryong stayed blank, Seong-ryong brightened at once.
"Hwa-ryong, take it home to your wife. She'll be delighted."
"You give it to her, big sister. How's a man supposed to go around carrying salt?"
"Miwon isn't salt, you lout!"
Seong-ryong flared, then, as if embarrassed by her own temper, turned a bright smile on Ki-jo.
"Yeongsu's dad, we'll enjoy it."
She went out carrying the two boxes—ten kilograms in all, packed in five-hundred-gram packets.
Left alone with Hwa-ryong, Ki-jo studied the man who put on such a show of toughness before his own sister. Of the Avengers he was the eldest, born in 1914, forty-one years old. Beneath him came President Chang Key-young, born in 1916, thirty-nine; Lawmaker Kim Doo-han, born in 1918, thirty-seven; and President Cho Choong-hoon, born in 1920, thirty-five. Only Ki-jo, born in 1930, stood a generation apart from his hyung-nim.
He watched Lee Hwa-ryong in silence. The man's life had been nothing if not stormy. He was living as a gangster now, yet after the May Sixteenth coup he would retire altogether and throw himself into making films. A gangster by origin, he nonetheless had a true eye: at Hwaseong Film, the company he would run, one fine picture after another would be born—Mr. Park, The Revolving Lantern, The Coachman, The Ownerless Ferry, Jang Hui-bin—works that held art and popular appeal in the same hand.
It was a world apart from Lim Hwa-soo, another gangster turned producer. Lim dealt mainly in anticommunist films and in pictures that praised the Liberal Party and the Syngman Rhee regime. The crown of them was a biographical film glorifying Rhee himself. Backed by a fortune of forty million hwan from the Liberal Party, he cast the finest directors and actors, and still the public stayed cold.
Ki-jo was still turning that life over in his mind when Kim Doo-han came into the room.
"Mr. Lee! Kim Doo-han has arrived! Ha ha ha!"
Seeing Hwa-ryong already seated, Doo-han bobbed a bow.
"Hyung-nim Hwa-ryong, you're here ahead of me."
"Quit the noise and sit."
After Doo-han, Chang Key-young and Cho Choong-hoon came in as well. Ki-jo thanked the four of them for the help they had given him in Busan and passed around boxes of Miwon. They were enjoying the red-bean porridge when Doo-han emptied his bowl in a few gulps and spoke.
"First full moon or not, porridge alone makes a dull meal..."
The words were barely out of his mouth before side dishes and liquor, sent in by Seong-ryong, came flooding into the room. The faces of the drink-loving Avengers brightened. As the cups went round and the air grew warm, Ki-jo looked at the men seated with him as if at something marvelous. Without his return to this life, they would never have gathered in one place. Kim Doo-han and Chang Key-young, above all. Having met in Busan and helped him side by side, they seemed to have grown close; they were laughing and talking with easy pleasure.
In the original history, though, the two had been bound by a terrible ill fate. In 1966, after Samsung's Korea Fertilizer was caught smuggling saccharin, Kim Doo-han would stage his famous night-soil attack on the floor of the National Assembly. He believed it was no solo act by Samsung, but a smuggling scheme cooked up between the regime and its officials. Chang Key-young, then deputy prime minister and minister of the Economic Planning Board, happened to be attending the Assembly and took the full brunt of the filth Doo-han flung. Not long after that misfortune, he was dismissed from both posts.
A new bond has formed now. Surely nothing like that will happen...
Even if Doo-han threw night soil again, might Chang not simply step aside? The thought came to him, absurd and fond.
He looked from Cho Choong-hoon to Chang Key-young and back. Theirs was a fortunate bond, but the meeting had been pulled years forward. In 1964, upon becoming the eighth deputy prime minister and minister of the Economic Planning Board, Chang would summon Cho and ask him to borrow twenty million dollars from Japan—to send Choong-hoon, whose Japanese connections ran deep, as a special envoy and save an economy caught in a foreign-exchange crisis. Using his ties in politics and business, Choong-hoon would succeed in bringing the twenty million home, and from that bond the two would go on helping each other in a dozen ways. In the original history their first tie had been forged in 1964.
How had it been drawn forward by nearly ten years? When the wondering Ki-jo asked, Choong-hoon, seated beside him, leaned in and whispered.
"Thing is, I asked around for someone with pull in Busan, and they pointed me to President Chang. So I just went and found him..."
Going to Chang, Cho had offered to haul the Hankook Ilbo at a cheap rate if Chang would help him. Chang heard him out and agreed at once, Cho said. Ki-jo nodded. It made sense.
