Loofah

January 4, 1963—the first day after the New Year holiday.

Ki-jo met Chang Key-young, newly a member of the National Assembly, at the Hankook Ilbo, and the two of them talked.

Chang Key-young's election was something that had never happened in the original history. Even so, the moment Ki-jo heard he had received the nomination for Seongdong-gu Gap in Seoul, he had rated the man's chances of winning as high. Seoul's Fifth Electoral District, taking in Sindang-dong, Sangwangsimni-dong, Geumho-dong, and Oksu-dong, was a place where two opposition candidates split the vote almost evenly. In the original history as well, Yu Seong-gwon of the Democratic Party and Kim Je-yun of the Civil Rule Party had finished first and second a mere 192 votes apart.

Chang Key-young was a ruling-party candidate, yet he carried the coloring of the opposition, and as proprietor of the Hankook Ilbo he already commanded public trust. Ki-jo had judged that he could draw ballots from opposition-leaning voters too. In the end he edged out Democratic Party candidate Yu Seong-gwon by eighty-two votes and scraped into office.

"Hyung-nim, it's belated, but congratulations once again."

"How many times are you going to congratulate me? You already sent a wreath, and you called."

"I never managed to come see you in person, did I?"

"Hahaha! Listen to you. What good does it do for a newspaper's owner to pay a call on some freshman assemblyman?"

Chang Key-young laughed out loud, then sobered, set his face to rights, and took Ki-jo's hand.

"Ki-jo, you're going to have to look after the Hankook Ilbo for a good long while."

"I'm prepared to step away ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the Hankook Ilbo whenever the time comes. Please don't say such things."

"No. That won't do."

Chang Key-young let go of his hand, and a faintly bitter look crossed his face.

"Earlier, when the Hankook Ilbo reporters came to congratulate me, they were wearing expressions that said the visit weighed on them. Didn't you read that?"

"What do you mean? They were genuinely glad. They welcomed your visit."

"Eh, no. That's not it. Now that I'm a Democratic Republican assemblyman, those reporters are going to be in a bind. Their former proprietor has turned politician, and I could see the thought written on their faces—if that man ever comes back, how are we supposed to write the news from here on?"

In his heart, Ki-jo agreed. When Chang Key-young took office as deputy prime minister of the Third Republic in the original history, the Hankook Ilbo's reporters said it felt as if sandbags had been strapped to both their legs. Cancellations multiplied, and circulation went into a sheer drop. Among the educated readers who actually bought a newspaper, those ill-disposed toward President Park Chung-hee were, in truth, the majority.

"Hyung-nim, come back whenever you wish. A man as unlearned as I am finds it hard going, looking after the Hankook Ilbo. That's the plain truth."

"Now, now. Spare me the poor-mouthing..."

Chang Key-young praised him for gathering Chairman Park, Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, and Chang Jun-ha in one room for a discussion.

"I read the piece you wrote. You wrote it very well. And the response was good. Keep ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on just like that. You're doing fine."

Whether thanks to that article or not, copies sold had in fact risen, and so had subscriptions. Ki-jo shifted the subject and asked, lightly, how things stood inside the Democratic Republican Party. He was curious how a party that had fought an election without Kim Jong-pil, and that still lacked any center of gravity, was actually being run.

"Mr. Jeong Gu-young is doing well as party president. And Chairman Park threw his weight behind Mr. Jeong at the reception for the winners."

Jeong Gu-young was a man who had made his name as a lawyer from the years of Japanese rule. He had served as president of the Korean bar association in Gyeongseong, and his license had been revoked for his uncooperative stance toward the colonial authorities. After that he went on resisting—refusing conscription among other acts of anti-Japanese defiance—until liberation came, and through the years of Liberal Party rule he kept up his opposition to the government. He had even taken the defense in the Kyunghyang Shinmun shutdown case, a brief no one else would touch for fear of Syngman Rhee.

