The Loan Negotiation Team

The day after the uproar in the chairman's office, Ki-jo put a call through to the West German embassy. If he meant to negotiate a commercial loan with West Germany, he had to move quickly. Less than a year remained before April 19, and in that span he had to close the loan talks and see to it that the West German government placed plant orders with West German firms. Only then, even if April 19 broke over the country, would there still be plant equipment sitting in Germany, waiting to be shipped to Korea.

Bonn would be left clutching its head. From the West German government's point of view the fertilizer-plant machinery would have become surplus, and it would be an awkward business to sell off, to some other country, equipment already paid for under a loan. Once the typhoon of April 19 had passed and Korea's politics settled, he could ask Bonn to send the equipment in. Cumbersome, exhausting work—but there was no other way. Only then could he build the fertilizer plant even a single year sooner.

He asked the embassy switchboard for Michael. Commercial Consul Michael took the call and greeted him in a bright voice.

Ki-jo set the receiver down and stepped out into the secretarial office. Jin Hyun-kyung was there with a child on her back. Seong Dae-ik, hurt the day before, was in the hospital, and Miss Kim, who had been filling in for Hyun-kyung, was home resting after the shock. In their place the couple—Hansoo and Hyun-kyung—were keeping the office.

"Are you heading out?" Hansoo asked.

"I'm going over to the West German embassy."

Having told them where he was bound, Ki-jo went over to Hyun-kyung, the child still strapped to her back.

"Hyun-kyung, you can go on home. You've the baby to look after..."

He looked at Dowon, asleep against her mother's back, breathing soft and even. A pretty little girl.

"I'll sort the papers before I go. They're all mixed together, and if I don't do it they won't come out clean, Chairman." Hyun-kyung answered with a smile.

"It's all right, Chairman. I'd be carrying Dowon on my back all day at home anyway. The moment she leaves her mother's back, she won't sleep." Hansoo put in.

Ki-jo was grateful. Where the company's work was concerned, Hyun-kyung would set everything else aside, strap the child on, and come in.

"I'm sorry. Hyun-kyung, Hansoo."

"Don't mention it, Chairman. Don't give us a thought—go safely."

He thanked the two of them once more and left the chairman's office. Out of Cheongsan headquarters he walked all the way to the Bando Hotel in Sogong-dong, turning over, as he went, whom he ought to take with him to West Germany. By the time he had walked through the candidates for the negotiating team, he was at the hotel.

He knocked at Room 300. An embassy staffer opened the door, and Michael showed him in. When Ki-jo entered Ambassador Hertz's office, the ambassador rose from behind his desk.

"You've come." Ambassador Hertz welcomed him with a bright face.

Once Michael had withdrawn, he offered Ki-jo the sofa and sat down across from him.

"I hear President Syngman Rhee has given you authority to negotiate the West German loan."

"That's right. Thank you. I owe it to you, Ambassador."

"Not at all. I recommended you and Mr. Lee Byung-chull to the President on the same footing. He told me he intended to send you to West Germany, and asked me to help."

Just as Ki-jo had expected.

"Mr. Lee Byung-chull chose Italy, I understand."

There was no way to know, Ki-jo thought, who had truly chosen Italy. Whether it was Lee Byung-chull's own decision, swayed by what Ki-jo had said, or whether Syngman Rhee had pressed Italy upon him—only the two of them would ever know.

Ambassador Hertz promised him a meeting with Economics Minister Erhard, and told him Commercial Consul Michael would assist. Ki-jo thanked him. The ambassador wished him luck.

The moment he left the West German embassy, Ki-jo set about forming the negotiating team. The first man he drew in was Hwang Tae-young, technical president of DBC, and he chose him for his experience at the table. His English was excellent, and with Syngman Rhee's backing he had once gone to the United States and negotiated with RCA. When Ki-jo explained the situation and asked for his help, Hwang Tae-young accepted at once.

The second was Oh Yang-soo. Oh Yang-soo was close to Admiral Sohn Won-yil, now ambassador to West Germany. He spoke nothing but Japanese and had never negotiated with a foreigner, but Ki-jo decided to take him all the same. When they worked alongside Sohn Won-yil, Oh Yang-soo would be the oil that kept the gears from grinding.

The third was a man recommended by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His name was Baek Young-hoon, a professor of economics at Chung-Ang University and a former student in West Germany. Ki-jo knew very well who he was. In the original history, he had interpreted when President Park Chung-hee visited West Germany in 1964. He knew, too, the life the man had lived.

