The Last Day of 1957
For seven days straight, Hausman had found it remarkable that Ki-jo kept coming to see him. He knew perfectly well why the man kept turning up at Eighth Army headquarters.
A week earlier Ki-jo had arrived with a patient in his jeep, begged leave to use the emergency room inside the compound, and all but pleaded with them to fit an oxygen mask over a tall man's face. That much, at least, they could do, and so they had admitted the Korean. What Hausman could not understand was the devotion Ki-jo poured into the case. The patient was not family. Even for a friend, care of that order was no ordinary thing.
December 31, 1957. On the very last day of the year, Ki-jo came again. He had nothing particular to say—only another appearance to put in before he headed for the medical unit—and Hausman stopped him with a question.
"Come to be refused a visit again today?"
Even after regaining consciousness, the man Ki-jo had admitted had turned visitors away for three days running.
"Today the visit will succeed."
"How?"
"I asked the army doctor for a favor. I told him to say he won't authorize a discharge without the guardian's consent."
"And the guardian of that ungrateful fellow is you?"
"Yes."
Hausman shook his head.
"Why save a man who won't even look at your face? Wasn't he the one trying to die with a briquette fire going?"
"I asked the army doctor. He says the man never meant to die. Something was eating at him, and he drank alone in the office."
"And by rotten luck, that damned briquette gas leaked out of a shoddy stove. That it?"
"Yes."
When Ki-jo had carried Lim Dae-hong on his back at a run, the smell of liquor had come off him thick and strong. Lim was famous for touching neither drink nor tobacco, but once he alone had been indicted and the business stood on the edge of ruin, the strain must have driven him to the bottle. Ki-jo did not believe Lim was a man who lied.
"Tell him straight. If it weren't for you, Ki-jo, he'd be dead. How many hospitals in Seoul even have an oxygen respirator? And one that can turn pure oxygen loose as freely as he needs—this is the only place."
"I imagine he knows that himself."
"Ten dollars says he won't know unless somebody tells him. Bet me."
"I'll take it."
"You want to throw away ten dollars?"
"If ten dollars can put the Advisor in a better mood, I ought to be glad to spend them."
"Honestly. You wicked little flatterer. Get out of my sight."
"Yes, Advisor."
Ki-jo saluted and left the office. He would have bet ten thousand dollars that Hausman's tongue was rough and his heart was not.
Arriving at the medical unit to see Lim discharged, he first handed the army doctor a box of sweets—a small token, nothing more. The doctor, accepting the gift, asked him a question.
"The patient doesn't say much. Is he always like that?"
"Yes. He's a taciturn man."
"The carbon monoxide poisoning looked mild, but he was so quiet I wondered if there'd been some aftereffect. If that's simply how he is, then it's a relief."
The doctor set the box on his desk and led Ki-jo to the ward where Lim Dae-hong was waiting.
Lim sat on the bed in clothes neatly put back on, his eyes lowered. Tall as he was, he had grown badly gaunt. When Ki-jo offered a silent bow, Lim rose and spoke a single sentence.
"I'm deeply in your debt."
"Don't speak of debt."
Ki-jo said that much and nothing more. He led the taciturn man out of the hospital and put him in the jeep. From the moment they left Eighth Army headquarters until they neared his house, neither of them broke the silence.
Ki-jo knew how proud he was. When Lim had started losing the fight for market share, he could have come at any time and proposed a partnership. Back in Busan, Ki-jo himself had opened his factory to the man and offered to share a trademark, dividing only the sales territories. Lim had refused. He had wanted to sell a product that carried a mark of his own—the bearing of a founding lord. Even after his circumstances worsened, he had never come. Ki-jo suspected Lim could not have forgiven himself if he had. Knowing full well how dangerous it was to borrow in Myeongdong, he had chosen to take his loan from Dan Sa-cheon.
Not long after the jeep turned into the residential alleys, Lim spoke.
"Please let me out around here."
Ki-jo eased the jeep to a stop. Lim moved to get out, then stopped.
"While I was in the hospital, did that man Dan Sa-cheon come to see you?"
"Yes. He came."
Ki-jo kept his eyes on the road ahead, sparing the reticent man a direct look.
"Did he tell you to buy Miwang?"
"Yes. He said if I repaid only the loan you'd taken, plus interest, I could have Miwang."
"Did you buy it?"
"The moment I said I would, he wasn't so eager to sell."