During the April 19 Revolution he had been among those who demanded President Rhee's resignation in the strongest terms, a hard-line figure of the opposition outside the halls of power. When that same man joined the Democratic Republican Party and assumed its presidency, everyone was astonished. In its early days the party had worn a reformist, even progressive face—progressive enough to set a man like him at its head.

Ki-jo, though, did not believe Jeong Gu-young would remain president for long. Once Kim Jong-pil returned and the date of the presidential election was fixed, Chairman Park Chung-hee would become president of the Democratic Republican Party.

"There's something else," Chang Key-young said, lowering his voice with care. "I've been in touch with Mr. Kim Jong-pil while he's been abroad..."

"He'll be coming back to Korea before long. He wants to see you. From what I gathered, he's heard a good deal of news while he's been away, and he seems very interested in the course you've been taking."

"Is that so?"

Ki-jo nodded. A man who had been director of the KCIA was hardly going to be in the dark about affairs at home. Kim Jae-chun might have cut away his network inside the Agency, but there would still be officers who followed him, and they would have been feeding him information.

"I'd like to see Mr. Kim Jong-pil myself, once he's back."

He answered as if it were nothing. Kim Jong-pil was someone he absolutely had to meet. There was a great deal for which he would need the man's cooperation.

"And this is a secret only you should know..."

Chang Key-young dropped his voice still further.

"Before long there'll be a fresh election in Buyeo County, Kim Jong-pil's home district. Word is the police have gotten hold of signs that Jo Nam-su of the People's Party, the man who won this time, committed election fraud..."

Ki-jo kept his mouth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠firmly shut and nodded. Kim Jong-pil was not about to abandon the Democratic Republican Party he himself had built. Even if Jo Nam-su, elected in his own hometown, had committed no fraud at all, they would find some pretext to unhorse him, open a by-election, and send Kim back into the Assembly and the party. In the original history Kim Jong-pil had been returned from his native Buyeo on an overwhelming vote.

"Just keep it to yourself."

"I understand."

After his talk with Chang Key-young, Ki-jo headed for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. He paid his respects to Minister Ryu Byeong-hyeon.

"How do you do, Minister? I'm Lee Ki-jo, president of Cheongsan Group."

"A pleasure. I've heard the name President Lee often enough. But what brings you to the Ministry at the very start of the new year?"

Ryu Byeong-hyeon was a former soldier with ties to Chairman Park. He had sat on the Supreme Council with the agriculture portfolio before being tapped as minister. He was also a man with whom Ki-jo would be bound in the years ahead. During the Vietnam War he would take command of the Tiger Division in place of Chae Myung-shin, so they were fated to meet more than once.

"I came because I'd like to arrange contract cultivation of loofah with farms across the country."

"Loofah?"

Minister Ryu looked at him as if he had just heard something utterly beside the point. But, true to a man reckoned a wise commander, he let his curiosity show and asked why.

"Why loofah?"

"Because I believe it can be exported."

"Export loofah? Do people overseas eat a great deal of it?"

Ryu asked it with a smile.

"I'm not looking to export it as food. I mean to boil the fully ripened gourds, strip the skins, and sell the fiber mesh inside."

"Ah, I know what you mean. A ripe loofah turns to sponge on the inside, doesn't it? Households use it for washing dishes."

Ki-jo explained what he intended.

"Doing import and export, I've seen loofah used a great deal as packing filler in goods coming in from abroad."

"Hm. So it keeps things from breaking inside a crate."

"Yes. And when we were putting up factories here and installing machinery, foreign technicians tried it for wiping oil off the machines, then marveled at it and praised the quality."

"Did they?"

"Yes. Overseas, I'm told, they also use loofah as a bathing sponge."

"And you can actually open markets abroad?"

"Of course. Hyosung looked into the demand for Korean loofah in Hong Kong and Japan, and they also found brokers who can sell it in the United States and Europe."

