The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (62 page)

“You should write a book,” Il-han said. He sat on a bench in a corner of the garden to catch the noon sun.

“A book?” Yul-chun repeated.

Il-han knocked the ash from the small brass bowl of his bamboo pipe.

“I wrote a book.”

Yul-chun paused before him. “When?”

“Years ago when I was restless like you. The Japanese had come, and I was a prisoner here, as you are now, and I wrote a book in which I put down every evil act of the invaders. Thus I made history and thus I vented my fury.”

Yul-chun was astounded and diverted. “Let me see this book, Father,” he said.

“Follow me,” Il-han said.

He rose and went into the house, Yul-chun following, and opening a chest of polished wood bound in brass, he lifted from it a thick manuscript wrapped in silken cloth.

Yul-chun received it in both hands. “What labor!” he said. “Am I to read it?”

“As you will,” Il-han replied. “There are good bits in it,” he went on. “You will even find yourself in it. I wrote down faithfully all about your trial, to the last detail of how you looked.”

“You shame me,” Yul-chun muttered.

He did sit down then, as his father returned to the garden and filled his pipe again, and forgot his restlessness as he read the careful polished sentences in which the elder had reported every evil of the times, murder and massacre and assassination, rape and looting and arson, chicanery and deceit. He read day and night until the book was finished, and he had given it back to his father.

Then his restlessness fell on him with double weight, for he knew beyond doubt that all his father had written was true. When would his people be delivered? He began to doubt the Americans, although Il-han remained calm and the two young men were confident, Liang because he trusted the Americans, Sasha—who knew anything about Sasha?

Only Yul-chun, the one between, could neither be calm nor confident. Hope and fear stirred him in equal measure and made him restless day and night, while the slow formal steps were taken between governments, the victor and the vanquished. Meanwhile the Russian soldiers were indeed already pouring into the north. It was no longer the secret of fruit vendors. Six days before the final surrender they had come on foot through Siberia and by sea from Manchuria. The people were too dazed to protest or to move. Only the few had heard that Russia would share in the booty of war, and now like hares before hounds, they stood stricken and silent as the rough soldiery crowded the country roads and villages and swarmed into the cities.

“Where will it end?” Yul-chun demanded. “Will they cover the whole country before the Americans come?”

But they were not to cover the country. Someone, some American officer, somewhere, who knew where, drew a line across a map. The Russians were to stop, the people were told, at the 38th parallel. Where was the 38th parallel? Some remembered that the Russians and Japanese had talked of dividing Korea there. In sickening foreboding men and women studied maps in old schoolbooks their children had once used, to discover whether their homes were to be under Communist rule. If the answer was yes, they gave themselves up to despair and many killed themselves. If the answer was no, they prayed for the Americans to come quickly. Where were the Americans?

“They are asleep,” Sasha declared with laughter.

“They will come,” Liang said steadily.

They did not come.

Yet more days passed, one after another while the people waited in agony, and the Americans did not come. What if the wild Soviet soldiers swarmed even over the boundary that had been set for them? Already there were stories of pillage and robbery and rape. In the grass roof house Liang cleaned and loaded two old rifles he had bought in the city. There were no young women here and for that let all be thankful, but it was well to be ready. How thankful, too, that Mariko was now safely in Paris! He had followed, through newspaper reports, her path of glory.

“Something entirely new from Asia, yet something we can understand. The tincture of her Western ancestry—”

Only Sasha was scornful. “I know the Russian soldiers,” he said. “They are bold and they are young like me, most of them, but they are not worse than other soldiers. If they come I will speak Russian to them and they will not harm us.”

And he poured out a stream of Russian to show what he would say. The others listened to him, half fearful, then Sunia told him sharply to be silent.

“In this house,” she said, “we speak only Korean.” And she would not heed Sasha’s furious sullen look.

