Let Us Sever This Ill Fate
At the end of June, Kijo closed out the first half of the year by signing a contract to build a joint factory with Sanyo.
The country was still in turmoil, but Kijo's business never stopped. Whether the police went on strike or even elementary schoolchildren took to the streets, he paid the social chaos no mind. He had a goal, and the strength and the will to pursue it kept welling up in him without end.
July 1. Late at night, working alone in the president's office, Kijo felt a pang of hunger. The secretarial staff had already gone home, and the hour was too late to send out for a meal. Going home for supper and coming back would be a nuisance. A simple bite, he thought, and he could finish the work and leave within the hour.
He drew a packet of ramen from his desk drawer. It was Chicken Ramen, made by the Japanese food company Nissin Foods—the instant noodles Jeon Hyeon-su had bought when he brought back from Japan the microbial strains for fermented seasoning.
Kijo took a pot from the pantry and set water to boil in the electric kettle. To eat, for the first time in six years of this life, a food he had taken for granted in the last one left him strangely moved. He cooked the chicken ramen until its rich, oily aroma billowed up, carried it back to the office, and ate it without so much as kimchi. Perhaps because he was hungry, it tasted like honey.
I ought to start a ramen business, too...
He knew well enough that ramen would make money, but he was short on the time and energy to push it forward. He wished someone would take Cheongsan Ramen in hand and run it, yet the trouble was that no one around him knew the first thing about ramen. As of 1960, he was the only person in Korea who did. The country's first ramen would not appear until 1963, when Jeon Jung-yoon began producing Samyang Ramen.
The right man to put in charge was Jeon Hyeon-su. But for the next year he would have to pour everything he had into building and running the fermented-seasoning plant.
Then a name rose in Kijo's mind. Lim Dae-hong. He saw again the lonely line of the man's back as he headed home after his defeat in the seasoning business. Whenever Lim Dae-hong came to mind, Kijo's feelings tangled. Of everyone his regression had touched, this man had suffered the most.
It was thanks to Lim Dae-hong that he had been able to start the seasoning business at all. In his previous life he had studied, down to the last detail, how the man succeeded, and then followed that path exactly. By that method he had built Cheongsan Seasoning, and the Miwon Cheongsan produced had become a sturdy pillar holding the company up.
Kijo set down his chopsticks. He would have to go and see him. The man might resent him and turn him away, but no talent of that caliber came to mind.
At dawn on Saturday, July 2, Kijo set out for Gunsan in a jeep. Once the sun rose, the cab grew scorching from morning on. Trapped for hours in a vehicle with no air conditioning, he was soaked through with sweat, and through the windows thrown wide open the dust of the unpaved road poured in without pause. His face was soon a mess of sweat and grit. Every time he wiped it with his handkerchief, yellow dust came away on the cloth.
Around sunset he reached a leather factory on the outskirts of Gunsan, stopped the car, and climbed out. The sun was slowly going down, so it was no longer the heat of midday, but the summer evening was still stifling. A smell that stabbed at the nose drifted from the works—the stench of rotting scraps left after the hides were dressed, mingled with the reek of dyeing chemicals.
Kijo went in through the main gate. A light burned in a shabby building off to one side of the yard. Peering through a window clouded white, he saw what looked like a laboratory, and inside it Lim Dae-hong, wholly absorbed in an experiment. It was just like the man, forever lost in his tests. The sight only made Kijo's heart heavier. This was not someone who ought to be developing dye in a rural leather factory.
He drew a long breath and knocked on the laboratory door. He expected to be shunned or resented, but he had come prepared. Sure enough, when Lim Dae-hong opened the door and stepped out, he flinched at the sight of Kijo and froze where he stood.
"Good evening, President Lim. I'm sorry to drop in unannounced."
Kijo offered the greeting carefully.
"What brings you here?"
As expected, Lim Dae-hong's face had hardened.
"I came because there's something I wanted to discuss with you."
"And what could you possibly have to say to me, that you'd come all the way from Seoul?"
To the blunt Dae-hong, Kijo smiled.
"I'm not entirely sure myself. I simply wanted to share a meal with you, so I came without much of a plan."
