*

Titus 2:7-8

In everything set them an example by doing what is good.

In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned,

so that those who oppose you may be ashamed bcause they have nothing bad to say about us.

*

Kim Jongin mind isn’t very deep. It’s something that the village knows, something the boys at the home for, and it’s something his teachers tell him very often, irritation on their face and a ruler ready in their hands. He lives day by day, hour after hour. He doesn’t think about what may come and he doesn’t think about what has been. He doesn’t ponder to think about why things happen, or why they happen to certain people. He doesn’t have much of an interest in the how of things. It’s almost second nature to him not to care; his whole life he has been living this way.

The old woman at the house he’s sent to declares it a good thing.

‘’His mind is too simple. He’ll be useless as a scholar.’’ She decides, staring down at him from where she’s sitting in her chair, all black dress and withered skin. He’s told to turn around and she lifts his arms. One more turn and she slaps his cheeks, kneading the dark skin underneath his eyes. Her grip is strong and her fingernails are long and yellow, harshly cutting into his flesh, and it makes tears spring into his eyes. He avoids her disapproving gaze as she tilts his head left, then right, and finally nods.

‘’He’ll make a decent servant.’’ Is the conclusion.

And thus his path is decided on a September afternoon.

His mind is simple but even a person like him must be aware how different his life might have been; the people he might’ve met; the roads he could’ve walked on if the woman had been a more kindly spirited one, if the verdict had been more commending. He doesn’t waste too much time thinking about it, though. After all, what use would that serve?

*

When he’s born into a family of five, his mother dies. His father drags him and his sisters along for a good year, living in sheds and on the streets, begging for food and work in the work houses, before he’s left at a house where, he’s told, boys his age are taken care of.

They provide him with a bed, food, and an education. He sleeps with the other boys in rooms of four, a luxury provided for decent boys like him, for the orphans sleep in heaps in the common room. The porridge they serve is often very little and not very warm, but it’s filling to his stomach and all that he needs. Most of the teachers are nuns; sometimes the pastor comes on Sundays, and sometimes they even get a real teacher from the village to come in and they get to ask all sorts of questions. The adults at the house let him know he should be thankful and so he is.

When he’s seven he learns about death in the form of a lifeless form hanging from the ceiling, taken away before dawn (‘’don’t let the others see,’’ sister Dambi had uttered as the body had been dragged out of the room by the other boys). She had told him not to cry and so he doesn’t.

When he’s nine, one of the older boys teaches him how to talk with his fists and when Taehyun calls him a fool the following day, the bruises are so bad he’s unable to come to classes for the entire week, and Jongin’s breakfast is replaced with ten strikes each morning.

When he’s eleven a girl from the village sweetly smiles at him and asks aren’t you curious? Afterwards, all he remembers is her smile.

When he’s twelve, he’s deemed ready to work in a house decent enough for a boy like him. They put him on the train with a suitcase filled with his life (five shillings; a picture of his mother; a book on etiquette, still gift-wrapped) and a job attached to his name.

The house is big and daunting and the people there behave differently and he cries sometimes at night when he thinks his roommate can’t hear him but he pulls through anyway. He works and works until he doesn’t feel tired anymore, doesn’t notice the ache in his joints when he’s carrying a bucket half his weight up the stairs at five in the morning. He studies his little book on etiquette and manages to imitate the taller boys with their posh accents and polished speech.

Before she dies, the old lady gives him a wonderful reference.

‘’A fine worker,’’ she says to her guests over a glass of wine, as if discussing an interesting piece of furniture, polite even when she doesn’t know his name, ‘’one must always make it a point to hire only the most suited of servants.’’

*

He’s not sure how it comes to pass but once he reaches the tender age of sixteen he is working as a hall boy at the royal palace. The work is harder, the hours are longer and his reward is less but he accepts it happily. Of course he does; what else is there to do?

The house is at least ten times as big as lady Yoojin’s and the staff consists of more members than he ever learned to count. It’s only the prince that lives in this house and Jongin is told that he’s the same age as himself. He the mistake of wondering out loud if it’s not all a bit much. He gets a scolding so severe he resolves never to speak his doubts again in mister Lee’s presence.

The only trouble is that such a large house combined with his relative impotence and inexperience creates difficulties in his work, and difficulties in his work are not to be noticed in a house such as this, which, alas, makes them all the more common. He still gets a cold sweat when he thinks about that vase he chipped once because he had used cleaning cloth and poor Baekhyun who’d gotten the blame instead.

All this pressure to perform without fault is why he feels as if he’ll faint every second now, standing in front of the linen closet. He had been fetched by one of the housemaids, but he has absolutely no idea what it is that Sooyoung had wanted him to grab for her. If he gets it wrong she might tell mister Lee and he can’t risk that after the month he’s had.

Sometimes when he’s lying in bed after a rough day, he wonders what would happen if mister Lee would truly dismiss him, leave him to himself on the streets, then remembers he’s seen it happen before, doesn’t need to imagine. The older servants speak of it; think he doesn’t understand when they talk of fallen women stealing and begging and more for food and money.

‘’Good God – which tablecloth do we use when the prince dines alone?’’ He mutters underneath his breath, a bit lost and a bit annoyed Sooyoung hadn’t given him a proper description of whatever cloth she