The Cow in the Yard
Kijo hurried to arrange a meeting between Hausman and Chairman Park. He still could not be sure whether, this time as well, Park had made up his mind to prolong military rule by another four years, but it seemed wiser to find out before he sat down to dinner with the American ambassador.
When he called on the Chairman, Park's resolve to see Hausman looked firm. The difficulty was the place.
He was only acting president, yet he had become the leader of a nation, and he balked at stepping inside the Eighth Army compound. He wanted the meeting at the Blue House. Hausman, fearing that to come and go from the Blue House in so politically delicate a season would only invite needless misunderstanding, wanted neutral ground.
In the end Kijo offered a compromise: a place where no one would ever imagine the two of them meeting. His own house.
Once the date and the place were settled, he spoke to Sunrye.
"Dear, take the children to your sister's on Saturday and stay the night."
"Is something the matter?" Sunrye asked, worry in her voice.
He told her plainly.
"The acting president is coming to the house next door. He's meeting someone there, and he wants no one to know."
Sunrye started.
"We'll have to offer him something to eat. I'll leave the children with Soon-young and come back."
"No. They'll only talk a little while. I'll see to it."
In the end she did as he asked.
On Saturday afternoon, after she had laid out lunch for the family, Sunrye got the children ready to leave for Hannam-dong. They were simply delighted at the thought of spending a night at their aunt's. Yeongeun turned to Kijo, who was not going with them.
"Daddy, why aren't you coming to Auntie's?"
"Daddy has to go away on a trip. I'll be back."
"Have a safe trip, Daddy."
He stroked the head she bowed to him and kissed her cheek.
After the family had gone, Kijo cleared the room in the house next door that Yeongsu used as a study, and set out chairs and a table. He laid in cola, water, and whiskey, and put biscuits out as well.
When the sun went down and darkness came on, Hausman was the first through the gate. He had brought Captain Cheon, a Korean-American intelligence officer. Chairman Park arrived at the appointed hour, and he too had brought only one man: Park Jong-gyu, chief of presidential security.
Stepping into the room, the Chairman spoke to Kijo, who stood in the yard.
"I didn't bring an interpreter. Come in."
It surprised Kijo that Park had not brought Lee Hu-rak, whose English was good. He seemed determined to keep the talks with Hausman as secret as he could. Or perhaps, after the string of splits and mutinies among men he had trusted, he was keeping even Lee Hu-rak at arm's length. Park Jong-gyu remained alone in the dark yard, watching the grounds. Swept into the meeting before he quite knew how, Kijo interpreted the Chairman's opening words.
"It's been a long time, Adviser Hausman. How is Jimmy?"
Jimmy was Hausman's son.
Hausman broke into a broad smile and answered with careful courtesy.
"Jimmy is well, Mr. President. Since that day, he has kept well clear of lighter fluid."
At that, Chairman Park laughed aloud. Kijo thought he understood what passed between them.
Right after the revolution, Park had gone to Hausman's quarters in the Eighth Army compound to see him, hoping Hausman would carry word to the American president that he was no communist. Seated on the living-room sofa, he had tried to light a cigarette, but the table lighter had run dry and would not catch. Seeing it, Hausman's son had hurried for lighter fluid and filled the lighter; the moment Park struck it, the flame leapt up enormous. Jimmy had poured until the fluid overflowed, and what had smeared the outside caught fire. Everyone in the room had burst out laughing, and the taut air had softened in an instant.
It was no different now.
Chairman Park and Hausman slipped at once into easy talk.
"Your Excellency, why did you announce that you would not take part in civilian government?"
Hausman went straight to the heart of it. The question seemed to please Park. A faint smile touched his mouth.
"Well. There were reasons enough..."
He let the words trail off. Hausman pressed.
"You must not stay out of civilian politics now, Your Excellency. Do you want to see coups come as often as they do in Burma?"
"That worries me as well. It must not come to that..."
"Have you some plan in mind?"
Hausman asked it with a look that meant more than the words. Park glanced once, sidelong, at Kijo, and then said,
"I am weighing several measures—postponing the general election among them—to steady the country."
His face gave away what he would not quite say. He was planning to extend military rule. Of that there was no doubt.
