Black Flower (20 page)

“Father, did you not say that if we returned we would be dragged off to Japan and die a miserable death?” Yi Jongdo answered boldly, “It can’t be any worse than this. Surely they won’t make you work so that your palms are split like the teeth of a saw. I was wrong.”

When the people who had been gathered around went back to their homes, Yeonsu left the house with a water jar and walked slowly in the direction where Ijeong had gone the day before. She glanced furtively about her but could not see him. Outside the hacienda’s boundary and toward the cenote was a thick tangle of bushes. Yeonsu headed for the well. She was about halfway there. There was no sign of anyone in the brilliant moonlight. It was too late; had she come in vain? As Yeonsu was regretting her decision, someone approached her from behind and grabbed her jar. It was Ijeong. The two of them went wordlessly into the bushes. Ijeong set the jar down gently and held Yeonsu from behind. “I thought it would be four years before I would see you.” Ijeong squeezed her harder. Yeonsu gasped. “I know, I thought so too, I thought so too. But it’s OK, since you’re here. No, I hate you. Why did you wait so long?” They kissed. Ijeong lifted Yeonsu’s skirt and jacket and threw himself at her. The branches of the bushes scratched their arms and legs. “I don’t believe it. It’s like a dream. Three months. I’m sorry—who would have thought that I would see your body after only three months?”

After their passions had passed, Yeonsu and Ijeong lay side by side and looked at the moon. Ants crawled over their thighs and stomachs, but their dulled flesh could not feel them. “Father is writing a letter to His Majesty.” Ijeong plucked grass and tore it apart. “I heard. Do you think we’ll be going back, then?” Yeonsu sighed and rested her head on Ijeong’s chest. “I don’t want to. It is horrible here, but Korea is even worse.” Ijeong ran his hand through her hair. “Shall we run away?” Yeonsu put a hand on the ground, raised herself, and looked down at Ijeong. “Really? But we don’t know the language. Where will we go, how will we live?” Ijeong held her. “Wait a little while. I learned Japanese on the ship, so the language here won’t be too difficult. Once I learn Spanish I am going to run far away. I will not be trapped here for the whole four years. They say that if you head north you can go to the United States. I met a ginseng merchant, and he said that the United States and Mexico are as different as heaven and earth. Let’s go together. I’ll work and you will go to school.” She pushed her thumb into her lover’s lips. “Ah, it would be so nice, even if it were only a dream.” But then her face grew dark. “What if we all go back to Korea because of Father’s letter?” Ijeong squeezed her nipple. “Then we’ll really run away. It takes a few months for letters to come and go, and by that time we will be ready.”

The young man and woman, unable to distinguish between the promise of adventure and sexual excitement, once again brought their warm bodies furiously together. The Yucatán moon shone down on flesh as pale as itself. Yi Yeonsu’s buttocks shone with a blue light.

C
HOE
S
EONGIL LEARNED
the basic doctrines of Catholicism from Father Paul. He could not understand concepts like the Trinity, but he accurately grasped the core doctrines. “So there’s one God, that’s simple. There’s heaven, that’s good too. All you have to do is believe. He doesn’t like people serving other gods but him. He sent down his son, named Jesus, but mankind killed him, so he got angry—what do you mean that’s not it? Of course it is. And then there’s his mother, and she’s the Blessed Mother, and she went up to heaven too . . . Then what sort of relationship does she have with this God we’re talking about? . . . Anyway, I understand. The Ten Commandments? What, things like ‘Thou shalt not steal’? They put such an obvious thing in the Ten Commandments? Stealing is bad. Why are you staring at me like that? I said I was sorry about that, didn’t I? You think people steal because they want to? Say, what are you, anyway? What were you? Did you kill someone or something? Why did you have to run away and come all the way here? No? What do you mean no, it’s written all over your face. Did you commit a crime? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I will find out. You wait and see.”

When Choe Seongil grew sleepy, he went to bed. After a while he sensed someone moving about. He opened his eyes and looked around. He could vaguely make out a black shadow opening the door and going outside. Judging by the way he moved, it was the shaman. Is he going out to relieve himself? Choe Seongil also suddenly had the urge to urinate. He got up from his bed, put on his straw shoes, and went outside. He saw no sign of the shaman near the ditch where they urinated. Instead, he saw him walking down a path some distance away from the paja. The shaman went to a tree and knelt beneath it. He looked around for a moment, then began to dig with his hands. After busying himself with his back turned, he stood up again and returned to the paja. In the meantime, Choe Seongil had returned to his bed and lay down. He heard the faint rustling of the shaman coming in. The shaman let out a brief sigh and immediately fell asleep. When Choe Seongil was certain that he was sound asleep, he got up and went outside. He of course headed to the tree beneath which the shaman had been digging. He dug into the earth with a tree branch. Not far down he found a small box. He opened the box and found about 10 pesos inside. He took the money out, tucked it in his waistband, and buried the box again. On the way back, he hid the money in a pile of straw beneath the eaves of their paja. Then he calmly went back to bed. He was stimulated by the criminal tension he had felt for the first time in a long time, so sleep did not come easily. Choe Seongil did not trouble himself over the matter: It’s all public money anyway. It must be the money that people bring when they come to have the shaman tell their fortunes. He can’t have made that much money working in the fields. So what if he shares the money he got from the spirits?

