Cabaret

A few days after his visit to Myeongwolgwan, Kijo taped a notice to the window of the Seoul office.

The Cheongsan factory and the Yeongdeungpo factory were straining to swallow the volume of orders, and so they had decided to stop ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠taking reservations for a while. It was a precaution, taken to heart from Professor Kim Moon-hwan's warning that if they drove the newly started Cheongsan factory at full capacity, an accident might well blow up in their faces.

Even so, Kijo and the four department heads kept the office manned, ready for the complaints and mishaps that still drifted in from time to time. It was the first leisure they had known in a long while, and Kijo himself indulged in the small luxury of sitting at his desk and idly reading the paper.

One of the novels running serially in the Seoul Shinmun caught his eye.

By the standards of the Kijo who had lived all the way to 2019, it was an utterly ordinary story. A university professor's wife takes up with her dance instructor, and the professor husband takes up with a woman from the office.

What is supposed to be so racy about this...?

He could not understand why so commonplace a novel had kicked up a social scandal. Jeong Bi-seok, the author of Madame Freedom, was publicly denounced by a professor of the College of Law at Seoul National University, charged with daring to tarnish the honor of university professors and with driving Korean society into obscenity and decadence. The SNU professor went so far as to call the writer an enemy of culture, more dangerous than the Chinese Communist troops who had invaded Korea.

In the end even Syngman Rhee stepped forward and sent the Counterintelligence Corps to haul the man in. They tortured him, pressing him on whether he had written so lewd a novel on Kim Il-sung's orders.

Try as he might, Kijo could not see the novel as anything so obscene or decadent. The truth was that dance-hall fever had been all the fashion even during the war. In Busan, the temporary capital where he had taken refuge, the dance halls were packed to the rafters every night, and young men and women danced there to American music, drank American beer, and went off together to sleep.

Kijo had not had that kind of money then, and even if he had, he doubted he would have cared — but he understood how they felt. A terror of being dragged into the army and dying at any moment, and an apocalyptic dread that the country might fall to communism any day, had hung thick over Busan. Fear and emptiness were all that had driven the young of those days into pleasure and decadence.

It was a tangled, dizzying world, and the people determined to live only for today went on burning themselves up even after the war. Lives like that were called the postwar mood. Among the well-to-do, decadence, pleasure-seeking, luxury, and drugs were all in fashion, and he found it hard to understand why a novel alone was being singled out.

He was turning this over when Seogwang came up and asked, in a suggestive undertone.

"So the boss likes the racy stuff too...?"

"Sorry?"

Startled, Kijo looked at him. Seogwang was smiling with his eyes narrowed to sly slits.

"That thing you're reading. Madame Freedom. That novel's pretty steamy, you know?"

"This is steamy?"

Kijo could not make sense of it.

"It's about a professor's wife who catches dance fever with her husband's student, isn't it? That novel's the talk of the whole city these days. You're interested in dancing too, aren't you, Boss...?"

Kijo stared blankly for a moment at Seogwang, who was snickering to himself, and felt all over again that he was living in the 1950s. Set beside the lurid melodramas and novels still to come, this was nothing but child's play.

Be that as it might, he folded the newspaper he had been reading and got to his feet. For several days he had been preparing something for Kim Doo-han's election, and as he made to leave the office to see to it, Hansu spoke up.

"Boss, where are you headed?"

"Ah — sorry, with everyone working. I've got a few things to take care of outside..."

"What's there to be sorry for? I only asked so I could tell anyone looking for you what time you'd be back."

"I'll be rather late again today."

"Understood, Boss. I'll tell them they won't be seeing you today."

Hansu smiled, bright and untroubled.

Once Kijo had gone, Seogwang, at the next desk, whispered to Hansu.

"Hansu. The boss has been stepping out at night a lot lately, hasn't he?"

"He must be meeting people for the business."

"You think that's it?"

Seogwang wore a meaningful smile.

"If it isn't that, then what... You don't suppose the boss is off to meet a woman?"

When Hansu asked, Seogwang grinned slyly and nodded.

"Oh, come on, hyung... The boss isn't that sort of man."

"Hey, the boss is a man too. And a man in his twenties, with his blood running hot."

With that, Seogwang slid a matchbox onto Hansu's desk.

Hansu started at the sight of it.

