The Yut Catcher
It was an unexpected visit.
On the morning of Seollal, the Lunar New Year, Ki-jo had never once imagined that Frank would come looking for him. The man had turned up without a word of warning, and there had been no time to prepare a thing. Ki-jo was not flustered. Because of it, Frank would see him as he truly was.
When the applause of the factory people died away, he raised his voice.
"Take the day, and enjoy the holiday in peace. It's the first Seollal we've met since the war ended, isn't it?"
"You've got to rest proper today too, sir! Always tearing about on company business till your eyebrows are flying in the wind, aren't you?"
One of the hands shouted it, and the crowd broke into laughter. The sound of it spread across the yard — a boss and his workers easy with one another, warm and without ceremony. This was the true face of the Cheongsan factory.
"All right. I'll rest well myself. Thank you."
Ki-jo bowed low to them. He was just about to go over to Frank when the workers came swarming and caught hold of him.
"And where do you think you're going, sir?"
"Ah, there's someone I ought to see..."
"You make an appointment?"
"Not exactly an appointment..."
"Then you've got to play with us!"
They hauled him over to the yut board laid out in the yard. A straw mat was already down, the sticks waiting. For Seollal they had opened a tournament of yut, the old New Year's game of thrown sticks and racing tokens, meant to cast the year's bad luck out the gate.
Ki-jo looked toward Frank. Their eyes met, and Frank broke into a grin.
"Women's team against men's team for the tournament! Captain of the women — Deputy Plant Manager Lee Bongok! Captain of the men — President Lee Ki-jo!"
The emcee, who was also the referee, bellowed it.
Of all the times.
There was no getting free of it. He would have to lead the men.
"First throw goes by seniority, and that means the president — no arguments!"
They closed his fingers around the sticks. His mind was racing ahead of him. The hell with it, he decided, and threw. The four sticks dropped onto the mat with a flat knock.
"Yut!"
The men's team roared. The sticks were pressed back into his hand, and he threw them the moment they touched his palm.
"Yut again!"
The cheer broke loose. Hurrying, Ki-jo threw once more.
"Another yut! Our president's a yut catcher!"
The man who had just been handed the title threw again, and it was yut once more. Four in a row. The men erupted, and from the women's side a protest burst out.
"Sir! Would you stop throwing yut!"
As if a man threw yut because he felt like throwing it.
On the fifth cast a do came up, the lowest throw of all. Impatient, Ki-jo stacked all four of his pieces and set them where they could take the shortcut.
The women's turn. Lee Bongok hurled the sticks with everything she had, and a mo — the highest throw on the board — lay open on the mat.
"Mercy! A mo!"
The men's side was wiped out. Groans from the men, a cheer from the women, laughter ringing and ringing. Ki-jo laughed too, hollowly, but inside he was burning. He had to get to Frank.
Unable to bear it any longer, he slipped over to Ma-ryang and whispered.
"A guest of some importance has come. You take the captaincy."
"Aye. Make like you're off to the privy, and slip out."
Ki-jo eased away from the board and went to Frank.
"You're Director Martin's junior, I believe?"
"That's right. Frank Powell."
"Lee Ki-jo."
They shook hands. Frank ran a glance over the people gathered in the yard.
"Fine atmosphere you've got here."
"It's the holiday. Ha ha."
Ki-jo moved to lead him toward the office, and Frank spoke.
"I'd like to look over the factory."
"By all means."
Ki-jo took him inside the great Hoffman kiln. Frank seemed to be taking the measure of the place, running his eyes over the walls and up across the ceiling, and then he nodded. When the tour of the interior was done, he turned to Ki-jo.
"Shall we?"
They went into the office and sat down across the conference table from each other.
"The factory was very impressive."
The assessment, at least, was a good one. Even so, Ki-jo felt he had better explain things, so that Frank would grasp exactly what the Cheongsan works were worth.
"Cheongsan Brick is building the finest facilities in the Republic of Korea. I doubt there's another factory in the country with equipment this modern."
