The Red God - Part 1. The Day the Child Was Born (1)

THE RED GOD

This is a work of fiction.

PART I

THE CHILD BEFORE THE NAME

CHAPTER ONE

Winter, 1960, Seoul

The snow began before midnight.

It came quietly over Seoul, too thin at first to settle, drifting between telephone wires and bare branches before dissolving against the blackened roofs.

By one in the morning, the streets had turned pale.

The city looked cleaner beneath snow.

That was the lie winter told best.

From the second-floor window of the small hospital, Han Mun-seok watched flakes gather along the edge of the road.

Across the street stood a row of buildings that had somehow survived war, occupation, liberation, another war, and everything that came afterward.

Their walls had been repaired so many times that no two sections were the same color.

Some bricks were Japanese.

Some were American.

Some were whatever people had been able to find.

Seoul was like that.

Nothing had truly disappeared.

Things had simply been built over.

Behind him, someone screamed.

Mun-seok turned.

The scream came from behind the double doors at the end of the corridor.

His wife.

He had spent the last three hours sitting on a wooden bench beneath a yellow ceiling lamp, attempting to read the same newspaper column again and again.

He could no longer remember what it said.

Something about politicians.

Something about investigations.

Something about a new beginning for the republic.

There were always new beginnings.

The newspaper folded softly between his fingers.

Another scream.

Mun-seok stood.

A nurse appeared through the doors.

"Mr. Han?"

He moved toward her.

"Is she all right?"

The nurse hesitated.

Only for a second.

But Mun-seok noticed.

"Your wife is doing well."

"And the child?"

The nurse glanced over her shoulder.

"The doctor is still with him."

Him.

A boy.

Mun-seok felt something loosen inside his chest.

"A son?"

The nurse gave a small nod.

He almost smiled.

Then he noticed that she wasn't smiling back.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

The answer came too quickly.

The nurse adjusted the sleeves of her white uniform.

"It's only that..."

She stopped.

"What?"

The nurse looked toward the doors again.

"He isn't crying."

Mun-seok stared at her.

"What do you mean?"

"He is breathing. His heart is strong. The doctor says there is nothing obviously wrong."

"But?"

Again, that pause.

"He opened his eyes."

Mun-seok frowned.

"Babies do that."

"Not usually like this."

For several seconds neither of them spoke.

Somewhere deeper inside the ward, metal instruments clinked against a tray.

The nurse seemed embarrassed by her own words.

"Forgive me," she said. "It's been a long night."

She disappeared through the doors before Mun-seok could ask anything else.

He remained standing in the corridor.

Outside, the snow thickened.

The boy cried seven minutes later.

It was not a frightened sound.

It was angry.

The cry tore through the corridor with such force that Mun-seok actually laughed.

Relief made the laugh louder than he intended.

An elderly man sitting farther down the hall looked up from beneath the brim of an old felt hat.

Mun-seok had not noticed him before.

The man sat with both hands resting on the top of a wooden cane.

His coat was old-fashioned, long and black, with a collar that seemed several decades out of date.

Perhaps someone else's father, Mun-seok thought.

Or grandfather.

The old man was staring at the delivery-room doors.

The baby cried again.

The man's fingers tightened around the cane.

Mun-seok looked away.

A doctor emerged.

"Mr. Han?"

"Yes."

The doctor removed his mask.

His expression was tired but calm.

"Congratulations."

Mun-seok bowed instinctively.

"My wife?"

"Exhausted. Healthy."

"And my son?"

"Healthy as well."

Mun-seok exhaled.

The doctor smiled faintly.

"A large child."

"Large?"

"Very."

The doctor gave the measurements.

Mun-seok nodded as though the numbers meant something to him.

"They said he wasn't crying."

"Sometimes newborns need encouragement."

"Was there a problem?"

"No."

The doctor considered something.

"No medical problem."

Mun-seok waited.

The doctor did not continue.

Instead, he looked toward the corridor window.

"Strange weather."

Mun-seok followed his gaze.

"It's snow."

"Yes."

The doctor wiped his hands with a cloth.

"It wasn't supposed to."

Before Mun-seok could answer, the doctor bowed and walked away.

The elderly man at the end of the corridor was gone.

His chair was empty.

On the floor beneath it lay a short piece of red thread.

Han Hye-ja did not remember the birth clearly.

Pain had divided the night into pieces.

There had been the ceiling.

The lamp.

A nurse telling her to breathe.

Another telling her not to close her eyes.

The doctor's face.

Cold sweat along her neck.

Then pressure.

Then nothing.

Then a child.

When she woke again, the room was dark except for a lamp beside the bed.

Her husband sat near the window.

He had fallen asleep with his head against the wall.

Between them stood a narrow metal crib.

Hye-ja turned her head.

The baby was awake.

She knew immediately.

She could not explain how.

He made no sound.

She lifted herself carefully against the pillow.

