Page 25 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

Without putting on a coat, he pushed open the gate and went out to stand on the
street. The blacksmith and his wife shouted from their bed, “Boy, boy!” The
hubbub made it seem as if he had committed suicide. But why didn’t they get out
of bed? I walked to the door and saw Neighbor Boy standing there talking with

someone. “Do you hear me? Do you hear?” he asked worriedly as he looked
down, as if the other one were underground. He stamped his feet. Over here, his
parents also stamped their feet in bed, “Boy, boy!” They were nearly crazy with
worry. I didn’t know why I was thinking of Neighbor Boy. I was emotional,
feeling that I wouldn’t see this family again. “You can’t hear me, but I can hear
you,” a little girl (it seemed to be Lan) said. Where was she? Why did she seem
to be underground? She had moved far away when she married, hadn’t she?
“You can’t hear me, but I can hear you,” she repeated. Ah, she was indeed
underground! I lay down and pressed my ear against the ground. I heard, not a
rumbling sound, but Lan talking in the silver-bell voice of a child. Was Lan still
a child? Hadn’t she married in a faraway village? The day she left as a bride, I’d
seen her carrying her favorite little stool. Although the voice was like a silver
bell, I couldn’t understand what she was saying because it wasn’t the local

tongue. Bored with her jabber, I sat up and stopped listening. A wheelbarrow
passed by, its wheel sounding like a child weeping. How odd that a wheelbarrow
was underground. Had it always been there or had it fallen in from the hole? The
wheelbarrow stopped beside me, and the person squatted down and handed me
two biscuits almost as smelly as the flying squirrel’s farts. But once I had food,
my stomach began rumbling with hunger. I hadn’t eaten for a long time. I wolfed
the food down. The person began laughing and continued with his food
deliveries. This place seemed to be a relatively orderly society. Then what was it
like at the greater depth where Lan was?
Finally, I calmed down and listened to the little girl Lan talk. When I lay
down in the bottom of the hole and planted my ear against the ground, I could
hear her voice. Now I heard her clearly. It wasn’t a rumbling sound, nor was it a
child’s bell-like voice. Rather, it was the voice of a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old
girl. It was the Lan I knew so well, the girl who had taken me to play in the
pond. Yet I still couldn’t say I understood her. I didn’t. I seemed to understand
every word of that dialect, but when I put them together, I had no idea what she

was saying. But now for some reason, I wanted to listen to her. Maybe I’d
gained patience because of eating the smelly biscuits from the wheelbarrow, or
maybe the voice brought back memories of the good times we’d enjoyed
together. In any case, I lay on the ground absorbed in listening to her. How had
she arrived where she was now? Although it was dark, if I looked up I could see
a shaft of light from the opening to the hole. She must be in a world of total