Frank, who had just walked the grounds, nodded.
"It seemed that way. The layout looked very tightly put together."
He was agreeing easily, and still Ki-jo had a bad feeling. A premonition that the answer to his request would be no.
"Will it be difficult?"
He asked for the conclusion first.
"Yes. I'm sorry."
Frank said it flat. Ki-jo caught his lower lip lightly between his teeth. Frank took off his sunglasses, and the jade-green eyes came clear.
"I came with a rough grasp of the situation. And I've brought a suitable solution with me."
At the word solution, Ki-jo let go of the lip he had been holding.
"We'll place an order for brick with Cheongsan through the American Embassy. Take the purchase order we send you and go to the government office. Tell them an order has come in from the Embassy, and ask them to issue the permit."
The solution was unexpectedly simple, and he understood what he was being told to do. Trust the American Embassy, and talk big in front of the bureaucrats.
"And after that?"
"If a Korean official refuses, we'll request the permit ourselves. In most cases the Korean offices grant it then."
Frank seemed to have read his mind exactly. He was saying the Embassy would bring pressure to bear directly, with no Korean intermediary set in between. It was possible because the CIA working in Korea operated through the United States Embassy in Seoul. On the surface, Frank himself would be nothing more than an ordinary embassy employee.
But what he was offering was a one-time favor. It left Ki-jo unsatisfied. And curious. Why was Cheongsan Brick being refused as a partner firm of the CIA?
"I'd like to know what disqualifies our factory."
"The scale is too small."
The answer was simple. Too small. Just how much money was the CIA scattering across Korea, that a factory could be struck off over its size?
He did not want to give it up. To come through the rough water of the 1950s and the early 1960s, he needed a shield that would last. Without one, it would not even take political power — petty clerks at the bottom of the bureaucracy could harry Cheongsan without end. The fifties and sixties he had already lived were like that. A man with no backing was robbed in broad daylight and treated as easy prey. Somehow, he wanted to win the qualification to be chosen by the CIA.
"If we only grow the scale, is there a chance?"
Frank nodded.
"Director Martin recommended you very strongly. He said you were a man who could be trusted. I agree with him. But..."
What he wanted was a company whose sales were large enough that a flow of CIA money would not catch the eye.
"I came because I'd heard you did construction as well. But brick seems to be the main line. If construction were the heart of the business, this would be a different conversation. The sums that move through that trade are on another scale. And the trade itself is very hard to see into."
Frank laid it out plainly, and kindly enough. Now Ki-jo knew what the problem was, and his mind eased. Solve that one thing, and what remained?
"Grow us."
"I beg your pardon?"
Frank was slightly thrown.
"Please. Grow us."
"No, a request like that is rather..."
He was somewhat disappointed. From what Director Martin had told him, Ki-jo was not a man who readily asked favors of the other party.
"Help us only a little, and we can grow the company's scale quickly."
"I don't believe that's quite the thing."
Frank was displeased. In the end, wasn't this growing a company on the CIA's help? He found himself wondering whether Director Martin had really seen this Lee Ki-jo clearly.
"I'm not asking for a large favor. Only a little — a very little — and then watch us."
There was nothing servile in Ki-jo's manner, and nothing pleading. It was the attitude of a man saying, give me the time and I will prove it myself.
"What, exactly, do you want me to do?"
"Make me a single job worth a hundred dollars."
"A hundred dollars? A job like that is..."
The hundred-dollar job that came to Frank's mind was, back in America, about the scale of replacing a bathroom toilet and a sink. To the bewildered man, Ki-jo put a question.
"Have you ever seen the Han River?"
"Yes. I often walk along the bank."
"Have you seen the mudflats on it?"
"I've seen them."
"Those flats make things hard for the people who come to draw water or do their laundry. Your feet sink in deep. They cut the river off from anyone trying to reach it."
Frank could not begin to follow him.
"And so?"
