Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story (12 page)

T
WENTY

T
he next day
I went to work on the outside of the house. I pulled weeds in the yard and climbed up on the roof to straighten the tiles. I scrubbed the stucco walls until my knuckles bled. I raked the yard smooth with a tree branch.

In the mornings of the days and weeks that followed, I searched on my hands and knees for the tiniest speck of dirt in the house and when I found one, I cleaned the entire house again. And each day I pulled weeds and picked stones from the field behind the house until not even a pebble was out of place. I gathered wood and vegetables until I had as much as we used to put up for the winter. And every night, I scrubbed myself raw and washed my clothes and carefully braided my hair and waited by the fire trying to remember my life the way it was before.

Then one gray afternoon as I was raking the yard, an old woman came up the road and stopped by where the persimmon tree had been. “
Anyehaseyo
” the woman said. “Are you the girl who used to live here?”

“
Anyehaseyo
,” I said with a bow. “Yes I am. Do you know where my family is?”

“I’m cold and need to rest,” she said. “May I come into your house?” I showed her in and invited her to sit at the table. I thought I had seen her before. She was bent from age and too much hard labor. Her clothing was tattered and stained. She coughed deeply several times and collapsed in the chair.

I offered her some rice and a few carrots. She devoured them as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. After she finished, she sat a while as if she had to gather strength. Then she eyed me. “I live down the road,” she said. “What is your name?”

“I am Hong, Ja-hee,” I answered. “My father is Hong Kwan-bae and my mother, Suh Bo-sun. The Japanese sent my
onni
and me away to work in the boot factory. The Russians told me to come home and wait here. Please tell me what you know about my family.”

The woman had another coughing spell, making her face turn purple. It took her a full minute to recover. “I knew your mother,” she said finally. “We worked at the uniform factory together.”

“You know my mother?” My heart pounded. I moved closer to the woman. “Where is she? Please tell me.”

“I am sorry to tell you young one, when you and your sister went away, your mother…” The woman lowered her eyes. “Your mother knew before you left home, that your father had been killed in the Philippines. The Japanese never sent him to Pyongyang like they said. They forced him to be a soldier and fight for them. She never told you that he had died.

“And,” the woman said, “your mother is dead, too.”

I clearly heard the word ‘dead’ but it was only a sound floating in the air. “Dead,” I repeated, trying to understand what it meant.

“Yes,” the woman said. “One very cold day about two years ago, your mother hadn’t been to work for many days. The women from the factory found her sitting under the persimmon tree, dead from the cold. We buried her in the field with the tall grass just north of your house.”

“No,” I heard myself say. “You must be mistaken. It couldn’t be my mother you buried.” Then I remembered Mother had burned all the wood the night before Soo-hee and I had left for Sinuiju. I remembered her saying she refused to give the Japanese anything more. And I knew the woman was not mistaken.

The old woman stood to leave. “Go to Sinuiju,” she said. “The new government is taking a census. You have to give them your information. Perhaps you can find work there.” The woman thanked me for the rice and carrots and left through the tarpaulin door.

For a long time I sat alone inside my perfectly clean house and let the woman’s message sink in. At first, I was glad that my parents were gone so I wouldn’t have to tell them about Dongfeng. Then I was overcome with loss. My family was gone. Everyone I once loved was gone and I knew my life would never again be like it was, like I so desperately wanted it to be again. And I cried. Through my tears, I tried to see my future without Soo-hee by my side or my parent’s gentle love. But all I could see was the darkness of being alone. I wondered how I could go on, what I had to live for. I wished I was dead like the rest of my family.

And as I sat at the table, I finally remembered. I remembered the meals that my family had shared after a hard day’s work in the fields. I remembered my joy in seeing my grandparents when they visited during the New Year. I remembered how Soo-hee and I played in our front yard and my mother teaching us to read in the great room. I remembered trying to teach Soo-hee to speak Japanese and getting frustrated with her. And I was sad, but thankful that I could remember again.

And after I had remembered it all, I retrieved the comb from underneath my blanket and took it to the fire. I looked at the dragon with its claws and two heads. I thought of my great-great grandmother and my ancestors who had passed the comb to their daughters. Their spirits had brought it to me and I was now responsible to all those who had carried it before me.

I sat in front of the fire and let down my hair. And I combed it with the comb with the two-headed dragon.

*

Growing up, I never thought much about Korean traditions. I participated in them of course, because that was what my family did. Being young, I saw them as just something we had to do because we were Korean. But now that my family was gone, our traditions were important to me.

So the next day I rose before dawn and didn’t clean the house for the first time in weeks because Koreans do no work during the time of mourning. I didn’t cook rice and I didn’t eat. I wore my hair down as we did when my grandparents died.

