The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (60 page)

“Sit down,” he said when they had closed the door. The building was modern, and his room had a wooden floor, a table, two chairs and two cot beds.

Sasha flung off his coat. Like other young Korean men he now wore western clothes. He sat down on the cot bed and began to unlace his shoes.

“Tell me that you stay half the night with a dancer and do nothing but talk and I will not believe you.”

His voice was sullen, his face dark. He kicked off his shoes and threw himself back on the cot.

“Believe me or not, it is true,” Liang said quietly. “And it was not only a dancer with whom I talked. It was with a famous artist, who happens to be my friend.”

“A dancer,” Sasha insisted in the same sullen voice, “and if you have not heard what else she is, you are a fool, and I know you are not a fool. I could tell you what she said to me tonight—yes, we spoke, she and I.” He sat up and stared at Liang with flashing eyes. “I wait for her every night at the stage door. Sometimes she lets me go home with her.”

He watched Liang to see what the effect of this might be. Liang was sitting in the chair by the table, and there was no change in his face.

“You don’t ask what she said?” Sasha cried.

“No.”

He was about to say more. Then he did not. She had told him she was afraid of Sasha. In a woman fear of a man may be the under edge of admiration, and admiration the upper edge of love. He wondered why he was not angry with Sasha, or even with her, but he was not. The gift he had been given was sometimes heavy to bear, the ability always to understand why the other person was as he was. Wounded, yes, but never angry, and there were times when he longed to feel fierce personal anger. Now, even now, he imagined that it might be possible to strike Sasha a hard blow, wrestle with him in combat, shout at him that Mariko was not to be fouled by his desire and suspicion.

“She is afraid of you,” he said suddenly and was shocked. He had no intention of such revelation.

A strange secret look stole over Sasha’s handsome face. His eyes narrowed and he smiled.

“She told you that?”

“Yes.”

“It is enough—for a beginning.”

Sasha lay back again, his hands behind his head. As clearly as though his eyes could penetrate that skull, Liang knew what was taking place there. A hard simple core of ruthless desire was shaping into a plan. A woman who fears, Sasha was thinking, is a woman who can be taken by force. No more pleading—no more waiting at stage doors! He would enter her house. When she came home he would be there. He would enter by force.

This was what Liang saw as clearly as though it had already taken place. He felt a sudden uplift of power in him. Was this anger at last? Was this how a man felt when he could strike another man? He leaped up and felt his hand curl into fists. He saw Sasha leap up to meet him. They stood staring into each other’s eyes. As suddenly as it had come, the impulse died in Liang’s body.

“It cannot be done, Sasha,” he said. “She has guards in her house. You will have to find another way.”

He sat down again. The loneliness of Sasha, a boy who saw his mother dead under a tree in the forest, whose home was the coldness of an orphanage in Russia, a youth, wandering here and there to earn his living who found his father only to know that they could never meet, a man who had never known what love was in parent or friend or lover. Of what use was it to strike such a man as Sasha? A blow could never change him.

He felt this as clearly as though he were inside Sasha’s skin, Sasha’s blood running through his veins, and by the instinct in himself which he could never understand, he knew that he must tell Sasha that Mariko now was embarked upon a most dangerous mission.

“The reason I went to see Mariko Araki tonight was a secret one, but I will tell you what it is. You are a Korean, Sasha, and you are a Kim of Andong. Above all other things that you are, you are first of all Korean of the clan of Kim. Our blood is the blood of patriots. At this time we cannot think of ourselves. We must think of our people, our country. Our grandfather has spent his life for our country. He saved our Queen when she was about to be killed and his lasting grief is that he could not save her in the end. My father died because he was a patriot and my mother suffered and died. And your father has been an exile since his youth, and now he is about to begin the most dangerous work of his life. We, the Kim, are staking all we have and are on the moment when victory is declared and the Americans come to our country. We must be ready for that moment. We Koreans must not be divided as we have been, fighting each other, in the open as we did in the past or in secret as we still do. We must be ready with a united government able to take over our country from the defeated Japanese. The Americans must know we are ready. It is for this that I went to see Mariko. She is to take letters to America.”