But the shaman thought differently. On the hacienda, 10 pesos was more than enough money to kill for. One would have to work for an entire month in the scorching sun, from before dawn to after dusk, stuck by the henequen thorns, in order to see that amount of money. And, of course, that was only if one did not use any of it for food or living expenses.

A few days later, the shaman discovered that someone had stolen his money. He returned to the paja and confessed this to Father Paul, who was always silent. “What should I do? I worked so hard to save that money.” Father Paul immediately suspected Choe Seongil. But he could not report a fellow roommate without any proof. The shaman asked for Choe Seongil’s help as well, but the Jemulpo thief maintained his composure and scolded the shaman: “See, how could you bury something so important outside?”

“How did you know that my money was buried?” Choe Seongil winced. “Ah . . .” He poked Father Paul. “Oh, Mr. Bak told me a little while ago.” “He couldn’t have. He just found out himself.” The shaman’s eyes narrowed. Choe Seongil grew angry. “This shaman fellow would harm an innocent man!” The shaman was undaunted and grabbed him by the throat. But when it came to violence, Choe Seongil was better equipped. He kicked the shaman in the groin and butted his forehead against the bridge of his nose. “Ow!” The shaman collapsed on the spot, beside himself with pain. Father Paul held Choe Seongil back. “That’s enough.” “Oh-ho, so you told him! Why don’t you drop dead!” yelled Choe Seongil. The shaman sat there crying and cursing. “Let’s see how long you live!” Choe Seongil rushed at him and stomped on him.

The shaman, who never did find his money, went around voicing his grievance to the Koreans of Buena Vista hacienda. No one came forward because of the lack of evidence, but everyone was saying, “The shaman wouldn’t try to frame an innocent man, would he?” So Choe Seongil, who obviously knew the truth, could not be at ease. Yet he could not follow the shaman around and stomp on him; he could only grin and bear it. Even Mr. Bak, who had been a victim of Choe’s thievery, kept both eyes peeled. If the money happened to be found under the eaves of their paja, he would be rolled up in a straw mat and beaten by the Koreans of the hacienda. Yet Choe Seongil was not one to take things sitting down.

About ten days before the harvest moon festival, a man grew seriously ill with a skin disease called pellagra. The disease was thought to have been caused by the henequen juice that had seeped into his skin. The juice could cause one to go blind if it got into one’s eye. Not only that, but the man’s whole body grew as heavy as a lump of lead, making it impossible to go to the fields and meet the quota. The man burned with fever and his skin was rotting. Finally, his wife went to the shaman and asked him to perform a ritual. The shaman refused a number of times, but in the end he could not ignore her tenacious pleas. The man’s family and neighbors agreed to donate the food and money necessary for the ritual. On the day of the ritual, the shaman and a few other men came back early from the fields, claiming to be ill, and prepared. Someone brought a pig’s head that the hacienda’s cook was going to throw away, and this was added to Mexican food such as tortillas and tamales, as well as watermelon kimchi, cabbage kimchi, and vegetable patties, set out on a table covered with white paper. When word of the ritual spread, nearly all of the Koreans at Buena Vista hacienda gathered. The healing ritual, which began in the sick man’s front yard, involved the recitation of various scriptures and written prayers. The shaman went into the house, brought out a piece of clothing and a pair of shoes and burned them, and then he wrapped the sick man’s head in a blanket, led him out to the yard, and had him kneel down. Then he performed the ritual in order to chase out the spirits of sickness that plagued him. If the shaman had had a chicken, he would have chased the spirits into the chicken and killed it, but it was too difficult to find a live chicken, so he omitted that part.

The ritual gradually grew more boisterous, though not so loud as to be heard beyond the paja village. The crowd beat pot lids together like gongs, but naturally they weren’t as loud as the real thing. Yet right about when the ritual reached its climax, the sound of horses’ hooves was heard. Riding in on a brown horse, the hacendado Ignacio Velásquez closed in on the shaman, who was lost in an ecstatic trance. Ignacio was so startled at the spectacle before his eyes that he nearly fell off his horse. Startled first and foremost by the 1-peso bills sticking out of the nose and ears of the pig’s head, and shocked by the shaman’s gaudy dress and what was clearly idol worship taking place around the shaman, he grabbed the long rifle that was stuck in his saddle and fired it into the air. The horse, startled by the noise, reared up on its hind legs and whinnied; the Koreans scattered in all directions. The hacienda overseers who rushed in from behind the hacendado began to destroy everything on the table. Ignacio chased the shaman, who managed to get away. The sound of screaming women and children rang throughout the paja village. They ran in all directions like rabbits, not even knowing what they had done wrong. The ritual soon became chaos, and the sick man with the blanket around his head was struck by an overseer’s whip and collapsed.

