courtesy Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation
PART I
Chapter 1
Letters
I often stayed on late in the office. My colleagues and the caretaker thought I was studying. I liked the quiet hours after a busy day. Sometimes I read but mostly I turned over things in my mind and wrote up my diary even though there were things I could not frankly put down.
It was going to be my last night. I wrote several letters to various people and went over the names of those whom I would have liked to invite to my wedding had I been fated to have one. There were too many. Instead of writing individually I left a few words to each in a notebook. Finally I wrote to the Director.
The Office
8.00 p.m.
24. 11. 1959
Dear Professor Kang,
I have a confession to make.
For the past two years I have led a secretive life that amounts to a disgrace to myself and a betrayal to all those people most dear to me, my family and friends, yourself and my colleagues who cared for me and expected great things of me, and to an extent, to my beloved country. Things came to a point, where I have no choice but to take my life.
I had started it with good conscience, and even now my conscience stands clear. God is my witness. When I entered it in my innocence, I didn’t think it would turn out to be like this.
Ah, how lucky I thought I was when you offered me this job a few days before my graduation three years ago. How single-heartedly I loved my job, my colleagues, and the noble ideals that you had set out to achieve through this institution, until this strange fate befell me as if out of the blue.
Even though I have long since bid this world farewell, now I feel as if I am speaking to you in person and it makes me weep all over again. Memories of the happy times I have had here, the eyes and smiles of my dear colleagues rouse afresh in me the deepest love. Even the inanimate objects in this room like desks, cabinets and pictures seem to come alive and cling onto me. But there is no other option, I must go my chosen way.
I am so sorry, dear professor, please forgive me. Farewell, and a happy, long life.
Yours truly,
Sukey Yun
P.S.: For the last thing I do in this life, I am going to visit a certain clergyman to make a confession. When the winter is over and spring comes round, the mirage shimmers along the ridge lines of the hills, and your heart, too, beats warm with the pulse of spring, would you like to call on this man and ask about my mysterious death?
His name is Father James Osbourne at the Anglican Clergy House, Anp’yŏng.
I folded the letter, sealed it, and stood up. Coming round the partition, I glanced around the office, empty now except for the furniture. There were five or six desks. In my mind’s eye, I could see the owners of each. Miss Pak – as she had been my senior, by a year, at Y University I called her ‘Miss Park ŏnni’, ŏnni meaning ‘elder sister’; the one in the left corner was now taken up by Miss Pae, but I could not help thinking of its previous owner, Miss Chŏng, a graduate of E University, very pretty and affectionate towards me. As she was a year younger she called me ‘Miss Yun ŏnni’. She had gone to America three months ago; the funniest of them all, Mr Hong had the nickname of ‘Bull’ because of his extraordinary physical strength; slow-moving Mr Chin who preferred to be called by his nickname of ‘Mr Bear’; with a child-like grin, Mr Yu was a thin, agile and very clever man. His general knowledge was amazing and we called him ‘Dr Know-all’.
Altogether, we made a congenial bunch. I pulled at the knob of the door that led to the Director’s room. It was firmly locked now, but during the day it was left ajar, and Dr Kang pressed a bell on his desk when he wanted me. How many scores of times did I cross that doorstep everyday? Next to it on the right was the Conference Room, and behind the Conference Room and Director’s Room were the Korean Classics and Music Collections. Upstairs on the first floor were the Reading Room with mostly English books on open shelves, a Periodical Room with two hundred journals from the USA and other Western countries, and a small microfilm room. I knew the inventory of each room off by heart for there was hardly an item bought or brought in without my knowledge. I had been the first member of the staff of the Korean Academy, which had been founded almost at the same time as my graduation. I had been very lucky to get a job in such a prestigious place.
One day a couple of months before my graduation I had bumped into Dr Kang in a bookshop in Chongro. As we walked out he asked me whether I would care to have a cup of coffee with him at the tea-room across the road. I thought he had asked me more as a formality than for any particular reason. Even though I had agreed I felt awkward as I sat opposite him across the table. Apart from attending his lectures for two terms I hardly knew him personally. He had returned from America the previous year with a doctorate and taken up a post as a lecturer at my university, so I had been one of his first students. He was a handsome man nearing forty but not married. After living in the States for over ten years he spoke Korean rather clumsily during his first years back. He seemed to have forgotten some Korean vocabulary while keeping almost intact, the native accents and dialect of North Korea where he had originally come from. His awkward expressions during his lectures often made students burst into uproar.
Though knowledgeable on his own subject, he had few words when it came to small talk, and it took him some laborious moments before breaking the silence.
‘Why did you choose political studies?’ His question came as if he was accusing me for not having chosen a more feminine subject.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What will you do when you leave college?’
‘I would like to find a job, and save up to go to the States to continue my studies.’ Then I added, ‘I have no wish to become the first woman President, so don’t worry about that if that’s what is worrying you.’
‘I am going to need some sort of secretary cum librarian in my new job. I wondered if you might be interested?’
Suddenly the dull atmosphere became animated. He went on to explain about The Korean Academy. It was to help scholars, who having lost their books and study facilities in the war, found it hard to pursue their research that the new institution had been set up, and he had been appointed as the Director. Membership would be limited to post-graduate students and scholars of high standing. He stressed that it was non-political, a pure research institution. Its main function for the present would be to run a reference library with a comfortable reading room; exchange programme of scholars with other countries; and provide grants for the publication of learned papers, and so on. I would be required to supervise the Reading Room as a Reference Librarian and to assist the Director as his secretary. I instantly accepted this unexpected good fortune and started work two days after the graduation ceremony. That had been three years ago. The Korean Academy, backed by generous financial assistance from the American X Foundation and the support of scholars throughout the country, had grown into an organization of great importance in the post-war period of Korea.