"You came all the way to Gunsan to eat with me...?"
"Yes, President. We've known each other for several years now, and I don't believe we've ever once sat down to a meal. Have you had dinner?"
Lim Dae-hong, who had been staring straight at him, said, "Not yet."
"Good. Then eat with me."
A troubled look crossed Lim Dae-hong's face. "If I just set something out, will you eat and go?"
"I'll be the one setting it out."
"What...?"
Lim Dae-hong stared as if he could not believe his ears. The more he did, the more brazenly Kijo pressed on.
"President, is there a pot in the factory we could boil noodles in?"
"Noodles?"
"Yes. There's a fried noodle that's all the fashion in Japan these days. Try it with me."
Lim Dae-hong started to speak, stopped, and sighed as if resigning himself. "All right. Wait a moment."
He left the laboratory and headed for the tap in the factory yard. He poured priming water into the groundwater pump, worked the handle a few times, and water came up. He washed his hands and dried them on a towel hanging from the clothesline. As he drew nearer, his hands caught the eye. They were blue—stained through with dye. It was plain how fiercely he had thrown himself back into his old trade of leatherwork after the seasoning business failed.
"All we have is the big cauldron the factory people use. Will that do?"
"Anything is fine."
Lim Dae-hong went into the space that served as a kitchen and came out carrying the great pot, then set it on the brazier in the yard—a thing made from a cut oil drum.
"How much water do you need?"
"Only a little. I'll see to it. If the factory has chili powder, or some hot green chilies, would you bring a few?"
At Kijo's continuing requests, Dae-hong moved as a man who had given up resisting. While he went for the chilies, Kijo lit the brazier, drew water from the tap, and poured a suitable amount into the cauldron.
"The chilies are here."
Kijo took them to the tap, washed them, snapped them into pieces with his hands, and dropped them into the pot. Lim Dae-hong watched, dumbfounded, as he put nothing into the plain water but chopped chilies.
While they waited for the water to boil, Kijo asked, "Is business going well these days?"
"We're getting by."
Kijo knew he had not yet escaped the aftermath of the seasoning failure. There were still debts unpaid.
When the water boiled, Kijo took three packets of ramen from his bag. He tore them open, dropped the noodles into the cauldron, scattered in the soup powder, and added a spoonful of the chili powder Lim Dae-hong had brought. While it cooked, he said, "It's a food called Chicken Ramen. Quite popular in Japan these days."
Lim Dae-hong, who had been watching him cook, asked, "You just put the contents in water and boil them?"
"Yes. Very simple. And the taste is decent, too."
A look of pure curiosity rose on Lim Dae-hong's face.
When the ramen was done, Kijo ladled noodles and broth into a bowl and handed it over. The two of them sat on chairs in the yard and tasted it together. Meeting ramen for the first time, Dae-hong sniffed once, then carefully sipped the broth. A look of surprise crossed his face. He drank a little more, picked up noodles with his chopsticks, and put them in his mouth.
Kijo drank the broth first as well. It was far better than the ramen he had boiled alone in the president's office. The Japanese ramen he knew was rich in savor, but it was not spicy, and it was sweet, so the finish never quite suited a Korean palate. With chilies and chili powder, it was much cleaner.
After tasting the noodles, Dae-hong said, "This is pretty good."
"Good for the little work it takes, isn't it? And it doesn't take much time."
"You're right. With marketability like this..."
Lim Dae-hong started to go on, then stopped. Kijo understood the heart of a man who had leapt into the food business and very nearly been ruined by it, and he finished the thought for him.
"It would sell well enough?"
"Ah... yes."
Kijo let the talk of business drop and gave himself over to eating with Dae-hong. When Dae-hong finished one bowl, Kijo served him another. In the factory yard there was nothing to hear but two men eating ramen. They drank even the broth left in the cauldron, wiped their sweat, and sighed at the same moment.
Kijo took the bowl Dae-hong had used, went to the pump, drew water, and handed it to him.
"Thank you."
Dae-hong took the bowl and gulped the water down. Kijo rinsed his own mouth with the cold as well. When he had drunk a full bowl, he said, "I'm thinking of building a factory for this ramen in Korea. What do you think, President Lim?"
