Roman Holiday
By the middle of November the squall had passed. The uproar over the Fourth Department chief being marched into the army had blown through without disaster, and a measure of calm had settled back over the company.
Chung In-yung of Hyundai Construction came to see Gijo.
His face was flushed and bright. He sat down on the sofa and launched into the story of the visit he and his older brother had paid to the Ministry of Reconstruction, forerunner of the Ministry of Construction.
"President Lee, Minister Yu Wan-chang said something to my brother."
The minister, he explained, had spoken with real regret of the heavy debt Hyundai Construction had taken on while carrying out government work, and had told them to bid on the jobs coming in 1956: the Oksan Bridge, the expansion of Gachang Dam, and the Ganggu Bridge.
"That's wonderful. All that hardship paid off. Ha ha ha."
Gijo knew the bidding was as good as a privately arranged contract. In the history he remembered, the government had pushed Hyundai through and awarded the firm every one of those jobs. It was a gift to Hyundai Construction, which had finished the Goryeong Bridge only by taking on an astronomical debt.
Then Chung In-yung said something he had not expected.
"Isn't all of this thanks to Cheongsan Construction?"
"I'm not sure I follow."
"You bought us that American heavy equipment, and we knocked the Busan harbor job out in no time. The government seems to have taken a liking to us for it. Ha ha ha."
"Ah... I doubt that's the reason. It's because Hyundai swallowed the loss and saw the Goryeong Bridge through."
Gijo could deny it all he liked. Chung In-yung would not hear him.
"The minister even went so far as to let slip that they're putting the total construction cost at five hundred forty million hwan. Ten times what the Goryeong Bridge cost. Ha ha ha."
"Congratulations."
"President Lee, how can you speak of it as if it were someone else's good fortune? Hyundai Construction and Cheongsan Construction will be splitting the contract money."
Gijo could not bring himself to be purely glad.
"I won't take next year's earnings as a dividend. Use the money to pay down Hyundai Construction's debts."
"Are you serious?"
Chung In-yung stared at him as if he could not believe his ears. Gijo was a major shareholder now. To wave away the dividend that was rightfully his, and to tell them to retire the company's debt with it, felt like something out of a dream.
"Are you an angel, President Lee? With all that extra heavy equipment we'll cut the construction time sharply, and the profit ought to be considerable. And you're giving that up?"
"The dividend can wait until the company has paid off every last debt. That will be plenty."
From the start, his purpose in taking a stake had not been to make money off Hyundai Construction. It had been to keep a friendly footing with President Chung Ju-yung. The fifteen million hwan he had already put in would come back to him as shares when Hyundai converted to a joint-stock company, and that alone would bring him a handsome return. Not clutching too greedily at money, and making many friends instead. That was his final aim.
Knowing nothing of that calculation, Chung In-yung thanked him again and again. Gijo waved the thanks aside and turned over in his mind the contracts Hyundai would take from here on.
In '57, Hyundai would get the restoration of the Hangang Footbridge. He wanted that job with them, no matter what. Not because it was the largest single contract on the books, two hundred thirty million hwan. To raise on new piers the bridge whose destruction, in his first life, had driven him to despair—nothing could mean more to him than that. For a man who had come back and was remaking his life, the bridge was a symbol.
After Chung In-yung had gone, Gijo left the Cheongsan building to see how the demolition of the American base was coming. The work was in the hands of Seo Gwang, who had already torn down the brickworks at Yongsan.
He reached Pocheon by jeep, and Seo Gwang led him to a pit at one side of the base.
"Boss, take a look at this."
Seo Gwang climbed carefully down into the wide-dug hole and peeled back a corner of the waterproof tarp spread over the ground. A box lettered in English came into view.
"Isn't that a C-ration box?"
"Yes, sir. The Americans must have found it a nuisance to haul. They buried supplies all over the place and left."
Seo Gwang covered the tarp neatly again, climbed out of the pit, and took him to an American barracks they were using as a temporary office. C-ration boxes were stacked high in there as well.
"Boss, try one of these cans of fruit."
Seo Gwang opened an American tin himself and held it out. Gijo checked the date before anything else.
It was marked good through June of 1959. He fished a peach from the can Seo Gwang had given him, ate it, and smiled.
"That's good."
"Isn't it?"
Seo Gwang laughed too, pinching a slice from the can in Gijo's hand and eating it with his fingers.
"I opened a box. It's packed with cans."
Like a child handed a box of sweets, he tore open a ration packet. Crackers, coffee, powdered milk, sugar, salt, and a chocolate bar spilled out. He held up a pack of nine cigarettes and a folder of paper matches for Gijo to see.
"Boss, this is all money. We ought to have Hansu move these ration boxes. He's gotten friendly with the people at Dokkaebi Market and the Yankee market."
"We should."
"Boss, I'm worried somebody will steal the C-rations buried out here. I want to call trucks today and haul every last one of them to the yard at Cheongnyangni."
"All right. I'll send extra trucks on my way up to Seoul."
Gijo stepped outside and headed for the maintenance shop, the thing that interested him most. Scrap tires were piled high around the American shop. He ran a hand over them and checked the tread. Plenty of life left. Mixed in among them were tires that might as well have been new.
