Cement Bricks

A three-cent stamp—the kind an American in the 1950s licked and pressed to an envelope without a second thought.

In Korea, those three cents had to be earned by molding a single cement brick of nearly four pounds.

Even in the dead of winter the displaced refugees worked in a frenzy, sweat streaming off them as they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠turned out bricks. Watching them, Ki-jo felt the past rise up in him.

Did we really live this hard...?

Every hand in the factory was near his own age, born somewhere around the 1930s. They had come into the world as second-class subjects of a nation already stolen by Japan, and in their teens the Second World War had swept them up before they could live anything that resembled a whole life. Liberation from Japanese rule arrived in 1945; they had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠barely begun to think they might at last get by when the country split in two and war broke out.

Theirs had been bitter lives, in which living or dying was settled by the thickness of a sheet of paper—an impoverished generation that, from the day they were born until this moment, had never once eaten their fill of rice with an easy heart.

Yet for all the tangle of feeling in Ki-jo's chest, every face in the factory was bright.

South Korea's per capita income stood at sixty-nine dollars, lower than that of the average African nation. And still—press a mere hundred bricks in a day, and a man could earn three dollars? There was no finer incentive on earth. A thousand bricks apiece meant thirty dollars, and the thought of it kept them grinning through labor that would have broken most men.

"Beats me how the boss ever came up with an idea this good."

"You're telling me. The Americans hand over the materials. The Americans do all the hauling. All we've got to do is fetch water and sand from the Hantan River, mix it with the cement, and stamp out bricks."

"Why, even Bongi Kim Seon-dal—the old rascal who sold off the Taedong River—would take one look at this and leave in tears."

Laughter spilled from the knot of workers taking a short rest.

Ki-jo listened to it drifting across the yard and walked on toward Professor Kim Moon-hwan.

The professor never so much as noticed him coming. Tape in hand, he was checking the drawings against the machinery, measuring for any gap between the plan and the thing itself.

"Professor."

"Oh? President Lee, you're here?" Kim Moon-hwan tucked the tape into his pocket and brushed the dust from his hands. Oil had worked deep into the creases. They were not a professor's hands.

"The cement-brick work isn't setting the schedule back, is it?"

Kim Moon-hwan gave a rumbling laugh. "I was just sitting here wondering what on earth to do with all the spare hands we had lying around."

"I'm glad there's no disruption."

"When you brought the work in, I thought we'd been saved. Three months still remain before the kiln is finished, and until then the factory isn't earning a thing, is it? I was worried half to death about how to feed three hundred workers. If I felt that way, how much worse must it have been for you, the man responsible?"

He patted the young president's heavily burdened shoulder. Ki-jo himself, though, did not look worried in the least.

"Is there anything else you need?"

"Me? It's always funds for the kiln, isn't it. You're the businessman, and yet I seem to be the one hungrier for the money..." Kim Moon-hwan looked faintly abashed.

"Don't trouble yourself over money. Spend as much as you wish. Money can always be made again."

"That again? Ha ha ha! I know you've a gift for making the stuff, but I still can't tell whether it's really all right."

The professor was proud of him, and grateful besides. Even so, the worry came seeping back.

"President Lee, money is money, but it's the coal that worries me. The kiln we're building has to burn finely ground coal. Only then will the heat stay constant. What I mean is, we ought to secure the coal now, mill it to powder, and have it waiting..."

"Don't worry, Professor. I'll see to it." Ki-jo smiled, soft and sure.

"Ha! A money-devouring hippo like me, and all I've done is pile on the worries. At my age—how shameless..."

"What kind of talk is that, Professor? Don't worry about a thing. Give yourself wholly to the kiln. I'll handle the rest."

Kim Moon-hwan all but shouted it. He was ashamed of having whined so much—past fifty, and carrying on like that in front of a man of twenty-five.

Ten days after the U.S. Army delivered the cement to the Cheongsan factory, Ki-jo went to Dongducheon to call on Major General Martin.

Martin was curious what the man might have to say, turning up after only ten days. Some excuse, he suspected. He had seen more than enough Koreans promise a thing and later sing a different tune. Perhaps they had dumped the cement in the river, or it had been stolen, and the fellow had come to announce that the brickmaking had fallen through.

It was not that Martin was any particular racist. The war had taught him the suspicion.

Once, a Korean corps assigned to hold back the Chinese had scarcely fought at all. Even the corps commander had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠boarded a plane and fled—a shameless rout—and because of it American troops had been plunged into mortal danger. Ever since, doubt of Koreans had dogged Martin's heels.