Sasha stood listening, his hand hanging, his mouth ajar.

“Why Americans?” he demanded. “What have the Americans ever done for us?”

“They have never taken our land,” Liang replied. “They have never dreamed of empire. Whatever they may have done or may not have done, they are the only people who have declared the ideals of which we have only dreamed. True, we were not saved, but an American, Woodrow Wilson, declared self-determination of peoples.”

“I never heard his name,” Sasha retorted.

“He is dead,” Liang said gently, “and I think he died when he found how large his promise was and he knew he could not fulfill it. Yet though dead he lives.”

Sasha turned away. “You are being religious.” He threw himself on the bed and yawned.

“Nations, like individuals, can only learn by their own individual experience.”

Yul-chun paused in his writing. The snow was falling softly but heavily into the garden. It had begun only a few minutes ago, but if it kept up there would be a foot of snow by twilight. The house was silent and he was alone. Yul-han’s house was now his own. He had found himself cramped in his father’s house, and at the mercy of his mother, coming in too often to see if he were cold or hungry or feverish or had he not worked too long, and he had asked for this house. There was also Sasha. To his surprise, Sasha after months of idleness had wished to go to the Christian school so that he might improve his English and go to America. Sometimes Sasha came home at night, sometimes he did not. Last night he came home early with his books, and after he had his meal he went to his room. On the whole, Yul-chun reflected, Sasha was improving, although of late he had shown a sudden hostility to Liang which the latter seemed not to notice. Yul-chun sighed and turned his thoughts resolutely away. Deeper than his longing had once been for Hanya was the constant troubling anxiety he felt for his son. Hanya had been a stranger, but Sasha was part of himself, though how often he too was a stranger!

Resolutely he took up his pen. “We cannot learn to govern ourselves as a modern nation while we are ruled by another. Yet we must be able to defend ourselves at the moment of victory, lest defenselessness invite new invasion. We must be willing to be poor in order that we can build a navy to protect our shores. On the north we must build bastions and fortresses and maintain a heavy defense to prevent the age-old threat of Russia. To the incoming American Military Government, let me recommend immediate recognition of our provisional Korean government. It was our hope that our own brave Korean soldiers, now in China, could have helped the American army against Japan, our common foe. We would have saved many American lives thereby. Bitter indeed was our disappointment when this was not allowed.”

Someone knocked and looking up he saw Liang at the door, and with him a small slender woman wrapped in a sable coat, snow glistening on her dark hair. They bowed.

“We disturb you, Uncle,” Liang said.

“No—no, I was just finishing an editorial,” Yul-chun replied.

“Uncle, this is Mariko Araki,” Liang said.

Yul-chun bowed once, not too deeply, and Mariko bowed deeply several times. Then she allowed Liang to take off her coat. Underneath she wore Korean dress, a short bodice of pale gold brocaded satin, tied at the right shoulder with a bow, and a full skirt of crimson satin. Under the skirt he saw the upturned toes of her little gold shoes and he gazed at her frankly from head to foot. This was the dancer!

“Come in,” he said. “Seat yourselves. I have some western chairs. Sometimes I sit in a chair myself to promote circulation in the legs.”

Mariko laughed. “I do it by dancing!”

“Ah,” Yul-chun said. “It is a resource, but not for me.”

She sat down on a chair and Liang took another. After a moment’s hesitation, Yul-chun resumed his seat on the floor cushion beside the low desk.

“Apologizing, Uncle, for sitting above you,” Liang said with his usual good nature, “but these western clothes allow me too little freedom.”

He wore a western suit which made him look slim and tall.

“We shall all be sitting in chairs when the Americans come,” Yul-chun replied.

Liang and Mariko exchanged looks, and Liang began again. “Uncle, Mariko is leaving tonight for America. I promised that I would bring her to see you before she went. Yet I have put it off until today, I suppose because I have been—I am fearful for her. But she is very brave. She will help us.”

“I am not brave,” Mariko put in. “I do not want to know anything. I wish not to answer questions. But if you put something in my hand, sir, I will put it in the hand where it should be. That is all.”