"Huh? What's this?"

"Shh!"

Seogwang glanced toward Ma-ryang and Seokmun and slipped the matchbox back into his pocket.

"Found it lying on the floor..."

"That doesn't mean the boss was at a cabaret..."

"I bet the boss is a good dancer."

"What?"

"Light on his feet, and handsome besides. If he asked a girl at the cabaret for one dance, the women would... heh heh."

"Come on. He probably just picked it up walking down the street..."

"Well, maybe. Or maybe our boss has come down with dance fever..."

Seogwang snickered. Having beaten the drum and played the janggu all by himself, he turned a serious face on Hansu.

"For now, this stays between you and me. If too many people hear of it, it'll put the boss in a spot."

"Yes, hyung."

Hansu tilted his head, looking unsettled, and bent back over his work. Seogwang, by contrast, smiled with his whole face and let his thoughts wander. Back when Kijo had been in and out of the yanggongju houses of Dongducheon — the bars where women kept company with American soldiers — Seogwang's deductions had been proved wrong in spectacular fashion, and yet whenever Kijo did anything the least bit out of the ordinary, his imagination took wing all the same. Now and then Ma-ryang and Seokmun stole a glance at Seogwang, who kept on smirking to himself.

A few days later, Kijo spoke to the four department heads as they worked in the office.

"No calls today, and it doesn't look as if anything's coming up. Let's close the office and go to a cabaret."

"A cabaret?"

Beside him, Seogwang's eyes went perfectly round.

"Boss, did you really just say we're going to a cabaret?"

Shim Hansu asked it again, his face grave.

"Yes, I said let's go to a cabaret. We'll drink some beer and hear some songs."

"So we finally get to see the boss's regular cabaret!"

At Kim Seogwang's remark, come out of nowhere, Kijo tilted his head.

"Anyway, let's move. Put the papers you were reviewing in the cabinet and lock up."

Kijo took the four department heads and set out for the Jongno cabaret under Kim Doo-han's hand. When they reached the door, Doo-han's men bowed low to Kijo.

"Welcome, Mr. Lee. Everything's ready. Hyung-nim is waiting for you as well."

"Is he? He's here already?"

"Yes. Please, go on in."

At the sight, Seogwang, Hansu, and Seokmun were so astonished they could not get their mouths shut. While Kijo and Ma-ryang passed inside as if it were the most natural thing in the world, escorted by the gangsters, the three of them only stood there in a daze. Kijo and Ma-ryang looked like men who lived in some other world than their own.

"Shouldn't we be going in too...?"

Hansu asked his two hyungs.

"Now, hold on. Let's smoke one, then go."

Seogwang set a cigarette between his lips with a trembling hand.

"Give me one too, Seogwang."

Seokmun, who knew how to smoke but rarely did, took a cigarette as well.

"Hyungs, did you see how polite those gangsters were to the boss and to Ma-ryang hyung?"

Hansu asked it quietly, watching the toughs posted in front of the cabaret.

"I saw..."

Seogwang blew out a thick stream of smoke and went on.

"I can't begin to know what kind of life our boss has lived. Right up until the war, he just seemed ordinary..."

"You mean the Deokjeong days, don't you? When he was looking for work at Deokjeong Station."

"Yeah. After he went to Busan as a refugee and came back, he was a completely different man. He's as good a man as ever, but I don't rightly know anymore just who the boss is..."

Seogwang drew on the cigarette again.

"Let's go in. The boss will be waiting."

Seokmun, who had smoked his quickly, pressed them.

When the three men stepped inside the cabaret, they found Kijo seated with Kim Doo-han at a table in front of the stage. Ma-ryang saw the three department heads come in and beckoned them over; he had taken a table apart from the bosses. Once they sat, he pointed at the paper and pencil lying on the table.

"When the singers do a song, write what you think on the paper. Boss's orders."

"And the drinks? We're not drinking?"

Seogwang asked, looking disappointed.

"Boss says when you're done with the songs, you can drink your fill. Write first."

"Okay. Appreciate first, drink after — that the idea?"

With liquor promised, Seogwang's face brightened.

Soon a male singer climbed onto the cabaret stage, and the band behind him struck up. The fierce sound of an electric guitar and the pounding of drums rolled through the hall, and at that unfamiliar noise the four department heads jumped.

