There were many mansions on both sides of the avenue that he thought were Christian houses, though in fact most belonged to government offices, consulates, and trading companies. On the streets, Koreans in white mixed with the Japanese in black. Then there were officers in uniform on horseback, around whom all the others swiveled past with discreet self-consciousness like schools of fish around patrolling sharks. The boy even caught sight of a couple of white men, their long, powerful legs sticking out of a rickshaw that was being pulled by a thin older man. Sweat dripped down from under his head scarf along his earthy face, and landed with a splash on the yellow dirt road or on top of his own feet. The image of his father came into the boy’s mind, even as the rickshaw sped away from him and disappeared into the crowd.
The sun was beating down hard already, and his throat was dry to the point of closing up. He swallowed a few times, but barely a drop of spit went down his throat. Before he could do anything else, he would need to find water. In every country hamlet, there was a well near the village tree where the women came to fetch water for the day. One only had to look for the tallest tree or follow wherever girls were headed, balancing a large clay jug on their heads. Here, there were no trees anywhere, just endless streets filled with every type of human being except young girls fetching water. He spotted a matron carrying a basket nearby, and caught up to her.
“Excuse me, Aunt, where can I get some water?” His words came out dry and rusty as nails, and the woman went on her way without even slowing down for a moment. The next two people he approached also kept walking as though they hadn’t heard him. He had thought that the latter, who looked like a university student, would surely stop and say something. When the youth also coldly passed him by, the boy felt all the blood rush down from his head, making it hard to stay on his feet. He found a piece of shade under the eaves of a building and plopped down on his bottom, making no effort to soften his landing—so drained was he of any energy. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. One of the traveling merchants had done so when he was especially tired, and the gesture had impressed the boy as soothing, but not shameful or childish.
“You from the country?”
The boy put his hands down and looked up to see another boy around his age.
“I’m not,” the boy instinctively lied.
“What’s your name?”
“Nam JungHo.”
“Ha, you’re a country bumpkin all right. Who gives out his name to a stranger like that, except rustics who just passed through the gate that day?”
“How old are you, you little shit?” JungHo said. “You talk like you’re itching for a beating.” JungHo was only twelve, but he’d already had a reputation for being the best fighter among the village urchins back home. While small-boned, he was wiry and quick. Moreover, he wasn’t at all afraid of pain and only cared about how much he could beat up his opponent, which was how he defeated boys bigger and older than he was.
“You crack me up. You look like you haven’t eaten for days. You’re so weak you can barely stand up,” the city boy sneered.
In the blink of an eye, JungHo was standing with balled-up fists raised over his chin, ready to strike. The city boy was taller than JungHo, but only by a few inches.
“I was only joking,” the city boy said, quickly changing his tone. “You don’t need to get so riled up.”
“Just leave me alone, you shitty dog,” JungHo said quietly, with his fists still up. “Leave me in peace!”
“Hey, I’ll leave you alone. But you look like you need some water or food, or something,” the city boy said. “I’ll show you where to get water, if you come with me.”
“I bet you’re lying,” JungHo said.
“If it turns out I lied, you can always beat me up then, right?” the city boy said, smiling.
“What’s your name?”
“They call me Loach.”
“That’s a stupid name,” JungHo said sternly. But they started walking together, nevertheless. Loach was good at weaving through the crowd moving in all different directions, without ever stopping or losing his way—just like his namesake animal.
“How much farther?” JungHo couldn’t help himself from asking.
“Just a little more,” was all Loach would say.
At first, JungHo tried to remember the turns they took, as to be able to retrace his steps back to the Great South Gate; but he eventually gave up, as knowing his location only in relation to that one place was pointless. Whether or not he stayed on track, he still didn’t know where anything was, and thus was essentially lost. The storefronts with their signs in Chinese characters, the whoosh of rickshaws, shouts of vendors, street performers, and even a streetcar threaded with an electric wire at the top and brimming with people crowded around him on all sides, exhausting his senses. To keep himself steady, he glued his eyes to Loach’s slender back and the arrowhead-shaped sweat mark spreading slowly from its center.