Chapter 16

“I heard some young man came all the way down from Seoul to see Ja-yeong?”

“No, no. He didn’t just come to see her. Apparently, he’s her boyfriend.”

“Her boyfriend? Then what does that make him…? The future grandson-in-law of the Hwang family?”

This was a disaster.

The entire town was abuzz with gossip about yesterday’s unwelcome visitor.

The source of the rumor was probably Grandma Geum-ryong. The waiting room at Worak Oriental Medicine Clinic, which doubled as the neighborhood’s favorite gathering spot, was filled with the fragrant smell of crispy chili pepper leaves. That was all the proof Ja-yeong needed.

“Unni, I’ll pay for Grandpa’s acupuncture session in advance. I need to return some books before the library closes for lunch…”

Ja-yeong held out her card, doing her best to pretend she couldn’t hear the gossip about herself spilling out behind her.

Hyo-seon, one of the clinic’s employees, was the second-youngest person in town after Ja-yeong. Of course, she was twelve years older than Ja-yeong, but up here on Mount Worak, that practically made them the same age.

“Is Grandpa Hwang playing janggi at the supermarket again today? He shouldn’t drink before getting acupuncture.”

“He drank too much yesterday, so apparently his stomach and liver are going on strike today.”

“Hahaha! Grandpa Hwang is always such a character. Ja-yeong, why don’t you get some acupuncture yourself after you visit the library? Your wrist has been bothering you lately, hasn’t it?”

“While listening to all that?”

Ja-yeong picked up her bag and jerked her chin toward the people behind her.

Among the elderly villagers gathered in little groups, munching on snacks, the conversation had already progressed to serious discussions about Ja-yeong’s pregnancy and childbirth.

“Don’t let it stress you out too much. Before you came along, these ladies would start discussing whether noodles or galbitang would be better for a wedding banquet just from making eye contact with the delivery guy and me. What else are they supposed to do for fun? This countryside town has hardly anything to break up the monotony beyond the changing seasons.”

“Riiight. I’m off, then, unni. I’ll come back to pick up Grandpa later.”

After bowing politely to the elderly folks gathered in the waiting room, Ja-yeong started up the truck parked outside the clinic.

She understood, of course. How could she not, when their faces were positively glowing with excitement for the first time in ages?

Mount Worak was a place where time had come to a standstill.

In this village, far more people were fading away than coming into the world, and Ja-yeong was the youngest person around.

That was the kind of town this was. A newborn puppy would be passed from one pair of wrinkled hands to another all over the neighborhood, and when a mother dog delivered her litter safely, every household would bring over a pot of seaweed soup until there was enough to lay out a whole buffet.

It was like the way a yawning puppy was so unbearably adorable that someone might playfully stick a finger into its open mouth. The old folks’ affection simply wandered from one thing to another until, this time, it had settled on Ja-yeong.

What could she do about it?

All she could do was endure it and hope their suffocating affection would soon flow somewhere else. She couldn’t help wishing Grandpa were here, though. His sickle handle had always been the perfect tool for abruptly cutting off the current of attention whenever it threatened to overwhelm her. Unfortunately, this time, he was nowhere to be found.

“I’m here to return these.”

“Oh my goodness, our VIP!”

The small library tucked into one corner of the township office was filled exclusively with books for the residents of Worak Township. There wasn’t a single children’s fairy tale or work of world literature for teenagers, the kind of thing one would expect to find in any ordinary library.

Instead, the shelves were packed with books on healthy living for a long life and gardening guides for growing ornamental plants, all chosen with the township’s average age in mind.

Of course, half the elderly residents of Worak Township had never learned to read, while the other half suffered from age-related farsightedness that made reading difficult. And those who wanted to grow ornamental plants had long since mastered the art through decades of experience.

In practice, then, the township office library was little more than a private collection for Hwang Ja-yeong.

Ja-yeong headed for the section on pottery and pulled out a well-worn book. She had read its contents so many times that she could practically recite them from memory.

“I’ll borrow this one.”

“I heard you’re dating someone, Ja-yeong. The whole town’s talking about it.”

Sure enough, one of the township officials, wearing arm sleeves and noisily sipping roasted brown rice green tea, was the first to bring it up.

“Oh my goodness, Ja-yeong has a boyfriend? Who on earth is it?”

