The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (28 page)

He did not answer. Her question was the one he asked himself many times. Was his life wasted? Perhaps for his times and for his people, but not for himself. He had set the task of knowing what he was—he, a Korean. Now he knew. He closed the book.

“It is time to sleep,” he said. “The night grows dark and there is no moon.”

In the early evening of a certain night a messenger came on foot to the gate of Il-han’s grass roof home. Since he was a stranger, the gatekeeper would not admit him until he had himself inspected the man’s appearance. When he had looked at the man from head to foot, he let him in, but held him in the gatehouse under the guard of three other servants until he went to find his master and report the presence and the appearance of this stranger.

Il-han had finished his evening reading of the Confucian classics with his sons. In the mornings now their studies were in mathematics and history, in the afternoons their studies were in literature, and in the evening before they were sent to bed, Il-han read aloud to them the
Book of Poetry
or the
Book of Changes
, expounding in simple words the meaning of the sonorous, ancient words. Each learning period was short for he knew how easily the thoughts of the young wander afield, yet he believed that by this thrice-repeated period each day, his sons’ minds would be permeated with learning and with knowledge of the good, and he dreamed that though his life might be useless, in the lives of his sons his own might continue with benefit to his people.

In the calm of such comfort, then, he had bid his sons sleep well while he settled himself to his own studies, Sunia being absent at the moment and in the kitchen supervising the brew of a ginseng tea which he found soothing to his inner organs at the end of the day. At this moment the gatekeeper was announced by a servant and Il-han nodded his head for the man to enter. The gatekeeper came in and standing near the door in respect he bowed and then spoke.

“Master, there has come a stranger to our gate. I did not let him enter until I had looked at him well. He is a foreigner.”

Il-han let his pen fall from his hand. “Is he wearing foreign dress?”

“No,” the man replied. “He is in proper dress like yours, master. But his face is not our face.”

“Did he give his name?” Il-han asked.

“He said that you would know him if you saw him.”

“How could you understand a foreigner’s language?” Il-han inquired.

“He speaks our language,” the gatekeeper replied.

They looked at each other, master and man. One thought was in each mind. Was this a ruse in order perhaps to stab Il-han? Of all those whom the King had sent to America on the mission, only Il-han remained free in his own house. Min Yong-ik, when he had recovered from his wounds, lived in exile, hiding here and hiding there, rejected even by the Chinese whom he had tried to serve. Hong Yong-sik, who had chosen not to flee with the Japanese when the Chinese soldiers entered the palace, had been cut to pieces before the King’s eyes. So Kwang-pom escaped to Japan and had lived there in exile these ten years, and here in his own country he was now called a traitor. Others were in prison, or in exile in unknown distant villages and farms.

“Master,” the gatekeeper said in a low voice, “I will put my knife through this stranger, and throw his body in the pond.”

For a moment Il-han was frightened, but at himself, because he was tempted. It would be easy—a thing he would never do but if a gatekeeper, faithful to the family—who would know, or if knowing, blame the master? The next moment he recalled what he was and was ashamed. What—had the evil of the times permeated him, too, and to the soul? Because men were killed everywhere in treachery and in secret, was he to stoop to murder? Thus he inquired of himself, and the answer was no, and no again. He took his pen and fitted it into the silver cap and he closed his book and got to his feet.

“I myself will look at this stranger,” he said.

He strode across the garden and down the winding path between the mulberry trees kept for the feeding of silkworms, and then he stooped his head, for he was very tall, and entered the low-roofed gatehouse. Inside, the candle of cow’s fat guttered and in its wavering light he could only see a man leaning sidewise against the wall, his face in profile as he stared into the candlelight. He lifted his head when Il-han came near and then he spoke.

“Have you been here all these years?”

Il-han knew him instantly, though the face was haggard and the eyes aged. It was George Foulk. He put out both his hands and the American clasped them.

