The Changseong
At Busan Harbor, Cheongsan Shipping's first freighter lay at her berth. Gijo smiled as he took her in—a ship so vast she looked as though she might fill the port.
Yeongsu, cradled in his father's arms, pointed at the white characters carved into the bow and read them aloud.
"Father, the ship's name is the Changseong."
"Is it? Do you know what it means?"
"It means to rise up grandly and flourish."
"That's right. Your uncle chose a fine name, didn't he?"
"Yes, Father. The ship looks big and strong, just like Uncle."
Sunrye, her arm linked through her husband's as she listened to father and son, spoke up.
"Yeongsu, I bet that ship could hold everyone in Busan. Don't you think?"
"Yes, it's huge. I've never seen a ship this big."
Yeongsu gazed, delighted, at a vessel too vast to take in at a glance.
"Sir, why don't you come aboard?"
A sailor in Oh Yang-soo's employ led the two families up. Once they had climbed the gangway onto the Changseong, her size came home even more sharply, and the view seaward was as wide and bracing as a prospect from a high mountain. Following the sailor, Gijo and Yang-soo's family looked the ship over from end to end, then rested in the wheelhouse with the cool sea wind on their faces.
Gijo came down with Yang-soo and walked aft for a cigarette. Squinting against the sun, Yang-soo drew him into the ship's shade, wiped the sweat from his brow, and said,
"That name your brother-in-law gave her—turns out it's his father's."
"Ah. Is that so?"
"Mm. The day we christened her, I had a drink with him. Told me his father's name was Jang Changseong."
Gijo nodded. Whenever Ma-ryang spoke of his father, he had wondered what sort of man he had been. A stronger man than Ma-ryang himself, by the telling, which was hard to picture—and yet perhaps that was why the name sat so well on a ship of this size.
"Getting close to your brother-in-law has tangled the family order a bit. We were drinking, and when I heard we were the same age I went and spoke easy with him—but he waits on you like a proper elder brother. Very correct about it."
"Haha, that's fine. You can speak plain to me even in front of Ma-ryang. What was this ship's name before?"
"She was the Grace. Westerners like to give a ship a woman's name."
"Changseong suits her better."
"Doesn't it. Anyway—that matter you raised yesterday. Shall I go to Korea Shipping and put it to them? Their head office is here in Busan, isn't it?"
Gijo shook his head.
The Korea Shipping Corporation was notorious, in the manner of state firms of the day, for slack management and for doing business exactly as it pleased. People even asked whether Korea Shipping sold its freight with a sword on its hip. They would never sign a contract that did not favor them.
"No, Brother. I'll see the people at the Shipping Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation, and at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry."
"Commerce? Why? The only thing they've got to do with the sea is the Fisheries Bureau."
"Korea Tungsten comes under their Mining Bureau. When it comes to tungsten exports, that office has the real say."
"Aha! So you'll work both at once—the Shipping Bureau that runs Korea Shipping, and the Mining Bureau that runs Korea Tungsten. We stand in the middle as the forwarder, between the carrier and the owner of the cargo."
Gijo nodded.
"You handle all of it. I can hardly show my face."
"I'm only laying the groundwork. Later I'll be the one depending on you."
"All right. Hot as it is, shall we go get a bowl of milmyeon? You still like those cold noodles, don't you?"
"Of course, Brother."
"There's a milmyeon house in Busan now that's brought in an ice machine. Ice-cold, they say."
"Let's go, Brother. This heat is killing me."
"Haha, good! Off we go!"
Gijo's family set off with Yang-soo's for the noodle shop with the ice machine.
They spent three days in Busan, swimming at Haeundae and eating raw fish at Jagalchi Market, and the time passed happily. Sliced flounder was a Busan delicacy a person could still get even in the middle of a war.
On the day they went up to Seoul, Yang-soo's family saw them all the way to Busan Station. Sunrye grew teary all over again as she said goodbye to his wife, Jeong-hui, and Yeongsu, unwilling to be parted from their children, caught the older boy's hand and the girl's and would not let go.
Yang-soo looked once around the gutted streets surrounding the station, then said to Gijo,
"It's a shame, you coming back to Busan after so long and finding her like this. These days this city isn't Busan. It's Bulsan—Mountain of Fire."
At that old name, Bulsan, Gijo nearly laughed. In the life he had lived before, he himself had called the city that, wryly, after the great fires that came one upon another in '53 and '54.