The wife of the official in arm sleeves—his fellow civil servant wife—paused while taking out paper cups and joined in.

“Someone from Seoul has been coming and going because of pottery deliveries. That’s all.”

None of this surprised Ja-yeong anymore.

With an indifferent expression, she picked up her library card, which was covered almost entirely with her own name.

“Oh, come on! We know the faces of everyone who comes here to collect pottery. Don’t try to fool us. I heard he even had a proper drinking session with Grandpa Geum-ryong yesterday!”

“Oh my goodness! They’re already drinking together?”

“They say he’s handsome as a TV star, and incredibly tall, too!”

“Good heavens! Our Ja-yeong has really landed herself a catch!”

Ja-yeong left the officials’ excited chatter behind and headed for her truck.

“Phew…”

Once she climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the dented door, a breath she’d been holding tight, like a knotted muscle, finally slipped out.

Who knew the driver’s seat of an old truck could feel this comfortable?

Ja-yeong sent her grandfather a message asking him to call her when his treatment was finished, then parked in a quiet alley near the oriental medicine clinic. She opened the introductory pottery textbook she’d flipped through dozens, if not hundreds, of times before.

The Fundamentals of Pottery.

Every page of this book bore the fingerprints of Ja-yeong’s original passion for pottery.

The winter she was twenty-one.

On the day she returned to Mount Worak with her grandfather after his long hospitalization, Ja-yeong decided that from then on, she would think of nothing but pottery and her grandfather.

The hairpin she’d bought at the underground shopping arcade in the bus terminal on her first trip to Seoul alone. The English books filled with handwritten notes even more densely than the printed text. And the clothes she’d bought to wear when she went to see her mother…

She threw them all into the flames of the kiln.

The little girl who had once arrived at Mount Worak in a pretty dress and white socks now pushed a handcart and drove a truck, dressed in clothes no different from the workwear of any rural laborer.

Some adults looked at Ja-yeong with a sigh of regret. Others offered her their quiet support.

♣ New Arrivals at Worak Library ♣

The following spring, practical pottery books began arriving at the township office library. Perhaps that, too, had been a form of encouragement.

Staring all day at a lump of clay that neither spoke nor showed any expression had become suffocating and tedious. In a fit of frustration, she’d rushed off to the only place she could think of: the library.

And there, as if the books themselves were scolding her for her childishness, six introductory pottery books stood lined up neatly on the shelves.

Why had she burst into tears back then, anyway…?

Ja-yeong had kicked at the ground and sobbed at the top of her lungs. In the end, she’d hugged one of the books to her chest and trudged back up the mountain path, now bathed in the glow of the setting sun.

When she returned, her grandfather hadn’t said a word. Instead, he’d immediately driven off in his truck and hadn’t come back for two hours.

What he’d brought back in his hands, hands knotted with the hard-earned wisdom of a master potter, was a whole stone-cold pizza.

“Tell me. You like Western food, don’t you?”

Ja-yeong had been turning the pages mechanically when she squeezed her eyes shut. Of all the moments for that man’s words to pop into her head, why did it have to be this one?

“I’m tired. Seriously… I’m so tired of him. What an obnoxious man.”

A breeze from the early summer air stirred the branches stretching over Ja-yeong’s truck.

“Fancy seeing you again, Ms. Hwang Ja-yeong.”

Like some street performer who’d come around last year and never seemed to die, the unwelcome visitor had shown up again, speaking to her as if nothing had happened.

Ja-yeong raised the brim of her straw hat with the arm holding a pair of glaze tongs.

The pristine white linen shirt wrapped around Eden’s body reflected the midday sunlight, making him almost blinding to look at.

“Why are you here again?”

“I told you I’d come back.”

“That’s exactly my point. I never gave you permission, so why do you keep showing up?”

“But I did get permission. I take it you and your grandfather don’t talk much?”

With a sly, ingratiating smile, he opened the trunk of his SUV.

How on earth he’d managed to turn around on the narrow mountain road was anyone’s guess, but his vehicle had appeared at the entrance to the kiln yard with its rear end sticking out, as if he’d backed into the space.

The rounded trunk was packed full of neatly arranged belongings.

Don’t bother. Just don’t bother arguing…

Ja-yeong shook her head and clutched a rubber tub filled with grayish-white glaze as if embracing it.