The Camera
It was October, and the lush green of the roadside trees was slowly paling. Feeling the empty place Ki-jo had left behind on his business trip to Busan, Sunrye sat looking through the albums of photographs he had taken.
Ma-ryang had gone with him, and Soon-young, lonesome in the quiet, came over to Ki-jo's house to look through the albums with her sister.
"Oh my, Sister. Brother-in-law really does take beautiful pictures. He's so busy—whenever did he find the time to learn?"
"Who knows. He's good at whatever he turns his hand to, isn't he?"
Turning the pages one by one, Sunrye soon found the thing that disappointed her. There were enough photographs of the people of Eundae-ri, the factory hands, and the employees they worked alongside to fill albums of their own—and yet not a single picture of her husband. The family photographs were nothing but herself and their son, Soon-young and Ma-ryang.
"Every time my Ma-ryang has his picture taken, his face goes stiff. He looks furious. He could smile wide the way I do—I don't know why he won't."
Soon-young's little lament over her husband's photos was almost something to envy.
He goes around taking everyone else's picture, and there isn't a single one of himself... How it hurts...
Sunrye sighed before she knew she had.
"Why the sigh, Sister?"
"It's nothing..."
She searched the albums for any frame that held her husband, then closed them. Across all five, there was not one photograph of him.
"Soon-young."
"What?"
"Let's go buy a camera."
"A camera?"
Soon-young blinked.
The place Sunrye took her sister was Myeongwolgwan. Seong-ryong had been talking there with her younger brother Hwa-ryong, and when the two arrived she welcomed them gladly and made the introductions.
"This is President Lee Ki-jo's wife, Yang Soonrye, and the cute little thing with her is Soon-young—Jang Ma-ryang's wife."
Lee Hwa-ryong offered a mannerly greeting.
"Lee Hwa-ryong. Good to meet you."
Sunrye felt a flicker of fear at the sight of him, boss of the Myeongdong gang, but Soon-young did not.
"Hello, Uncle Hwa-ryong."
A bold greeting, offered to a man she had only just met—Hwa-ryong let out a dry laugh before he could stop himself. The woman rumored to have Jang Ma-ryang wrapped tight around her finger was nothing like the picture in his head.
The woman who turned Jang Ma-ryang into a henpecked husband was this much of a child...
He had imagined Ma-ryang's wife as someone older, a woman with a sharper cast to her face. But what of it? There were men weak to a pretty face, weren't there? He rose, giving up his seat to his sister's unexpected guests.
"I'll leave you to talk with my sister, then. I'll be off."
Once her brother had left the room, Seong-ryong asked, "What's all this? Two housewives out of the house before noon."
"Sister, I want to buy a camera. Would you help me?"
"A camera?"
"Yes. Something simple and inexpensive, that even I could use."
"A camera, out of nowhere? And where do you suppose you'll find a cheap one?"
"Are they very expensive?"
"Of course they are. Dearer than a radio."
Sunrye faltered a moment at the thought of something costlier than a radio. Then she set her mind. There was no one but herself who would take her husband's picture.
"The money doesn't matter. Just so long as it isn't the dearest one, and I don't get cheated. Sister."
Watching her offer, without a blink, to buy a camera worth more than a workingman's yearly wage, Seong-ryong felt a quiet pride.
President Lee earns well, and Sunrye's grown generous with it...
"All right. Then tell me why you're after a camera all of a sudden."
Sunrye explained that there were no photographs of her husband, and that she wanted to be the one to take them.
"Use your husband's."
"He carries it with him everywhere. I'm afraid I'll break it, so I don't even dare touch the thing. I want a camera I can use as I please. And I'd like to take pictures of Yeong-su as he grows."
"All right. I understand."
Seong-ryong called for the manager, and when he came she told him what Sunrye wanted.
"Go down to Myeongdong and buy one camera—light and small. Nothing complicated. And not too expensive."
"Yes, ma'am."
He went out at once on her order, and Sunrye asked, "Sister, you didn't give him any money..."
"Child... there's no need. He'll bring it on credit for now. If you like it, you pay then."
In Myeongdong, Lee Seong-ryong could have a camera brought in on account easily enough. Her brother had the whole of the district's trade in his grip, and her own credit was far from slight. It occurred to her that Sunrye still had no idea what that brother of hers did. She knew Ki-jo never told his wife about the darker corners of things.
