Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo
The day after Syngman Rhee's visit to Yeonji-dong, Sung Dae-ik rose early, settled Lee Ki-jo into the jeep, and set out for Daegu.
From the driver's seat he could feel the mood of the man beside him. Ki-jo looked thoroughly pleased. To Dae-ik he had always been a bright, warm presence, yet today he seemed brighter still, and Dae-ik turned the reason over in his mind.
For one thing, the presidential visit the day before seemed to have gone well. From a week earlier they had all been down in Busan making ready—clearing the weeds around the factory, and even scrubbing clean the employees' latrines, which the president would never so much as glance at. Everyone had been worked to the bone. As if in return for that labor, there had come a promise that Ki-jo would be taken along on the president's visit to Gangwon Province in the summer. Attending at his side as secretary, Dae-ik had heard with perfect clarity every word spoken by the high official from Gyeongmudae.
He supposed his chairman was pleased at having won the president's favor. Not once had he heard Ki-jo speak a word in praise of President Syngman Rhee, and yet he thought there was no one alive who would mind being favored by a president. That, he decided, was why Ki-jo's spirits were high.
Then another thing that would have pleased him came to mind.
It had been yesterday, after President Syngman Rhee took his leave, when they sat down to lunch with President Kim Moon-hwan of Cheongsan Bearings and President Kim Hae-soo of Cheongsan Radio. Ki-jo was drinking soju with his milmyeon—Busan's cold wheat noodles—when President Kim Hae-soo spoke.
"Chairman, I think I got far too full of myself, imagining I was launching some cutting-edge venture."
Everyone, Dae-ik among them, leaned in to hear what he meant.
"I was so puffed up at the thought of producing the first radio in Korea that I wanted a company name with a high-tech ring to it, instead of the traditional name Cheongsan."
"Is that so?" Ki-jo asked mildly, and President Kim Hae-soo went on.
"Yes. That was me. But once the other affiliates began to help, I felt bad about putting some other name on a product into which the whole strength of Cheongsan had gone."
He said he wanted to use the name Cheongsan rather than GoldStar Radio. At that Ki-jo said nothing at all, only smiled.
To Dae-ik's eye, the surrender of Kim Hae-soo's stubborn attachment to the GoldStar brand owed a great deal to Lee Yong-guk, head of the Integrated Coordination Office. Under his direction every Cheongsan affiliate had thrown its full weight behind the work, and somewhere in the course of it Kim Hae-soo's sense of belonging seemed to have deepened. He had also spoken of the name Cheongsan in these terms.
"Consumers already place such trust in the Cheongsan brand that using the GoldStar trademark would only cost us. A name like GoldStar plays up the cutting edge, but Cheongsan feels comfortable and trustworthy. I think that will help sales more."
"There will be no taking that back," Ki-jo said simply.
"Of course not, Chairman."
"In return, once the radios go to export, let us look for a suitable English name. How would something foreigners can pronounce easily do—Saturn, for instance?"
"Saturn would be excellent, Chairman."
Ki-jo held out a glass and poured him soju. The sight sent a thrill through Dae-ik as well. He could feel the affiliates drawing together of their own will, helping one another, their cohesion growing.
While he was thinking it over, they left Busan behind. Beside him, Ki-jo glanced at his wristwatch.
"Shall we go a little faster?"
Dae-ik nudged the jeep's speed up. He could tell Ki-jo had no wish to miss the ceremony set for two in the afternoon at the Cheongsan Wedding Hall in Daegu.
The Cheongsan Wedding Halls, opened in twenty-one places across the country, had been thronged from the day their doors opened. Young men and women with a little money to spare wanted a Western-style wedding in a modern hall rather than a stuffy traditional rite. At a reasonable price the halls even took the wedding photographs, and they rented out jeeps cheaply for the honeymoon. They were much in demand.
Dae-ik had already made certain of the families, and of the bride and groom, at the wedding Ki-jo meant to attend. The groom was Roh Tae-woo, eldest son of the late Roh Byeong-su, and the bride was Kim Ok-sook, eldest daughter of Kim Yeong-han. However he turned it over, Ki-jo did not seem acquainted with the parents. The connection appeared to lie with the groom.
"Chairman, are you close with this Mr. Roh Tae-woo?"
"I saw him at the completion ceremony for the Chungju Fertilizer Plant," Ki-jo said, smiling. "He's head of security there—a plain, decent sort of man. When I heard he was using one of our halls, I promised I would be sure to come."
"I see." Dae-ik nodded.
To his mind, Ki-jo was a man who never let even a small connection slip. It was not that he was minding his own advantage, or hoping to be repaid later. If he found someone decent, he simply tied a bond with them.
