Chapter 74: That Time I Held an Election in South America (4)

TL: Skye

Dawn on election day. Once a thoroughly backward stretch of countryside, Santa Maria Farm had since gone from a tobacco-farming training ground to a mecca of production.

"Honey! Honey! Get up, quick!"

While the darkness still hadn't fully lifted, Carolina, former trainee representative and current farm representative, gave a sharp smack to the back of her husband, who lay sleeping dead to the world in bed.

The man who poked his tousled head out from under the covers was Kim Heung-su, who had been dispatched from Korea's Rural Development Administration and had since married Carolina and gotten permanent residency.

"Mmm... Carolina? What time is it...?"

"Did you forget what day it is? It's election day!"

Carolina's eyes were blazing like torches.

She had already washed up and changed into the best dress she kept tucked away deep in the wardrobe.

"Come on, the polling station won't open for ages yet..."

"We have to get in line! I have to be first, so I can show His Excellency how I feel! If we get there later than everyone else, His Excellency will be hurt."

"What... it's not like His Excellency is watching us..."

"Quit babbling and get up already!"

Grumbling, Kim Heung-su hauled himself upright.

Say what you would, there was simply no contending with the zeal of a wife who'd been bustling about since four in the morning.

"Jessi! You wash up too, quick!"

"Ughhh... Mom... I can't even vote..."

"No excuses! You're only in school thanks to His Excellency, and you can still sleep? You're going to cheer him on! Up, now!"

And so Carolina scrubbed down her half-asleep daughter Jessi too and loaded her into the truck.

Twenty minutes' drive later, they arrived at the administrative field office.

"Huh..."

Kim Heung-su couldn't shut his mouth.

It was just past five in the morning. The sun hadn't even risen yet, but a long line had already snaked its way out in front of the polling station.

"Oh! Mr. Rodriguez! You're out early!"

"Ah, Carolina! You made it too! And Mr. Kim's here as well?"

Carolina exchanged warm greetings with the familiar faces.

"Mr. Rodriguez, I hear your tobacco crop came in well this year?"

"Don't even get me started. Thanks to His Excellency, I've paid off every last debt I owed. Who'd have thought I'd live to see the day I struck gold on my own land? Hah hah hah!"

"We built a new house too. You have no idea how nice it is not to worry about the rain leaking in."

Not one of them asked the others who they were voting for.

Asking would have been an insult in itself.

Who was it that had saved them from a life of grinding poverty?

Who was it that had taught the word hope to people who'd once scraped along in the dirt?

Who was it that had given their children the gift of an education?

Only Yu-jin Choi had changed their lives.

"The doors are open. All right, everyone, let's go vote!"

The eyes of the villagers shining in the dark were, every last one, brimming with conviction.

*

Same hour. Near the construction site of Section 4 of the highway.

"All right, all right! Everybody on the truck! We've got voting to do!"

At the foreman's gravelly bellow, Joseph and his coworkers clambered up into the truck bed in a noisy rush.

On any other day they'd have been worn ragged by the grueling labor, but today, every one of their faces was lit up like kids heading out on a picnic.

Because today was the day they got to choose their president with their own hands.

"Hey, Joseph. So who you gonna vote for?"

A coworker jabbed him in the ribs and asked, grinning mischievously.

Joseph adjusted his hard hat and smirked.

"You idiot. Ask a real question."

"Heh heh heh. Just figured I'd check, in case you were gonna vote against him. Heard you raised a stink down at the field office a while back over them not giving you that land."

"Hey, anybody who votes that way is a spy, not a son of San Marcos. And honestly... at this point the land doesn't matter one bit."

Joseph said it gazing out at the majestic sweep of the construction site sliding past the truck.

"Back when I was scratching a living out of the dirt, it was hand to mouth, every single day. Shaking in my boots that my kids might starve. But look at it now. Paycheck comes in like clockwork, they feed us well, they put our kids in school. Hell, I even saved up my wages and bought a plot of land to farm. Where in the world is there a leader like that?"

"True. My wife says she sleeps easy these days too. One less worry about putting food on the table."

"That's why a man's got to know when he owes a debt. If His Excellency told me to die, I'd die."

"Same here."

As the two of them were talking, the truck kicked up a cloud of dust and pulled in at the temporary polling station near the highway site.

And the mood there was nothing short of a festival.

"Yu-jin! Yu-jin! Yu-jin!"

Off to one side, workers had their arms slung around each other's shoulders, chanting Yu-jin's name over and over, and the election officials watching them weren't lifting a finger to stop it; they were smiling fondly.

"Hey! Joseph! Let's vote and go grab a beer after!"

"You bet! If you can't get drunk on a day like today, when can you?"

Secret ballot? Electoral neutrality?

In all this fevered heat, such things were meaningless.

Every last one of them wanted only one thing: for Yu-jin to officially become president.

Soon enough Joseph's turn came, and he stepped into the voting booth.

Thunk!

Without a moment's hesitation he pressed the stamp into box number one, a smile spreading across his lips.

*

Just as the sun was coming up,

Downtown Libertad. The door of Kiya's sandwich shop, famous for never closing a single day of the year, was shut tight.

"Huh? What gives? Since when does this place close?"

A regular who'd come by to buy breakfast rattled the door, baffled.

His friend beside him clicked his tongue.

"Come on, man, don't you know what day it is?"

"Course I know. It's election day. I figured I'd vote, then sit and eat a sandwich while I waited in line." "Good grief, you fool. Kiya's a citizen too, isn't she? She's got to vote. Didn't you see the news? His Excellency issued a strict order that every last person, no exceptions, take part in the vote."

"Ah, right. So Kiya's got to vote too."

The customer scratched his head and turned to go.

"Damn, and I'm starving... Let's just go vote first. I'll grab breakfast after, or something."

