“Is Miss Hong Gyeong-ae at home?”
The mother stared at the visitor before she answered, “Come in, won’t you?” The old woman shut the gate and followed the visitor inside.
“Someone’s here!” the mother called. The door of Pi-hyeok’s room burst open, and he thrust out his tonsured head.
“Did you come from outside Saemun? That parcel is for me.” He quickly took it from the young woman. “Thank you for coming all this way in the cold.”
The visitor looked as if she wanted to meet the owner of the house by the way she planted herself, without acknowledging Pi-hyeok.
“Are you still sleeping? You have a guest!” the mother called out again.
Only then did Gyeong-ae slide open the door to the yard and peer out, her eyes still full of sleep. “Where did you come from?” she asked as she smoothed her hair into place.
“Outside Saemun. Kim Byeong-hwa. ” Pil-sun stammered.
Gyeong-ae’s face lit up as she slipped out of her bedding. “Ah, yes. Just a moment.”
Pil-sun waited for Gyeong-ae to get dressed and open the door for her. She hadn’t expected to meet Gyeong-ae so soon. Pil-sun thought she was pretty at first glance, but her overall impression of her wasn’t particularly favorable. She realized that anyone who’d just woken up wouldn’t look their best, but Gyeong-ae’s unmade-up face was attractive. Pil-sun had the impression that she’d known her for some time. Upon entering the room, she stood dumbfounded for a brief second, for it was magnificently furnished, and Gyeong-ae was wearing Western pajamas that looked like a man’s shirt or a Chinese jacket. Pil-sun thought Gyeong-ae looked beautiful in it, though she’d never before seen anyone in such an odd outfit.
Feeling a wave of resentment rise in her, she thought: What’s the point of living like this when you earn your money at a café? She’s no different from a gisaeng.
Pil-sun figured Gyeong-ae was promiscuous and began to feel contempt for her. Or, to be exact, she made an effort to hold Gyeong-ae in contempt in order to shake off her envy and feel better about herself.
“Did Mr. Kim arrive home safely and sleep well?” Gyeong-ae asked, thinking she came on an errand for Byeong-hwa.
“Yes, I brought Korean clothes.”
Gyeong-ae didn’t know what this meant. “What clothes? Where are they?”
“In the other room. ”
Gyeong-ae nodded and seemed to mull something over before grabbing the overcoat hanging on the wall and draping it over her pajama shirt. “When did Mr. Kim say he’d come?”
“Shortly, I think.”
Gyeong-ae excused herself, opened the door, and was about to leave when Pil-sun stood up and whispered, “If the overcoat is too short, I’ll alter it here, so please tell him to try it on.”
“Whose is it?”
“It’s my father’s, and he thinks it’ll be too short. I was asked to make a rough guess and alter it, so please bring it back to me if it’s too short.”
Gyeong-ae nodded and went to the other room. When she saw Pi-hyeok, she laughed out loud and gave him a double take.
“What? Do I look really odd?” Pi-hyeok smiled and rubbed his smoothly shaved head.
“You look so young. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“You think so?” He peered into the mirror.
“Where did you get the haircut?”
“I shaved my beard here, but then I wasn’t sure what to do about my hair. So I wound up going to your uncle’s house in Hyeonjeo-dong and asked the eldest there if he could get hair clippers. He ran over to his friend’s house, borrowed some, and shaved my head. He did a decent job, don’t you think? Is a one-won haircut on the expensive side?” He broke into a smile.
“Even ten won would have been a bargain. If you’d gone to a barbershop, where streams of people come and go, who knows who you might have run into? So what happened yesterday?”
“It went well,” Pi-hyeok answered curtly and grew pensive for a spell. Finally, he said, “Give me some pocket change from that money and hand over the rest to him when he asks.”
Gyeong-ae didn’t ask for details.
“I’ll leave later whenever the coast seems clear. I’ll tell your mother that I’m going to the countryside, where my parents live. Be well. I don’t know when we’ll see each other again, but you must stop living the way you do and help that man out. You can’t keep an eye on him every moment, but if he’s aware that someone who knows the whole story is watching him, he’ll take it more seriously. And if he happens to have a woman at his side encouraging him, he might feel inspired. In other words, it’s not that I don’t trust him, but half of my trust rests with you, Gyeong-ae, as I take my leave.”
She nodded.
“But it won’t do if you and Byeong-hwa become too close and spend your time out drinking. Such rumors travel fast, even abroad, so if something like that developed, we’d be in big trouble.” Pi-hyeok’s advice was lined with a subtle threat.
“Don’t be so pessimistic!” sneered Gyeong-ae. “If you don’t trust him, why did you approach him in the first place?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust him. I approached him precisely because he looked trustworthy, though it was a snap judgement. I’m leaving after entrusting everything to a fellow I’ve known just a day or two. Anyone would think I’m being rash; how can I say I’m not concerned at all?”
Gyeong-ae thought Pi-hyeok was sizing up the situation reasonably. “Anyway, he’s not the kind of person who’d be swayed by such a trifling amount of money. As for me, do you think I have no other way to make money? Why would I try to ruin your work?”
Pi-hyeok smiled to himself; what she said sounded plausible.
When Byeong-hwa heard that Pi-hyeok was actually Yi U-sam, he immediately knew who he was. The name was on the police blacklist and had been found in court records of several people’s trials. He was in charge of one of the groups working outside Korea, and his name was on many comrades’ lips within the country. Byeong-hwa had absolute trust in Pi-hyeok and was willing to do anything for him.
Pi-hyeok was in no position to hesitate while vigilance was being stepped up all around him. He had entered the country with two missions. With the first one completed so easily, now he faced the second. The fact was that he was entrusting his projects to the same type of people in the same circles; if they were exposed later on, they’d be astonished. Pi-hyeok had to give them instructions separately, and even though they were in dangerous proximity of each other, they were expected to keep their missions to themselves.
Now that the work was proceeding smoothly, Pi-hyeok aimed to get away. He decided to wear Korean clothes on the road; Byeong-hwa had strongly recommended it, and he agreed that it was a good idea. The night before, Byeong-hwa had discussed the matter with Pil-sun’s father and had made him hand over his sole garments for outings. Pil-sun’s mother had stayed up all night to make padded socks, and Pil-sun did the legwork.
The overcoat was a bit small on Pi-hyeok. He could wear the trousers and jacket as they were, but it would attract attention to wear such a short coat. Pi-hyeok said it was all right, but Gyeong-ae took the coat into the main room.
“I think the length is okay,” she told Pil-sun, “because people tend to wear their coats short in the country, almost halfway up to their knees. I think we should let out the sleeves, though. Leave the coat here. I’ll ask my mother to mend it.”
Pil-sun, however, insisted that it would be difficult to alter it at Gyeong-ae’s house, since it would require space to spread everything out and tried to take it from Gyeong-ae, promising to bring it back after altering it at home. While they were wrangling, Byeong-hwa showed up.
With his nerves on tenterhooks, Pi-hyeok noticed that Byeong-hwa’s face was unusually pale.