Provocation
"President Lee, might I ask one more favor?" Kim Jong-pil said.
"Of course."
"Would you speak to Mr. Hausman as well? Ask him to see that Brigadier General Park Chung-hee is permitted to go to the United States."
Kim Jong-pil knew of the tie with Hausman, too.
"Yes. I'll see to it."
This time Gijo agreed at once. He had already consented once; to haggle over it again would look petty, and a petty impression was a loss even when you were the one doing the favor. Nor would it be difficult to raise Park Chung-hee with Hausman. As far as Gijo knew, the man held two feelings about Park at once—a certain liking, and suspicion—and no particular dislike.
Over the meal, with drink beside the dishes, Gijo put on the manner of a man who wished to know more about Brigadier General Park. In rough outline he already knew what there was to know, and there was no need to ask. But he had to perform a human curiosity about the person he was offering to help. Only then would it look natural.
"I once heard from Commissioner Kwak Young-joo that General Park's family affairs are complicated."
Gijo had barely opened when Kim Jong-pil let out a short laugh.
"That Kwak keeps picking at the general's divorce, and that isn't right either. It was a marriage forced on him. He went through with it because he had no choice."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Brigadier General Park was sixteen when he married. His father was sixty-six. The old man wanted to see his youngest son wed before he died, so he pushed the match through whether anyone wished it or not."
On that point Gijo felt a deep sympathy. To marry a person off by sheer stubborn will was an absurd thing.
"Then the woman he married first—what is she doing now?"
He asked it around a bite of sweet-and-spicy fried chicken. At the question Kim Jong-pil let out a heavy sigh.
"She had a hard lot of it, too... She stayed on in the countryside and looked after her mother-in-law until the general's mother passed, in 1949. They divorced in 1950."
"Do you know where she is now, and what she does?"
"Well. I can't say I really know."
He seemed to know, and to be pretending he did not.
"And there were no children by the first wife?"
"There was a daughter. She went through high school while living at our house."
"That's admirable of you."
"Not at all. She's of the same generation as my wife, and the two of them were very close back in the country. That's why she lived with us."
"Where does she live now?"
"She went into Brigadier General Park's household. Said she'd take a beating if she had to, so long as she could live with her father, and in she went."
"A beating?"
"That's only how she put it. The stepmother came and took her. And there's no more than twelve years between the two of them—hardly an age for raising a switch. Ha ha ha."
Gijo smiled along with him. They talked on of this and that until it was nearly nine at night, and Kim Jong-pil glanced at his watch.
"I ought to be going."
"Stay a little longer."
Gijo moved to hold him.
"I can't. I have to be in early tomorrow morning. Tonight was a pleasure."
Gijo rose with him, wearing the face of a man reluctantly out-argued.
Seong Dae-ik and Shim Hansu had been kept waiting in the outer office. At the sight of the two men they bowed.
"These men will drive the major's car."
It was a kind of designated-driver arrangement.
"No, no. I can drive perfectly straight."
True to the 1950s, when the very idea of drunk driving scarcely existed, Kim Jong-pil declared it with an easy boldness.
"Hansu, would you drive the major's car."
"Yes, sir."
Kim Jong-pil meant to take the wheel himself. Gijo packed him into the passenger seat all the same.
"Please look after my wife's uncle."
"Yes. Don't worry."
He sent Kim Jong-pil off home in the jeep, then turned toward his own house.
Telling Kwak Young-joo of Park Chung-hee's request would not be hard. Kwak, though, would never permit Park's passage to America. He had been watching for any chance to remove the man, and he would not want Park leaving for the United States. What worried Gijo was a delivery accident. Such accidents did not happen only when money was being passed. A message, too, could go astray in the carrying.
He had to be able to prove that he had petitioned Kwak Young-joo exactly as Kim Jong-pil had asked. In the 2020s a recording on a telephone would have proved the words he spoke. The 1950s offered nothing of the kind. What he said to Kwak had to be heard by several people, and those words had to travel. When Kim Jong-pil cross-checked, the testimony had to come back the same: that Gijo had done as he was asked, and done it consistently. Fail to lay that ground, and a needless misunderstanding might find him later.
He walked the whole way to the house in Jongno, turning over how he would carry the commission out. A moon hung in the clear October night. Gijo wished the world's affairs could be as bright as that moon. A man cannot look straight at the sun, but moonlight is gentle, and it can be studied full in the face. He hoped a world would come soon in which the truth, like that light, was easy for anyone to see.
October 4, three days after Kim Jong-pil had come to see him. The Soviet Union succeeded in launching the satellite Sputnik 1.
The news reached Korea over the foreign wires and struck hard at the Korean people and at Syngman Rhee's government alike. That the Soviets had put a satellite into space ahead of the America they trusted stirred a deep unease over the nation's safety. If the Soviet Union attacked by way of the sky, did the United States even have the power to stop the blow? The Soviets had already become the second nation to succeed at a nuclear test, and they had succeeded as well in developing ballistic missiles capable of carrying a bomb.
The press, for its part, ran a shocking article.
The Korean government measured its words and waited for an American explanation. It came to the point that General George H. Decker, who had taken command of the U.S. Eighth Army in July of '57, had to step forward himself and announce that the defense of Korea was not in question.
"The United States will take measures to match the Soviet satellite launch. America was already preparing. It was only choosing the moment."
So saying, he let it be known that the United States, too, stood on the eve of a launch, and he proclaimed that the defense of Korea would meet with no trouble at all.
"America has the means to stop any provocation by a communist state, and in the defense of Korea there is not an inch of gap."
