Lightning Charcoal

Ever since he had learned of Sunrye's pregnancy at the cinema, Ki-jo had made a point of changing the yeontan himself. He could not bear the thought of Sunrye, with a child inside her, drawing the briquette gas into her lungs.

In the middle of December, in the dead of winter, he was changing the coal at home when he found that the fire in one of the stove's holes had died. He tried to lift a burning briquette from a hole where the fire still lived and set it down in the cold one, but the two had fused and would not come apart. He tapped lightly along the side, hoping to separate them—and the briquette crumbled, strengthless, in his hands. What a wretched turn. The coal was poor stuff, and there wasn't a piece of lightning charcoal in the house.

In that instant he resolved to make the stuff himself, and that very day he went to the briquette plant. He found Professor Kim Moon-hwan and, sketching as he spoke, explained the principle of the ignition briquette. The professor caught on at once.

"Ah. So what you're saying is, we mix sawdust with charcoal dust and starch paste, and try our hand at ignition briquettes."

"Yes. That's the idea."

"Well then, we match the holes to our yeontan and make a twenty-two-hole ignition briquette. That ought to do it."

Professor Kim Moon-hwan was delighted. Cheongsan, he said, would now be able to sell the whole chain as one linked line of goods—matches, ignition briquettes, yeontan, and boilers.

"People won't know how to use them at first, so early on we'll have to give a few away."

"Quite right. I've put the yeontan fire out a few times myself, testing the boiler, and every time it was a misery. Let people try an ignition briquette once, and they'll see soon enough how handy it is. Ha ha."

He asked Ki-jo to buy sawdust and timber in quantity, the chief materials.

"I'll build a charcoal kiln and try blending the charcoal with sawdust. Ah—and we'll be needing a bit of powder, too, for an igniter."

"I'll bring the powder from Korea Explosives."

Powder for an igniter was easy to come by through Kim Jong-hee. When Ki-jo explained the use, Kim Jong-hee recommended a stable, insensitive explosive and said he could supply it. The trouble was the sawdust, and the wood from which to make the charcoal.

Ki-jo went to see Kwon Gi-dong of the Namseoul materials warehouse, who ran a Cheongsan brick dealership, and asked where timber might be had.

"There's a big lumber yard in Daejeon that supplies wood. Go there, and you should be fine."

Kwon Gi-dong named a firm well known for construction timber, and Ki-jo set out for Daejeon. When he found the yard and said he wanted sawdust and charcoal wood in bulk, the owner put a question to him.

"You mean to make the charcoal yourself? If you can help it, leave that to the charcoal burners."

"The unit price won't come out that way."

Ki-jo looked over the astonishing quantity of timber the yard was holding. Where had they cut all these trees? War and reckless logging had left bald mountains everywhere, and it was a wonder anyone had laid hands on so much wood.

"Let's put our business off a little. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pine caterpillars will be hauling timber in here before long."

"Pine caterpillars?"

Ki-jo's face said he didn't follow, and the lumberman laughed.

"Wait a bit. You'll see soon enough."

Ki-jo lit a cigarette and waited for the caterpillars the man had spoken of. Before long a military-police jeep came in the lead of dozens of army trucks, piled high with timber, rolling into the yard's broad lot. Soldiers and civilians unloaded the wood together. The lumberman checked the count and pressed cash into the hand of the officer who had brought it, and when the soldiers drove off he spoke.

"You saw them? Caterpillars."

He snickered.

"Why are soldiers hauling wood?"

"Don't you know about welfare projects?"

"Welfare projects?"

"Living off the mountains by skinning them bare. Units stationed in Gyeongsang and Jeolla bring the timber. This time of year they don't go up to hunt communist guerrillas—they only steal trees. Say they're clearing the sector. Ha ha ha."

When Ki-jo did not laugh, the lumberman seemed faintly abashed, and went on.

"The outfit that just brought that wood is the worst of them. That's why the general who commands it goes by General Caterpillar. Show him a sound tree on a mountain and he'll eat every last one. Ha ha ha."

Ki-jo still did not laugh. The lumberman let out a sigh.

"It's the same wherever you go in this country. The army cuts more trees than anyone. The richest general in the Republic of Korea is the general who cuts the most wood, I'd wager. I don't have a choice either, if I want timber supplied to me."

Ki-jo put down a deposit and agreed to buy sawdust and wood. On the road up to Seoul his heart was heavy. But if he meant to carry a lightning-charcoal business forward, he had no choice but to use ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trees the army had stolen.