"Is your husband very busy these days?"
"Yes. He's in Busan right now."
"Busan? What for?"
"He says they're building a seasoning factory there. He went with my brother-in-law. They'll be about a week, he said."
"A seasoning factory..."
Seong-ryong had known he was importing Ajinomoto and selling it. Now she learned he meant to build the factory himself.
"Remarkable. That husband of yours."
Soon-young cut in at the praise. "Brother-in-law's building a match factory in Incheon, too."
"A match factory?"
Seong-ryong looked at Sunrye.
"Yes. Someone gave him the machinery for it, not long ago."
"Gave him the machinery? Who?"
"Well... the man who runs the explosives plant in Incheon, as a token of thanks. Yeong-su's father helped him with something, but I don't really know the details."
Kim Jong-hee of Korea Explosives, who had brought the method for making dynamite back from Japan, had come to Ki-jo so grateful he all but dropped into a full formal bow. And he had let the match-making machinery go to him for a song.
Unable to manufacture dynamite, and with little to sell beyond gunpowder, Kim Jong-hee had planned to make matches and live by them. To a man who made explosives, the work was child's play: coat the tip of a splinter with potassium chlorate and the like, then mix red phosphorus, powdered glass, and diatomaceous earth onto the box for a striking surface, and that was the whole of it. Hearing the match trade paid handsomely, he had imported the equipment and raised the factory halfway—but once the dynamite method was his, he had no more need of a match works. From here on he would have to stake everything on dynamite.
So he handed the half-built factory over to Ki-jo for nothing more than the price of the land. That was his repayment. He had bought a house in Hannam-dong from Ki-jo as well, and after Cho Choong-hoon of Hanjin he became the second chaebol to take up residence there.
"But why on earth would Yeong-su's father suddenly be running a match factory in Incheon?"
Seong-ryong asked it plainly unable to make sense of the thing, and Soon-young jumped in again.
"It's like this. The brick factory shuts down in winter. While the ground's frozen and they can't fire bricks, he has to give the brick-works people jobs, or they can't earn through the cold months. That's what my husband said."
"I see."
Seong-ryong nodded. "You're a lucky one, Sunrye. Your husband makes bricks and builds besides, and there's the radio business, and seasoning, and now matches—so you'll live in a house he built, listen to a radio he made, boil your soup with seasoning he made, and light the fire under that soup with his matches."
Soon-young cut in once more. "Sister Seong-ryong, Brother-in-law's in shipping, too. He even has the biggest ship in Busan."
"Does he? Then you could go abroad on it. Call me when you do. Let me share in the good fortune. Ha ha ha."
The three of them chattered on.
In less than an hour the manager returned with a camera.
"Manager, explain it."
"I've brought a Japanese one. The German and American cameras were far too dear, and since you asked for something that wasn't expensive, I bought the cheapest."
Sunrye took the silver camera in her hands, the name Asahiflex on its face. Beside the one Ki-jo carried it was small and neat, but the weight of it was solid.
"If you'd like to learn how to use it, they say the Myeongdong Camera Company will explain it in full. The owner and the staff are all men, though, so if you'd rather not learn from a man, perhaps you might learn from Mi-hyang."
"Mi-hyang?"
Sunrye looked at Seong-ryong.
"Ah, that'll do. Mi-hyang knows her way around a camera. Go and fetch her."
At her word the manager brought Mi-hyang in. Introduced to Sunrye and Soon-young, she greeted them with apparent delight.
"Oh my, you're President Lee's wife? You're so lovely. So the handsome man and the beautiful woman have been keeping a home together."
The implication that she knew Ki-jo drew a sharp look from Seong-ryong, and a single cutting remark.
"Spare us the nonsense and show her how the camera works. Then go."
Spoken in that Pyongyang cadence, it left Mi-hyang without so much as a squeak, and she set about the explanation the simplest way she knew. Set the aperture and the shutter-speed dial for a clear day, she said, and if the light turned cloudy or dim, raise the aperture a single stop. It wasn't precise, but it was the easiest method for a beginner.
"If you put your eye here, you'll see two images. One is the true picture, and the other is a false one."
"True and false?"
"Yes, that's how this camera is. The real image and the ghost image show at the same time. When they do, you turn the ring on the lens until the two become one, and then you press the shutter."
"I see..."
When the lesson was finished Sunrye thanked her, and Seong-ryong, judging it done, spoke without softness.