And so the two of them headed for Libertad Polling Station No. 3.

But from the middle of the long line of people waiting came a familiar, ringing voice.

"Step right up, all that waiting in line's made you hungry, hasn't it? Sandwiches, two dollars apiece! Fresh milk, squeezed this morning, a dollar a carton!"

"......?"

The two of them couldn't believe their eyes.

Right in the middle of the line, Kiya was waiting for her own turn while hawking sandwiches and milk. And on top of that, she was selling them at nearly double the markup.

"I'll take one over here!"

"Give me one too! With a milk."

People who'd lined up at the crack of dawn and worked up an appetite were opening their wallets. In the thick of it, Kiya was too busy counting cash to catch her breath.

"Wait, Ms. Kiya? What are you doing here?"

"Oh? Mr. Jose! Since you're here, have one. You'll get hungry waiting in line."

"Wow... you're really something... I figured you closed up to go vote, but you came here to do business?"

Kiya handed over a sandwich with a bright, sunny smile.

"Aw, why not do both at once!"

"Ha ha ha! There's no stopping you, honestly. Give me two."

Cast a vote and make a buck.

Kiya's face broke into a wide, blooming smile.

*

Election day in San Marcos. Unlike everywhere else, there was one polling station that was a little special.

The temporary polling station at Tortilla Farm.

Legally classified as civilians, the workers of Tortilla Farm got to vote as well.

Only, the mood here was a little different from elsewhere.

Former gang members, hauled in during the War on Crime, were clustered in little knots of twos and threes, smoking and griping.

"Hey, you really think we oughta vote for him? He's the one who put us in this mess."

A man covered in tattoos spat on the ground.

"We're not slaves, busting our backs out in the cornfields, and now we've gotta vote for him too?"

At that, a coworker beside him shot back, looking at him like he was pathetic.

"So what? You gonna vote against him? You out of your mind?"

"Why not? It's a secret ballot, right? Nothing stopping me."

"Quit talking crap. You actually believe that? They'll read it right off your face the second you walk out of that booth, and then they'll haul you straight to the coal mines. I hear you never see the sun down there."

"...Okay, fair. Not that."

"And honestly, you think the guy won't be president just 'cause we don't vote for him? He's getting elected either way, so wouldn't it be better for your own hide to just vote and rack up a few points? Above all... it's not so bad here, is it?"

"Fair... the food's good, at least. And the pay comes regular."

As they wavered between resignation and self-interest, someone appeared before them.

It was Bruno Alves, former Vice Minister of Defense, a straw hat pulled down low over his head.

As the de facto leader of the former-bureaucrat laborers who'd been dragged here for failing the evaluation exam, he grabbed a bullhorn, his eyes glinting.

"Attention! Everyone, attention!"

Bruno had shouted so much before coming over that his voice came out hoarse.

"Do you know what day it is! Comrades! Today, of all days, is our chance to prove our loyalty!"

The truth was, no one was more desperate than he was.

Because he believed that only by driving Tortilla Farm's turnout and vote share through the roof in this election could he grab the lifeline back to the central government.

"Come on, come on! Everyone, let's go cast our votes for His Excellency! Our single ballot decides the future of our homeland!"

"Boss, but we got sent here 'cause we're marked men. You really think His Excellency's gonna notice if we vote?"

"You blithering idiot! It's because we're marked that we've got to try harder! If we deliver a hundred-percent landslide, won't His Excellency decide we've finally turned into proper human beings and give us another look? And even if we never make it back to Libertad, just getting better conditions here, isn't that something?"

Bruno clenched his fist, spittle flying.

"I believe! In His Excellency's mercy! If we show him, he will answer! Now, get in line! If a single stray vote turns up, I won't let it slide! I'll hunt down the culprit on my honor!"

"All right, all right. We're going, okay?"

And so the workers of Tortilla Farm headed for the voting booths, some choking it down like a bitter pill, others clinging to a thread of hope.

To survive, or for the sake of a better tomorrow.

*

Two o'clock in the afternoon.

Libertad Polling Station No. 1.

The election observers dispatched by the UN arrived at the polling station.

Their team leader, David, let out a sigh and thought to himself.

'Elections in a dictatorship are always the same old story.'

David cast a sharp gaze from behind his sunglasses.

He expected the usual illegalities: soldiers with rifles ringing the polling station, ballots being checked by force, that sort of thing.

The moment he caught it, he intended to report it to the international community and deal a fatal blow to Yu-jin's moral standing.

But.

"Grandma! Watch your step!"

"Oh my, thank you, dear."

Far from any soldiers, it was young men giving piggyback rides to the elderly who had trouble walking, ferrying them to the polling station.

He watched them closely on the off chance they were government plants, but they too were nothing more than ordinary citizens going in to cast their votes, and not a single one of them was coercing anybody.

"Excuse me, have you by any chance been forced to vote for someone?"

David stopped a middle-aged man who'd just finished voting and asked.

At that, the man's eyes went round and he asked back.

"Forced? Forced how?"

"Threatened into voting for a particular candidate, say..."

"Ha, would you look at this guy. Are you insulting our Excellency right now?"

When the man flared up in anger, the citizens nearby came swarming over.

"What's going on?"

"This guy here's asking whether His Excellency went around begging for votes!"

"Is he insane? If we don't vote for His Excellency, who else is there? You a spy or something?"

"Has he lost his mind! How dare you spout that garbage at a sacred polling station!"

"N-no! It's a misunderstanding!"

David all but got grabbed by the collar by the furious crowd, then turned tail and bolted.

Having managed to escape, he wrote this in his notebook with a trembling hand.

[No physical coercion confirmed. However, the voters' state is abnormal. Like watching a group caught up in a cult.]

*****

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