Preparing for Winter — 9
"Grandpa Hosik! You in there?"
Having finished my fieldwork, I grabbed some beef and headed over to Grandpa Hosik's place.
"It's me, Grandpa. Yunho."
"Aigoo, look at me, dozed right off."
Grandpa Hosik came shuffling out of the room, rubbing his eyes — apparently all that snail catching had worn him out.
"Here's the beef. Thin-sliced sirloin. You can use it for bulgogi, or just grill it and dip it in salt — either way it's delicious."
"Ah, good, good. I'll eat it well. Thank you, Yunho my boy. Ever since you moved in, those middle-of-the-night shivers are gone and I sleep like a baby — you don't know how much I appreciate it. If I were a few years younger, I'd have carried you around on my back."
The old man was even cracking jokes now.
"It should be the other way around, Grandpa. If I got carried around on an elder's back, people would talk."
"Would they now? Well, I nearly got you into trouble, didn't I? Haha."
"Well then, I'll be on my way."
My plan was to buy Grandpa Hosik's land through the village head. The old man had already offered the land up through him, so it wouldn't be right for me to suggest cutting a private deal instead.
"Enjoy the snails, sir."
I gave a deep bow and turned to leave.
"Oh — hold on a moment."
Grandpa Hosik stepped down onto the wooden porch with the air of a man who had something serious to say, and caught my arm.
"Yes? What is it?"
"I have — I have one favor to ask. If you're passing by and my house has been dark for a while, or the lights have been on all day... could you stop in and open the door, just to check?"
"G-Grandpa..."
He was worried, I realized, that if he died alone, no one would find him until it was far too late.
My throat closed up tight, and I drew in a long, slow breath. Whether my struggle showed or not, Grandpa Hosik let out a hearty chuckle, embarrassed.
"Sorry. Asking you a thing like this. But you're a man, after all. The Women's Association president does look in on me now and then, but she's got such a soft heart... I can't imagine the fright a corpse would give her, that's all."
"You just need to live a long time, Grandpa. You're still hale as anything."
"I'm hale today. But who's to say the grim reaper won't come collecting tomorrow? Us old folks — different yesterday, different again today."
Even as he said it, Grandpa Hosik laughed it off with a heh-heh.
"And if I don't wake up some morning, tell the young'uns to dig under the persimmon tree. There used to be a thief in the village who stole people's gold, so while I was looking for a place to hide things, I ended up burying a jar down there."
"...So your descendants will dig up that jar ten years from now, then."
"What? Ten years? Haha. That would make me a hundred and five, would it?"
Grandpa Hosik let out a great peal of laughter, then clapped me on the shoulder.
"Well, I did eat that wild ginseng you gave me. Maybe I really could last that long. What do you think?"
"Absolutely. I'd bet money on it."
"Ah — and one more thing! The snails, see. You've got to keep them in a black plastic bag. Leave them in anything else and they'll think it's nighttime, spit out what they've eaten, and go crawling all over the place."
"Really?"
At my question, Grandpa Hosik nodded and walked me through how to boil them.
"Change the water a few times, then when it's at a rolling boil, add salt and some soju and dump them all in at once. They'll come out nice and tasty, you'll see."
When it comes time to pull the meat out of the shells, he said, you have to poke it with a needle and turn counter-clockwise.
"Counter-clockwise — mind you. That's the part that matters."
Marsh snail shells spiral clockwise, he explained, so only by turning against the spiral could you draw the meat out whole and unbroken.
A lifetime of know-how, gleaned from catching snails and selling them at market — and he was handing every bit of it over to me without holding anything back.
I bowed again, trying to pour all my gratitude into it.
"Yes, sir! Thank you!"
"All right then. See you tomorrow."
Grandpa Hosik waved, his face split in a wide, bright grin.
"So this is what napa cabbage soup tastes like with marsh snails in it?"
I took one spoonful and shook my head in genuine awe.
Fresh napa cabbage simmered in Madam Han Su-ja's homemade doenjang — the broth was sweet, clean, and absolutely superb. Layered on top of that came the snails' faint bitterness and deep, earthy savoriness, lingering on the tip of my tongue.
Honestly, I kind of love the smell of marsh snails.
Plenty of people apparently can't stand their distinctive aroma, but they suited my palate perfectly.
If this was the reward for my labor, I felt like I could work the fields every single day without complaint.