Father Paul, who was in his house, looked outside when he heard the shooting. The thunder of horses’ hooves and the crack of gunfire reminded him of a battlefield. A few children fled into Father Paul’s house. “What’s going on?” “The hacendado attacked the ritual.” Father Paul rushed out. There he witnessed a shocking human hunt taking place. Fire burned in Ignacio’s eyes at not having captured the shaman from right under his nose, and he searched throughout the paja village. At that moment, someone appeared before Ignacio and kindly directed him to the residence of Father Paul, which was also where the shaman lived. Choe Seongil. It was only then that Father Paul realized who had caused all of this commotion. Ignacio Velásquez approached Father Paul’s paja, stuck out his chin, and spoke to him in Spanish. “Is that shaman of yours inside?” Paul could not understand the words, but he knew the hacendado was looking for the shaman. His ominous premonition had been on target. When Father Paul did not reply, Ignacio took his long rifle and got down from his horse. Then, pulling back and pushing forward the bolt of his gun, he approached the paja. Father Paul did not resist and stepped aside. Ignacio pushed open the flimsy door and went in. It was so dark inside that he had to wait a while before he could make out anything. The multicolored thread and cloth that were left over from the ritual were scattered about, and the small altar was still there. With his booted foot, Ignacio destroyed the altar. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” With every kick, he recited that verse from the Gospel of Luke. The joy and conviction that came from doing the Lord’s work welled up from deep within his heart. When the shabby altar was crushed, Ignacio looked carefully around the room. The shaman was not there. He caught his breath, left the room, and once more asked Father Paul about the shaman’s whereabouts. When he still did not reply, Ignacio struck the priest’s belly with the butt of his rifle, spit at him, and cursed.

“You filthy and ignorant children of the devil!”

Paul doubled over and fell to the ground. Back on his horse, Ignacio galloped off toward the road that led to the henequen fields. Blood backed up in the priest’s gullet. As he spit up blood on the ground, the priest saw many things. From the boat ritual of Wi Island to the healing ritual of the Yucatán, everything played out in his mind like a film. Paul was thinking of the same verse as Ignacio: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” To this prayer, offered up at the same time in the same place by the fanatic of the Yucatán and the priest of Korea, God made no reply at all.

Ignacio met the overseer Joaquín at the entrance to the henequen fields. Joaquín told him that he had captured the fleeing shaman and that he was being held in the storehouse. Ignacio ordered a telegram sent, calling for the interpreter at Yazche hacienda. Yazche and Buena Vista were not far apart, only thirty minutes by horse. Then Ignacio galloped to the storehouse. The shaman was sitting inside, unexpectedly composed. Ignacio was surprised at how ordinary the shaman looked. He was no different from the other Korean workers. The overseers had reported that he worked more diligently than anyone else in the henequen fields. In this he was different from the Mayan and Aztec shamans, who never worked. They always seemed to be high on some mushroom concoction. Thus Ignacio was intrigued. A short while later, Gwon Yongjun arrived in a carriage. He looked confused: to be called so late at night meant that something urgent had come up, but now that he had come, he saw that it was only the shaman, tied up in the storehouse. He had been imagining a strike, a riot, or a mass escape, and now he felt deflated. “What is the matter?” Ignacio offered Gwon Yongjun a glass of tequila. “Do you believe in God?” Gwon Yongjun shook his head. Ignacio frowned. “You must believe in God! You and your family will be saved.” Gwon Yongjun laughed bitterly. “My family is all dead. They were thrown into the ocean as food for the fishes, the work of Chinese pirates.” Ignacio comforted him with exaggerated motions. “That is precisely why you must rely on the Lord.” Gwon Yongjun did not understand what he meant. He simply laughed. “But what is the matter?” “I made a simple rule. I gave the workers the freedom to rest on Sunday and the privilege to attend Mass. I asked only one thing in return, that they not serve idols on my hacienda, that they not serve any other god but our Lord, and your Koreans promised me that they would do so. I even promised to raise by ten percent the wages of those who were baptized and converted. And yet”—Ignacio pointed at the shaman—“that deceitful man gathered my sheep in the night and worshiped a pig’s head. The head of a pig. Why did it have to be a pig, into which our Lord drove the demons? Right in the middle of my hacienda, he made my virtuous people, who attend Mass on Sundays, lower their heads and bow.”