"Even so, Busan is still Busan. People still talk fast, and the milmyeon is still good."
"Haha, true enough. They'll throw the station back up in a hurry, quick as a Busan man's temper."
"Of course."
He said it, though he knew Busan Station would not be rebuilt for another fifteen years. Those were days when even raising a single large station building was a struggle.
He shook Yang-soo's hand and walked down to the platform. Once they were in their seats, Sunrye said,
"Thank you, dear. I know you're busy, and still you came away with us..."
Gijo closed his hand over hers.
"Don't thank me. I'm sorry. I ought to give you and Yeongsu more of my time..."
Once again he saw how far the life he was living had strayed from the one he had planned before he came back.
How did the business get this large...? At the start I only meant to make enough to get by...
He felt as though he were turning into a husband who earned a great deal and was not much of a family man. Just then Sunrye called to him.
"Dear."
"Yes?"
"I think you're remarkable."
"Me?"
"Yes. You go out and work, and no matter how tired you are when you come home, you sit and talk with Yeongsu. You teach him characters. You teach him English."
"...Mm."
"And when you come in after drinking, you never carry on. You don't gamble. Your only hobby is getting up at dawn to make your photographs. How refined is that?"
"Refined...?"
"Yes! Talk to the women next door—there isn't a husband like you. These days plenty of men sneak off to go dancing and come home with some woman's powder on them."
Gijo said nothing.
"I spoke with Soon-young, and she says my brother-in-law is the same. When he comes home from drinking he just sleeps quietly, like you. No strange smell on his clothes. His whole day is work, then home, then listening to Soon-young, then sleep. Soon-young does go on a bit, doesn't she? And still he listens. It's rather wonderful... I don't know why I was so set against the two of them marrying. Really, how did the men of this house turn out so upright and steady..."
He listened as the words poured out of her, and he was relieved. It seemed all right to go on working hard and living as he always had.
Then again—how many men in this era lived the way he and Ma-ryang did? The nineteen-fifties were years when men went through life raising their voices.
The law punishing both parties for adultery had been promulgated only in October of 1953. Until then a husband could stray and the law would not touch him; only a wife who did the same was punished. When the statute appeared, plenty of people called it a wicked law and swore it would tear households apart. A wife who wished to charge her husband had first to divorce him, they argued—and with so many children already born to concubines, what would become of those children if their fathers were punished?
That was the world of the fifties. Be steady, and simply stay clear of foolishness, and you were the finest husband a woman could have. Sunrye and Soon-young were women of that time. They did not ask much of Gijo or of Ma-ryang.
Was it because he had already lived the years ahead? If anything, he was the one whose standard for a husband's virtues ran high. He was glad of it.
He could hardly have been more of a family man than he already was. Too many livelihoods hung on his hands for him to let go of the work he had set in motion. Ten bodies would not have been enough for the life he was living, and still he had to work, for the sake of the employees whose lives he had taken up. There was no turning back now, and no laying it down.
He had not meant for it to happen. All the same, a new fate had found him: he would have to carry a great many lives forward along with his own.
Sunrye was bright with spirits, perhaps from having seen Jeong-hui again; the two of them were as close as sisters. The steam locomotive cried out and pulled away from Busan Station, and Sunrye talked on until Daegu before she fell asleep beside Yeongsu.
Gijo looked at the peaceful faces of his wife and son and thought that he was not wasting this last life after all.
Then he remembered something he had not asked her.
From the latter half of the year the government would tighten the currency, and money would grow hard to come by in the markets. Beginning in January 1955, in Gwangju first and then across the great cities—Seoul, Busan, Daegu, and the rest—the large organized gye, those rotating credit clubs, would fail in a chain. Many women had trusted their savings to gye that paid more interest than the banks, only to see their households ruined; some had even taken their own lives.
He waited for Sunrye to open her eyes. A little later, when she did, he asked,
"Dear, you haven't joined a gye, have you?"
"A gye...?"
"You or Soon-young. You haven't put money into one?"
"No. We don't do that. Soon-young and I... we feel safest leaving our money in the bank."
"Then that's fine. Go back to sleep. I'll close my eyes too."
Easy at last, he let sleep come.
Knowing a great deal about the future did not mean there was nothing left to fear.
Back from Busan, Gijo threw himself into work again. He had to brace for the small economic storm that would tear through the second half of 1954, and he had to get Cheongsan Shipping underway.
