The Gelded Beast
The moment they reached the bar, Doo-hwan called out to the proprietress, all swagger.
"Auntie! Set us up a spread! I brought a new hire with me!"
At Chun Doo-hwan's bellow she came bustling out and welcomed him and Kijo both.
"Aigoo. Our dormitory supervisor's brought a guest."
She made a show of knowing Doo-hwan, then turned her interest on Kijo at once.
"Where are you from? My, aren't you handsome."
"I came from Seoul."
"A long way. And you were right to come. Daegu beats a Seoul with no work in it, doesn't it? Hired on at the finest factory in the country—your parents must be delighted. What did they say? 'Our boy's really made something of himself,' I'll bet?"
She was warm with Kijo, a man she'd never seen before. From her speech, she didn't seem Daegu-born.
"Daegu folk look blunt on the outside, but they've got plenty of heart. Stick it out and you'll see what I mean. You're not married, are you?"
"No, ma'am. Still a bachelor."
"Aigoo, perfect. More than a thousand girls work at Cheil Industries. With a face like yours, you won't even have to move—the young ladies will be stuck to you in no time."
As she chattered on, Chun Doo-hwan cut in.
"Enough of that nonsense. Hurry up and set the table. The usual."
"All right, all right. That temper—barking orders the second you walk in, just so nobody forgets you came out of the Military Academy. What am I, one of your soldiers?"
"God, you talk too much. I'll have to tell my new man we don't come back here."
"Oh my, oh my. Has our General Chun gone and gotten his feelings hurt? I'm fond of our General Chun, I think the world of him, so the words just run away with me. You know that, don't you, General?"
"Enough already! Just bring the food out, and make it worth eating!"
With the proprietress, Chun Doo-hwan slipped into dialect.
The liquor came first, and he poured the soju.
"Daegu soju hits harder than the Seoul stuff. Drink it like a man anyway!"
Kijo knocked his glass against Doo-hwan's and swallowed.
"Haaah— what did I tell you. Nothing tastes better than a drink you're stealing off the clock. Am I right?"
"You're right."
They passed the drinks back and forth. The stir-fried pork that came out with them was good. Doo-hwan found something to pick at anyway.
"Auntie! Look at this! What do you call this meat? You think you can serve meat like this to a man from Cheil Industries?"
"What now? What's the matter?"
She came out of the kitchen and looked down at the side dish she'd made.
"There's no fat on it. Dry as dust. I was trying to grease my throat a little, and this is what I get?"
"Fine. I'll trim off some fatback and fry you another plate. Awful particular today, aren't you, General Chun?"
"It's because the new man's here for the first time, that's why. You treat him this stingy, you think he's coming back? Auntie, whose pocket are you eating out of in this place?"
"Aigo, yes, yes, General Chun, sir. I'll throw in a bottle of soju, on the house. Happy now?"
She looked well practiced at handling the proud men of Cheil Industries, and she fielded Doo-hwan's nitpicking without missing a beat. Pleased to have shown how even his unreasonable demands got indulged, he smiled as if he owned the world.
"Well? You see that? That's a Cheil Industries man for you."
"Impressive. Hahaha."
Kijo found it faintly ridiculous, this flexing of so petty a power.
Once the drink had flushed his face, Doo-hwan turned to him.
"Dae-ik. Your boss doesn't happen to have a woman stashed in Daegu, does he?"
"A woman?"
Kijo stared at him blankly.
"Come on, you know the type. Tells the family he's touring the Cheil Industries plant, dumps you here, and goes off to have his fun by himself."
Chun Doo-hwan snickered.
"Our president isn't that sort of man."
"The hell he isn't. Look at that face—pretty as a gisaeng's brother, same as you. Built to sweet-talk women. I'm right about this. I saw plenty of generals like that in the army. I know."
"Generals like that?"
"Yeah, you. Ship the family off on a trip, call the mistress into the official residence, and spend the whole day under the blankets, biting and sucking—"
He made an obscene gesture that left no doubt what he meant. Kijo was so dumbfounded he let out a short laugh, and that only set Doo-hwan swaggering again.
"Auntie! Get over here!"
"Oh, what now... General Chun keeps wanting to see me today. What's the matter?"
She asked it in a clumsy imitation of Daegu dialect.
"Look at our Dae-ik! Handsome, right? I was thinking I'd fix him up with a pretty Daegu girl. Call some of the young ladies over!"
He was talking nonsense. The proprietress, equally incredulous, answered him with a crooked look.
"Aigu, General Chun. Is this a house for finding brides? Why are you looking for women here? If you want to meet girls, put on your Cheil Industries work clothes and go to a cabaret. There's a dazzling one right next to Songjuk Theater."
"Gukil Cabaret? These days the OB Cabaret they opened in Hyangchon-dong has better girls. The one beside Kukje Theater isn't bad either."
"Aigu, a real master of the cabarets. A master. Didn't you say you had a girl? That you met a middle-schooler while you were at the Academy and fell in love? So you've been leaving that young bride of yours at home and doing nothing but cabarets? Honestly, I'll never understand men."
At that, Chun Doo-hwan brought his palm down on the table with a crack and spat out a curse.