Born in 1930, the same year as Ki-jo, Baek had been attending the College of Commerce at Korea University when the Korean War broke out. As in Ki-jo's second life, the Han River bridges were blown and he was trapped in Seoul. Wandering the city, he was dragged off by the People's Army and pressed into the People's Volunteer Corps, and like Ki-jo he was thrown onto the Nakdong River front. Ki-jo had died there and come back. Baek Young-hoon had been lucky enough to escape with his life. When American B-29s bombed the North Korean positions, he slipped away in the confusion. He returned to Seoul with the September 28 recapture, only to be conscripted into the ROK Army as an English-interpreting officer, and after the armistice he passed the examination for study in West Germany and left. He took his doctorate at the University of Erlangen, came home, and was now teaching economics at Chung-Ang.

Ki-jo judged that the three of them would be enough. The moment the team was secured, he went to see the foreign minister.

Minister Cho Jeong-hwan went over Ki-jo's preparations. He looked at who would be going to West Germany with him, and checked that not a document was missing. When Ki-jo laid out the list of papers, the minister nodded.

"You've even arranged the Korea Development Bank's payment guarantee. And more than anything, with His Excellency the President's personal letter, we're on solid ground."

He did not review the fertilizer-plant business plan. The minister of commerce and industry had already recognized it and signed off; there was no need for him, no specialist in the matter, to go over it again.

"Good. I've already instructed the embassy in Washington and the embassy in West Germany to cooperate. If you need anything, tell me now."

Ki-jo asked him to secure flights so that, the moment they landed in the United States, they could get on to West Germany as fast as possible. The minister readily said he would. With the date of departure fixed, Ki-jo went home and told Sunrye of a trip that would take two weeks at the least.

Hearing him, Sunrye—worried, it seemed, for a husband bound so far—let a shadow of care gather at the corners of her eyes.

"Be careful, dear. And don't push yourself too hard."

"I will. Don't worry."

Even after that, her heart would not settle. She rose and opened the wardrobe, drew out Ki-jo's pillow, and picked loose the thread sewn across one end. From inside the pillow came a sheet of white paper.

"A charm?"

"Yes..."

He took the paper from the shy Sunrye and unfolded it. Within, a talisman of yellow paper written in red ink lay thinly folded. Ki-jo slipped it into his wallet.

"Wherever I go, I'll keep it with me."

He did not believe in the charm's power. He only wanted to set her heart at ease.

He explained it to Yeong-su, Yeong-eun, and Yeong-jun as well—where he was going, and what he was going to do. Even if the children were too young to understand it exactly, he wanted to leave a clear image of himself in their memories. He did not want them, grown, to recall it only as a blur. When I was little, Father went abroad and came home a long while later. He wanted his young children to feel that they were loved.

"Your father's going abroad to borrow money, so he can build a fertilizer plant. For the people who are going hungry, your father has to go. Once he leaves, he'll be back in about a month. Until then, listen to your mother, and get along with one another."

Yeong-su answered, "Yes, Father," and Yeong-eun threw herself into his arms.

"Daddy, can't you take us too? I don't like it when you're gone. I get scared."

She buried her face against his chest. He found her so dear that he held her close and smiled, and then he explained it to the child in his arms.

"Yeong-jun is too little to get on an airplane. If Yeong-jun can't go, shouldn't Mother stay home too? You and your brother Yeong-su could come with Daddy, but then Mother would worry about you—and wouldn't you miss her?"

He laid it out for them calmly. That was his love for his children. He wanted to leave, in their memories, something they could accept. Why did Father leave us then, and stay away so long? He did not want that question taking root. Perhaps it was because he himself had grown up an orphan. As a child he had never stopped wondering. Why was I abandoned? What sort of people were my parents? He would not leave a blank like that in his children's minds.

"You heard your father, didn't you? When he comes home, you and I have to greet him safe and well, as if nothing had happened. That's our part." Sunrye explained it to them just as calmly.

Yeong-eun would not leave Ki-jo's arms, and Yeong-su began telling her what he knew of America and West Germany.

"America has the Statue of Liberty, and West Germany is famous for the Rhine."

"How far away is it?" Yeong-eun asked.

"If you take a plane, America takes about two days, and from America to West Germany about another day."

"What kind of country is America?"

"America is the land of the free."

"What's free?"

Their talk ran on without end. Listening, Ki-jo and Sunrye could not keep the smiles from their faces.

April 30. Ki-jo went to Gimpo Airport with the West German delegation—Hwang Tae-young, Oh Yang-soo, and Baek Young-hoon.

Unlike in the original history, Gimpo had taken over civilian operations from Yeouido Airfield on March 1, 1959. In the history he remembered, the transfer had taken effect on the first of January that year. Trifles had a way of slipping, a little at a time. But matters of life and death seemed to hold exactly. Events that divided the living from the dead—Cho Bong-am's death sentence among them—were still unfolding as history had written them.