"You could actually sell this, you know."
"Hohoho. And how much would people pay to eat it?"
Madam Han's eyes gleamed at the question.
I tilted my head, considering, then let my gaze wander over the banchan spread across the table.
Deodeok roots grilled in gochujang glaze from yesterday, seasoned perilla leaves, bulgogi made from the beef I'd brought. And on top of all that, steamed egg custard whipped from free-range eggs, seasoned with a touch of shrimp paste.
"Thirty thousand won a head? Honestly, that'd be fair."
"You're insane! Who on earth would pay that kind of money for this?"
"They would. Not long ago I ate at one of those fancy haute-cuisine places in Gapyeong where famous celebrities supposedly dine, and you would not believe how bad it was."
"Aigoo, kekeke. Our Yunho my boy, fibbing just to make an old woman feel good. Look at you trying so hard."
Not that she believed a word of it — but Madam Han was clearly so pleased that she kept bursting into laughter.
"By the way, son. You're really serious about buying Grandpa Hosik's land?"
The village head sounded worried that I'd waste my money on useless ground.
"Yes. That's the plan."
Seeing my mind was already made up, the old man spoke up carefully.
"You know that old saying — invest in land and you'll never lose — well, it's ancient history now. Times have changed, and even the land lies to you these days."
The village head blew gently on his scorched rice water and let out a long sigh.
"I worked myself half to death, bought land whenever I scraped money together, farmed it — and now I owe the agricultural cooperative more than everything I own."
He'd borrowed against the land to buy fertilizer and seed, he explained. When the harvest didn't turn a profit, he'd borrowed again, and somewhere along the way the cooperative had come to own more than half of his fields.
"And I'm not the only one. There isn't a single soul in this village without co-op debt."
"You should've put the money you earned young into a house in Seoul instead."
"Back then, what did any of us — you or me — know about real estate?"
"Fair point."
Madam Han Su-ja poured the village head a glass of acanthopanax liquor and said,
"Still, we raised the kids, married them off, even got to see our grandchildren. Let's call that enough, hm?"
"That's right. What else can you do?"
The village head downed his glass in one swallow and held it out toward me. At that, Madam Han brought out a fresh one, saying young people these days don't like passing a glass around, and filled it for me.
"Khhah."
I drank, and my face scrunched up all on its own.
The acanthopanax flavor was so pungent it was less like liquor and more like medicine.
The village head refilled my glass and went on.
"Yunho my boy, I understand you want to put down roots in our village — I'm only saying this because I hate to see you take a loss. So think it over once more."
He lifted his head and looked out along the stream, toward Ugok 2-ri and 3-ri where the village sprawled along the river.
"If you're buying land, buy good ground near the river over there. You could open a café, or build houses and sell them. Buying land in our village is nothing but throwing money away."
"Let me buy Grandpa Hosik's land first, then I'll think about it."
Seeing I wouldn't budge, the village head nodded with a look of grudging resignation.
"If your heart's that set on it... I'll handle the brokering myself."
Bzzt. Bzzt.
Just then, the village head's phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen and cocked his head, puzzled.
"The County Governor? At this hour, what for?"
The village head and Madam Han both turned to look at me at the same time.
"I'm Na Jeong-hwan. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Two days later, I met the County Governor.
The call he'd made to the village head that day had simply been a request to arrange a meeting with me. And so this meeting came to be — with me now sitting in the very heart of the county offices, in the Governor's own office.
"Contacting you directly would have felt like a breach of courtesy, so I asked Village Head Park Dae-hyung for his help."
Na Jeong-hwan, an independent who'd become Governor of Pyeongcheong County, seemed to be a man of modest habits. Despite it being working hours, he wore a beige jumper and cotton slacks, and on his hand a platinum wedding band, on his wrist a watch with its strap worn nearly through.
A Romanson watch, produced in the year 2000.
The ring was Pt900 platinum, roughly ten grams. It looked like a couples' set — probably picked up for about 800,000 won a pair from a jewelry shop in Namdaemun back in the day.
Which gives me a rough guess at when he got married.
Governor Na Jeong-hwan was forty-nine now. Married twenty-five years ago — meaning he'd wed at twenty-four.
Either a hopeless romantic, or heir to a family with expensive taste. One of the two.
Having taken his measure through watch and ring, I spoke up.