"I'll take the work of clearing those mudflats. For a hundred dollars, flat. Please use your influence so the city of Seoul can go ahead with it."
What in God's name—
The man Lee Ki-jo, whom his senior Martin had praised to the skies, was standing there in front of him talking nonsense.
"Hold on. You want to clear the mudflats of the Han for a mere hundred dollars? Wouldn't that lose you money? It wouldn't even cover the labor."
"No. Not in the least."
Ki-jo was certain of it. The Han was a great river cutting straight across Seoul. Where the waters of the South Han and the North Han met and came down, it struck the city in the monsoon with a tremendous weight of water. Along every bend the current scraped earth away from the first bank it struck and laid that earth down upon the second, and at each of those bends the settling sediment had built a vast alluvial soil. The mud, a kind of alluvium, made life miserable for people. It was also the stuff of which bricks were made. That was what he was after.
"The mud of the Han becomes material for brick."
…!
Frank understood him.
"So you're asking me to arrange it so that you can make use of the mudflats on the Han?"
"Yes. Help the city of Seoul carry out a hundred-dollar job."
The idea — making brick from the mud along the river and putting it straight onto the market — was rather fresh. No cost for materials, and almost none for hauling. Passing a request like that along to the city of Seoul would not be difficult either. A hundred-dollar job would lay no burden on a city government already short of money. Of course, told to go and try a project of that sort, a man might think he was hearing something a little mad...
Frank was nodding when Ki-jo went on.
"Cheongsan makes high-grade brick. But high-grade brick can't take a market. Brick made from the mud of the Han can go after the cheap end of it."
"And by doing that, you mean to seize the brick market and bulk the company up?"
"Yes. That's my plan. And if we draw the mud off the bank, the water will run better when the rains come. It will help keep the floods down as well."
Well. Look at this man.
Frank knew Korea paid the Han no mind at all. So soon after the war, everything was hard, and that was understandable — but the river was only a place to draw water for the house and to dump what the house was done with. More than once he had seen the country south of the Han go under when the water rose in summer. That Ki-jo should be thinking of flood control even in a season like this made him seem a long-ball hitter, a man with his eye on the far distance. Just as Director Martin had said. Clever, and interesting.
Clever, but not sly. A businessman — and yet I can't smell the greed.
"I've heard you out."
Frank wiped clean the disappointment toward Ki-jo that had been sitting in his head. He had a rough picture now of what kind of man this was. The idea, for a start, was a good one. But carrying an idea over into the real world was a separate ability, and Frank wanted to test it.
"I'll watch you for a year. If what you've promised comes to pass, then I'll consider joining hands with Cheongsan."
"Thank you."
Frank rose.
"I think I've taken a great deal of your time. Your people seem to be waiting for you."
His finger indicated the office window. Through the glass, several of the employees were looking in at the two of them. They had come to fetch the president, found him in talk with a foreigner, and had simply stood there watching. Ki-jo, fixed on Frank, had not noticed them at all.
"Enjoy yourself with your people. It's a happy holiday, isn't it?"
Frank smiled and went out, and one of the hands hurried in after him.
"Sir, come out quick. The women are running right over us. We need the yut catcher."
"Oh, are they? Then the yut catcher had better step up!"
Ki-jo laughed wide and headed for the tournament ground. Before he threw, he saw the car that carried Frank pulling away, and Frank's face came back to him — keen with interest as it listened to the plan. Things felt as if they would come out right.
He threw the sticks hard. The four of them fell onto the mat, and the referee sang out.
"Yut! Yut! The yut catcher is back!"
Right on its heels, an outcry from the women.
"Sir, kindly remove yourself!"
"If all you ever throw is yut, what are we supposed to do?"
Ki-jo grinned, gathered the sticks, and flung them high into the air.
"Yut again! Yut again!"
Yut Catcher Ki-jo threw his arms around the cheering men and roared with them.
If, with Frank's help, he landed that hundred-dollar work of flood control, it would be nothing short of a windfall.