A Daehan News crew was waiting at the airport to cover Ki-jo's party. He figured they would film the departure, and if word later came that things had gone well, they would be out again on the day he returned to film him coming in. They would edit in his meeting with Syngman Rhee, he supposed, and cut the whole of it into a newsreel of the President's achievements. As the crew asked, he boarded the airstairs last, waved toward the camera, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠went inside.

Aboard the NWA airliner that would stop in Tokyo, he sat with Baek Young-hoon. The propeller engines caught. The plane ran Gimpo's runway, lifted its nose, and climbed. Once it had reached altitude and settled onto its course, it leveled into level flight, and the green light came on to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠say they might unfasten their belts.

Sipping the juice a stewardess set before him, Ki-jo began to talk with Baek Young-hoon. The rhythm between them would matter a great deal. English he could hear and speak without missing the finest shade of feeling, but German was another matter. From Baek he learned a few phrases he could actually use—a greeting, a thanks, I won't forget, we can succeed. Once he had those, he turned the talk toward more personal ground.

Baek Young-hoon was a man who would play an important part in Korea's relations with West Germany from here on. They needed to grow close. As they spoke of this and that, the conversation drifted as far as the days Baek had been dragged into the People's Volunteer Corps and fought on the Nakdong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠front.

"Bombs poured out of the B-29s like rain. The moment I saw the bombers, I burrowed down into a trench. When the raid ended and I looked around, I couldn't see a living soul. It was just after sunset. The People's Army often tried to cross the Nakdong after dark, so the Americans had bombed as a precaution."

Ki-jo knew that ground. He too had fled American air raids and artillery in blind panic, hiding behind a hill or wedged into a trench.

"It was horrific. You couldn't find an intact body. They were torn into pieces you couldn't recognize. No commander in sight, no comrades. I was the only one lucky enough to live. In that moment I decided that if I didn't run then, I never would, and I got out at once under cover of dark."

He too was a man who had passed through a cruel fork between life and death. Ki-jo knew that after May 16 he would pass through another.

Baek Young-hoon escaped the Volunteer Corps, suffered every hardship on the way, and made it back to Seoul with the September 28 recapture—only to be conscripted at once into the ROK Army and made an officer. Absurdly, the rank he wore was one a company commander had conferred on his own authority. The root of the trouble was that he had begun his service as an officer overseeing labor details, something certain divisions and regiments ran off the books. There was no military record of him at all. Even after he was formally conscripted, it stayed that way.

Teaching at Chung-Ang University, he was arrested right after May 16 as a draft evader, sent back into the Nonsan training camp, and in the middle of training loaded into a jeep and hauled off somewhere. The man who pulled him out of Nonsan was Kim Jong-pil. Now director of the KCIA, Kim Jong-pil had been searching for talent the revolutionary government could use; someone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠recommended Baek Young-hoon, and he had him brought in. After Kim Jong-pil asked him to help the revolutionary government, Baek was handed over to officers and given about a week of indoctrination in the revolutionary government's ideology. Then he was promised that his military service would be commuted to a post as special aide to the minister of commerce and industry. That was how he came to be bound to the government of Park Chung-hee.

While Ki-jo was turning this over, Baek Young-hoon asked, "What do you think, Chairman Lee?"

"About what?"

"Will West Germany or the United States actually lend us the money?"

Ki-jo thought of the original history and offered his guess.

"In West Germany the chances of success are good. In the United States, I think it'll be harder."

"Right. America is against Korea industrializing." Baek Young-hoon nodded.

"Isn't it strange? They pour support into industrializing Japan and Germany, who were their enemies, and ignore Korea completely. America doesn't seem to think of us as anything more than a farming country where U.S. troops are stationed." He sounded bitter.

"If war breaks out again, plants built in Japan can be protected. Build them in a country as small as Korea, and they figure it'll all be destroyed." Ki-jo kept it to a military point of view. To talk economics in front of a professor of economics, he thought, would be a discourtesy.

"Even so. If they mean to raise us as a farming country, shouldn't they at least build us a plant that can make fertilizer? Ha ha." He laughed without much force.

While the two of them were deep in talk, a cook in a chef's toque and a stewardess appeared, pushing a cart. In true 1950s fashion, a cook served the in-flight meal himself.

"Here comes the meal. Let's eat, and pick this up after."

"Good."

Hwang Tae-young and Oh Yang-soo, seated ahead, were served ham and bread. Ki-jo and Baek Young-hoon received the same and began to eat.

"This is the sort of meal I ate often in Germany. I think the bread tastes better there."

"The moment we get to Germany, I want a beer."

"German beer is superb. It'll taste nothing like the American army's."

Ki-jo ate as he talked with Baek Young-hoon. In three or four days, he thought, he could be thoroughly at ease with this man as well.