Sunghwan stood up, rage burning his throat. “Are you saying this little girl was playing with a cat? In the middle of the night? In her underwear? Are you serious?”
“She said it’s the cat’s favorite game.”
“And what about the gashes all over her? And her bloody shoulder?” Sunghwan demanded.
“The cat scratched her, she said. And she must have collided pretty hard with that tree. The X-ray shows that her nose is definitely broken. You’ll need to take her to an ENT to figure out what to do about that.”
Dr. Oh went into the exam room and carried his daughter out, wrapped in a blanket. He stared daggers at Sunghwan as he passed but said nothing.
The police officer took Sunghwan’s elbow. “And you can come with me to the station.”
Sunghwan shook him off. Bringing an injured child to a clinic didn’t require a visit to the police station. Especially since the girl had cleared his name.
“Come on,” the police officer said, taking his arm again and guiding him out of the clinic. “You reported this, so you need to at least file an official statement.”
At the station, Sunghwan wrote down the events of the night, suppressing his urge to throw the pen across the room. His fingers cramped from the effort. His head whirred. Why was the girl lying about what happened to her? Why was her father trying to make him out to be the one who assaulted her? Why was the police officer so uninterested in finding the culprit? It was obvious that the three of them shared some silent understanding that he and the doctor weren’t privy to.
Sunghwan reconstructed what must have happened. There was no doubt in his mind that Seryong had been beaten by her father. He had seen the violence in Dr. Oh’s eyes and the fear in Seryong’s. She fled but had nowhere to go. So she hid under a tree near his window next door. Her father must have gone looking for her. And that was the unfortunate moment when he, the nosy neighbor, had butted in. He imagined Dr. Oh watching as Sunghwan took off for the clinic. A little while later, he’d received a phone call from the police. The officer knew the girl was beaten on a regular basis and that the neighbor was in a sticky situation, but Dr. Oh was a powerful man, so he acted as if he knew nothing.
Sunghwan saw that Dr. Oh—and maybe the police, too—might try to implicate him in order to conceal the truth of what was going on in that house. But that didn’t make any sense; parents were rarely sent to prison for hitting their children. Perhaps their reputation would suffer, but that was about it. The dad’s reaction was disproportionate, like using a chain saw to remove some cobwebs. And it didn’t come without risk; he could be held liable for making a false accusation against an innocent man.
Later, his coworker Park told him that Dr. Oh was in the middle of a contentious divorce. He was a dentist by trade and owned a medical building in Sunchon that housed eleven private practices, including his own. He was also the only son of an influential landowner in the region, and controlled the fields that were the livelihood of the village. Sunghwan understood that by making his veiled accusation in the doctor’s office, Oh had been sending him a warning: Stay out of my personal life.
In the nearly two months since that night, no investigation had been initiated. Sunghwan had heard Seryong screaming a few times since, sometimes shrieking, “Daddy!”; but he knew there was nothing he could do.
His was the name Sunghwan had seen floating before him: Oh Yongje.
* * *
Hyonsu’s cell phone rang. He glanced at it. Eunju again. This was her fifth call in the last hour, and she’d been texting him, too.
Pick up.
On your way, or are you there?
You’re not there, are you? Are you drinking with your friends again?
Hyonsu was drinking. With his friends. But he was at a soju bar in Gwangju, not in Seoul; he had just made a stop on his way out to Seryong Dam. That was why he didn’t pick up. If he told her where he was and what he was doing, she would just get mad. He turned his attention back to the game. The Tigers and the Lions were playing at Daegu Baseball Stadium. The Tigers were getting beaten to a pulp. The camera showed the catcher, standing with his hands on his hips; his team had just given up a three-run homer.
Hyonsu had been there before. He had spent most seasons as a backup catcher in the majors or in the minors for the now-defunct Hanshin Fighters.
His cell rang again, though this time it wasn’t his wife. It was Kim Hyongtae, who’d joined the security company the same year he did. “Where the hell are you?” Hyongtae chided him irritably. “Your wife called. I told her we’re not together, but she kept insisting that I hand over the phone. She said you’re supposed to be at Seryong Dam tonight. Are you?”
“I’m on my way there.”
“Then call her and tell her that, okay? You of all people should know about her temper.”
Hyonsu wondered how famous Eunju’s temper was. He stood with the phone to his ear; Hyongtae had already hung up, but he needed this excuse to leave. His two buddies glanced up at him. He pointed at the phone and began walking out.
“Excuse me, are you Choi Hyonsu? Did you play ball?” asked a man sitting at a table near the door.
Hyonsu looked back, amazed and a little embarrassed that someone had recognized him.
“I was in the forty-fifth graduating class at Daeil High,” the man said, getting up.
Hyonsu slipped his cell into his shirt pocket and shook the man’s hand. He autographed a piece of paper the man held out; he wanted it for his son. He turned down the fan’s invitation to sit, instead downing the shot of soju he held out. He wanted to leave. He didn’t want to answer a bunch of questions from a former schoolmate he didn’t even remember.
His cell blipped with another text as he opened the car door. Where are you drinking? One of Eunju’s favorite questions. The other was: Why? Hyonsu had never been able to answer that one to her satisfaction. Asking an alcoholic why he drank was like going to a grave and asking, Why did you die? There were as many reasons for a drink as there were bars to drink at. But he did have a good one this time. The pitcher he had played with since high school had opened a bar.
Kim Ganghyon had lasted three more years in the league than Hyonsu. He was a sidearm pitcher for the Fighters at one point, but after two years of cycling through operations and physical therapy, he was finished. Afterward he tried his hand at a number of businesses, but his failure was as quick as his fastball. This soju bar, near a college in Gwangju, was his fifth attempt at a comeback.
Hyonsu had been thinking of going by, but this particular visit wasn’t planned. Eunju had given him the idea that morning, when she asked him to go check out their new housing situation before the official move on Sunday.