The words were no more familiar than the sound. But when the refrain began, the voices of the singer and the chorus started to work their way into every ear in the hall.

When the song and the playing ended, not a single person applauded the singer or the band. A peculiar stillness wrapped the hall.

"Huh. Strange song... The instruments come on way too loud at the start."

Seogwang, in his thirties, offered the first opinion.

"I rather liked it, actually. And strangely, the refrain keeps circling in my head. That part that goes Doo-han! Doo-han!"

Hansu, in his twenties, gave his own.

Seokmun, in his forties and not a man of many words, only tilted his head.

"Get those comments down quick. Before the next singer comes out."

At Ma-ryang's word, the three of them bent over the paper and wrote in earnest.

At the next table, Kim Doo-han wore an uncertain look. A song that opened on electric guitar was strange to him, and yet the passage that chanted his name had pleased him. He put a careful question to Kijo.

"Mr. Lee, who is the boy playing guitar in the band?"

When Kim Doo-han showed an interest in the seventeen-year-old guitarist, Kijo smiled.

"His name is Shin Joong-hyun. A boy learning guitar with the U.S. Eighth Army. In the years to come, he'll be the greatest guitarist in Korea."

"Hm... I see. If you say so, Mr. Lee, then so it must be. Shall we hear the next song?"

"Let's."

Kijo gave a signal with his hand, and the next singer came out. This time it was a woman, and when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an accompaniment familiar to people of the fifties began to flow, Kim Doo-han's face grew markedly easier.

At the woman singer's honeyed, coaxing turn of phrase, Doo-han smiled, thoroughly pleased.

Doo-han's face flushed along with the smile. The lines swearing love for him had come around again and again.

When the song ended, Kim Doo-han laughed merrily.

"Mr. Lee, the melody of this one is truly first-rate, though it does seem to say it loves this Kim Doo-han a few too many times. Ha ha ha!"

Kim Doo-han was a little abashed.

"That's quite all right. This song is for the women voters. Assemblyman Kim has a rather frightening image, so women find it hard to draw near. If we're to give you a familiar one, we have to say 'I love you' a great many times."

At Kijo's explanation, Kim Doo-han nodded.

"I find I'm eager to hear the next song."

Kim Doo-han gave the signal, and another male singer came up. A trumpet rang out alone, and the mood of the cabaret hall brightened.

When the third song ended, Doo-han could not hold it in, and burst out laughing.

"Really, Mr. Lee — nyah ha ha ha ha! What on earth is a premium love for Doo-han? Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Kijo laughed with him.

"This is a song men and women alike will like. It's built so they'll run to the polls for Assemblyman Kim, unconditionally."

Kijo had mixed a joke into it, and Kim Doo-han clutched his belly and laughed.

Then Ma-ryang brought over the comments the four department heads had written, and Kijo spoke.

"Let the department heads drink all the beer they want. Today they can drink until they're cross-eyed."

"Got it, hyung."

Ma-ryang went back, and Kijo read the comments. The songs favored by men in their twenties, their thirties, and their forties differed with age, but taken all together the verdict was that the numbers were fresh and entertaining. One remark was common to every one of them: the lyrics kept lingering in the ear.

Kim Doo-han read the four comments as well, then called together the employees out in the hall and had them say how the songs struck them. Having gathered the opinions, he poured beer into Kijo's glass.

"Mr. Lee, I have a good feeling about this. Through the campaign, we simply play these songs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— is that it?"

"Our Cheongsan trucks will make the rounds of Seoul, set down their loads of brick, and play the three songs."

"Ah! Will they? And where are the records made?"

"There's a place I know. Hanyang Records — the shopkeeper knows how to press records. And the U.S. Eighth Army radio station says they'll lend us a recording room as well."

"Ah! Hanyang Records, the one in Jongno? I know the place! So you've made yourself a connection with the Eighth Army too, Mr. Lee."

"It was the first thing I'd asked of them, and they agreed without hesitation."

It was the first favor Kijo had formally requested of Major General Martin.

When the appraisals were finished, the men gathered at a single table, raised their beer glasses, and gave a toast.

"To that!"

Kijo, Doo-han, and the four department heads drank with abandon that day at the Jongno cabaret. Not one of them could remember when they had got back to the office, or how.