I took a handful of rice and carrots and my father’s tin cup out to the field with the tall grass and found the mound of dirt where they had buried my mother. I tossed three handfuls of dirt on my mother’s grave, the
chwit’o
ritual that I had seen done at funerals when I was young. I took great care to smooth the ground and clean it of pebbles. With my eyes low, I placed the rice and carrots on the grave to nourish my mother’s spirit for its long journey. I put my father’s cup on the mound so she could give it to him when their spirits met.

I touched the cool earth and raised my eyes up. And in the aspen trees beyond the field I had so perfectly cleaned, I saw the faces of my father and my grandparents and all my ancestors. And in front of them all, I saw the face of my mother.

“Thank you,
Ummah
,” I said softly. “Thank you for all you did for me and for teaching me to read and write. I am sorry for what I did in Dongfeng and I’m sorry I couldn’t save Soo-hee. I have the comb you gave Soo-hee. I will take care of it as you said we should.” I took a handful of dirt and let it trickle through my fingers. I stayed a minute more, quiet and respectful, as I should have been when I was young.

I went back to the house, made a sack out of my blanket, and packed it with rice, carrots, potatoes, the photograph of my family, and the comb. I dragged the
onggi
of rice to the front of the house where the old woman would find it. And then I set off.

The sun had climbed over the hills in the east and the morning air was warming when I walked past where the persimmon tree had been. I turned toward Sinuiju. After a week of meals and hard work, I was strong and made good time. I was in Sinuiju by early afternoon.

I walked to the two-story military headquarters where the Japanese had been two years earlier. A Korean flag had replaced the white flag with a red circle. I went in the building to the large open room with the wood-planked floor. A few uniformed Russian soldiers worked at desks, but most of the people inside were Korean. There was an expectant buzz. I was glad the Japanese were gone. But honestly, it felt a little strange.

I approached a middle-aged, female clerk sitting at a desk under a sign that read ‘Records’ in Hangul. It was the first time since I was a little girl I had seen a sign in Hangul. “My name is Hong Ja-hee,” I said in Japanese. “I have come for the census.”

The clerk peered over glasses perched on the end of her nose. “Why are you talking in Japanese?” she said.

I lowered my eyes. “I am sorry,” I said in Korean.

She turned back to the papers on her desk. “We only take census in the morning,” she said without emotion. “You will have to come back tomorrow.”

“Please excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “If I must wait until tomorrow, do you know where I can stay tonight? I don’t have anyone here.”

“I don’t know,” the clerk said.

As I turned to leave, a man stood from a desk behind the clerk. “Wait,” he said. “Perhaps I can help.”

The clerk lowered her head as the man approached.

“I’m in charge of the census,” he said. “Come to my desk. I’ll take your information.” He smiled. It was the first time a man had smiled pleasantly at me in over two years.

T
WENTY-ONE

T
his man was
like no other I had ever seen. His skin was smooth, his hair long and shiny. Over his medium build, he wore an unusual, loose cotton shirt. He wore leather slip-on shoes the likes of which I had never seen before.

He pointed to a chair next to his desk and told me to sit. He asked my name as he retrieved a sheet of paper and pen from his desk. I sat straight-backed with my hands in my lap. I gave him my name and he wrote it down.

He asked my age. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know. What month is it?”

“September,” he said with a smile that reminded me of Father when he laughed at me for saying something funny. “Almost October.”

“Then, I am just seventeen.”

“Where do you live?”

“On my father’s farm, up the road, north about twenty miles.”

“Father and mother’s name?”

“They are dead, sir,” I said.

He looked at me and I saw kindness in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The Japanese killed many people. I’m in charge of gathering information about what they did here in Sinuiju. Please, tell me their names and how they died.”

I did and the man wrote it down, careful not to miss any details. Then he asked, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Yes, a sister, Soo-hee. She is… was my
onni
. She was two years older.”

“Where is she?”

“I think she is dead, too, sir.”

“I’m sorry. How did she die?”

“The Japanese took her away,” I said. “To China.”

“I see,” he nodded as if he understood and wrote something on the paper. “What did you do during this time?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t tell him I was an
ianfu
. So I said, “I worked in the boot factory.”

“The boot factory?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

“I see.” The man smiled his smile again and this time, he didn’t write anything down. He put the paper on top of a large stack, then put his pen in the holder on the desk. “I heard you say you don’t have anywhere to stay here in Sinuiju,” he said.

“Yes, sir. I came for the census and I was told I could find work here.”

The man leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “The city is full of people with nowhere to go. And there’s not much work, either.”

He eyed me for a long time making me feel as if I had done something wrong. I thought he might be looking at me sexually like the soldiers at the comfort station. Finally he said, “Perhaps you can help me and I can help you too. My wife is pregnant. It’s been difficult for her. She gets tired easily. We have an apartment with one of our friends near the river. If you would like, you can work for us for food and a place to stay.”

