At that moment, the man guiding us clarified the matter. Picking radishes is way harder than picking cabbages. And so those with low energy should pick cabbages and those with more than enough energy should pick radishes. He then assigned the short man and me to the cabbages and the remaining two to the radishes. I thought that would do. The man guiding us said the pay for picking cabbages would be less than that for picking radishes—because the job isn’t as hard. Although cabbages aren’t as easy to pick as they seem, radishes are much harder than one might think.
Then he said there will be an additional compensation for the amount of work done on top of the day’s wage. It was a kind of performance-based pay. He said if we wanted to earn more we only had to work more. However, he didn’t say if we wanted to earn less we had to work less. That made sense. It was hard to imagine someone going to work with the intention of earning less money by doing less work. However, there were also people who, even though they didn’t want to earn less, couldn’t work more and so had no choice but to earn less.
I wasn’t sure what made me so suddenly think so but I had the feeling he was trying to fool us. I hadn’t the feeling that he wasn’t trying to fool us. But I thought, I’ll go along with it, but I’ll go along with it this one time, and then never again. But it also seemed like he had no intention to fool us. I was thinking however I pleased. One could think however one pleased; it was a natural thing to do.
The person guiding us gave us instructions. Although it was his first time telling us, he spoke with a bored facial expression as if he’d told us many times before. And like people often do when giving instructions, he spoke with both hands on his waist. Doing so made him look like someone instructing something to somebody. And he did so while looking at each of us in turn.
He said the following to us, and we had to listen to him saying the following. He said what we usually do isn’t important. And he said it’s important to forget what we normally do. And he said it’s important to not forget what we came here to do. And he said it’s important that we all enjoy the work. And he said it’s important to bear all these facts in mind. He told us one thing that wasn’t important and four things that were important. And he said it’s important not to forget all of these facts. He gave us six in total. Those six things were all important to us. It was unknowable which one of those six things was the most important. All six seemed equally important. But none of the four of us seemed to take them seriously. Anyway, those seemed important merely to the person who spoke of their importance. That importance was something one had to realize on one’s own, but it was a difficult one to realize on one’s own. Still, this person doesn’t beat around the bush to make his point difficult to grasp, I thought. He didn’t check if we’d familiarized ourselves with the important things he’d told us.
After that he said the work could take a few days or over a week even. I thought about how I had no change of clothes but also about how that wouldn’t be much of an issue. I wasn’t the kind of person who couldn’t drop the idea that one needs to change their clothes once every two or four days.
It was still dark out. The darkness shrouded the cabbages and radishes, likely fully grown somewhere, and the people heading to pick them, and the rest of the things that were still in the dark. We climbed into the vehicle in the darkness and set off. The person guiding was the one driving. He was the only one who knew the way to the place we had to go. We didn’t know our destination. We roughly knew where it was but didn’t know where it was exactly.
Our group didn’t introduce each other, as if that wasn’t necessary. People on their way to pick radishes and cabbages didn’t need to know one another. We didn’t speak to one another. It was still daybreak, and we were drowsing about, our drowsiness yet to fade. Out the window I saw the landscapes surfacing from under the gradually illuminating morning light. But I paid no close attention to any of it.
Soon we were out of the city and entered the national highway. It was fully bright by then. I saw an orchard in the distance and remembered that one time I worked at an orchard. I’d been hired to pick apples for a day’s wage back then. Regarding that day’s work, I remembered how unexpectedly exhausting the job had been, especially how my neck had gotten so stiff that I could hardly turn it by the end of the day, and how I ate apples to my heart’s content, but how eating apples to my heart’s content hadn’t done much to ease the exhaustion from the work.
But the apples I could eat were not the undamaged ones. We could put our hands on the undamaged apples but not our mouths. The apples we could eat or take were the ones that had fallen on the ground. The orchard owner and custodian didn’t care about the apples that had fallen on the ground. Once on the ground, the apples fell outside their jurisdiction. And so I discreetly dropped some apples hanging in the trees on purpose and ate them. The apples fallen on the ground had slight bruises on them but tasted the same. But deliberately dropping the apples on the ground had to be done behind the owner’s back. The owner didn’t tolerate his workers deliberately dropping the apples on the ground just so they could eat them. And rightly so, an owner shouldn’t have to tolerate such behavior.