But all were easily impatient in these few bitter days, when searing anxiety burned in them like fever. Then suddenly it was announced everywhere that on the ninth day of the same month, the ninth of the year, at last, at last the Americans were coming! They were to enter at the port of Inchon, and learning the news, the people everywhere prepared banners and Korean flags, flowers and gifts. None dared yet to leave home, nevertheless, for the Japanese Governor-General had asked permission from the Americans to maintain police control lest Koreans make reprisal on the six hundred thousand Japanese now living in that southern part of Korea, many of them having fled from the north when the Russians appeared. Permission had been granted. Koreans remained in their homes and no reprisals were made, the people being too proud in any case to take such petty revenge.

Then another command came from the Japanese Governor-General. Koreans were forbidden to meet the Americans.

“This we cannot obey,” Yul-chun declared.

… On the appointed day therefore, Il-han and his son and grandsons came to the docks at Inchon, wearing Korean robes. Sunia had cut flowers from her garden and Il-han carried a bouquet in his right hand to present to the Americans, but Yul-chun carried the Korean flag, hidden for all these years, and Liang held an American flag. Only Sasha was empty-handed.

When they arrived at the docks they found some five hundred Koreans already there, leading citizens who had been chosen in secret to represent the people in receiving the Americans, all bearing in their hands gifts and flowers from those who could not come and waving banners of welcome and Korean flags. The day was hot but fair. The sun poured down upon land and water, making the green more green and the sea as blue as heaven. The great American ship, her flags flying, was anchored in the harbor, and all stood silent and motionless as the gangway was let down. To the right were the Japanese officials in full uniform, the Governor-General in front, his sword at his side. To the left were the Japanese police holding back the Korean crowd of some five hundred persons.

Yet they could not be held back. When the American General appeared on the gangway, the five hundred pressed forward, waving their flags and banners, to greet the American General as he came down the gangway from his ship. At this same moment the Japanese police lifted their guns and opened fire. Five Koreans fell dead, and nine fell wounded, and gifts and banners were wet with their blood.

What Il-han and Yul-chun and the two young men now saw was not to be believed, but they saw it and were compelled to believe what their eyes told. For that American General, descending from his ship, did not reprove or stay those police or even blame them for what they had done. Instead he commended them for “controlling the mob,” as he put it, whereupon the Koreans who had come to welcome him were scattered by the police and the waiting Japanese officials became the hosts. With their eyes Il-han and Yul-chun and the two young men saw this and with their ears they heard the American General declare to the Japanese officials that they were to keep their posts until he could form a military government to take over the country. He neither spoke to the Koreans nor seemed to see them. While they heard and saw this, the four of them, Il-han and Yul-chun, Sasha and Liang, were standing crowded together in a doorway of a house. The door was barred, but they had taken shelter there under the roof when the police dispersed the welcoming Koreans. They looked at one another, the flags and flowers hanging limp in their hands.

“What shall we do now, Grandfather?” Liang asked.

“We go home again,” Il-han replied. He threw the flowers into a ditch. “Fold our flag,” he told Yul-chun, “we will take it home with us and put it away for another day.”

This they were about to do when Yul-chun turned, irresolute until he saw the American accept the sword of the Governor-General. He heard him speak affably to the Japanese, ignoring the fleeing Koreans. He saw the flags and the banners trampled in the dust as the Koreans ran, the flowers crushed. And suddenly he went mad. He ran back, waving the Korean flag and shouting, “
Mansei
—
Mansei!
”

He was not allowed to shout more than this. Guns were instantly raised, shots sounded in the air and he fell into the dust, dead.

It was Liang who ran back to him, and what might have happened to him, too, cannot be told, for he was saved by his superior at the hospital. Among the Koreans but somewhat apart from them were a few Americans, missionaries and teachers and doctors, and it was the doctor who ran to meet Liang.

“Go back,” the American whispered. “Go back—go back before they shoot again! Leave him! I will take him to the hospital—but hurry—hurry—I am in their bad graces—I can’t save you—”

Liang could only obey, for he saw Il-han had fallen and could not be lifted, although Sasha was holding up his head. Together the two young men lifted the aged man and they carried him to the hospital to await the coming of Yul-chun’s dead body, Liang comforting his grandfather as he went.