I thought of all of the men I had known over the past two years—Colonel Matsumoto, Corporal Kaori, Lieutenant Tanaka. I wondered if this man was like them. But I couldn’t walk back home, not this late in the day. And there was honesty in him. “I would be grateful for the work,” I said with a bow.

“Good. My name is Pak Jin-mo. Wait over there on that bench. I’ll be done here soon.”

*

Thirty minutes later, Jin-mo stuffed some books in a canvas satchel and threw it over his shoulder. He led me from the military headquarters to an area of town by the shipyards on the Yalu River. An evening breeze blew from the south and the day was pleasantly warm. The shipyard was crawling with men unloading supplies and military equipment from large gray ships. The ships were flying the same Russian flag that had flown over Dongfeng after the Japanese had fled. There were Russian soldiers in this area of Sinuiju and to my surprise, Korean men in military uniforms.

We came to Jin-mo’s apartment. As we pushed through a door leading to a set of stairs, Jin-mo stopped and said in a low voice, “Don’t tell anyone you worked in the boot factory. Just tell them you lived on your parent’s farm. Okay?”

I nodded. I looked up the stairs and wondered what I would find behind the door. I thought about running back to my home in the hills. But Jin-mo’s eyes met mine and he said. “It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.” I decided I had to trust him.

He led me up the stairs to a two-room apartment overlooking the river. When we stepped through the door, I was relieved to see a woman at the stove. A man about Jin-mo’s age sat on the floor in front of an old radio. “Hello, comrades,” Jin-mo said kicking off his leather shoes. When they saw me, the man lifted himself onto a crutch and the woman turned from the stove. Her pregnant belly protruded from underneath her blue blouse.

“This is Hong, Ja-hee. The Japanese killed her family and she has nowhere to go. She can help Ki-soo.” He pointed at the pregnant woman. “This is my wife, Choi Ki-soo. And that’s my comrade, Park Seung-yo.”

I bowed to them. Choi Ki-soo, tall and pretty with hair down to the middle of her back, was expressionless as she said, “
Anyahasayo
.” She wore simple pajama-like pants that went to just above her ankles. She wore
zori
without
tabi
. I could see in her face the weathered hardness that I had seen in the comfort women in Dongfeng.

Park Seung-yo stood in front of the radio and nodded his greeting. He had only one leg and the wooden crutch he leaned on was worn smooth and shiny. After I bowed to him, he curled his leg and stump underneath him. Then he began to fiddle with the knobs and antenna on the radio. Faint whistles and static came from the speaker.

Jin-mo pointed to the floor next to Seung-yo. “You’ll have to stay in this room with Seung-yo,” he said. “Ki and I have the other room. After dinner, we’ll find a mat for you.” Jin-mo walked over to Ki-soo and put his arm around her bloated belly. I was surprised and embarrassed at the open display of affection. It was not how proper Koreans behaved.

As Ki-soo continued to stir the rice, Jin-mo disappeared through a door into the other room. I took off my
tabi
and put my cloth sack on the floor next to the wall. The apartment was neat and clean with windows overlooking the street below and the harbor beyond. The wooden furniture was simple. On one wall was a cabinet filled with many books like we used to have at home.

I went to Ki-soo. “May I help?” I asked.

She didn’t look up. “It’s almost done,” she said. “I was able to get a chicken on the dock and onions for
bulgogi
. I need to eat meat for the baby. Where are you from?”

“I lived on my parent’s farm east of here.”

“Jin-mo said your family is dead.”

“Yes, they are.”

Ki-soo pressed a hand into the small of her back. “How did they die?”

“My father was sent to fight for the Japanese and died in battle. They sent my sister to China and she died there. My mother was killed by the Japanese.”

“Japanese pigs,” Ki-soo said. Then, she looked sideways at me making me uncomfortable. “And you, so young and pretty, you stayed at the farm after your mother died?”

“Yes,” I answered.

After a few moments, Ki-soo said, “Get chopsticks and bowls from the cupboard. Jin likes to eat right away when he gets home.”

*

During the meal, Jin-mo, Seung-yo, and Ki-soo fell into a passionate discussion about the rich, the poor, property and workers. Mother always said that it was an insult to the cook if young people talked while the elders ate. Soo-hee often pinched me under the table when I did. So I didn’t talk and concentrated on my food. Over the past few years, I had forgotten what good food tasted like. In Dongfeng, the comfort women rarely ate meat and when we did, it was often tough, boiled horsemeat. But here, the chicken
bulgogi
was delicious. It felt like the meals I’d had with my family when I was a young girl.