Pain answered from deep inside her body.

The boy lay beneath a white blanket.

Only his face was visible.

Round cheeks.

Dark hair plastered against his head.

Small lips.

His eyes were open.

Hye-ja smiled.

"Hello."

The boy looked toward her.

Not through her.

Toward her.

A newborn couldn't do that, she thought.

Not really.

But his eyes found hers.

She held out one finger.

His tiny hand moved beneath the blanket.

"You're causing trouble already."

Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"You made everyone worried."

The child blinked.

"Your father pretends he wasn't."

Mun-seok stirred in his chair.

Hye-ja lowered her voice.

"He was."

For the first time since waking, she felt something close to peace.

The war had ended only years before.

The city was still wounded.

Money was never enough.

Politics changed every season.

Men shouted about rebuilding the country while women queued for coal.

But here was a child.

That was how people defeated history, she thought.

Not with speeches.

By continuing.

The boy's hand emerged from the blanket.

His fingers opened.

Hye-ja reached toward him.

Then stopped.

Something red was wrapped around his wrist.

A thread.

Thin.

Almost invisible.

She frowned.

"Mun-seok."

Her husband did not wake.

"Mun-seok."

He jerked upright.

"What?"

"Come here."

He rubbed his face.

"What's wrong?"

She pointed.

"Who tied that?"

Mun-seok approached the crib.

"Tied what?"

"The thread."

He looked down.

There was nothing around the baby's wrist.

Hye-ja stared.

"It was there."

"What was?"

"A red thread."

Mun-seok smiled sleepily.

"You've had medicine."

"I'm not imagining it."

"I didn't say you were."

"You were thinking it."

"I've been married long enough not to think dangerous things."

Despite herself, she smiled.

Mun-seok leaned over the crib.

The baby stared up at him.

For a moment the smile left Mun-seok's face.

"What?"

Hye-ja asked.

"Nothing."

"You made a face."

"I didn't."

"You did."

Mun-seok reached down.

His son wrapped a hand around his smallest finger.

The grip was surprisingly strong.

Mun-seok chuckled.

"There."

He looked toward his wife.

"Already refusing to let go."

Hye-ja watched them.

"What should we call him?"

They had discussed names before.

None had survived the actual sight of the child.

Mun-seok looked at the boy again.

"Seong-jin."

Hye-ja repeated it.

"Seong-jin."

"To become something."

"Something?"

"Something solid."

She frowned.

"That's not what the characters mean."

"I know."

"Then why say it?"

Mun-seok smiled.

"Because it's what I want them to mean."

She shook her head.

"Professor."

"I'm not a professor yet."

"You already argue like one."

The baby tightened his grip.

Han Seong-jin.

The name settled into the room.

Outside the window, the snow continued falling.

And far below, somewhere near the hospital entrance, a bell rang once.

At dawn, Mun-seok went outside for cigarettes.

The snow had stopped.

The city was nearly silent.

A streetcar passed in the distance, its windows glowing through the gray morning.

He stood beneath the hospital awning and lit a cigarette.

His hands were shaking.

He had not realized until then.

A son.

The thought still seemed impossible.

He inhaled deeply.

"You should stop that."

Mun-seok turned.

The old man from the corridor stood several steps away.

Same black coat.

Same felt hat.

Same cane.

Mun-seok lowered the cigarette.

"Excuse me?"

"You have a child now."

The old man nodded toward the cigarette.

"Children remember the smell of their fathers."

Mun-seok looked at him carefully.

"Do I know you?"

"No."

"Is someone in your family inside?"

The old man smiled.

"In a manner of speaking."

Mun-seok waited.

The man did not elaborate.

Snow covered the hospital steps.

No footprints led to where he was standing.

Mun-seok noticed this.

Then immediately told himself not to be ridiculous.

The old man tapped his cane once against the ground.

"A boy?"

Mun-seok hesitated.

"Yes."

"Healthy?"

"Yes."

"Good."

The old man looked up toward the second floor.

"Very good."

Something about the way he said it irritated Mun-seok.

"Who are you?"

"A man who remembers."

"Remembers what?"

"Too much."

The old man smiled again.

There was nothing warm in it.

Mun-seok dropped the cigarette into the snow.

"I should go back inside."

"Professor Han."

Mun-seok stopped.

He had never introduced himself.

Technically, he wasn't even a professor.

"How do you know my name?"

The old man ignored the question.

"Did your wife see the thread?"

Mun-seok felt the cold enter beneath his coat.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

The old man's gaze remained fixed on the hospital windows.

"What thread?"

"Then she did."

Mun-seok stepped closer.

"What are you talking about?"

The old man finally looked at him.

His eyes were cloudy but alert.

"Red things survive well in this country."

Mun-seok stared.

"What?"

"Blood. Ink. Flags."

The old man raised one hand.

A red thread was tied around his smallest finger.

Mun-seok felt his stomach tighten.