They rattled over the unpaved road and came into Daegu, and there before the hall stood a jeep belonging to the Cheongsan Wedding Hall—the one Ki-jo had provided free of charge for the groom, Roh Tae-woo. Paper flowers and a garland of the flags of many nations had been hung on it. The ceremony had not yet begun. Ki-jo got out first and went up to the second floor. Dae-ik parked the jeep and followed.
Ki-jo was handing a congratulatory gift to the bride's side. Afraid his chairman had mixed up the families and was giving the money to the wrong people, Dae-ik drew close and whispered.
"Chairman, did you already give a gift to the groom's family?"
"I did."
"This is the bride's family, Chairman." Dae-ik said it with an eye on the faces around them.
"I know, Dae-ik. The bride's family will have spent a great deal on the wedding as well. Isn't it better to help them along?"
The envelope Ki-jo passed over was quite thick. The bride's relative who took it checked the sum and looked distinctly startled. They had turned away after delivering the gift when a man in an officer's uniform stopped Ki-jo.
"How do you do? I am Army Lieutenant Kim Bok-dong. I am the bride's older brother—Kim Ok-sook's."
The sharp-eyed soldier introduced himself, and Ki-jo answered in kind.
"How do you do? I am Lee Ki-jo, chairman of Cheongsan Group."
The two men shook hands.
"I... forgive me if this is presumptuous, but may I ask how you come to know our family?"
Even to Dae-ik, it seemed he was asking because the size of the gift had struck him as strange.
"I know the groom. Having come to see him, I gave the gift in the hope that the bride, too, would live well."
"I see..." A smile touched Kim Bok-dong's lips. "I am also a classmate of the groom, Roh Tae-woo, from the Korea Military Academy. Thank you for celebrating with us like this."
"And I thank you. I happen to be the proprietor of this wedding hall as well. Thank you for using it."
"Are you? From now on, when my classmates marry, I will tell them they must use a Cheongsan Wedding Hall."
Kim Bok-dong thanked him once more. While the two of them were still talking, someone called Bok-dong's name lustily from the stairs.
"Hey! Bok-dong!"
Dae-ik looked at the man calling him, and his heart dropped. It was Chun Doo-hwan, who worked at Cheil Industries. Because he had once passed himself off as the chairman of Cheongsan and been entertained accordingly, he wanted nothing more than to hide.
"Chairman, I'll be in the office."
Ki-jo nodded. Dae-ik half-covered his face and slipped away.
Ki-jo looked at Chun Doo-hwan, who was holding a little girl. Doo-hwan looked every bit as happy as the groom, Roh Tae-woo. Whether he had failed to notice Ki-jo or not, he went up to Kim Bok-dong, shook his hand, and greeted him warmly.
"Doo-hwan, whose child is that?"
"Whose? My daughter."
"Your daughter...?" Kim Bok-dong stared in disbelief, looking from Doo-hwan to the girl in his arms and back again.
She looked about seven, and she resembled Doo-hwan not in the least.
"What are you staring at? You'll wear a hole in my girl's face." Chun Doo-hwan stroked her cheek and grinned.
"What happened?"
"Ah, I got married. We haven't had the ceremony yet, but we've set up house."
"Have you? That's good news. The classmates have all been wondering whether you're getting on all right."
"Wondering about me... tell them to worry about themselves. Bok-dong, did you finish the advanced adjutant's course?"
"I finished in April."
"Good for you! Congratulations, Bok-dong."
Doo-hwan laughed wide and clapped him on the shoulder. Still smiling, he noticed Ki-jo at last and started.
"Oh?"
"How do you do?"
At Ki-jo's greeting, Doo-hwan looked thoroughly glad to see him.
"The driver, Lee Ki-jo! It is Ki-jo, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's right."
Doo-hwan thrust out his hand and gripped Ki-jo's tight.
"Look at us, running into each other here. What brings you? You come with the chairman? You wouldn't have come all the way to Daegu on your own—where's the chairman?"
At the easy, familiar way he spoke down to Ki-jo, Bok-dong's expression grew complicated. Just then a woman who had come up the stairs approached. Doo-hwan introduced her, dressed in a formal hanbok, to the two of them.
"This is my wife. Ki-jo, you two have already met. Bok-dong, she's the lucky woman who married me and brought me a pretty daughter. Say hello."
Doo-hwan's wife was the proprietress of the alley restaurant in Chimsan-dong, the woman who used to put up with his drunken scenes. At the sight of Ki-jo—the man who had once paid off Chun Doo-hwan's tab for her—she brightened and bowed low.
"It's a pleasure to see you, Chairman."