Ki-jo gave a bitter smile. The taste in Lim's mouth seemed no sweeter; he pressed his lips tight, then spoke.
"He must have opened the same bargaining with Cheil Jedang."
"Yes. A few days later he told me that if I put up just another million hwan, he wouldn't hand it over to Cheil Jedang—he'd give it to me. So I said I would."
Lim was quiet for a moment.
"You did it on purpose. To you, Miwang must be nothing but a chicken rib."
He had read Ki-jo exactly. In truth Ki-jo had no wish to buy Miwang. He knew that within two years fermented seasoning would rule the market; there was no reason to take over a Miwang plant. If Dan Sa-cheon set out to play Cheongsan and Cheil Jedang against each other, Ki-jo meant to dance to the tune. He intended to make Cheil Jedang pay as dearly as possible for Miwang. The reason was simple. Cheil Jedang's offensive had been stronger than he expected. The more they overinvested in acid-hydrolyzed MSG, the more they would hesitate to switch when fermented seasoning appeared. He meant to pile up their sunk costs and slow the move to the new technology. He was also certain Lee Byung-chull already knew Mipung tasted worse than either Miwon or Miwang. Even if Dan Sa-cheon drove the price up, Byung-chull would still buy Miwang, hoping to mend that weakness. Ki-jo owned it plainly.
"You're right, President Lim."
"Thanks to you, Miwang's value will rise. That's some comfort, at least."
Lim smiled. Caught out, Ki-jo put a question to him.
"It seemed to me you wanted to break me even more than you wanted to break President Lee Byung-chull."
This time it was Lim who looked faintly shaken. Ki-jo had read him in turn.
"Yes. That's true. I didn't want to lose to President Lee Ki-jo."
He admitted it without resistance, and Ki-jo smiled at him.
"Why did you feel that way? Did I give you some insult? If I did, I apologize. It wouldn't have been intentional."
"It wasn't that."
Lim denied it at once.
"The reason I couldn't bear to lose to you was that you carried out, ahead of me, the very plan I had conceived. It was as if…"
"You felt your thoughts had been stolen."
"Yes. I knew it couldn't possibly be so, and yet it felt like watching you steal my answer sheet and take a perfect score."
For an instant a chill went through Ki-jo.
He felt it by instinct.
Lim had no way of knowing he was a man returned from another life. Still, once his fate was interfered with, he had felt an instinctive anger toward the one who interfered.
This man is no ordinary man.
In Ki-jo's previous life, Lim Dae-hong had fought Lee Byung-chull and won the seasoning market. Talent of that order, effort of that scale, a fate that strong—without all three, such a thing could not be done. Beaten now in the seasoning war, Lim did not feel to him like a man who would simply go under. In some field or another he would gather his strength and rise again. Luck had gone against him this time. If their businesses ever overlapped in the years ahead, he would return as a formidable rival.
Ki-jo decided to accept it. If he had stood in the way of someone's fate, that someone could stand in the way of his. It was as natural as action and reaction.
He spoke from the heart.
"President Lim Dae-hong, I'll be waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
Lim looked at him, puzzled. Ki-jo smiled.
"For the day you stand first, in whatever field it may be. I'm certain that day will come."
The words seemed to catch him slightly off guard. Lim studied Ki-jo in silence, then broke into a short laugh.
"Thank you for the kind words. I hope your own business prospers, President Lee."
Lim stepped out of the jeep and walked off down the alley. Ki-jo watched his back.
It can't have been chance alone that sent me to the Miwang office and put his life in my hands.
Perhaps the man's strong fate, with so much still left undone, had drawn him there. Call it the karmic debt for having stood in the way of a powerful destiny.
His mind restless, Ki-jo did not return to Cheongsan headquarters. He went instead to Chang Key-young at the DBC station and proposed a drink. Chang laughed.
"What's gotten into our family man? Last day of the year, and instead of thinking about going home early, it's drinks?"
"If Assemblyman Kim has the time, I'd like to see him too."
"Mention free liquor to Assemblyman Kim Doo-han and he comes running. I'll call him."
Ki-jo and Chang Key-young headed for the entertainment streets of Gwancheol-dong behind the station. They had taken a table in a small bar and were waiting when Kim Doo-han arrived with a short man in tow. Chang recognized him first.
"Assemblyman Kim Young-sam, isn't it?"
Startled, Ki-jo looked toward the man coming through the door.
"How do you do? I heard the proprietor of the Hankook Ilbo was waiting, so I came."
