So Far from the Bamboo Grove (16 page)

How joyous it was to ride the streetcar with the Corporal all the way to our warehouse. I led him upstairs. There was no cushion to welcome my important guest so I folded my blanket four times and asked him to sit on it.

The Corporal met with Mother's urn. He bowed deeply, his eyes closed. Then I heard Ko and rushed downstairs to take her hand and bring her up quickly to meet our honorable guest.

Ko tried hard not to show tears when she met the Corporal, but she pulled out her handkerchief, barely able to say, “Welcome!”

He was in the city on business. As we ate our
humble supper and after we had told our story, he told us that he had left Nanam the day after we fled. He was assigned to the Niigata Army Hospital in the homeland, but as his ship crossed the Sea of Japan it was attacked by American bombers. He had floated, holding on to a log, for four days until he was rescued by a Japanese fishing boat. Then the atomic bombs had been dropped, the war had ended, and he had returned to his hometown, Morioka, a castle town where long ago Lord Taira had lived and governed the district. The Corporal had taken over his father's silk thread and textile business, which had been passed down from ancestors who had woven materials for the lord of the castle and his family.

“Oh, that was why you felt my costume at the hospital!” I exclaimed.

“Right,” he said. “I could feel the quality of the materials.”

His marriage had been arranged upon his return to his hometown, and now he and his wife were expecting a baby. He gazed at me and he said lovingly, “If it is a girl I shall name her Yoko.”

“By the way,” he continued, “I kept your calligraphy,
Bu Un Cho Kyu
, in my uniform pocket. It was soaked, but I framed it and it hangs in my office. It has brought me good luck.”

Corporal Matsumura wanted to buy me a pair of shoes but the stores were already closed. He also wanted to help us with our daily expenses, but we told him we had enough money for now. He gave us
his address and made us promise to wire him collect when we did need something—anything. We would hear from him soon, he said.

He was taking the midnight express, and Ko and I went to the station to see him off. Mother had left me at this station, and now the Corporal was leaving too. Loneliness attacked me and once more sobs wracked my body.

“Here,” said the Corporal, taking off his wristwatch. “I noticed you have no clock. Keep this and give it to your brother as a welcome. No more tears, Little One. Keep up your good work.”

A station bell's sound burst in the air, warning that the train was leaving. The Corporal jumped on and took his seat. He waved at us through the window, and Ko and I bowed to him deeply for his friendship. I held his wristwatch tightly.

The train began moving. He waved to us again. I put the watch to my good ear and it was ticking and warm. I read his lips. “We'll keep in touch.” The train increased speed. Ko and I watched until we could no longer see the red taillight.

I
N A SMALL FARMHOUSE NEAR THE
thirty-eighth parallel lived Mr. and Mrs. Kim and their boys, Hee Cho, sixteen, and Hee Wang, fourteen. They were having supper when there was a loud thud outside the kitchen door.

“Probably the wind,” said Mr. Kim, eating his fluffy rice with
kimch'i
, the hot Korean pickle. “The snow has changed to a blizzard.”

“Hee Cho, go check,” said Mrs. Kim.

The thin wooden door was usually easy to slide open with a toe, but this time Hee Cho could not move it. The door was off the track, and he tried to
put it back. “Something is pushing the door,” he called.

“Maybe the wild boar again.” Mr. Kim got up, went into the earthen-floor kitchen, and picked up a large broadax. Hee Wang came with a rope and Mrs. Kim brought a lantern. Mr. Kim gave his elder son the broadax while he worked on the door.

He could not get it back on the track. Mr. Kim thought the wild boar would be pacing around the barn, not pushing against their door. Finally he lifted the door and removed it completely from the track. Wind and snow blew in, and Hideyo lay there, unconscious.

Mr. Kim touched his garments. “Frozen.” They carried Hideyo in and put the door back on the track while the wind howled and the snow blew in.

The boys brought straw and mats from the barn and made a bed on the dirt floor. Mr. Kim removed the rucksack and Mrs. Kim tore off the thin, torn Korean garments. A Japanese student's uniform appeared.

“Is he a Japanese boy, Father?” asked Hee Wang.

“The way he carried his rucksack and the cherry flower emblem on the buttons of the uniform show he is Japanese,” his father told him.