"Ah, fuck! I told you not to bring that fucking business up!"
Drink and rage together made his face even more vicious. Startled, the proprietress came close and wheedled.
"Why... why are you like this? General Chun, did something happen?"
"Ah, fuck this, I swear—I ought to burn this shitty bar to the ground!"
"Aigu, I'm sorry, General Chun. I was wrong. Hold it in. Please. If you set fire to this place, how am I supposed to live... Don't you feel any pity for a widow raising a child her husband never lived to see?"
"Ah, fuck it. Goddamn—ptui!"
He spat on the floor. Kijo gave the proprietress a look that told her to leave it to him, and stepped in.
"Hyung, please hold it in. I don't think she knew what she was saying."
"You know?"
"Of course I don't know anything either. What would I know?"
He said it calmly, and the agitated Chun Doo-hwan settled a little. Watching him seethe on alone, Kijo thought, So he's split with Lee Soon-ja...
Lee Soon-ja had met Cadet Chun Doo-hwan while she was still in her second year of middle school. Born in '39, and the meeting in '52—she would have been fourteen. This year she would have finished high school and gone on to the College of Medicine at Ewha Womans University, and by rights the two of them should have been married before the year was out.
But that belonged to the original history, to the years when Chun Doo-hwan had been climbing as an army officer. Last year he had been put through something ugly and driven out of the service, and Lee Soon-ja's family would have cast him off without a moment's mercy. Beyond the commission the Military Academy had given him, he came from nothing. The house was poor, there was no property, and the only thing worth banking on had been his future as a soldier. With even that gone, feeding himself had been a bleak prospect. Had it not been for Lee Maeng-hee—eldest son of the Samsung family, and his friend—the life would simply have collapsed.
Chun Doo-hwan put a cigarette between his lips, and Kijo lit it.
"Life... fuck..."
He muttered it on a sigh. Then, as if the pain had come back into his right arm, he grimaced and kneaded it. Kijo watched him a moment. The torture ruined him, he thought. The aching arm wasn't the only thing it had left behind. Those sudden rages, flaring up like fire, looked like an aftereffect too.
Chun Doo-hwan emptied his glass alone.
"I feel like shit anyway. How about we go find some women? I'll pay. You just follow me."
"I can't. I have to get back to Seoul today and report to the president."
"Aigo. Lonely. So damn lonely. No woman, no friends. Why did my life turn into this all of a sudden... Twisted. Twisted to fucking hell, and there's not a thing I can do about it."
He sighed up at the bar's low ceiling. Looking at the wreck he had become, Kijo sighed inwardly too. He'd seen enough.
"I'll pour you this last glass, then I'll head for Daegu Station."
"You ditching me just because I got a little mad?"
He asked it straight. He seemed raw about anyone leaving his side.
"Ditching you? I'm the junior. I have to get up to Seoul, write the report, and have the car cleaned and ready."
"Yeah... When you're the youngest, that's how it is. Once you've got some years in, like me, you'll have room to breathe. Till then you've got no choice but to grind. That's just the way of it."
Playing at magnanimity, Chun Doo-hwan lifted his glass. Kijo had the bottle raised and was halfway through the pour when the door rattled open and someone came in.
The man met Kijo's eyes. His face went ugly, and he shouted.
"What the hell are you two doing in here!"
At the booming roar, Chun Doo-hwan started and dropped his glass. He turned, shot up from his seat, and bowed.
"Section Chief, what brings you here?"
"What brings me, you little bastard! Supervisor Chun, what are you doing here on the clock?"
"Ah, I..."
He floundered.
"Hey, you bald-headed bastard. We took a whimpering wretch who committed a crime in the army and got himself thrown out, sat him down as dorm supervisor, and this is what you do? A drinking party in broad daylight? Have you lost your mind? You want to die?"
The man bore down on him.
"Please lower your voice, Chief. And just hear me out..."
Paying him no mind, the man jabbed a finger at Kijo.
"What's your name, you bastard? Never seen you before—you must be new. Your guts hanging clean out of your belly, is that it? Say your name! I'll have your head off this minute!"
Unlike Chun Doo-hwan, Kijo didn't cringe. He only stared, blank, and that seemed to make the man angrier still.
"Chief! This gentleman is a guest from Seoul..."
Doo-hwan's voice had gone pleading.
"A guest? Oh, he likes being called a guest. A man in our company uniform, and you call him a guest? You take me for some empty-headed fool? You bastard?"
The section chief raised his hand as if to strike. Doo-hwan threw an arm up over his head, and the man kept driving at him.
"A dorm-supervisor bastard with nothing to do in the daytime ought to be down in the woolen mill carding fiber. Instead you're dragging a new hire out to drink. So what if you're friends with the president's son, you bastard. All the more reason to work hard. You lowborn piece of shit. Are you the president's son? You think you get to live however you please?"
Unable to take any more, Chun Doo-hwan grabbed the section chief around the waist.
"Stop the cursing and just listen to me."
As he explained, the savage face gradually loosened, then turned awkward. The section chief gave Kijo a bobbing bow and apologized.