"Who are you?"

"You asked that already."

"And you didn't answer."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because my name wouldn't help you."

The old man turned away.

Mun-seok reached for his shoulder.

"Wait."

The cane struck the pavement.

Once.

The sound was sharp.

For an instant Mun-seok smelled something completely out of place.

Incense.

Not hospital disinfectant.

Not coal smoke.

Incense.

Then another smell beneath it.

Old paper.

Wet earth.

And something metallic.

The old man walked toward the street.

"Stay away from my family," Mun-seok called.

The man stopped.

His back remained turned.

"I intend to."

"Then why are you here?"

The old man's head tilted slightly.

"I wasn't waiting for you."

Mun-seok said nothing.

The man looked back.

"I was waiting for him."

A bus moved through the intersection.

For perhaps two seconds it passed between them.

When it was gone, so was the old man.

Mun-seok remained beneath the awning.

His first thought was that the man had crossed the street.

His second was that he couldn't possibly have crossed it that quickly.

His third was that he needed sleep.

He went back inside.

He never told Hye-ja about the conversation.

By noon, sunlight had begun melting the snow from the roofs.

A nurse brought forms.

Birth registration.

Names.

Dates.

Addresses.

Religion.

Occupation.

The tiny administrative machinery by which a human being became officially real.

Mun-seok filled them out at a small desk beside the bed.

HAN SEONG-JIN.

He wrote the name carefully.

His wife watched.

"Your handwriting looks terrible."

"It always looks terrible."

"You're writing his name."

"He'll survive."

"Write it again."

Mun-seok sighed.

He crossed out the first attempt.

Han Seong-jin.

Better.

Hye-ja nodded.

"There."

Their son slept beside them.

Mun-seok looked toward the window.

For no reason he could explain, he remembered the old man's words.

I wasn't waiting for you.

He shook the thought away.

"What?"

Hye-ja asked.

"Nothing."

"You've said that three times since last night."

"I'm tired."

She studied him for a moment.

Then looked down at the baby.

"What do you think he'll become?"

Mun-seok laughed.

"He's twelve hours old."

"I'm asking."

"Doctor."

"Why?"

"Stable profession."

"How romantic."

"Judge, then."

"Even worse."

"Professor."

She smiled.

"Poor child."

Mun-seok rested the pen on the table.

"What do you want him to become?"

Hye-ja thought about it.

"Someone who doesn't have to bow too much."

The answer surprised him.

She looked toward the window.

"To anyone."

Mun-seok followed her gaze.

Across the city, government buildings stood among palaces, churches, military offices, markets, shrines, schools, and ruins.

A capital rebuilt on top of older capitals.

A republic built on top of an empire.

A new country sitting on foundations no one had bothered to remove.

Mun-seok looked down at his son.

"That may be difficult."

"Then he should learn."

The child moved in his sleep.

His right hand opened.

For a moment, both parents watched it.

Five tiny fingers.

Nothing more.

Then the hand closed again.

That afternoon, a clerk descended into the hospital basement.

The basement contained boilers, cleaning supplies, old furniture, broken equipment, and several filing cabinets left by the previous owners of the building.

Few people remembered who those owners had been.

Fewer cared.

The clerk carried the morning's registration forms beneath one arm.

He unlocked a steel cabinet and began sorting them.

Marriage.

Death.

Birth.

Han Seong-jin's form went into the third drawer.

The clerk closed it.

Behind the cabinet was a wall.

Behind that wall was another room.

The door to that room had been sealed shortly after liberation.

No hospital map showed it.

No employee working there in 1960 knew it existed.

Inside stood a wooden table covered in dust.

Five empty chairs faced it.

On the table lay a ledger.

The ledger had not been opened in fifteen years.

Its paper had yellowed.

The handwriting inside was Japanese in some places, Korean in others.

Names filled hundreds of pages.

Officials.

Judges.

Police officers.

Businessmen.

Soldiers.

Ministers.

Some names had been crossed out in black.

Some had circles beside them.

Five names, near the beginning of the ledger, had been written in red.

On the final written page there was only a date.

December.

Below it, a blank line.

Sometime after sunset, without anyone entering the room, ink appeared on that line.

Slowly.

One stroke at a time.

한성진.

Han Seong-jin.

For several minutes, nothing happened.

Then another mark appeared beside the name.

A small red circle.

Upstairs, the newborn opened his eyes.

His mother was asleep.

His father had gone to speak with the doctor.

No one saw the child turn his head toward the floor.

Toward something two stories beneath him.

His fingers moved.

Once.

Twice.

As though feeling for a thread that was no longer there.

And somewhere beneath Seoul, beneath snow and concrete and all the hurried promises of a young republic, something that had survived the fall of an empire became aware of him.

Not awake.

Not yet.

But aware.

The child stared into the darkness beside his crib.

Then, for the first time since his birth,

Han Seong-jin smiled.