In the 1950s Chang Key-young was the star of the newspaper world. A banker by origin, he had served as vice president of the Bank of Korea in 1950 and taken the presidency of the Chosun Ilbo in 1952. With astonishing salesmanship he lifted that mid-to-lower paper to third in circulation, only to be fired after a clash with the Bang family and then to found a paper of his own. He bought the obscure Taeyang Shinmun, relaunched it as the Hankook Ilbo, and shot it to fifth place almost overnight.
Dong-A — Seoul — Chosun — Kyunghyang — Hankook
Whether from a grudge against the Bang family that had dismissed him or not, Chang went head-to-head with the Chosun Ilbo in the morning market and in the end succeeded in overtaking it. Cho's offer meant he could send more papers, farther and faster, than his old rival—reason enough to accept.
Seeing Choong-hoon whispering to Ki-jo, Chang caught the drift of it and called across.
"President Lee Ki-jo, don't believe everything President Cho tells you. Ha ha ha!"
At that, Cho's face went red.
"It's just—younger brother Ki-jo was curious what happened..."
"I didn't help President Lee only for the sake of hauling newspapers."
The three other men turned their attention to Chang.
"The truth is, I'd known of President Lee for some time."
"Of me?"
Ki-jo's eyes widened.
"Of course. You know Ha Sang-man, of our Korea Times?"
"Ah, yes. I do."
Reporter Ha was the man who had covered the people of Eundae-ri with real vigor while they sheltered under the protection of the 7th Division, branded as Reds. He had also taken the lead in translating the engineer battalion's manuals. Chang Key-young was president of the Hankook Ilbo and of the Korea Times alike.
"When President Cho came to me and I heard the story, my first thought was that I had to help. Back when Reporter Ha was covering the 7th Division affair, I'd already taken notice of you, President Lee. Ha ha."
So that was it. Ki-jo nodded, and Chang went on.
"Even without President Cho's offer, if I'd known the circumstances I would have come to help."
"Thank you."
Ki-jo bowed his head.
"President Lee is a rare sort of businessman these days. I run a newspaper with a businessman's mind myself, but keeping one's conscience is no easy thing."
"Ah—speak of conscience, and you speak of our Mr. Lee. Ha ha ha!"
Kim Doo-han cut in.
"The way President Lee stood up to that man Kim Chang-ryong, chief of the Counter Intelligence Corps, and protected his villagers without bending—it moved me deeply."
"I didn't do it alone. Without all of your help it would have been impossible. The Korea Times, especially, did a great deal."
"That was me, approving it to run as a serial. Ha ha ha!"
Chang closed on a quiet note of self-praise. Ki-jo understood then that their ties were woven like a spider's web, joined without any of them quite knowing it.
Just then Doo-han's eyes met his. The man broke into a wide grin and rose.
"A moment of your attention, if you please."
His voice was loud enough already; when he stood, every eye turned to him.
"Now then. Busy as I've been since becoming a lawmaker, I grew curious how hard our Mr. Lee was working, so I had a look at some government papers. Ha ha ha!"
"Did you? I'd like to know myself how hard President Lee worked last year."
Chang played along.
What on earth is the man about to say...
Ki-jo stared at him, half incredulous.
"I requested the figures from the Tax Bureau of the Ministry of Finance, and what did I find..."
Doo-han paused, drawing the silence tight.
"Our Mr. Lee is the man who made the most money in all of northern Gyeonggi!"
He announced it like a prizewinner's name, and everyone applauded. Flushing, Ki-jo got to his feet.
"If I came first, it's only because hardly anyone lives in northern Gyeonggi."
"Ho! The hegemon of northern Gyeonggi, and so modest!"
Cho teased him.
"Let us drink to our hegemon of the north coming south and conquering Seoul!"
The four men rose and looked to Lee Hwa-ryong, the eldest among them. Their eyes asked him for the toast.
"Well then, I'll offer it."
The taciturn Hwa-ryong thought a moment, lifted his cup high, and shouted.
He bellowed it with a gangster's force, and they all cried "To that!" and struck their cups together. At his hyung-nim's joke Ki-jo went entirely red, and laughed.
As the merry drinking drew toward its end, Hwa-ryong, as if he had enjoyed himself, proposed they meet from time to time. Cho asked,
"What should we call the gathering?"
"We met for the first time today over red-bean porridge, so let it be the Patjuk Gathering."
"The Patjuk Gathering—I like it!"
Doo-han was all for it.
"So do I!"
Chang liked it too.
On the way home, Ki-jo thought.
A life that had been as useless as dust. What blessing is this...
Turning over the eleven lives behind him, he called up the people newly bound to him in this, his last. All of them good people. He worried, almost, that it might be nothing but a spring dream—that when he woke he would find himself again in the inner room of the country house where, in his eleventh life, he had closed his eyes.
But when he opened his eyes the next morning, he was in the warm inner room of the house in Jongno. Beside him, young Sunrye, twenty-four, slept with a soft, even breath. He drew that precious woman tightly into his arms.