I'll Be Right There by Kyung-Sook Shin Read Free Book Online Page B

pastime to him. He was a boatman with no boat, a man who ferried people with his body.”
    The world seemed to have come to a stop. In a classroom filled with thirty, maybe forty, students, no one so much as cleared their throat.
    “One night, Christopher was fast asleep when he heard a faint voice calling his name. Wondering whom it could be at that time of night, he opened the door. But there was no one there. Only darkness. He closed the door and went back to bed, but the voice returned. Christopher! He opened the door again, but just as before, there was only darkness. The third time he heard the voice, it sounded like it was right beside him. He looked all around but saw no one. Thinking this odd,Christopher took up his pole and headed down to the river. There in the darkness beside the river was a small child. The child told him he had to get to the other side before the night ended, and he asked Christopher to carry him across. The child was so young and his plea so earnest that Christopher agreed to help, despite the late hour. He put the child on his shoulders and entered the river. But the moment he stepped into the river, the water began to rise. In an instant, it nearly reached over the tall Christopher’s head. And that was not all. The child, so light at first, grew heavier the higher the waters rose. The weight, like a massive piece of iron, so unbelievable for such a small child, pressed down on Christopher’s shoulders. The waters rose inch by inch, and the child pressed down on him with its enormous weight. The once overly confident Christopher began to tremble with fear for the first time at the thought that he might drown. Barely able to keep his balance with the pole, Christopher plowed his way through the water with the child on his shoulders and just made it to the other side. As he set the child down, he said, ‘I thought I was going to die because of you. Though you are so small, you were so heavy that it felt as if I was carrying the weight of the world. I have carried many across this river, but I have never carried one so heavy as you.’ At that moment, the child vanished and Jesus appeared before him, surrounded by a dazzling light. He said, ‘Christopher! What you just carried was no child. It was I, Christ. When you crossed that river, you were carrying the world on your shoulders.’ ”
    Professor Yoon paused and looked around the room. I thought at first that he was trying to tell whether weunderstood the story. But then I thought maybe he had discovered something anew, something he had forgotten, about Saint Christopher. He held his silence for a moment and then resumed.
    “So let me ask you this. Are those of you here today Christopher? Or are you the child he carries on his back?”
    Professor Yoon’s story had started out like a single drop of rain amid the hustle and bustle of students preparing for class to end but turned into a sudden midday shower beating down on us. A clear ray of light from the last of the summer sun slipped in through a classroom window that someone had shut tight.
    Professor Yoon studied us expectantly, but nobody offered an answer to his question. The slogans of student demonstrators outside followed the ray of sunlight through the window and pushed their way again into our midst. Over his glasses, Professor Yoon’s keen and gentle eyes stopped on each of us in turn before moving on.
    “Each of you is both Christopher and the child he carries on his back. You are all forging your way through adversity in this difficult world on your way to the other side of the river. I did not tell you this story in order to talk about religion. We are all travelers crossing from this bank to that bank, from this world to nirvana. But the waters are rough. We must rely on something in order to make it over. That something could be the art or literature that you aspire to create. You will think that the thing you choose will serve as your boat or raft to carry you to