Kim Young-sam seemed already acquainted with Chang. They shook hands and greeted each other with easy familiarity.
"Assemblyman Kim, let me introduce this gentleman. President Lee Ki-jo, co-president of DBC."
Kim Doo-han made the introduction. Kim Young-sam offered Ki-jo his hand.
"How do you do? A pleasure to meet you. I'm Kim Young-sam."
For Kim it was a first meeting. For Ki-jo the man was all too familiar, and the handshake left him strangely dazed.
Everyone gathered over the drinks was a man of formidable will. Chang Key-young was the one who would later serve as deputy prime minister under Park Chung-hee, dig in with a mule's obstinacy, refuse to take orders, and be dismissed for it. Kim Young-sam went further still. Elected the youngest assemblyman in the Republic on a Liberal Party nomination, he had gone to Gyeongmudae, sought out Syngman Rhee, and told him without a tremor of fear not to push the third-term amendment—to step down, and remain the father of the nation. Kim Doo-han was outrageous enough to have flung a chamber pot of night soil across the floor of the National Assembly. Put the three of them in one room, and the effect was immediate.
"Assemblyman Kim Doo-han! If you were bringing Assemblyman Kim Young-sam, you might have said so. What do you mean, startling a man like this?"
Chang took him to task without the least disguise.
"Ah, well, the way it happened was this. Before I even took my elder brother's call, I'd already been pestering Assemblyman Kim Young-sam to buy the drinks. We were supposed to drink together in the first place."
Once Kim Doo-han had explained himself, Chang broke into a hearty laugh.
"Does Assemblyman Kim Young-sam buy you drinks often?"
"Ah, do you know how many anchovies this fellow's father hauls in off Geoje Island? His father-in-law runs a rubber-shoe factory, too. A rich man. Filthy rich."
"Do you suppose I buy Assemblyman Kim drinks because I have money? In this great country of ours, there is no assemblyman as great as Kim Doo-han. I do it for democracy."
Kim Young-sam delivered even a joke like an oration, and Ki-jo could not keep from laughing. When the others turned to look at him, he swallowed the laugh as best he could.
"Tonight I'll pay. Grant me the honor of buying drinks for democracy."
"Assemblyman Kim Young-sam has more money. It's only fair that the richest man pays."
Kim Doo-han waved him off.
"Now, now, Assemblyman Kim! Tonight the oldest man here will pay. The drinks are on me."
Chang stepped forward to claim the bill. Everyone but Kim Doo-han began insisting that he himself would pay. Ki-jo abandoned the contest early. He had no hope of outlasting Chang Key-young and Kim Young-sam once they dug in.
At last Kim Doo-han, unable to bear it, shouted.
"Ah, tonight I'll pay! Not one of you even tells me to buy. I'm hurt, I tell you!"
Chang and Kim Young-sam stopped arguing.
"Are you really going to pay, Assemblyman Kim? You haven't got any money."
"The sun will rise in the west. Six months left in his term, and the day has finally come when I drink on Assemblyman Kim Doo-han."
Kim Young-sam looked delighted.
"What do you mean, I haven't got money? Why would the sun rise in the west? I'll order the drinks. Proprietor! Come over here!"
The owner hurried over at Kim Doo-han's call and took the order. Ki-jo drank with them in high spirits.
Kim Young-sam, met for the first time that day, was about Ki-jo's own age, and good company. There was a proud set to his face and manner that hinted at the mettle of a man who would speak his mind even in the years of military rule. Yet even he, bearer of a destiny strong enough to carry him to the presidency, was still no more than a fledgling in politics. Now and again a slightly childish streak showed through.
Around nine, Ki-jo parted from the three of them and went home. The eventful year of 1957 was quietly drawing to a close.
He arrived at the house and knocked on the gate, and Sunrye came out. When he stepped inside with a slight stagger, she caught hold of him.
"You've had such a hard year, dear."
At that single sentence, something knotted tight in a corner of his heart loosened and let go. The gate closed. In the dark that settled over them, Ki-jo drew Sunrye into his arms.
"Thank you, dear. I live because of you. If you weren't in this world, I wouldn't want to live."
His mild drunken sweetness seemed to please her. She held him close and asked,
"Because of whom? I want to hear it again."
"Because I met a country girl from Byeokje. Miss Yang Soonrye."
He whispered it, and Sunrye held him harder still. They did not go into the main room, where the children were sleeping. Quietly, hand in hand, they slipped into the room across the yard.