"Honey, this fellow isn't the chairman. He's the driver who serves the chairman. The driver."
His wife caught his forearm lightly.
"Don't talk nonsense. Offer the chairman a proper greeting."
"Chairman? What chairman...?" Doo-hwan looked bewildered.
Kim Bok-dong stepped in.
"This gentleman is the proprietor of the Cheongsan Wedding Hall. I think you've mistaken him for someone else, Doo-hwan."
"What? I have?"
Ki-jo regarded the flustered Doo-hwan steadily, rather curious to see how he would meet it. Looking from Kim Bok-dong to Ki-jo and back, Doo-hwan answered with quick reflexes.
"I'm sorry, Chairman. I must have been under some misapprehension back then. Ha ha ha."
He ducked his head and offered the apology at once. Ki-jo apologized in turn.
"I'm sorry as well. At the time, I..."
"Ah, it's quite all right. I'm sure you had your reasons, Chairman. I'm the one who should apologize, for the scene I made. I was a bit adrift in those days... ha ha ha."
Doo-hwan scratched the back of his head and laughed with easy brass. Ki-jo thought him quick in the turn of his mind, and pliant by nature. Having smoothed the moment over like a wily old snake, Doo-hwan set the child down.
"Honey, I'll just step to the restroom. Keep an eye on our Mi-sun."
"Go on, then."
Chun Doo-hwan withdrew to the restroom, if only to escape the awkwardness for the moment. His wife, who had a gift for putting people at ease, exchanged greetings with Kim Bok-dong and then thanked Ki-jo once more.
"Chairman, we are truly in your debt. Cheongsan Store cut the price of goods so much for us that it's been an enormous help to the business."
"I'm glad it was of help."
Once Kim Bok-dong stepped away to receive the guests, she went on.
"Chairman, my husband... after you came by, he changed a great deal. He isn't like that first impression at all. He's diligent, and he's gentle. And he has the gift of talk, so he brings a good many of the factory people to the restaurant."
Ki-jo was curious how the two of them had come together.
"A great deal must have happened in the meantime."
"Yes. One rainy evening he came in alone, sat in a corner, and drank his soju straight, with nothing to eat. He was crying so forlornly that he looked as pitiful as a puppy caught in the rain, so I sat down beside him and heard him out. That became the start of it, and we set up house..."
She said it with a flush in her cheeks. Ki-jo could well imagine how the two had found each other. A bond between a man and a woman might begin badly and still turn out well.
"You said you haven't held the wedding yet?"
"No. I'm a widow remarrying with a child already. I'm hardly the sort of person who ought to have a proper ceremony..."
"Don't say that. Talk it over with your husband and choose a day. I'll see to it that the ceremony costs you nothing."
"Truly?"
"Of course. Come, and don't trouble yourself over it."
"Thank you, Chairman. Truly, thank you..."
She bowed again and again. Ki-jo went into the ceremony hall before Doo-hwan returned.
The wedding was underway. Roh Tae-woo, become a truly ordinary man, stood beside Kim Ok-sook and listened to the officiant. Happiness overflowed on his face, and Ki-jo found he could see nothing in the sight but good.
Doo-hwan, back from the restroom, came to stand beside him with the child in his arms. The Chun Doo-hwan who dipped his head to Ki-jo and smiled was not the harsh, brazen man Ki-jo had known. Together with that peaceful-looking family, Ki-jo watched the ceremony through.
When it ended and Roh Tae-woo's relatives gathered to be photographed, a boy in a high-school uniform caught Ki-jo's eye.
Park Chul-un?
The finely gathered features—eyes, nose, mouth set close together—left little doubt. It was only natural that Park Chul-un, Roh Tae-woo's cousin on his mother's side, should be at the wedding.
Looking on at a ceremony that had brought the central figures of the Fifth and Sixth Republics together in a single place, Ki-jo was swept by a quiet swell of feeling. Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan. The two men's lives seemed to be moving in the right direction. They would live now without having to kill innocent people in order to seize power, and how great a mercy that was. Ki-jo did not doubt for a moment that they would know true happiness.
Young Park Chul-un, here at the wedding, would never enjoy the glittering life of the man once called the crown prince of the Sixth Republic. But he was sharp. He would pass the bar, Ki-jo thought, and live a life in which he need envy no one.
When Doo-hwan went over to Roh Tae-woo to take his friend's photograph, Ki-jo slipped quietly out of the hall. He collected Dae-ik, who had been waiting in the office, and as they started up toward Seoul, Dae-ik asked,
"Chairman, you've seemed in fine spirits all day."
"I am. Of course I am."
Ki-jo said no more.
Never before had the faces of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo left him feeling so glad.