LET THERE BE LIGHT

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE FRESH, pleasant, late autumn days in Kangwŏn Province with just a hint of frost, the air so clean you could taste it. The parish priest, out for a morning stroll, felt invigorated by the crisp blow. Anxious as always to spread a bit of largess around, his one-man entourage advanced in semiregal progress: he bowed to everyone he met, and everyone who met him bowed back. There were smiles and greetings all around. Good will to all people was in the air, on the tongue and entwined around the bending backs. Public relations was the agenda, an item of the highest priority to the parish priest.

Largess was a universal quality, to be dispensed in large quantities at all times… even when there was question of that most deadly of offences, encroachment. The foreigner always felt himself to be a prime target for encroachment, and every parish priest worth his salt held himself alert for any possibility of the dreaded offence. The world was full of people trying to encroach, but the successful parish priest could smell the kimch’i pot of encroachment before the lid was taken off. After all, protection of church boundaries, physical and spiritual, was his sacred trust.

Against this background, it should come as no surprise that on this particular morning when the parish priest turned the final corner home and noticed activity under an electric pole behind the church, he was alert immediately to the possibility of encroachment. He moved in the appropriate direction, but with neither change of pace nor expression. Everything was done with due seasonal rhythm.

‘Morning, men.’

‘Good morning, shinbunim.’

‘Nice day, men.’

‘Yes, indeed, shinbunim. Soon be winter though. Gets very dark in winter, shinbunim, very dark indeed.’

‘Ah, yes, I know, I know.

There was a brief pause after the seasonal greetings had been exchanged. It was important to hang loose, the parish priest knew, but the double dark reference was echoing through his head. His antenna was up. He did not like what he had heard. There could be encroachment here. Some investigation would be required. He began again, casually, tentatively.