But after our car went past the orchard and once the orchard disappeared from view, I soon stopped thinking about the orchard where I had worked. But I hadn’t stopped thinking about orchards at large. It was then that another orchard had emerged in my mind. And that orchard was an orchard that would emerge at the end of all thoughts on orchards or ahead of all thoughts on orchards. And that orchard was the orchard from my childhood memories. That orchard was at the far end of the field in front of the village where I had lived.
Back then kids were reluctant to go to that orchard. This was because it was in a remote location from the village and also because of its owner. The villagers said its owner had a very intimidating personality, looked intimidating, and didn’t hang out with anyone. And they said there were some very intimidating dogs at his house. Hardly any of the villagers had any contact with him. He’d long lived a life cut off from civilization. They said one or two laborers from other regions had come to help with his work. He was extremely reluctant to meet people, and because of this, negative rumors about him naturally settled in people’s minds, and scary thoughts about him naturally settled in us kids’ minds, and we didn’t dare go near his orchard. But this all the more made us kids’ curiosity grow and in the end we let curiosity get the better of us and headed there one night with the intention to steal his apples.
But when we reached his orchard we realized something was off. It was harvest time, but most apples hanging on the trees were left untouched. And as we picked a few, we noticed something else strange—that apples there weren’t raised right, making them useless as fruits. They were small as if diseased and had many rotten spots. And the ground was littered with windfalls. We picked a couple and tried them on the spot. Then, one kid said something strange was there, pointing at it—it was a boat. A broken boat lay in the orchard. There’s no way to know why that boat was in the orchard. Understandable, if the orchard was once a river, but as far as I knew, no river was ever there. I don’t remember what we talked about, about that boat.
The apples didn’t taste like much. It was a big disappointment and soon, we decided to withdraw. However, at that moment we saw a big faint shape standing in front of us. Kids who noticed him first ran away but for some reason I could not. He stood still only a few steps away from where I was. Luckily, he wasn’t holding any leash tied to any dogs. Our eyes met. He looked straight at me. I couldn’t move properly. I felt I was moments away till he grabbed hold of me. But what he did next was beyond my grasp. He didn’t take any action at all. He stood still without the slightest movement. He merely stood there motionless, not making any moves. Suddenly, I remembered yet another fact about him. He was known to have a limp. The situation seemed a bit more favorable to me. But regardless of such thoughts I was having, he made no moves and stood there vacantly, as if he wasn’t all there. He somehow also seemed like someone who needed help. His appearance then somehow seemed even miserable. I regained my strength, and slowly began backing off. But he didn’t come to catch me. Rather, he seemed to want, while standing still, someone to—me to—come over. I sped up a little, making a run for it in the end. The last I looked he was standing still as he had been, like a specter. I ended up not seeing him limp. And that was the last I saw of him.
Not long after, there was a chance discovery of some ancient ceramics at a rice paddy in front of the village, and a large-scale excavation took place in the entire area. And the excavation area was expanded to include his orchard. Archeologists arrived with students and laborers. The land was sectioned off, ropes were put up, and a full-fledged excavation began. But soon afterwards, it became evident the ceramics weren’t worth much. And accordingly, no strict supervision was given, and consequently, at night, his orchard swarmed with kids who—rather than to secretly pick apples—secretly picked broken ceramic pieces from the ground. Even during that time, the gate to his home at one corner of his orchard remained shut—the door to his home firmly closed as well. That place no longer seemed to be inhabited by anyone. But even during that time, he was still there, though he was lying at death’s door. Not long after, word spread that he had died. I don’t know what became of that orchard after that. By then I had already left the village.
Still, two things always come to mind whenever I think of that orchard: the sight of the owner appearing suddenly and standing completely motionless on the night we went stealing apples together with the broken boat that was in the orchard. The broken boat that hadn’t been where it should’ve been provided certain clues in understanding the orchard owner, but in the end seemed like a certain something that didn’t provide any clues in understanding him. I put the memory of the broken boat and the orchard owner aside. Thereupon I remembered looking at a certain broken boat emerging from a fog someday at some foggy riverside. And that memory connected to the memory of the orchard’s broken boat, which then connected to the memory of the owner’s inexplicable behavior on the night we went stealing apples. An endless stream of thoughts flowed through and I looked out the window and shook them off.
