The Dwarf (Modern Korean Fiction) by Cho Se-hui

Author:Cho Se-hui [Se-hui, Cho]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780824852245
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 2015-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

City of Machines

JULY AND AUGUST WERE extraordinarily hot and humid. The papers were full of articles calling it the worst heat in thirty years. The entire country was tinder dry. But Yun-ho had nothing to worry about. His father had installed an air conditioner and it spewed out cold air without the slightest sound. One day this city of Ŭngang had suddenly loomed huge in Yun-ho’s mind; if not for that he would have been content to prepare for the examination in his pleasant surroundings. The city of Ŭngang left a gloomy outline in Yun-ho’s mind. The sons and daughter of the dead dwarf worked there. To Yun-ho, Ŭngang was merely one part of the surface of a small planet. The dead dwarf’s children survived in this part of the dark surface by performing sweaty labor at a work site of machines. It was easy for them to find work. Not because they possessed superior job skills but because those machines could not operate without people’s help. Already the dwarf’s children had undergone numerous trials. But they were not noteworthy in this respect, for they belonged to a group with a minimal standard of living.

The dead dwarf had used tools of metal. In his last years the toolbag on his shoulder had carried a pipe cutter, monkey wrench, socket wrench, screwdriver, hammer, faucets, pump valves, T-joints, U-joints, screws, and hacksaw. A most peculiar smell came from the neighborhood where the dwarf’s family lived.

Yun-ho had visited the dwarf’s house, leapfrogging some half a dozen drunks sprawled underfoot. The dwarf’s wife had rinsed, readied, and boiled barley and had peeled potatoes. To Yun-ho, going to college was the number one problem. Before failing the entrance exam he had never thought about inequality. He understood the English word poverty only as a current-affairs term. In his mind poverty was connected with the English words population and pollution, and he memorized them as the three P’s. Such were the things taught in the public schools, at the cram schools, and in study groups, and such were the things that stifled the pupils. The dwarf had sat in his yard by the bank of the sewer creek tending to his tools. Yun-ho saw his death as the end of an era. Even when Yun-ho had slept with girls he had thought of the dwarf’s death. The girls didn’t like this.

“Please,” said one girl. “Would you please not talk about the midget?”

“Why not?”

“He reminds me of a worm.”

“He was a human being, not a worm.”

“Whatever.”

The girl lay naked.

“You’re the one who’s a worm,” Yun-ho had said.

Ŭn-hŭi was different. She sat silently for a time. She was a very pretty girl.

“It’s strange,” Ŭn-hŭi said. “I can’t describe what I’m thinking about.”

“And what are you thinking about?”

“It’s hard to explain. Everybody deserves a chance, but they took his chance away.” Ŭn-hŭi spoke carefully. She was the purest and most innocent of the circle of first-time entrance-exam repeaters.

The year that Yun-ho became a second-time entrance-exam repeater, Ŭn-hŭi started college. Her first impression of college was not especially favorable.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.