The Sputnik shock had hit Korea hard enough that even a declaration of that kind had to be made.
Gijo did not hang upon the fuss in the streets. To grant Kim Jong-pil's request, he reserved Myeongwolgwan and invited Kwak Young-joo. Mi-hyang had left the house to study and was no longer there, but Kwak, a man with a keen appetite for women, was never going to refuse Myeongwolgwan. He was curious, if anything, about the new kisaeng who had come in.
"Gijo. You know who they brought in to take Mi-hyang's place?"
"I don't know her well. I hear the proprietor of Myeongwolgwan went to some trouble to fill the empty seat."
"Yeah? Good."
"Commissioner. No—Brother. May I call the Dongdaemun people as well?"
"Jeong-jae and Hwasu?"
"Yes. I thought I'd ask Kim Tae-ryeon, and Yoo Ji-gwang too."
"Do as you like. You're the one paying for the drinks."
"Then I'll call them."
He summoned the Dongdaemun gang as well, and seated loose-tongued kisaeng one by one at their sides, arranging every detail so they could later testify that he had carried out Kim Jong-pil's request in the open, with nothing left unclear. That was how a man stayed alive.
A few days later, at the Myeongwolgwan Mi-hyang had left behind, Kwak Young-joo drank with Huiyang, the house's new kisaeng, at his side. The four of the Dongdaemun gang had grown used to the place by now, and they no longer posted their crew out front. Before Myeongwolgwan stood two jeeps and a handful of armed policemen.
Gijo drank and watched the set of Kwak's mood. Once the room had ripened, he meant to slip in Brigadier General Park's request.
Kwak Young-joo and Lee Jeong-jae were talking between themselves.
"The campaign in Icheon coming along all right?"
"Of course. They say television will reach Icheon before long. I'll hand out sets as well. The people of Icheon ought to give me their recognition."
"Gijo agreed to push the broadcast all the way out to Icheon?"
"Yes, Brother. President Lee is our man through and through now."
Kwak and Lee Jeong-jae laughed, loud and easy.
"Gijo."
Lee Jeong-jae called to him.
"Yes, Brother."
"I like you. Always courteous—a good, gentle younger brother. You just keep living that way. The rest, your brothers here will see that you're pushed along. Ha ha."
"Thank you."
From the lowest seat, Gijo bowed his head. Kwak looked to be in fine spirits. All the better. Gijo wanted to bring up Park Chung-hee while that pleasure still held, and sour it.
He went to Kwak's side, poured him a cup, and began.
"Brother, there is something I should tell you concerning Brigadier General Park Chung-hee."
Kwak, still looking pleased, lifted the cup toward his mouth.
"About Park Chung-hee?"
"Yes."
Kwak gave a thin laugh.
"Something happen with Park? That bastard cause you trouble?"
He asked it lightly, already half tasting the answer.
"Yes, Brother. I'd like him sent far away."
"Ha ha ha ha. You little rascal..."
Kwak, who detested Park Chung-hee, laughed aloud and looked at Gijo with open satisfaction.
"Where do you want him sent? Jeju? A cell?"
"America."
At that, Kwak set the cup down.
"America? Trying to hand him over to the American military police again? Even the U.S. Army won't touch a Korean general."
He said it with the look of a man who wished it were otherwise, and was sorry that it was not.
"Not that. I'd like him sent to America and put to his studies."
At Gijo's words, Kwak's face hardened all at once.
"Is that your own idea? Or else... did someone come find you? Feels to me like some bastard paid you a visit and left this request behind. Otherwise you'd never be asking me to send Park Chung-hee abroad to study."
A policeman was still a policeman. Hide it clumsily and the whole thing would be ruined, so he told the truth.
"Major Kim Jong-pil came to see me. He said he wished to make a request of you, Commissioner."
"Hah..." Kwak let the sigh drag out of him.
"Gijo, I don't think you understand. That bastard Kim Jong-pil—his father-in-law is Park Sang-hee, Park Chung-hee's third brother. Park Sang-hee, listen. He raised a leftist uprising in Daegu, and our police shot him dead. A communist."
Unexpectedly, Kwak explained it almost gently. Gijo could tell all the same that the man was swallowing his anger.
"I know."
"You know?"
"Yes."
"You know that, and you still brought me that bastard's request?"
"Yes. Commissioner."
"Ah—fuck..."
The rough curse left Kwak's mouth, and the four of the Dongdaemun gang went tight. Gijo was glad. The provocation had landed.
"You little shit... You been dyed red too? You dare bring a commie's request in front of me?"
He turned vicious on Gijo, and Lee Jeong-jae, seated beside them, stepped in.
"Brother, our youngest doesn't know the way of the world, does he? He's naive. That fellow Kim Jong-pil came pleading, and the boy felt sorry for him. That's why he passed the word to you, I'd say."
As if he pitied Gijo, Lee Jeong-jae wrapped the intention up neatly. With Lee Jeong-jae—seven years his senior—stepping forward to plead the case, Kwak eased off by a degree.
"Heh. Our youngest is a little green, I'll grant you... but someone still has to teach him the line he isn't to cross, wouldn't you say?"
At that, Kim Tae-ryeon, a graduate of Seoul National University, came forward.
"President Lee, have a meal with me one of these days. I'll tell you what sort of man Karl Marx was—the fellow who made communism."
Kim Tae-ryeon had come out like a man of learning, and Kwak settled. That would not do. Gijo provoked him on purpose.
"Commissioner, one of these days I'll arrange a place for you with General Park—"
Kwak Young-joo seized Gijo by the collar.