He looked over the American tools Seo Gwang had gathered, and smiled at drums of grease that showed no sign of ever having been opened. Engine oil, caterpillar tracks, oxyacetylene welding sets—the place was full of things he could hardly believe a man would walk away from.
"You've done a fine job gathering all this. Down to the last bolt—load every bit of it on the trucks."
"Yes, sir."
Seo Gwang's face glistened like a man newly struck rich on a lottery ticket.
Last of all, Gijo went to the fuel store. There, too, stood drums still full of oil. An American base was a treasure house, pure and simple.
When the inspection was finished and he had climbed into the jeep, Seo Gwang glanced around, then slipped him something wrapped in paper.
"Boss, take this and have a look in private."
Gijo unfolded the paper. Out came a copy of Playboy.
"No. I'm all right."
He declined and handed it back. Seo Gwang kept pressing it on him.
"Boss, we turned up several boxes of magazines like this. I picked out the very best one, so take it and... privately..."
"Ha ha, no. We ought to sell the magazines too."
"It's a shame to sell them, but... ha ha, all right, sir."
Seo Gwang scratched his head and laughed.
Gijo went up to Seoul and stopped by the yard at Cheongnyangni. He ordered twenty more trucks sent to Pocheon, then walked over to a lot newly cleared beside the yard.
The lot was packed with American heavy machinery bought through Hyundai Construction. The vehicle mechanics who had been at Cheongsan Brick were all over the machines, hard at work.
Gijo found Foreman Yeom and asked how things stood.
"Are you getting a proper look at the parts?"
"Yes, sir. We're drawing up a list, starting with the parts that are worn the worst."
What Foreman Yeom was doing was identifying parts for the machines that had no spares, so they could be imported through Hong Kong. When the Americans sold off surplus equipment they handed over extra parts if they had them, but often they did not. Foreman Yeom and the mechanics had to take the machines apart one by one and check, by rule of thumb, which parts were on hand and which were not. With no repair manual and no parts manual, there was nothing for it but to open the equipment and see. Such were the 1950s. But the work was also the road to understanding the machines, and to learning how to keep them running.
Gijo wondered whether he ought to set up a trading arm the way Samsung had—a Cheongsan Trading Company to handle imports and exports. The bigger the firm grew, the more new work appeared, and the need to add departments kept rising with it.
The last Sunday of November.
With a little room to breathe at last, Gijo took the family to the pictures. The film he meant to see with Ma-ryang and his wife was Roman Holiday. They had planned to go in October, but one thing after another had kept it from them. In the meantime the picture had come down from the Gukdo Theater, a first-run house, and gone up at the Seongnam Theater in Namyeong-dong, a second-run cinema.
Released at the end of 1955, Roman Holiday had been an enormous hit, and the Hepburn style, copied from its star, Audrey Hepburn, had swept into fashion. The smart women of Seoul went about the streets in the two-piece suits Hepburn had worn, their hair cut short.
Perhaps because a family outing was so rare, Sunrye and Soon-young were giddy with excitement.
"Should I cut my hair short, like Hepburn?"
Soon-young put the question to Ma-ryang, and he answered bluntly.
"Do as you like."
Even so, she seemed to like her taciturn husband. She linked her arm tightly through his.
"If my husband would only speak a little more sweetly, Gregory Peck could step aside. Why does he have to be so unromantic?"
She looked up at him and broke into a bright smile, and Ma-ryang let out an awkward laugh.
The four of them went inside, took their seats, and waited for the film. Before the picture, Daehan News came on. To the sound of a march, the opening shot was Syngman Rhee stepping down from an airplane.
The report was that Syngman Rhee had inspected the Third Corps on the central-eastern front. Gijo, watching in boredom, gave a start at one of the frames. Park Chung-hee, commander of the 5th Division, passed across the screen, briefing Syngman Rhee. So the two of them had brushed past each other just like that.
The next item was the occupancy ceremony for the Dongdaemun welfare housing, held on the nineteenth of November.
The footage showed certificates of occupancy being handed to the new residents, and Syngman Rhee inspecting the houses. Gijo was proud that Cheongsan brick had gone into those houses. The bricks for welfare housing given to refugees who had lost their homes had been supplied at a loss. That the company he had built was doing something for society left him deeply satisfied.
"Oh! There!"
Soon-young pointed at the screen where the news was running. It was a brief glimpse of President Lee Man-ik, who had attended the ceremony.
"Sis, did you see? That's our company president!"
"Yes. I think so."
Sunrye nodded to her younger sister, then gave her a look that meant she was to be quiet now.
While the tedious newsreel dragged on, Gijo stepped out of the auditorium to buy something to eat. He came back from the concession stand with dried squid and cola that had leaked out of the American base, and all at once the theater was full of whistling. A close-up of Audrey Hepburn had come on, and the men were whistling in excitement.
Gijo sat down beside Sunrye and began passing the snacks around, but she covered her nose. He tore the roasted squid with his own hands and offered it, and still she refused outright.
"The smell is so strong I can't eat it..."
Sunrye, who had always eaten roasted squid perfectly well.
In that instant a dull boom rang through Gijo's head.