They took off leg wrappers, shoes, and wet socks. Hideyo wore four pairs of socks, half-frozen, and all the shirts he owned. Mrs. Kim wiped his body and massaged his chest.

“Look what I found,” exclaimed Hee Wang. “A belly wrapper, with a notebook in it.”

The notebook was a Japanese savings book. “What's his name, son?” asked Mr. Kim. Both of his boys could read the characters for “Kawashima.” They hid the savings book and the contents of the rucksack, in case the Communist Army came to inspect the house.

Mrs. Kim put more wood in the clay firebox that heated the cooking vat and the rest of the house. While the men massaged Hideyo's legs and body, Mrs. Kim put crushed hot pepper in dry socks, put the socks on Hideyo's feet, and wrapped the feet in the little fur coat. More crushed dry pepper went onto Hideyo's chest, as the massage continued.

They put a nightshirt on him, covered him with a blanket, and tucked lots of straw over and around him. “He will be all right while we eat,” Mr. Kim said.

As they ate, the farmer made his decision. “If he should die or if anyone finds out we have rescued a Japanese boy, we will be betrayed for prize money and executed. Listen, everyone. The boy is going to be my nephew. His parents were killed by Japanese and he has come to live with us. Do you understand? This way we are not in danger.”

They ate quickly and then Mrs. Kim crushed garlic, added warm water, and tried to feed Hideyo as Mr. Kim forced open his mouth. His throat contracted—he swallowed. His feet were warming a little but his hands were ice-cold. Crushed pepper went into mittens for his hands.

Long after their sons had gone to bed Mr. and Mrs. Kim massaged Hideyo's body, kept water boiling for steam, and fed him garlic water with crushed hot peppers in it. Mr. Kim was feeding logs into the fire when his wife called out, “
Aboji
(Daddy)! He turned and groaned!” Mr. Kim rushed back and patted Hideyo's cheeks.

Honorable Brother returned to life, so tired that he could not move. He did not know where he was or who these people were. And where were his things? He was even fearful of being poisoned when the woman held a spoon to his lips. She tasted the pepper and garlic water to show him it was safe, and the hot mixture felt good to his stomach.

He told them who he was and where he had come from, and Hee Cho, when he came home from school, told him, “You are going to be our cousin.”

Of course Hideyo wanted to be on his way to Seoul, but he was in no condition to travel. Besides, Mr. Kim told him, everyone trying to escape to the south had been killed by the Communist Army. “Now you are our relative,” the farmer said. “Stay with us until you regain your health. You will be at home here.”

As soon as he was able to get up, Hideyo helped the family, weaving straw, repairing the barn. Often he went to town with Mr. Kim to sell the straw mats they made. After supper he would fetch two wooden buckets of water on a pole across his shoulders, to fill a large tub in the kitchen, so Mrs. Kim would not
have to walk on the icy path. He got up early to build a fire and heat water.

He helped Hee Wang with arithmetic and discussed politics with Hee Cho in the Korean language. He learned a political vocabulary.

Spring came. Hideyo helped remove the protective straw from the apple trees, and as the fragrance of apple blossoms filled the air and bees danced from blossom to blossom, his thoughts drifted to his birthplace, Aomori, in Japan, where lots of apples were grown. Then the images of his parents revived in his heart, for they too were born in apple blossom country. Homesickness for his parents and sisters overwhelmed him, and one evening as they ate supper he told the Kim family he must leave.

“Stay. Become our boy,” said Mr. Kim.

“Please stay!” begged Hee Cho and Hee Wang.

Mrs. Kim was in tears.

But he must go, Hideyo said. As soon as the spring work was finished and when the moon was dark, so that he would not be spotted.

When the last supper with the generous Korean family was finished, he gathered his few belongings. His student's uniform, underwear, pants, and socks were washed and folded by Mrs. Kim. Hideyo put the fur coat in the bottom of the rucksack, then the family album and savings book, then his clothes.

Mrs. Kim packed large rice balls in a bamboo box and Mr. Kim handed Hideyo a little money. Hideyo tried to refuse the money, for Mr. Kim was a poor
farmer who had to give almost all his earnings to the government, but Mr. Kim insisted that he carry some Korean money.