Then outside the window a dam came into sight. But it didn’t seem like a hydroelectric dam. That dam didn’t have the appearance of the hydroelectric dams of my imagination. It just seemed like a dam whose job was to regulate water levels, to prevent flooding for example. The dam itself wasn’t that big but a close enough look made it look big enough. But the stream of water flowing from the dam looked weak. I wasn’t sure if it ever happened before, but I had this sudden thought that looking at a dam made it fairly easy to picture someone falling from it. And indeed at that very moment, as I rode in a car with other laborers on our way to pick cabbages, the image of someone falling from the dam surfaced in my mind. Naturally, he should have been falling headfirst, and so I adjusted his position accordingly. He fell slowly and over a long stretch of time, allowing me to observe his descent in detail. Yet, I couldn’t see his expression. Nor did I hear his scream. It was likely muted by a torrent of water rushing down. Finally, just as he disappeared into the foaming white surface, my imagination came to an end.
Soon afterwards the car stopped; we had arrived at a rest area. We stepped out, drank coffee, and smoked cigarettes. The short man began talking about a gig he’d done recently—picking water celery at a water celery bed. The place was crawling with leeches, he said. He rolled up his pant leg to show us the leech bites. But it was unclear whether the wounds he showed had been caused by leeches. He said he enjoyed the sensation of leeches burrowing into his legs, he didn’t dislike it, and that’s why he didn’t mind them. Do you know what it feels like to have your blood sucked by a leech, he said. It feels like donating blood. We stared at him in astonishment. He stared back with indifferent eyes. Right then the very heavyset man said he’d once been a tuna fisherman. He looked quite strong. He was assigned to the radishes. Picking radishes seemed to suit him well. He said you’d get seriously injured if you happen to get struck by a tuna’s tail, usually over two meters long and weighing more than two hundred kilograms—in fact, he’d been injured multiple times himself. He added that there isn’t a single tuna fisherman who hasn’t been hit by a tuna’s tail. And that you’re not a real tuna fisherman until it happens. I had never been on a fishing boat and thus never once caught a tuna before. Or any fish for that matter, not even a sardine. He talked about cold water, the water that felt even colder at night. He didn’t mention the rough waves and fierce winds I had imagined; to me, fishing was a battle with the waves and winds. He talked about the job of picking radishes, as if he never thought to see the day when he’d be working a job like picking radishes, as if the job of picking radishes wasn’t a real job. Meanwhile, the man wearing his hat down low remained silent. I considered talking about a job I once had, of picking chestnuts, but didn’t. I thought it’d be a bit ridiculous to talk about that time I went chestnut picking and suffered when a chestnut burr got stuck in my head.
We got back into the car. Now, people had really begun to chat. The talk of leeches and tuna continued. Soon afterwards, when the short man said something, the big man said something back, and then the short man said something again, but the man wearing his hat down low remained silent. I wondered whether he was mute. Beside him sat a heavy looking bag. I was curious about what was inside. It’d be something that could fit inside the bag, something that belonged there or something that didn’t, I thought. He was silent. He was sitting still and with a facial expression that showed sitting still was a great bother. He had the sort of expression that showed it was a great bother not only to talk but also to listen to others talk. Even when no one was talking, he still showed a bothered expression. It was as if he himself was what bothered him. But he didn’t look agitated or irritated. He only looked bothered.
He could make the facial expression lazy people tend to make when they shoo flies away, take off their socks, pack their things, or have a meal, without having to shoo flies away, take off his socks, pack his things, or have a meal. I tried mimicking his bothered expression but it was difficult to do it as well as he did. He was without a doubt the best at making a bothered expression out of anyone I’ve seen in my life. That was my conclusion. As I continued to look at him, I even began imagining a scene in which I was lifting his hand high up in the air for winning—as a referee of a boxing match would lift the winner’s hand high up—the contest of who can make the best bothered face in the world. He would give a brief winning speech. And he’d reflect on the effort it took to acquire such an expression. He’d say he put in no effort, that he’d just been born that way. The crowd would burst into applause.