Yul-chun listened, appraising her as she spoke. He was experienced in such appraisal. How often had he not searched one who must be entrusted with a message of life or death! He was satisfied now with what he saw in this charming face. It was an honest face, frank, mischievous perhaps, but a child’s mischief born of gaiety and not of wile.

“Why are you willing to do this?” he asked.

She did not hesitate. “I do it for someone I love. He is Korean and so I do it for Korea.”

She did not look at Liang. Was it he? Yul-chun asked of himself. Was it Sasha? Liang inquired of his heart.

“That is to say I am only a woman,” Mariko was saying, “and being a woman I do something for a man, not for a country—unless it is his country.”

Yul-chun waited, still expecting to hear who this man was, but Mariko was finished. She composed herself, folding one hand over the other, her small hands pale against her crimson satin skirt. He opened a drawer in the desk and took out a silver key. With this key he unlocked a compartment hidden in the back of the drawer, and from it he drew three letters.

“I have already written them,” he said, his voice low and solemn. “They are addressed to—”

He held out the letters for Liang to see. Liang nodded and Yul-chun proceeded.

“In case the letter to the President does not reach him, I have this friend—” he pointed to the second letter—“who will then go personally to Washington. He has access to the President. This is essential, for the President does not know our history, else how could he have suggested two years ago that Korea be placed under the international trusteeship of China, the United States and, he said, one or two other nations? We, who have been a nation for four thousand years! What if that one other nation were Russia! In my letter to him I have explained the fearful peril of Russia.”

Here Yul-chun felt compelled to pause, so great was his agitation. He set his lips, he cleared his throat and heaved up a sigh from the bottom of his heart. Then he continued.

“I repeat to both of you, who will outlive me, the day may come when we will look back to these years under the Japanese rulers and call them good. At least the Japanese have prevented the Russians. I say this, although I have known the torture of my flesh and the breaking of my bones under the hands of a Japanese torturer.”

They listened to him in silence, motionless, their quiet expressing their respect and their awe. They loved him for the legend that he had become in their country, the Living Reed, and for what he was now, heroic, selfless, a tall powerful man, worn with suffering, his face noble and bold but lined too early with pain, his thick dark hair already gray. Suddenly Liang spoke.

“Uncle, I told Sasha that she was going to the United States with letters. Did I do wrong?”

“You did very wrong,” Yul-chun exclaimed. Then realizing what he had said, he turned to Mariko. “My son is not evil. I am sure he is not evil. He has not lived in his own country and now he seems somewhat lost here. We must win him to our family. Liang, I cannot blame you, but—”

The door to the right opened, and as though he had heard his name Sasha came in. He was dressed in western clothes, a hat in his hand, a coat over his arm. He looked at the three, surprised. Or was it pretense at surprise? Liang could not decide. Yul-chun spoke immediately and too quickly.

“Come in, my son. Liang has told you. We are sending the letters. I have made them very brief but firm, very firm. As for example, to the President I—this is the copy, I kept it for our own records. Now that you know—I am very glad you know—Liang, I change my mind, it is well that you told him. I would like Sasha to become part of us—”

Yul-chun was fumbling among papers in the secret compartment. “Yes, here it is. Yes! To the President as follows—”

And again Yul-chun lifted the paper and read in his loud clear voice. “We in Korea have been deeply disturbed for the past two years. Those few words agreed upon by you, Sir, and the British Prime Minister and the Nationalist Chinese ruler Chiang, haunt us day and night. I repeat them, Sir, lest you have forgotten what we can never forget. ‘The aforesaid Powers, mindful of the enslavement of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea become free and independent.’ These words, Sir, are carved into our hearts and they bleed. ‘In due course.’ Sir, in the space of these three small words Korea is doomed.”

When he heard this, Liang had one of his moments of foreknowledge. He could not explain the prophetic weight, he tried to escape it, he shrugged it off. He rose and walked about the room, but could not escape. Doom! The heavy word resounded in his ears as though he heard near him the single heavy beat of a great bass drum, and the echoes reverberated into the future.