"Put it on the market, and it looks like something that would surely succeed."
"Doesn't it?"
Kijo took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. The cloth he had been using since midday had turned yellow.
"The trouble is, I don't have the capacity to push this business myself. The seasoning division has its hands full developing a new process. So I need someone to help me... and that's when you came to mind."
Dae-hong nodded, then smiled faintly. "It reminds me of when you first built the seasoning factory in Busan, President Lee. Back then you said you'd simply give me the formula. That we should go into the seasoning business together."
"Why did you refuse?"
"I thought I could manage it alone. But afterward I regretted it a great deal..."
His face was full of old regret.
"Was it only regret?"
"I resented people, too. I resented everyone around me."
"You resented me a great deal as well, didn't you?"
"Yes... honestly, I did. And I swore I would never go into the food business again. But eating this today... if we made this, it seems it would succeed no matter what."
Lim Dae-hong laughed, a little sheepish.
"Doesn't it? If we make the Japanese ramen a bit sharper, and use anchovy broth or beef broth instead of chicken stock, I think it would suit our tastes even better."
"We might also make the stock from a vegetable broth with some mushrooms in it."
Lim Dae-hong offered the thought of his own accord.
"President Lim, let's make a ramen that suits a Korean palate. Together."
"I'm a man who already turned down a partnership once..."
"Back then our aims didn't match. It's different now, isn't it? People work together when their hearts and their purposes align."
Lim Dae-hong lowered his gaze a little. Kijo felt a pang for him—a man who must have been worn down for a long time by resentment and regret. He held himself responsible for that misfortune.
"President Lim. Please become the head of Cheongsan Ramen."
Dae-hong did not answer at once. After a silence, he spoke at last.
"All I know is... simply that this tastes good. I haven't the faintest sense of how to make it."
"Don't worry about that. Focus only on the taste. I'll buy the machinery and the method in Japan."
Lim Dae-hong pressed his lips shut again. One great failure behind him, he seemed unable to decide. A man once badly wounded does not readily step forward again into the very thing that wounded him.
Not wanting to press him any further, Kijo changed the subject. "It's terribly hot. I got soaked in sweat and covered in dust coming all the way to Gunsan today. Would you pour some water over my back?"
To his surprise, Lim Dae-hong agreed at once. "All right. Hot noodles in midsummer—I'm sweating too."
"Then you should have a dousing as well, President. I'll pour it so it's good and cold."
"No. I'll go home and wash."
Reserved as he was, Lim Dae-hong refused, as if he had no wish to bare his torso in front of Kijo.
"Understood. Then I'll leave it to you."
Kijo went to the pump in the yard, stripped off his shirt, and bent over. Dae-hong slowly poured water down his back. It was very cold.
"Hahaha... this groundwater is freezing."
Kijo laughed as the water ran over him. When it was done, he washed his head and face as well, took the towel Dae-hong handed him, and dried off. His head, dulled and throbbing from hours shut up in a hot car, felt clear again.
Dressed once more, he brought ten packets of ramen from the jeep, handed them to Dae-hong, and said, "Eat them with the people around you, and talk over what you think."
"Thank you."
Taking the packets, Dae-hong asked, "Have you arranged a place to stay?"
"Yes. One of my people said he'd lend me a room."
"Is that so?"
"Then I'll wait for your decision, President Lim."
Lim Dae-hong only smiled, and kept his words few. Kijo said goodbye and set off for the house where Wang-chul was waiting.
Heading for Ko Wang-chul's in-laws' house in Gunsan, he worried.
Ko Wang-chul... when is that man ever going to come to his senses?
Contrary to the promise he had made, Wang-chul was not breaking things off with the lovers he kept scattered in every corner of the country. Kijo sighed, thinking of a man who could not settle in one place.
About Lim Dae-hong, though, he was not worried at all. As he saw it, Dae-hong's heart had already leaned toward the ramen business. What he needed was a little time to find his courage. When the cold water ran down his back from Lim Dae-hong's hands, Kijo was certain of it: the ill fate between them was over.