He wanted to tell Mrs. Kim many things to express his gratitude, but the tears came and his chest tightened. Mrs. Kim held his hands and cried, “
Aigo!
” an expression of sadness. He shook hands with Mr. Kim, and the hand, rough from years of hard work in the fields, seemed gentle and soft. Mr. Kim, in tears, bit his chapped lips and nodded his wrinkled face, as if to say, “Don't say anything. I understand.”

Then, because a rucksack would give away the fact that he was Japanese, Mrs. Kim put the rucksack in a burlap bag tied with a long rope and told him to carry it around his hips like a Korean.

Hee Gho went with Hideyo as far as the river. Imjŏn, the fourth-largest river in Korea, crosses the thirty-eighth parallel. American soldiers controlled southern Korea, and Hideyo knew he would be safer once he crossed this boundary. The river was four miles from the Kims' house. As they left the house the sun was about to set. Hideyo kept looking back, waving to Mr. and Mrs. Kim and Hee Wang. Just before they vanished into the deep forest he waved a towel three times for a final farewell. At their doorway the Kims waved back.

The river was well guarded by the Communists. From a watchtower nearby, a searchlight swept over the area, throwing its strong beam on the river sur
face. Hideyo untied his burlap bag and took off all his clothes, even his rubber-soled tabi. He shoved them all into the bag, put the bag on his head, and fastened it to him with the rope. That way, if the bag fell off his head it would still be tied to him.

He cast his eyes onto the dark, wide river and wondered if he could swim across. The thought flashed through his mind that if he was spotted and killed, this running water would be crimsoned by his blood.

The boys looked at each other. They shook hands.

Hee Cho whispered, “
Chosim haesŏ kaseyo
(Go carefully).”

“
KomapsÅ­mnida
(Thank you),” whispered Hideyo.

“
Chaphi jianko kaseyo
(Travel so that you do not get caught).”

“
Ŭnhe rŭl ichi an gesŭmnida
(I will not forget your kindness).”

“
ChigÅ­m kaseyo
(Go now)!”

When the searchlight had passed over them, Hideyo slipped into the river. It was much colder than he had expected and the current was very strong. He swam. Each time a light came toward him he dove under, so that only his bag showed, half submerged and looking, he hoped, like a floating log. Again and again he had to dive.

Gunfire burst in the air, echoing in a thousand directions. Hideyo did not know whether it was aimed at him, at some other escapees, or at wild animals. The light swept over him again and he submerged
deeper. He could see the shore not far from him, but the current kept pushing him downstream and so many submergings slowed him.

Again gunfire. A bullet hit the bag on Hideyo's head and dropped to the surface. He could hear the bullets piercing the waters all around him. He dove deeper and let the current carry him. Then he swam again. When he finally reached the south side he lay as dead when the light shone his way, then crawled toward the bushes, exhausted.

He had escaped across the dangerous thirty-eighth parallel. He took a deep breath of freedom. He thanked God for the Kim family and hoped that they would see in a dream that he had made it to the other side.

His Korean clothes, protected by the fur coat, blanket, and the family album, were only damp, and he put them on. He had been carried so far by the current that he did not know his direction, so he spread his wet blanket and slept.

The sky was bright when he woke. He ate one rice ball filled with kimch'i, the Korean pickle that he liked so much. As he ate the hot, garlicky pickle he remembered reaching the Kims' house in the blizzard, and being returned to consciousness with Mrs. Kim there.

He had been saved, one step from death, and now he was no longer afraid of getting caught or being shot. He walked joyfully, eagerly searching through the bushes to locate the road. At a farmhouse he
asked directions to Seoul and took fast steps toward the city. He still carried that burlap bag around his hips, and for some reason he did not want to carry a rucksack, as a Japanese boy should. Perhaps he wanted to follow the Korean custom as a sign of love for Mrs. Kim. He walked about forty miles.

In Seoul he went straight to the railroad station, where Mother's note had said she and her daughters would be waiting. But he did not see his loved ones. He asked station workers, but so many Japanese women had come by with their children that they could not help him.

For seven nights he slept in a corner of the station, searching for his family during the days. He began to wonder if they had been killed. Then he went to the American Red Cross, which was now helping Japanese and Korean escapees. The Kawashima name was not listed in the register of refugees.