He went first to Lee Seong-ryong, proprietress of Myeongwolgwan.
If he meant to meet a rising dollar, he would have to use the private money market in Myeongdong. That district was the capital of informal finance, where curb loans and dollar exchanges moved in volume.
Receiving him in her office, Seong-ryong was plainly doubtful when he said he wanted to change a large sum into dollars.
"Why on earth? They say Dr. Syngman Rhee leaves for America on the twenty-fifth to meet Eisenhower..."
"That's exactly why I want to buy dollars now."
"If the two presidents meet and good news comes back, the dollar only gets cheaper, Yeongsu's dad."
"No. It won't."
He knew better. The dollar was falling on the hope that the Korean and American leaders would meet in the United States and settle the quarrels between their countries—but that future was not coming. On his state visit, Syngman Rhee would raise hell on American soil. Provoked, the United States would set about bringing Korea to heel in earnest, and the price of the dollar would surge again.
"Hmm... Mr. Lee, I've heard a thing or two. Shall I tell you?"
She had no way of knowing he was a man come back from the years ahead, and she was about to show off her sources, just a little.
"What have you heard?"
He smiled and let her talk.
"They say that when Dr. Rhee goes to America this time, the mutual defense treaty takes effect. Then the dollar has no choice but to fall even further, I'm telling you."
He nodded. Her information was excellent. She had the shape of what was coming more or less right. Only the timing was wrong.
The treaty would not enter into force during the visit, as everyone expected. After the trip, relations between Korea and the United States would sink to their worst, and through September and October the dollar would leap past all belief. In investing, the moment mattered more than the direction. No one but Gijo knew exactly when the ROK–U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty would take effect.
He spoke to her as she sat pleased with the reach of her own intelligence.
"Even so, I'm going to buy dollars now. Please put me in touch with the big money in Myeongdong."
She had handed him premium information, and still he dug in. Her brows drew together.
"I told you that because I was looking out for you, Yeongsu's dad... I'm disappointed."
"Even if the dollar falls further than it is now, it'll rise again someday, won't it?"
"In the long run, yes... but no matter how I look at it, buying dollars now seems like a fool's errand..."
"Sometimes the fool is the one who makes more money. Haha."
"No—I wasn't calling you a fool, Yeongsu's dad..."
"I know, ma'am."
He laughed.
"All right. I'll connect you with a money changer. How large are the lots?"
"A million at a time. Several rounds."
"Good heavens, that much? Well, if you're moving more than ten million hwan, splitting the trades is the right way. All right. I'll be in touch."
She let out a short sigh and granted what he asked.
"There's one more favor I'd like."
"Say it, Yeongsu's dad. But if you're about to tell me you'll lose money on purpose again, this time I won't hear it."
A little hot on his account, she worked her fan without pausing.
"I'd like to meet people from the Shipping Bureau at the Ministry of Transportation and the Mining Bureau at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. I need someone to make the introduction."
"Is that so? All right. So you're doing business, and you have to see a few officials, Yeongsu's dad. That much I ought to help with."
"Then let me help you in return. I can't only take favors."
"Help me? Now I'm curious. What is it?"
"Dissolve the gye you're running before President Syngman Rhee comes back from America."
"The gye? Why...?"
"By the end of this year, money in the market will freeze solid. The economy is going to be in turmoil for a while, you might say. Lend funds out to earn interest and you'll be left with nothing."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Trust me. Please do exactly that."
"Can you really swear to it? The gye I run is bigger than you think. Break it up and the loss I'd have to swallow is no small thing."
The hand with the fan went still. The mere thought of a loss seemed to have sent a chill through her.
"Better than watching money you've lent get stolen out from under you, isn't it? Recover your funds as soon as you can, and dissolve the gye. That's how you protect your name."
She seemed stunned. She looked at him with her lips slightly parted. Then, as if she had sensed something, she nodded. It was like her—she prided herself on her nose for business and her eye for people.
"All right. I don't really believe it... but you're not a man to talk nonsense, Yeongsu's dad. I'll trust you and try."
He was glad she would be spared so heavy a loss. One way or another, he needed to protect her. Most of the buyers she had brought him for those fine houses were members of her gye. If they took a bad blow at the end of this year or the start of the next, they might cancel the purchases.
In shielding Lee Seong-ryong, he had shielded himself as well.