"I didn't realize you'd come from Seoul. You were wearing a company uniform, so I just..."
Once the apology came, Chun Doo-hwan seemed to decide the tide had turned, and he raised his voice.
"Chief! I tried to explain from the start—what is this? You wouldn't even hear me out. You just started cursing. I was truly wronged!"
"Supervisor Chun, look. At this hour, a man anyone would take for one of ours is sitting in a bar. Of course I reacted. You understand too."
"Do you have any idea who this man is? He's a department manager at Cheongsan Enterprise in Seoul! A relative of President Cheongsan besides! And this is the disgrace we make of it?"
Kijo could only click his tongue at the lie. To set himself a step above, Chun Doo-hwan was using him for all he was worth.
"Aigo, I'm sorry, Supervisor Chun. But you, too. If someone that important came, you should have taken him somewhere proper. Bringing him to a shabby place like this..."
Now it was the section chief floundering. Kijo almost pitied him, squirming because he'd swallowed a lie.
"Not at all, Chief. I'm the one who asked Supervisor Chun for just a single drink near the plant. And I'd heard that a man in a Cheil Industries uniform gets treated well, so I said I wanted to try one on. You had every reason to misunderstand. I'm not offended, so please don't trouble yourself."
Once Kijo had smoothed it over in that calm way, the section chief scratched the back of his head and kept bowing. Still, he seemed sorry enough to take out his wallet, press a few bills into Doo-hwan's hand, and speak.
"I'll cover the drinks. You let your anger go, too."
"Understood, Chief. My anger's gone as well."
Chun Doo-hwan grinned and slipped the money straight into his trouser pocket. Watching him, Kijo thought, Yes. That's Chun Doo-hwan. The reflexes were remarkable. The instant an opening showed itself, he would lie if he had to and put his own superior through the wringer. Scaled up, a talent like that could swallow a country.
"Then please rest easy before you go. I'll be on my way."
The section chief bowed to Kijo and slipped carefully out of the bar. Chun Doo-hwan picked up the glass he'd dropped and spoke, triumphant.
"You see that?"
Kijo filled it again. Having enjoyed his last drink in high spirits, Chun Doo-hwan called the proprietress.
"Auntie, what's the damage?"
She came out of the kitchen all smiles and bowed to him.
"You'll be settling that tab you've been running?"
"No, I was just asking. Put today's on the account."
"You just took money from your boss to pay for the drinks. I saw it clear as day. Just settle up, General Chun..."
She was hurt.
"That money's what the chief gave me to take the guest to a cabaret. Didn't you hear? He was scolding me for bringing him to a dump like this."
She was speechless. So was Kijo. Watching Chun Doo-hwan cackle, he thought, The man's badly broken.
In the life before this one, Chun Doo-hwan had seized the highest power in the nation and swung a terrible authority. Now he was a small man with no road back. Torture had wrecked his body and his mind; the dream was dead, and his fiancée had thrown him away. Something in him seemed twisted until it would not come straight.
Leaving the bar, Kijo came out of the alley with him, and they said their goodbyes at the main street.
"Next time you're in Daegu, come find me. I'll take you to the best cabaret in the city."
He played the openhanded man.
"Where should I come? If you give me your home address, I'll call on you."
"Home? I don't have one. I eat and sleep in the supervisor's room at the plant. Come to the factory."
"Understood."
Kijo put away the notebook and pen he'd taken out.
"Then I'll see you next time."
After they parted, Kijo walked a good while, then turned around and went back to the bar. The proprietress, working in the kitchen, came out when she saw him.
"Did you leave something behind? I didn't see anything..."
"How much is on the tab?"
"Whose tab? Mr. Chun, the one you were drinking with?"
"Yes. Tell me what Chun Doo-hwan owes."
"Aigu... It's over six thousand hwan. I backed the wrong customer. He seemed so openhanded I thought he'd pay what he owed, but he's nothing but a skinflint..."
Kijo nodded. Perhaps feeling she'd run the man down too hard, she went on.
"They say he wasn't always like that. When he came out of the Academy and was an officer, he was a fine, upright man. Something bad must have happened."
"Yes. I think so too."
Agreeing with her, Kijo took a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and held it out.
"Oh my goodness! You're paying it for him?"
She hurriedly wiped the wet from her hands on her apron and took the money in both of hers.
"You run a fine place. The food's good, and you treat your customers well. If it were me, I'd be in here every day."
"Aigo, even just to hear you say so—thank you. You really are a good man..."
His praise embarrassed her.
"Take this as well."
He drew a business card from his wallet and gave it to her.
"Take this to the nearest Cheongsan Store. Tell them I gave it to you, and they'll take another ten percent off."
"And who are you?"
"I'm the president of Cheongsan Store."
"Oh my lord!"
She startled so hard she nearly dropped the card.
"I know Cheongsan Store! People say the prices are cheap and they're kind!"
"Yes. And it will stay that way. Please keep coming."
"Thank you, sir. I certainly will."
Having closed even the sale without a flaw, Kijo turned to go. He left behind a proprietress gazing after him like a prince on a white horse, and walked slowly toward Daegu Station.