Hausman seemed to feel it too. He leaned closer.
"Your Excellency, a cow has come inside the fence. What do you mean to do with it? Drive it out?"
"What are you talking about?"
Park asked the meaning of a metaphor he only half grasped.
"Public opinion of you is very good just now. Trust that tide, leave it be, and the general election will go well for you."
The cow Hausman meant was the public mood, which had warmed since the announcement that Park would stay out of civilian politics.
Park thought it over in silence, then asked, his face gone hard,
"Isn't the good opinion of me only because I said I wouldn't run?"
There was sense in that.
Hausman held out a hand to Captain Cheon for the papers. The captain drew a report of three or four pages from his bag.
"Trends in public sentiment, collected by the intelligence unit. Please have a look."
It looked like one of the regular surveys of Korean opinion the CIA conducted. The Agency never stopped trying to take the country's pulse. Right after the April 19 uprising and the May 16 coup it had run polls, reported them home, and used them as reference in setting policy.
As Park turned the pages, his expression slowly changed. Kijo caught a glimpse of the papers in his hands. They were printed in color: a map of the Republic of Korea, the regions washed in different shades. Honam, Yeongnam, Gangwon, and South Chungcheong were painted entirely red. Jeju was red as well. Only the great cities wore another color.
"Red marks the regions where we project a victory for the Democratic Republican Party."
It was a windfall, plain and simple. The map foresaw a crushing win for the party in the general election.
"Pink is a slight edge. From green toward blue, the outlook turns to defeat. There are very few of those."
At Hausman's explanation, Park's eyes widened. Kijo was quietly startled himself.
In the original history, after Chairman Park had taken a beating from the four major scandals and committed the grave blunder of the currency reform, he had reversed himself again and again—he would run for president; he would not—and still the general election had given his party 110 seats out of 175. For the Democratic Republican Party that had been a fierce showing in its own right. The projection now was nearly 130. Seats enough to rewrite the constitution at will.
Park reached toward Kijo. Kijo handed him a cigarette and lit it with the lighter. Even then the Chairman could not take his eyes from the papers. At last he set Hausman's CIA report down, drew a long pull of smoke, and spoke.
"How far can I trust this?"
"Don't, Your Excellency. It is already yesterday's paper. Korean opinion shifts too fast to predict."
Hausman was lifting him up and setting him down again as he pleased. The craft that had sweet-talked Syngman Rhee all through the fifties, and kept its owner in favor for more than ten years, had not left him. Kijo found himself thinking that Hausman was a formidable man indeed.
"What is certain is this. If Your Excellency keeps your promise to the people, this support will not stray far."
Hausman kept leading him.
"The promise, you say?"
"Yes. From what we have gathered and analyzed of Korean opinion over time, Koreans are rather dull to a politician's failures and his corruption. They are far more sensitive to whether a leader keeps his word."
A cigarette between his lips, Hausman went on.
"You said your popularity rose because you declared you would not run. That is a misreading of the board. Your popularity rose because you kept the promise you made at the start."
"The promise to return to the army?"
"Yes. So long as you keep that promise, and the more recent one to carry out a faithful transfer to civilian rule, the Democratic Republican Party will take the general election in a landslide. The Democratic Party has looked so scattered and feeble in the National Assembly that the people prefer the new party. And so..."
He set a hand lightly on Park's knee.
"However stifling it feels, bear it, and wait for the election. Something good will come of it."
When Hausman took his hand away, Park gave a low, genial laugh. Hausman asked for a glass of whiskey, and Park said he would have one too. Kijo took ice from the bucket he had set out and made them each a drink on the rocks. The two men savored the whiskey in a brief silence.
It was Park who broke it.
"You mean that after the election, breaking the promise would be all right?"
At the question, a smile that looked faintly sly crossed Hausman's face.
"When you break a promise, what matters is why you broke it."
"A justification, then."
Park said it almost to himself. Hausman brought up the past as if it were only an aside.
"It's behind us now, but there is a method former president Syngman Rhee used. The president himself sits still, and the people around him keep urging him to run. Old-fashioned, but effective. It is still used because it has been proven."