"Mi-hyang, you may go."
"Yes, ma'am."
Mi-hyang rose, bowed politely to them both, and left the room. Seong-ryong turned to Sunrye, whose face had gone troubled.
"Don't you worry, Sunrye. That girl Mi-hyang has seen your husband."
"I see..."
"Sister Seong-ryong, did that Mi-hyang girl make a play for Brother-in-law?"
Soon-young asked it. She had been glaring at Mi-hyang the whole time, fire in both eyes.
"Not a play, exactly. She did try to make him one of her customers. But President Lee wouldn't so much as look at her. He kicked her off, flat."
"I knew it. As if our brother-in-law would ever fall for a vixen like that. Ugh—the first thing out of her mouth when she walked in was how a handsome man and a beautiful woman had been keeping house, and it sent a chill right through me."
Soon-young fumed. Seong-ryong gave a short laugh and spoke to Sunrye.
"Sunrye. I'll vouch for that husband of yours. Live with an easy heart. That girl didn't get so much as a fingernail's welcome from him, so she's been sore about it inside, and just now she let it show."
"Yes, Sister."
At those words the knot in Sunrye's chest loosened a little. Even she could see it: a husband young, handsome, and rich was hardly likely to be without admirers. But she trusted her own instinct. She could feel that Ki-jo took no interest in women outside his home. Still, meeting a woman from the outside who presumed to know him, she couldn't help the sudden twist in her stomach.
"I never told you this, Sunrye, but your husband once came to me in a fury."
"Yeong-su's father got angry with you? Why?"
"Because that Mi-hyang girl kept soliciting him. He came without even knowing who I was. That was the first I learned your husband knew how to be angry. A gentle man in a rage—it was frightening."
A smile spread over Sunrye's face.
"Oh, look, Sister's smiling. A minute ago you were swallowing your temper so hard."
Soon-young teased her, and Sunrye, stung, flung back a contrary retort.
"You just keep that husband of yours in line."
"You think I'd have to worry about Ma-ryang? You know me, Sister. I married him knowing full well his wife and his son were still in the North."
Seong-ryong laughed at the boldness of it.
"Then let's all of us live trusting our husbands. The camera's bought—shall we go buy some clothes in Myeongdong? It's been a while since you came out. I'll get you both something. Come on."
"Really? Sister Seong-ryong?"
"Oh, no, Sister. What does a woman who keeps house need with new clothes?"
The two sisters were opposite in temperament. Seong-ryong took the declining Sunrye in hand and headed for Myeongdong, and at a dressmaker's she had a dress fitted for each of them. She was sorry, after all, for having set Sunrye face to face with Mi-hyang and troubled her heart for no good reason.
Home again, Sunrye passed the time until Ki-jo's return practicing with the camera. She photographed her son playing in the yard, and the scraps of cloud drifting in the blue autumn sky. And at last, on the day he came home from Busan, she caught him in the lens as he came through the gate.
Startled to find her photographing him with a camera he had never seen, Ki-jo asked, "You bought a camera?"
"Yes. I wanted to take your picture."
"Did you? Ha ha. Then let's go out and take some."
Back from the trip and seemingly not tired at all, he put her in the jeep and drove out beyond the city. It was good enough that he was home; leaving the crowded, noisy heart of Seoul for somewhere quiet set her heart fluttering besides.
He stopped the car in a field with a fine view, perched on a stone wall, and struck a pose for her. Sunrye brought her eye to the viewfinder. In it there were two of him—the ghost image and the real one, just as Mi-hyang had taught her. She turned the ring on the lens, drawing ghost and reality together until Ki-jo was one man again. His face came clear: a white short-sleeved shirt, and a smile. Watching him there, her heart swelled for no reason she could name.
"Did you press the shutter?"
"Not yet. Just a moment."
Click.
She pressed the shutter, and Ki-jo at twenty-five was laid down on the film inside the camera.
They took a few more pictures, then walked the field under an autumn sun that still had a little bite to it. Side by side with her, he told her in detail what had passed in Busan. He had bought nearly five thousand square meters of land, he said, and meant to raise the seasoning factory there and give work to the people who had taken refuge in Busan—and he was alight with it. Sunrye looked up at him and drank in the happiness pouring off her husband. Look as she might, she could find nothing lacking in him.
She linked her arm tight through his, and they walked slowly on across the autumn field.