"Are the bricks coming along?"

"Allow me to show you what we've made."

From the bag he had brought, Ki-jo drew out a leather pad, spread it on the table, and set three bricks upon it. Three of them: solid, and very well made.

Not bad at all.

They were nothing but bricks, and still Martin was faintly impressed. He had doubted whether Koreans had so much as the experience of making a cement brick.

"A sample?"

"Production bricks."

"Is that so?"

Martin lifted one and looked it over. It might have come from a yard in the United States.

"How many have you made?"

"One hundred and thirty-eight thousand in all."

A hundred and thirty-eight thousand?

Martin was startled.

"They're stacked in the yard. All you need do is haul them away."

"You said thirteen thousand just now, didn't you?"

"No, General. One hundred and thirty-eight thousand."

The figures would not come out even.

I'm certain we sent five hundred sacks of surplus cement. And with that they made a hundred and forty thousand bricks...?

Martin cleared his throat. At three cents a brick, 138,000 of them came to $4,140 owed to Ki-jo. He had expected them to stamp out ten thousand at the outside and walk away with something like three hundred dollars.

Caught by what he had not foreseen, he composed his face into calm.

"Well done. Splendid."

"If you're curious, I'll step outside and show you."

"Show me what?"

"I'll strike the bricks with a hammer and demonstrate their strength."

Ki-jo had every reason to be sure of the quality. In the making they had kept to the strict proportions Professor Kim Moon-hwan had laid down, holding cement to aggregate between 1:10 and 1:15, and fixing the blend of fine aggregate—fine river sand, coarse sand, and stone dust—at 3:62:35. Mortar mixed to those ratios had been poured into brick molds prepared ahead of time. The weather, mild through all ten days, had not been bad for curing the cement either.

"The division engineers will take the bricks and inspect them. Their commander is a meticulous man. He'll look them over carefully."

"Will you settle the account once the tests are finished?"

"Yes."

After sending Ki-jo on his way, Martin had the engineer technicians test the bricks. They broke them apart with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hammers to examine the mix and worked through the strength tests one by one, and the engineer officers brought back the results.

"The bricks are perfect?"

At the division commander's question, an engineer officer answered.

"Yes, sir. Dimensions and tolerances meet the standard specification, and the compressive strength is excellent."

"Tell me, Colonel. Can five hundred sacks of cement yield a hundred and forty thousand bricks?"

"If the mix ratio is followed exactly, one sack produces two hundred and eighty bricks. That comes to a hundred and forty thousand in all, but once breakage and defects during manufacture are set aside, you arrive at roughly a hundred and thirty-eight thousand."

The number matched what Ki-jo had said, to the last brick, and a hollow laugh escaped Martin.

"So Lee Ki-jo went and did it right after all... heh."

At the general's muttered words, the engineer officer asked, "Is something the matter, General?"

"No. It's nothing. Go on."

The officer rose, saluted, and left the division commander's office.

Martin sat at his desk, turned the matter over for a moment, and reached for the telephone.

Martin set the receiver down and sat a while in thought.

How in the world did they make all of that in ten days?

He had not known it was possible—if three hundred displaced refugees threw themselves into the work and each molded 466 bricks a day for ten days.

The people Ma-ryang had chosen with care were unusually fierce about staying alive. Told they could earn more than a dollar a day, they had worked like madmen around the clock.

Have I been too unwilling to trust Koreans?

Martin smiled bitterly.

In those days, Koreans making off with American military goods was notorious. Hand supplies unloaded at Incheon or Busan over to Koreans for transport, and half of them vanished; in the worst cases, the trucks evaporated with them. The common view among American troops was that if a Korean once got inside a U.S. compound, he would try to walk off with even a single worn-out army boot.

Martin had assumed that twenty or thirty percent of the cement he sent, at the least, would be declared ruined on one pretext or another and sold off somewhere. Above all, he thought well of the fact that Lee Ki-jo had not diverted a single sack, and had made the bricks properly.

He said it under his breath and rose from his chair.

A hundred and forty thousand bricks for four thousand dollars was a little steep, but if he reckoned it as the price of a subordinate's life, it was not expensive at all. And that subordinate was hardly an ordinary man.

Martin himself had come late to the truth of the Roberts family. Only when he received the report investigating the accident had he learned it.

He saved the youngest son of a house like that. A handsome reward is sure to follow. That fellow Lee Ki-jo really does have luck on his side...

Finding himself hungry, Martin made his way to the mess hall.