Before 1955 was out, Ki-jo went to the work sites at Yeongwol and Dogye. Gangwon, which in high summer had burned like a sheet of heated tin and swarmed with mosquitoes, had become a cold country where a knife-edged wind went whistling through.

He met Park Hee-jun, who was living on site at Yeongwol, looked over the silos and the kiln of the Yeongwol cement plant, then crossed to Dogye and inspected the mine. Seeing the immense stores of rice and flour Ki-jo had laid up in the mine's food warehouse, Hee-jun spoke.

"With stores like these, we'll clear the spring hunger without a hitch. Ha ha."

It was a way of saying the stocks seemed excessive, and Ki-jo only smiled. There was a reason it had to be so. He remembered that on the first of March, 1956, a late blizzard would fall on Gangwon. Snow would pile higher than a man and cut the mine off from the world, and if the miners were not to die, food enough had to be set by beforehand.

He met Lee Jae-ho, a former conscripted laborer he had taken on as counselor to the miners, and the two of them exchanged greetings.

"I wonder whether the Dogye mine has been built so it won't be dangerous for the men."

"It would be better if the gallery props were made of solid cement. It may be difficult just now, but when things improve, I hope you'll see to it. The miners' lives hang on it."

"Is that so? Then I'll have cement props sent to the mine before long."

"Truly, sir? Is such a thing possible?"

"Of course. When we make cement at Yeongwol, the mine will have first claim on it."

"Thank you, sir."

Lee Jae-ho offered his thanks. Paying a death benefit when a miner died was cheaper than spending money to keep miners alive, and yet Ki-jo had chosen the greater cost. For that, Lee Jae-ho could only be grateful.

After walking through the company housing Cheongsan Construction had built, Ki-jo gathered the miners, greeted them, and made them one promise.

"I promise you forty years of work. Those of you in your twenties, until you turn sixty. Those older than that, for as long as you wish to keep working the mine. I will see that there is a place for you."

He reckoned the life of the Dogye mine would run to the middle of the 1990s. By then the demand for yeontan would have fallen away, and the mine would no longer pay its way. The miners applauded his promise. The free rice ration he had pledged was already being kept, the food warehouse filled to the beams with rice. Whether he would hold to the promise for all of forty years, no one could say; but even as things stood, Dogye treated its people better than any mine in the Republic of Korea.

Once he and Hee-jun had made sure the conveyor belts were running as they should, they followed the path the coal traveled and stopped at Dogye Station and Cheoram Station to look over the facilities. The Yeongam Line was a national priority, and the preparations were going forward in earnest. When the line opened in January of the coming year, coal could be carried straight through to Seoul.

"It truly feels like a dream. Exporting tungsten to America, and serving the country's development with coal and cement. I never imagined such a thing."

Hee-jun spoke as if the feeling were still new to him.

"Even so, I don't know how next year's presidential election will turn out. If the government changes, I worry it may set our business back."

Perhaps because he had met Syngman Rhee in person at Gyeongmudae and been promised support, Hee-jun seemed to hope the president would keep his seat. Ki-jo, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who knew how the election would end, answered evenly.

"There won't be any great change."

They came back down to Yeongwol and ate lunch together, with acorn jelly for a side dish. When the meal was done and Ki-jo had climbed into the jeep for the return to Seoul, Hee-jun spoke.

"I forgot what I meant to ask. I heard it from President Lee Man-ik. Does it seem a son to you? Or a daughter?"

Ki-jo smiled at him.

"It seems a daughter."

He said ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so by the conception dream Sunrye had dreamed. She had fallen asleep beneath a plum tree, and when she woke, small petals of plum blossom lay heaped thick over her body.

"Congratulations, President Lee. A pretty, healthy daughter will be born. A son would be better still, of course. Ha ha ha."

Like a man of the fifties, Hee-jun let it be known that a daughter was welcome, but that he hoped for a son. Nearly everyone was that way then.

Parting from Hee-jun and driving home, Ki-jo counted forward to the month the second child would come. Around August, he thought, in the worst of the heat. Mother and child would both suffer for it, and a small worry stirred in him. Yet Ki-jo, who had agonized over whether to have a second child at all, found that once the child was on the way he was simply happy. It felt like the last gift 1955 had to give.

The year had been a meaningful one, in more ways than one. The vertical integration he had set as his goal had been brought off, and now he had only to run the business quietly and without cease.