Finally, when one of us asked what he had done for a living, he didn’t answer right away, as if it were a very bothersome question. And when he finally did, his answer caught us by surprise. He said he had once been a firefighter. It didn’t seem like the sort of job someone who found everything bothersome could do. But it didn’t seem like the sort of job someone who found everything bothersome couldn’t do.
Then, the car we were in suddenly came to a stop. The driver muttered something, something about watermelons. I looked ahead—a truck was overturned in the middle of the road, and the watermelons that had been on the truck were strewn in the road. Although some had remained intact, most were smashed open. The smashed open watermelons put their red flesh on show. The sight of watermelons strewn all over the road was quite a spectacle, if you ask me. It was as impressive as the dream I once had of countless volleyballs rolling down a hill. And the smashed watermelons who put their red flesh on show seemed to be enjoying themselves. They seemed to be grinning uncontrollably.
We all got out of the car. The driver of the watermelon truck didn’t seem to be badly injured, but he was only staring at the scene he had caused, like he was stunned by the accident, like he couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened to him. When we asked if he was okay, he only nodded without saying a word. We cleared up one side of the road that the watermelons were blocking up. We would’ve liked to finish up the clearing up of watermelons but the person guiding us reminded us we had things to do, and so we started getting back into our car. We asked the truck driver if he was okay again and he nodded again—but it seemed as though he wasn’t even sure what being okay meant anymore. At the last moment, someone from our group got into the car with a watermelon. For what we’d done, a single watermelon didn’t seem excessive. Even after we’d gotten in the car, the truck driver was still gazing at the strewn watermelons, still unable to recover his senses.
We set off again, and I began to think about the cabbage whites I was to see, those caterpillars that lived off cabbages. It was difficult not to like those squirming green cabbage whites. They were something one could look at with affection. By my standards, someone who can look at a cabbage white with affection—no matter how badly they might behave otherwise—had a good heart. A cabbage white was something nice to think about, to really occupy the mind with for a brief while. I let my thoughts wander off on their own, starting with a cabbage white and wandering off in all directions. But in the end, my thoughts found their way back to cabbage whites.
The person who found everything bothersome was now asleep. Even in sleep, he did not lose his bothersome look. Just by looking at him sleeping, it was hard to tell if he was sleeping because he found everything bothersome or if he found sleeping itself also bothersome.
A little later, the car entered a mountain road, twisting and turning along the road as it moved forward. The narrow and rough mountain road seemed endless, yet it came to an end sooner than expected. And cabbage and radish fields appeared at its end. The cabbage and radish fields were very vast. It wasn’t that you couldn’t see where they ended, but they gave you that impression. No, it wasn’t that they gave that impression, but it was possible that you could get that impression.
The person who guided us brought us to the person who seemed to be in charge of supervising the picking of cabbages and radishes. The supervisor didn’t explain any important matters to keep in mind when picking cabbages and radishes. He just told us to work hard. Certainly, that was the most important thing. Nothing mattered more than that.
We were soon sent to our work site. I went to the cabbage field with the short man. We were placed a few furrows apart from one another. We were to go to the next field once we were all done with the assigned furrows. There were others already picking cabbages at the cabbage field. Like us, they were people who had come from other places to work there. The cabbages were all ready to be picked by people’s hands. They were fresh and their insides were looking full. They were highland cabbages. In regions of high-altitude with a cool climate, cabbages grew strong and healthy.
I gripped tight and picked at the cabbage. But the cabbage did not come out as easily as I thought it would. I tried again. The roots moved slightly, but the cabbage still wouldn’t budge. I strengthened my grip once more. And at that moment, almost unbelievably, the cabbage suddenly popped out. I stared at the cabbage I picked in disbelief. I picked the cabbages with great speed. At least that’s how it felt. Picking cabbages isn’t as difficult as I thought, I thought to myself. But then again, I’d never thought picking cabbages would be particularly difficult. That said, I couldn’t say it was easier than I had thought. I had never thought about how difficult or easy cabbage picking might be.