"I've been hoping to meet you as well, Governor. I owed you a word of thanks."
Paving the village roads and bringing running water to Ugok 1-ri was no small administrative feat. It seemed wrong to simply take it for granted, so I wanted to express my gratitude properly, one way or another.
"Thanks to you, Ugok 1-ri is about to become a far better place to live. I'll work hard on my ventures and do everything I can to bring new residents to the village."
At my words, a subtle crease formed between Na Jeong-hwan's brows.
Something like pity, maybe? He pressed his lips together and asked in a lowered voice,
"Is turning Ugok 1-ri into a livable village... your personal ambition, Mr. Yunho?"
"Yes, it is."
"Truly?"
"Of course. I plan to put down roots there and live out my days, so the more people who move in and the better the village gets, the better it is for me too."
"Mr. Yunho."
Na Jeong-hwan's brow furrowed a little deeper as he leaned forward.
"If you're saying this because of local harassment — the way the old-timers gang up on newcomers — please tell me the truth. I can help you."
"Teot-sae? You mean village gatekeeping?"
He'd clearly gotten the wrong idea about something — the impression, apparently, that I was being bullied by the locals and running myself ragged trying to win over the village elders.
"I appreciate the concern, Governor, but our village doesn't have anything like that."
"Is that what the village head told you to say?"
"I'm sorry — what?"
Why was he suddenly dragging the village head into this?
Something's off here.
I kept my expression carefully neutral.
"Have you perhaps heard some unpleasant rumors about our village head?"
"Not rumors. Before you arrived, I heard about something that actually happened. I was told the village head and his wife assaulted an eighty-year-old man — simply because he wasn't originally from their village."
He'd heard it that very morning, and Na Jeong-hwan had reportedly been unable to contain his anger.
"If they'd treat even a man from the next village over like that, I could only imagine how badly they'd mistreat an outsider like yourself."
Ah. Now it was coming into focus.
Something about why he was saying all this had been nagging at me, and I asked in a low, level voice:
"The person who filed a false report with you — claiming that Ugok 1-ri is rife with gatekeeping and that the village head throws his weight around — wouldn't happen to be Kim Yong-gu's son, would he?"
"Who?"
He didn't know Kim Yong-gu? Well, the son was his own subordinate — surely he knew him?
"Then do you not know Kim Seong-hoon of the county construction division either?"
"Seong-hoon I do know. He's a year behind me in high school, and after he got married he moved into my neighborhood, so we even exercise together."
For just a moment, Na Jeong-hwan's eyes wavered. It seemed he suspected he might have been fed false information by Kim Seong-hoon.
"Kim Yong-gu's son is Kim Seong-hoon. That man. A corrupt public official."
I'd been planning to deal with him eventually anyway — and now he'd gone and set the table for me himself. How thoughtful.
I continued in a voice gone cold and quiet.
"When our village head came in to file a civil complaint, he threatened him — told him to stop filing complaints if he wanted to keep being village head. Shall I explain who that complainant actually was? It was Kim Seong-hoon's father, Kim Yong-gu, and these were his crimes."
I showed Na Jeong-hwan the photos Madam Han Su-ja had sent to my phone.
"This man bought a field in our village and spread chicken manure all over it, until the groundwater reeked — these photos are from last summer. And the man who did it was Kim Seong-hoon's father, Kim Yong-gu."
One photo showed flies swarming over the manure; another showed the groundwater bubbling and fouling. Na Jeong-hwan stared at them, thrown completely off balance.
"How could this — are you telling me my own employee really threatened the head of Ugok 1-ri to stop him from filing complaints?"
"Yes, sir. And I personally witnessed Kim Yong-gu ramming his head into the Women's Association president."
Oh no, oh no, the poor thing — tell me he butted her in the side, he didn't, did he?
"Kim Yong-gu wasn't the one being assaulted, Governor. He was rampaging like a man out of his mind on drugs, going for my collar — and the association president only stepped in to stop him, and then—"
I let my voice choke off, pretending I couldn't go on. Na Jeong-hwan gripped the arms of his chair hard enough to snap them.
"Kim Seong-hoon, that rat! How dare he deceive me?"
He looked ready to drag Kim Seong-hoon in that very second and wring the whole story out of him.
Kim Seong-hoon, son of Kim Yong-gu — off you go now. You won't be traveling far.