Chapter 2 The

They were speaking in hushed, urgent tones, their voices pitched low, but he could still manage to catch snippets of their conversation in his corner, lying rigidly still, his eyes closed, pretending to sleep.

" - cannot go on like this - "

" - pay - "

" - cannot wait - "

" - dangerous- "

" - go now - "

He sat bolt upright. 

They turned and stared at him.

"I will go with you, Mother. I will go with you to get the money."

His father looked down, avoiding his son's eyes. 

They walked to town silently, their feet dragging over the dirt road, their faces set and pale. She placed a hand comfortingly over his, and gave him a tiny flicker of a smile.

"It will be all right. It will be over soon. They will pay us our money, and we will be on our way home," she said reassuringly, and squeezed his hand. 

Her hands were clammy.

He looked up. The sun had gone behind the clouds.

He felt cold all of a sudden.

He saw them the moment he turned the corner.

The good women of the town, dressed in their old, stained, worn hanboks. They were garbed much like his mother, but without her grace and beauty. Now, as of one accord, they turned and stared, unblinking like crows, as he and his mother approached, and the dread tightened around his heart, and the fear turned his knees weak, so that he faltered and almost fell. But his mother walked on, her steps, firm, unwavering, every step bringing her nearer and nearer to the band of women, silently staring, staring, staring...

His mother stopped directly in front of them, and fell to her knees, eyes cast down. He followed suit, his heart beating so fast, so fast he thought it would leap right out of his chest. He kept his eyes fixed on a bug, squirming, wriggling, under a little wisp of dust, desperate to free itself. He heard his mother speak.

"I have come to beg you for my payment. We have waited, my husband and I, but it is getting harder every day, and we need the money. Please forgive this lowly creature."

He could see her hands trembling as they clutched at the dirt on the ground.

The women said nothing. Then the biggest of them, a huge woman with narrow beady eyes stood up. She ambled forward slowly with her huge bulk, crushing the bug under her huge, heavy tread, and came to a stop, staring down at his mother. He stared at the bug. It was still twitching, even as it lay dying under the monstrous foot.

"Go away." The words were uttered with such contempt, that his mother flinched.

But still, she spoke, her voice trembling.

"Please, I have come for the payment. Please, I beg you. The money, we have waited very long - "

The woman's foot lashed out. His mother fell backwards, her lower lip split open, blood gushing out, dripping on the gravel.

The other women joined in, kicking viciously, raining blows on the woman cowing on the ground, arms raised to protect herself.

"Stop, please stop, please don't hit my mother, please stop, " Dong Mae crawled on all fours to his mother and shielded her with his body.

The women were now shrieking and screaming curses, and pulling him off his mother, but he held on, crying, "Stop, please stop, please stop."

One of the women threw a bucket of foul-smelling bloody water at him, making him gag and splutter.

With one final kick and shove, the big woman snarled, "No money. No payment. Come back again, and I will tear you limb to limb with my bare hands. Now go, , before I change my mind."

Dong Mae's father was a big, burly man, a butcher who smelt of raw meat and raw blood; the smell clung to him; it seeped into every pore of his body, and he wore it like an armour, a shield, to guard against the pain and the humiliation, the scorn and the ridicule; it made him grow a sheen of steel, hardening him, cushioning him, and rendering him numb from feeling; for those who could not feel would not have to fear being hurt. And so he went about his work every day, hacking, chopping, slicing, cutting, his enormous, strong, red, callused butcher's hands grasping his butcher's knife, razor-sharp, and gleaming, fingernails broken and cracked, blackened and stained from the remnants of old, long-dried blood.

The butcher hacked at the red quivering slab of rib, and brought his butcher's knife down with such violence and force, that it splintered the bone into tiny fragments instantaneously. He avoided looking at the boy crying in front of him.

"Father, father, do something, do something, help Mother, you have to help her, that man -"

That man.

That man dressed in stained, dirty clothes, with hate burning in his eyes.

That man who had come that day, shortly after his wife and his son had returned home from the town, bruised, battered and bloodied.

That man who had headed straight for his wife and dragged her, screaming, into the barn, even as he, the butcher, looked on, mute, helpless, enormous hands clenched into fists at his sides, fingernails clawing into his hidden palms.

He had heard his wife's screams from the barn, the man's guttural voice, cursing, ", I will teach you a lesson you will never forget !" and the sound of loud slaps.

Instead, the butcher had turned and gone straight back to his butcher's table, and proceeded to go about his task, blind, and mute, and deaf, to his wife's screams, to his son's desperate pleas.

He hacked at the meat, each deliberate, and precise, his fist clenched tight around the hilt of his razor-sharp, gleaming butcher's knife, his knuckles strained and white. 

The screams from the barn stopped.

Silence.

Dong Mae was out the door before his father, running to the barn.

His mother staggered out, her hanbok torn, her shoulder bare, gaping beneath the huge tear. Her face was swollen and purple, and there were long deep scratches, teethmarks, around her neck. Her skirt was covered with blood. Fresh blood, soaking wet. In her right hand, she was clutching a knife, its blade stained with blood.

"Mother, Mother -" he sobbed, running to her, wanting to comfort, and to be comforted.

But she took a step back, and screamed, "Stay back !"

He stopped.

Her eyes were wild, savage, burning with mad rage.

"Go now, leave, leave this place !"

"Mother - "

"Go now, or I will cut you with this!" 

And she brandished the bloodied knife and swung wildly at him. It caught his forehead, causing a long gash to appear, to bleed.

She lunged at nim, pushing him with such force he fell backwards.

"Go now, leave, and never come back. Do you hear, leave now. There is nothing for you here, nothing, no one." 

She brandished the knife at him.

"Go now, go, before I cut you down. Go, and do not look back."

He picked himself up, slowly, painfully, and raised his eyes.

"I will go, if that is what you want. I will leave now, I will leave, and I will never come back!" He was crying, his voice shaking, his heart breaking.

He turned, and walked away, waiting for her to call him, to tell him to stop walking, to come back.

Silence.

He kept walking, placing one foot ahead of the other, but he faltered many times; he could not see clearly, the tears were falling fast, blinding him, making him stumble.

Behind him, his mother slowly sagged to the ground, the knife falling from her limp hand.

The butcher stopped, and stared at the dead man sprawled at the side of the barn. Then he turned and stared at his wife across the corpse.

An awful realization dawned slowly in his eyes. 

Dong Mae heard it as he reached the open road.

The swell. 

It sounded like a deafening growl, the grotesque baying of a pack of wolves, hungry for blood.

He turned.

He saw them, the huge mob, the group of women from the town, his tormentors, and other men, angry men shouting, and cursing, and brandishing huge sticks. One of the women screamed and pointed at the still figure lying between the butcher and his wife. And then they were at his father and mother, slapping, punching, raining blows on their defenceless bodies with their bare hands, with their sticks, kicking at them with their feet, trampling on them.

He heard his father and mother crying for mercy, their screams of pain, the crunch of broken bones, the shuddering moans.

And then there was silence.

A long deep silence, broken by the sounds of heavy breathing.

They lay still, unmoving, his father and mother, their bodies broken, bruised, battered, covered with blood and dirt and spit.

The mob turned, and looked in his direction.

He stumbled shakily to his feet.

He turned, and ran.

He ran, the wind in his ears, the terrible pain in his heart, spurring him on, lending him wings, giving him strength.

He ran.

Away from his parents, the lowliest of the low, lying dead, in a broken heap in the dirt.

Away from this hateful, hateful world.

Away from this hell.

And as he ran, he repeated to himself in his head, over and over, like a mantra: " They will pay, every one of them. They will pay for what they did."