He had decided to run the loofah export business with Cho Hong-je.

"If loofah can help us earn foreign exchange, then the Ministry ought to cooperate in earnest. How can we help?"

"The fastest path is contract cultivation with farmers through the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation. If you would only instruct the cooperatives, I think the work will come undone easily."

"All right. Let's do it that way."

"Thank you, Minister."

Ki-jo finished with Ryu Byeong-hyeon and returned this time to the Hankook Ilbo. He telephoned Cho Hong-je to say the loofah export venture looked as if it would come through, and Cho, delighted, answered him.

"Is that so? That's a relief."

At Cho Hong-je's objection Ki-jo thought a moment, then remembered Sunrye's suggestion that they use Yeongjun's face for the mark.

"What would you think of the Prince brand? In English, Prince—and a little boy's face as the trademark."

Ki-jo felt the two of them clicking neatly into place. Cho Hong-je's philosophy of management was harmony among people, and national interest joined to the welfare of the people; it was bound to fit with his own. He hung up with his new partner in a glow of satisfaction and was sketching the Prince logo on a sheet of paper when Kim Ja-hwan, chief of the political desk, came in with a bulletin.

"Sir, they're saying KCIA Director Kim Jae-chun has resigned."

"Is that so? Has a successor been named?"

"Nothing on a successor yet. The Blue House announced that the choice hasn't been made."

"All right. Look into who it might be."

"Yes, sir."

After Kim Ja-hwan left, Ki-jo sank into thought. Kim Jae-chun, who had set himself against the Democratic Republican Party and locked horns with Kim Jong-pil, seemed to have been unable to endure it and had stepped down of his own accord. Ki-jo's own proposal to dissolve the party had not been accepted, and the Democratic Republican Party had then crushed the election; Kim Jae-chun would have had no face left to show. The investigation into the Four Major Suspicions surrounding Kim Jong-pil had also passed from the KCIA to the prosecution and stalled there, and that, too, would have weighed in the decision to resign.

That Chairman Park was not driving the investigation hard was itself a sign that he did not wish to destroy Kim Jong-pil outright. And if, in that climate, Kim Jong-pil came home, it meant Kim Jae-chun's own position had grown precarious. Had he been a man of fierce will to power, he would have clung to the formidable seat of KCIA director and blocked Kim Jong-pil's return by any means he had. Kim Jae-chun was not that man. He was the sort who would give up the chair before he had to look on anything uglier.

"Ah... this has turned into a real headache."

Ki-jo knew very well how much the directorship of the KCIA mattered in modern history. The thought of Kim Hyung-wook, the man who would rise to that post as Kim Jae-chun's successor, sent a chill through him. Through the years of the Third Republic, Kim Hyung-wook committed every manner of outrage, violence, and abuse of authority, and he did more than a little to blacken the name of the Park Chung-hee regime. He would serve six years and three months as the longest-tenured director of the Agency, and he would have his share in the unsound decisions Chairman Park went on to make.

He was called by the absurd nicknames Flying Pork Cutlet and the Namsan Boar, but his cruelty and his recklessness tore ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠through modern history and left victims beyond counting. Just now he kept a seat of no real power on the Supreme Council, a sleeping boar. Ki-jo wanted, at all costs, to keep that man from being woken and set in the director's chair, where he could bend modern history to his will.

For that, Kim Jong-pil had to come to Korea. In the original history, the man who recommended him for director was Kim Jong-pil. Kim Hyung-wook's character was simple, and they were both of the eighth class of the Korea Military Academy, so the choice must have felt safe. In the end that decision was a disastrous move, one that ruined Kim Jong-pil himself and Chairman Park with him. But that also meant the one man who could stop it was Kim Jong-pil. If only the recommendation never came, someone else would take the directorship.

Ki-jo let out one long breath. How he might block the Namsan Boar from becoming director of the KCIA—on that, he brooded long and hard.