Nineteen fifty-six would be a noisy year, as one upheaval after another broke over the country. It would open in January with the death of Kim Chang-ryong, pass through Syngman Rhee's reversal of his withdrawal as a presidential candidate, and come at last to the third presidential election. The campaign would be wild in the manner of the fifties, full of things no one could credit, and relations between Korea and the United States would fall to pieces and then mend again. Not a single hour of the year would pass smoothly. Whoever it was who coined "Dynamic Korea," they had the right of it.

Ki-jo set his aims for 1956 as stability, and the holding of what he had already built. Nearly every profitable business he was able to start, he had started. Brick, transport, Miwon, communications—the fields where he stood first—he would run so that no latecomer could overtake him, and in construction he meant to be content with quietly minding the substance of the work and nothing more.

He knew what the construction trade of the fifties had been. There were fully a thousand construction companies in the Republic of Korea. Name the majors among them, and there were five: Daedong Industrial, Joheung Construction, Sambu Construction, Kukdong Construction, and Daelim Industrial. While Hyundai Construction staggered under the building of Goryeong Bridge, these were the firms that had come to be called the Construction Five.

Ki-jo had no wish to fight a cutthroat war with those five. Their strength lay in nothing other than a gift for collusion. They were companies that labored not to go down together, dodging ruinous competition by steering a contract to one of their number and splitting the profit, or by taking turns at the winning bid. If they differed from the brick association he had dealt with, it was in their violence. Kidnapping a rival's president, locking him away, beating him—such things happened as a matter of course. And it was not thugs they sent to do it. The construction men themselves rolled up their sleeves and went. Chung Ju-yung of Hyundai had once recalled that he barely survived in the press of that violent rivalry.

For the present, government work would keep flowing to Hyundai on the strength of its honeymoon with the regime, so there was no call to be greedy. Cheongsan Construction had only to make plain that it was a specialist in U.S. military contracts, and to run itself a half step aside from any head-on fight with the Construction Five. A second child would soon be born, and Ki-jo had no desire to spend 1956 on a gamble.

He was turning these plans over as he drove when, at the boundary of Yeongwol and Jecheon, he saw a man trudging a country road with another person loaded on an A-frame carrier. He could not simply pass them by. He eased the jeep to a stop.

"Where are you headed?"

"To Jecheon town."

Ki-jo looked at the woman perched atop the carrier. She seemed unable to see.

"Please, get in. I'll take you as far as Jecheon."

He put the young country couple into the jeep and turned toward the town. Talking with the husband along the way, he learned that even during the war the man had carried his wife on the A-frame through their flight, and that today was her birthday, so they were going into town to buy her noodles. The ten lives in which he himself had fled in desperation with Sunrye and Yeongsu rose up before him, and his sight went dim.

When they reached the town he set them down, and instead of driving on he asked a question.

"Is there a place that makes good noodles? I've a long way to go to Seoul, and I'm a bit empty."

He went with the two of them to a noodle house and ate, and he paid the bill himself. To the grateful couple he said:

"You mentioned a daughter earlier, didn't you? I have a daughter too. I'd like to buy her a pair of flower shoes. Do you know a good shop?"

They led him to a shoe shop. Ki-jo chose the prettiest pair of embroidered flower shoes, set them in the hands of the blind farmer's wife, and asked:

"What do you think of these? Would a little girl like them?"

She felt the shoes over with her fingers, this way and that, and then she smiled.

"The flower pattern is pretty."

She had read the blossoms by the touch of her hands. Ki-jo asked for two pairs, and held one out to the couple.

"Take a pair home with you. They're so lovely, I'd like to buy you one."

Overwhelmed, they tried to refuse, but he pressed the shoes into the husband's arms. Then he took out his notebook, wrote a few words, and handed the man the slip.

The man who took the paper did not seem to know what was written there. It was an age when illiteracy was common.

"If you go to Ssangyong-ri in Yeongwol-eup, you'll find a cement plant. Should you ever need work, take this with you."

The couple thanked him again and again. Still feeling that something was wanting, Ki-jo bought two bags of taffy and candy at a sweet shop near the shoe store and put them in their hands.

"Have a piece each on your way home. And give some to your daughter."

He left the grateful couple behind him and drove the jeep slowly out of Jecheon town. The lies he had told that country couple were the last Lee Ki-jo would tell in 1955.