Jin-mo sat close to Ki-soo at the low table. He did more talking than eating and the meal lasted a long time. Ki-soo kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye. Seung-yo, with his good leg tucked underneath him and his stump out front, devoured his food and talked with his mouth full. Then, when Jin-mo, the eldest male, finished eating, everyone stopped. I helped clear the table while Jin-mo and Seung-yo tinkered with the radio antenna. Finally, Jin-mo exclaimed, “Got it!” A faint voice came over the radio’s speaker.

The high-pitched voice was saying something in Korean. Ki-soo lowered herself to the floor next to Jin-mo and I sat behind Seung-yo. I could only catch a few words above the static but the others listened carefully, especially Jin-mo. Every once in a while, he nodded in agreement with what the person on the radio was saying. Eventually, the voice signed off and in its place tinny music played.

Jin-mo turned off the radio. “We have to go to Pyongyang soon,” he said, looking pleased. “The party is gathering there. The Russians are supporting us. We will be the new government of Korea.”

“I’m not going,” Seung-yo said, lighting a cigarette.

Jin-mo leaned forward. “Seung-yo,” he said, “why not?”

“I can’t go to Pyongyang with one leg. It was all I could do to make it to Sinuiju. Anyway, this is my home. It’s where I grew up. Maybe my family will come back someday.” He took a pull on the cigarette and blew smoke toward the ceiling.

Ki-soo pushed herself off the floor without expression. She went to the other room and closed the door. Jin-mo continued to stare at Seung-yo. “I can get a car to go to Pyongyang. You must go. The party needs you. Korea needs you.”

Seung-yo returned Jin-mo’s stare. “I have given plenty to Korea already,” he said. “I just want to rest a while. I’ll find something to do here. I’ll stay in this apartment.” He took another puff from his cigarette.

“But Seung-yo, this is our opportunity! It is what we’ve been fighting for. All those years in the hills and now Korea will be free and we will be the leaders. You cannot quit now.”

“I’m staying,” Seung-yo said simply. He pulled himself over to the corner and curled up on his mat. He took a book out from under the mat and began to read, his cigarette dangling from his lip.

*

Jin-mo and I sat in front of the radio. He sighed and regarded me with his liquid-soft eyes. “What do I do with you?” he said.

I lowered my head. “Perhaps I should leave.”

“And go where?”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then, Jin-mo asked, “Can you read?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “My mother taught me to read Hangul and Chinese. I know Japanese, too. Mother always said I had a good ear for languages.”

“Oh? Do you speak them well?”

“I speak Japanese and Chinese fluently,” I said, looking up. “I have already learned some Russian and English, too.”

A sly smile spread over Jin-mo’s face. “Okay,” he said in Chinese, “tell me, what did you think of our dinner tonight?”

I could feel the corners of my mouth turn up. “I thought it was delicious,” I answered in Chinese, careful to pronounce the words correctly. “I haven’t had chicken in a long time.”

Jin-mo’s grin grew to a full smile. In Japanese, he asked, “What do you think of our apartment? Is it… um…” in Korean, “what’s the Japanese word for ‘satisfactory’?”

I straightened and put out my chin. “
Juubun
is the word.” Then in Japanese, I said, “And I think your apartment is indeed satisfactory. I like the view of the river.”

Jin-mo laughed with delight and my heart skipped a beat. “And you’re learning Russian, too?” he asked, switching back to Korean.

“I haven’t heard it much but I already know many words. Their sentences come together in a strange way. When I hear more, I will learn it quickly.”

Jin-mo shook his head. “You have a remarkable talent indeed. Perhaps you can come to Pyongyang with us. We could use your help.”

“Why are you going to Pyongyang? Why don’t you stay here?”

“Because with the Japanese finally gone, Korea will be free and independent for the first time since they took our country from us. We can do it with a new kind of government, one that represents all Koreans—not just the wealthy, not only the landholders, but the working people, too.”

“I don’t know anything about governments,” I said.

The door from the other room opened and Ki-soo leaned out. “Jin, are you coming?” She had a hand on her belly.

“In a minute,” Jin-mo said. Ki-soo’s face flashed disapproval. She slipped back inside the room and shut the door.

Jin-mo turned back to me. “I have something for you,” he said. He went to the bookshelf and took out a small, well-used book. “This is my most prized possession. It is one of the few copies of The Communist Manifesto translated into Hangul. It’s by a man named Karl Marx. Read it and we can talk more.” He handed me the book.

“Thank you,” I said.

Jin-mo moved toward the room where Ki-soo was. “We won’t leave for Pyongyang for a few weeks. In the meantime, help Ki-soo around the apartment and read that book. Then you can decide if you want to go to Pyongyang with us and join the Communist Party.”