“My uncle would have chosen a death like this.”

But Il-han refused comfort. “Am I to be comforted? Be silent!”

There was no silence, nevertheless, for behind them came those who were left of the crowd, weeping and groaning because the Living Reed was dead.

“Who will take his place?” Il-han inquired.

It was the day of the funeral and they were home again, but Yul-chun lay now on the hillside beside his grandfather. From everywhere people had come to bow before his old parents and to him.

“No one—no one,” Sunia sobbed. “We have lost our sons.”

They were in the main room, waiting for Ippun to bring them hot tea. Suddenly from the garden they heard angry voices.

“How dare you go to the north?”

“Can that be our Liang?” Sunia whispered.

“Hush,” Il-han said. They sat side by side on their floor cushions, and he put out his hand to take Sunia’s hand while they listened.

In the dark garden the two young men sprang at each other. The two old people heard pants of rage, the grunts and snorts of young men embattled.

“Sasha will kill our Liang,” Sunia muttered. She got to her feet with effort and tottered to the door.

“You two!” she screamed in her high quavering old voice.

They did not hear her and Il-han came to her side.

“What are they fighting about now?” he inquired.

“Who knows?” Sunia said. She peered out from under her hand. They were struggling in the dust, locked together. She began to sob. “Our Liang will be killed!”

But Liang was astride the fallen Sasha. He had him by the shoulders, shaking his head against the hard earth.

“You!” Sasha was shouting between chattering teeth. “You have no pride—you—you—live here—under the—the insult of these Americans—no shame—take your—your hands away—my throat—”

Il-han suddenly pushed Sunia aside. He strode on his shaky legs to the two young men and with all his strength he tried to pull them apart.

“Must I see you against each other, you two in my own house? Are we forever to be against each other?”

At the sound of Il-han’s voice Liang suddenly came to himself. He got up and drew his breath in great sobs. “Grandfather,” he began and could not go on.

But Sasha was on his feet, too. He stooped to take up a knapsack where it had fallen from his shoulder, his old knapsack, and Il-han saw he had put on the clothes in which he had come, the full trousers, the high boots, the belted tunic.

“Traitor!” Sasha now screamed at Liang. “Soft—silly—full of love—stupid love! Dog’s filth! I spit on you—I spit on all of you!”

He spat into the dust at their feet and shouldering his knapsack he ran through the open gate.

Liang stooped then and picked up a small sheet of paper from the earth.

“It was this that sent him mad,” he said to his grandparents. “It was this, after he had seen his father buried. Too much—I know that. And why did I—how could I—it is myself I cannot understand.”

Il-han took the bit of paper from his hand and spelled out the words in the light of the stone lantern. It was a cablegram from Paris:
ARE YOU LIVING
?

He shook his head. “I can make nothing of that,” he said and he gave it back to Liang.

“Come inside the house,” Sunia called.

But Liang did not heed. He sat down on a stone seat and held his head in his hands. Nor did Il-han heed. He went to the gate and peered into the night beyond, the night into which Sasha had plunged himself.

“What is independence?” Il-han inquired but of no one. He paused and then made his own answer. “Independence? It was a happy thought!”

“Come in!” Sunia called again and she went out and taking his hand, she led Il-han into the house.

“Come, my old man,” she said, soothing him. “Come, my dear old man.”

She helped him to his cushion, and Ippun came in with the teapot and lit a candle.

Outside in the garden Liang came slowly to himself. He felt his soul return into his body. He felt the night wind cool and he heard an early cricket call. Sasha would never come back. They had lost Sasha. He had feared it when he saw Sasha’s face as the coffin was lowered into the grave. He knew it when Sasha, sobbing, had elbowed his way through the reverent crowd. He had followed as quickly as he could, but Sasha had reached home first and had snatched Mariko’s cablegram from the gateman’s hand, the message she had sent from Paris. Sasha was waiting at the gate to spring at him in jealous fury, to accuse him, and suddenly they were trying to kill each other!