Kijo stared, a little dazed, at a Hausman utterly unlike the man he usually met—the way he handled Chairman Park. It struck him afresh that this was a man who would deal with five presidents of Korea, all the way into the 1980s. He looked away and turned to Park.
The Chairman's eyes had taken on that look of gazing a little past the room, into some distance. It was the look he often wore when a grave decision was settling in him. The resolve seemed to firm. This time it was Park who laid a hand lightly on Hausman's knee.
"A man like you, Mr. Hausman, ought to have been director of the KCIA..."
When Park smiled, Hausman laughed.
"Call me whenever you like, Your Excellency. I'll be waiting."
Finished, he shot Kijo a glance and went on.
"And this fellow here."
He indicated Kijo, and Park looked at him too. The Chairman's face was very bright.
"Let him play all the golf he wants. He watches your mood so carefully that he digs in his heels even when I invite him, and it drives me mad. I have never met a golfing companion in Korea to match him."
"Is that so?"
Park looked at Kijo, smiling.
"Don't mind what other people think. Get your exercise. What matters more than your health?"
He clapped Kijo on the shoulder.
Park emptied his glass and asked,
"Must you be home early tonight?"
"No, sir. My family has gone to America for a little while."
"Have they? Well, that's fortunate."
Park grinned and gave an order.
"Open the door."
When the door opened, Park Jong-gyu, waiting outside, looked to the Chairman.
"Jong-gyu. Book that place."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
Park Jong-gyu dipped his head, raised it, and turned to Kijo.
"May I use the telephone in the house?"
"Of course."
Kijo excused himself, stepped outside, and led him to the telephone in the living room. Jong-gyu lifted the receiver and spoke to someone on the line.
"Get that place ready—the one we went to recently. The VIP is coming."
He covered the mouthpiece with his palm and asked Kijo,
"Will President Lee be coming as well?"
"I'm not going."
At that, Park Jong-gyu's eyes widened. His face said he had never met such a man.
"Two, including the VIP. Two attendants."
When the short call ended, he set the receiver down.
"One thing. If anyone asks whether Chairman Park was here, you understand?"
"Yes. I understand."
"I'm asking you seriously. No matter who asks, you are not to say a word."
He pressed the point again and again.
Kijo went back with him to the Chairman. Park was already leading Hausman out through the door of the room. The two of them were in high good humor. Sitting on the wooden veranda to put on his shoes, Park said,
"You come too."
"I'll stay here."
When Kijo declined, Park had one thing to say.
"Not knowing a man's pleasures—that's your one shortcoming. Aside from that, you're all right."
Shoes on, he clapped Kijo on the shoulder once more. Hausman winked at him: thanks for the trouble.
The moment they were gone, Kijo hurriedly put Yeongsu's study back in order and set out at once for Hannam-dong. He meant to build an alibi. If the Chairman was taking Hausman to a certain pleasant establishment, Kijo wanted solid proof that he had not gone with them.
When he reached Hannam-dong and rang the bell, Sunrye, the children, and his sister-in-law and her husband came out to meet him.
"Already finished?" Sunrye whispered, and Kijo nodded.
"Daddy, is your trip over already?"
Yeongeun asked, and he swept her up.
"Of course it is. Come on—let's go in."
He went into the house with the family. There were signs they had been about to open a can of American pineapple and eat it in front of the television.
"Brother-in-law, wait just a little. My husband said he'd make Italian pancakes, since the children were coming."
Pizza, he realized. Red-faced, Ma-ryang went to the kitchen and scattered toppings and grated cheese over dough he had already made. Kijo stepped over to him.
"Where'd you learn to make pizza?"
"Back in Shanghai, I worked a few months in an Italian restaurant. Picked it up on the quiet, just by watching..."
"All right. I'm counting on you."
Kijo glanced at the American oven installed in the kitchen, then returned to the living room and ate the canned pineapple.
"Brother-in-law, my man is genuinely good at Western food. He's embarrassed about it, so don't go spreading it around the company."
"I won't. My brother-in-law's secret is safe with me."
Sitting on the sofa and watching television with his family, Kijo felt happy. Seeing for himself that Ma-ryang was a domestic man as well only lifted his mood further.