Festival for Three Thousand Women Read Online Free Page A

wildly but no one wanted to get close to Bobby’s legs, and in another few strides they were on the dirt road, standing beside the dark bus.
    â€œI am sorry,” said Headmaster Kim, but when Mr. Soh opened the bus door he climbed on quickly, sitting down in the seat Bobby had previously used, the one directly behind the driver’s.
    Bobby sat opposite Headmaster Kim, and the old man squeezed onto the seat with him, moving quickly past his knees so that he could sit by the window. “Koreans can hold their liquor,” he chuckled. “You fell off the path. Phew! Your leg smells like ox shit.” The Koreans all smiled, but the old man leaned into Bobby then, helping him pull his pantlegs away from his body with his strong old fingers.
    Mr. Soh started the engine and drove off while everyone was talking, but as soon as his driving got bad they all sat still. Mr. Soh, with his hat pulled down over his ears, gripped the wheel with both hands and bit his lower lip. The van careened off the mountain road and onto the flat one that led into the village. Once they were on level ground again Headmaster Kim stood and took off the baggy farmer’s pants that he was wearing, holding them up in the aisle of the bus like a surrender flag.
    â€œHere,” he said in English. “Dry pants…” He tossed them to the old man, who immediately began plucking at Bobby’s belt. “No time for continuity of dress,” he said. “Not where ox shit is concerned.”
    Bobby held the pants away from him for a moment, ready to argue, but then he stood up awkwardly from the seat and, head bent along the roof, stripped his heavy trousers away. When he let go of them they slumped beside him in the aisle. He quickly slipped into the headmaster’s baggy pants and felt them blow against his legs in the breeze that came from the door. And when he sat back down again he saw his knees next to the old man’s. His soiled trousers still had not completely fallen but had turned in the aisle and were inching forward, up next to Mr. Soh now at the front of the bus. Bobby looked at Headmaster Kim to thank him, but the headmaster was asleep, his naked legs moving with the bends in the road.
    Suddenly, as Mr. Soh turned a corner too abruptly, the bus rolled into a stack of discarded boxes and stopped. Bobby’s trousers fell, wounded in the aisle. Mr. Soh smiled and opened the door. Somehow they were in front of the inn.
    â€œGood-bye,” said the old man.
    Bobby stood and tried to think of something appropriate to say, but finally he just climbed down out of the van, pulling his filthy trousers behind him. Headmaster Kim’s was the only voice he recognized as Mr. Soh searched for reverse. The headmaster had woken from his doze and was sitting up a little. “I am sorry,” he said, and then they backed out of the debris and sped away into the night.
    Though the inn was behind him and the night was cold, Bobby turned into the marketplace, through the broken stalls and down a rutted pathway. He hadn’t gone very far before some street children came out of the doorways where they slept and began following along. He took the dead woman’s photograph from his jacket, wiped the front of it on the headmaster’s pants, and tilted it up so that he could see her face. She was proud in the photograph, nearly arrogant, nothing like his grandmother at all. Bobby stopped at the center of a small bridge. Below him was a dried-up streambed, and as he looked down, the children shuffled in around him, plucking at his jacket and trying to get a look at the photograph. To Bobby’s surprise the Goma from the inn was among them. “Hello,” the Goma said softly. “Hey you, OK.” It was, so far as he knew, the standard American greeting, and when Bobby looked at him, his scab mustache parted in a smile.
    As Bobby looked at the woman’s photograph he could see the hills beyond it,