Right then, someone approached me and shouted what is this. He pointed at the cabbages I had picked. I couldn’t find anything wrong with them. Again, he shouted what is this, hoping I’d notice something wrong with the cabbages I’d picked. I too wanted to find something wrong with them. But I still couldn’t find anything wrong with them. He picked up a cabbage leaf that had fallen off the head. It was only then that I realized what he was trying to say. I had put too much force while pulling the cabbages, causing the leaves to tear away. I recognized my mistake and admitted it. He then showed me his trick for picking cabbages. I gave it a try. Much to my surprise, his method was successful. There’s a trick to everything. Once you learn the trick, you could do anything well. And picking cabbages was enjoyable—very much on the enjoyable side of things. Whatever work I ended up doing, I never felt like I was working like a slave.
The person supervising us watched us with his arms crossed. The way he had his arms crossed showed that while we worked hard, he only needed to take a hard look at us working hard, and showed that, by doing so, everyone was doing their part. But when I looked at him a little later, he was looking elsewhere. He didn’t seem particularly interested in watching us. He seemed to be neglecting his own duties.
The sun was now at its peak. It was the hour when the sun was supposed to be there. At this hour, the sun couldn’t possibly have been anywhere else. And yet I paused for a moment, putting my work aside, and looked up at the sun as if it didn’t quite belong so high up there. Just then, someone approached. It was the person supervising us. Though he seemed not to have been watching, he had been watching all along. He said: If you fool around like this, there’ll be no pay. I looked at him and studied his expression as he spoke those words. He corrected himself: If you act this way, your pay will have to be reduced. With those words, he reminded me where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. I resumed pretending to work hard. As a matter of fact, I worked hard. My back was starting to ache, but it was still bearable. It’ll take a bit more till it feels like it’s about to snap, I muttered, almost as if I were waiting for that moment to arrive.
Sunshine glared down. The sunlight was not overwhelmingly strong as if it had been filtered through a sieve, and yet it poured down relentlessly. There was nothing in the cabbage field to provide shade from the sunlight. You couldn’t hide behind a cabbage head. It was hot, and more than anything, unbearably bright. The cabbages appeared greener in the glaring light. As for the wind, it blew in a way that it was difficult to describe. It blew however it pleased. It would blow, then stop. Just when it seemed like it was going to blow, it would stop, and when it seemed like it had stopped, it would blow again. The wind, it seemed, was out of control.
After working a long while, it was finally lunchtime. The meal arrived. It was brought to us by women who appeared out of nowhere. They were older women with wide faces, and thus attracting none of the men’s attention. What caught their attention was the food they had brought. The food consisted of kimchi and cabbage soup made from cabbages and side dishes made from radishes. There wasn’t a dish without cabbages or radishes. Instead, every dish was generously filled with cabbages or radishes. In any case, the food eaten in the field tasted good. People stuffed their stomachs full, as if they’d come to the cabbage field just for the meal.
While we were taking a short break after our meal, a man approached me like someone about to make a secret deal and greeted me in a low voice. He wasn’t someone from our group. He pointed at a mountain close by. Do you know what lies beyond that, he said. I shook my head. Do you want to know, he said. I nodded. There’re poppies beyond that mountain, he said. A whole poppy field. I stared as if I didn’t believe him. You don’t believe me, do you, he said. I said nothing. Would you like to come with me later, he said. I nodded. But it’s no use, he said. The poppy flowers are all gone now. Maybe you could still pick a few buds that haven’t fallen yet. Do you know what sound a flower bud makes when you shake it? I shook my head. When you shake a closed flower bud, it makes a chah, chah, chah sound, he said. He cupped his hand and shook it near his ear. He only smiled and didn’t speak for a moment. It seemed he was gathering his thoughts for a moment before saying what he’d been meaning to say. And my guess was right. Do you by any chance need any opium, he asked. I thought for a moment about what he had just said. Did I strike him as an opium addict? Even so, there was nothing I could do about it. I don’t know, I said. Let me know if you do, he said. I’ll think about it, I said. He studied me carefully. Then he shook his head. No, never mind, he said. Don’t come asking for opium or something. I don’t have any. It seemed he’d decided that I wasn’t the right person to deal opium or something with. No, forget what I said earlier, he said. We never met and we never had this conversation, understood, he said, like someone who’d just made a secret deal. I nodded. By the way, do you have a cigarette, he said. I handed him one. He lit it, flashing an opaque smile, like someone who’d taken a hit of opium, and walked away.