“I thought you were dead!” he exclaimed. “I was told you had been killed with all your family and your house sealed.”

“Is my house sealed?” Il-han asked.

“You have never gone back?”

“I have not gone back,” Il-han said, “but my servants have gone and the house was not sealed.”

“Then it is only recently,” Foulk replied. “I sent my own guard to discover who lived in your house, and the gate was sealed and a soldier stood there. At first he too said you were dead, but when he felt money in his palm he said you were living but in exile here in the country. My friend, I must talk with you. Enough has happened in these years to fill a century.”

In the shadow of the trees and the twilight Il-han led the American, still grasping his hand, into the house by a side entrance. There he bade his servant allow no one to enter the room where they would talk, and not even Sunia was to enter, for he did not wish her to have the burden of confessing, perhaps some day when confession might be extorted, that she had ever seen the American in his house. In the quiet of his study, the wall screens closed, he drew Foulk down to the floor cushion beside his, so that they might speak in voices too low for anyone to hear. He trusted his servants, and yet he trusted no one, not even Sunia, for she was a woman and to save his life or her children’s she might one day tell anything.

“Speak,” Il-han said. “The night is not long enough for me to know all you have to tell. Why do you come to me now after this long silence?”

“I want you to know that I am leaving Korea,” Foulk said.

Now there was silence between them. Each gazed at the other in this silence.

“Even you,” Il-han said at last. “Then, indeed we are lost. It means, does it not, that the Americans are giving us up?”

“Not the Americans,” Foulk said. “My people know nothing of yours. This is our sin against you. We are ignorant. In ignorance my government has done nothing to save your people, for the result of ignorance is indifference, and indifference is a desert in which a whole nation can die. I cannot stay to see your people die. I—love Korea.”

These words fell upon Il-han’s ears, each a separate blow as he comprehended their import.

“Tell me what has happened,” he said.

In reply Foulk then told such a story that Il-han could not have believed except that he knew this American was all of a piece, so loyal in friendship, so true, that anything he said was true.

The beginning, as Foulk told it, went back to the year of the treaty with the United States whereby Korea was declared by the Americans a sovereign nation, independent of China, her ancient suzerain. Independent, Korea could and did grant trade rights to Americans. Next was the arrival of Ambassador Foote, with his wife and secretary and the translator Saito.

“A mistake, that Saito,” Il-han put in. “You should not have engaged a Japanese translator. Who knows what words he added or took away for his own benefit?”

“A mistake, that Saito,” Foulk granted and went on with his story.

“The Americans discovered,” he said, “that the King and his cabinet were too weak to exercise sovereignty, however many good men were with him. Men like you, Il-han Kim, even true patriots like you, were accustomed to subservience to the Chinese or the Japanese. You did not believe that you could be strong if you would be.”

“I remember,” Il-han said slowly. “The King said he danced for joy when the Americans came.”

“Yet how can we Americans overcome your fears rooted in the centuries?” Foulk replied. “The King has leaned on us for everything. This has not only angered China, but it angers the other western powers. England and Germany would not ratify their treaties. My government was alarmed and they sent word at first to Foote and when he was gone, to me, that we could advise the King only personally, unless our government sent advice. Yet how could those men far away in Washington, those prudent local men, understand the vast troubles of your valuable country? Knowing too little, we do too little.”

He turned his head away, he bit his lips, muttering, “My government has not even sent me enough money to pay the legation expenses. My ambassador had no money for hiring a clerk and the secretary was serving without salary. We have no money to buy land for a proper legation building—not even land! We should have consulates—other nations have their consulates, and they laugh at our parsimony. The great, rich United States of America! I chose land at Inchon for a beginning, but no money has come for the purchase. Do you wonder that other nations laugh?”

He sighed, and got up and walked around and around the room, his feet noiseless on the ondul floor.

“I should not tell you this—it is our family business—we Americans—and I could endure it all, but your King—he keeps pressing me, begging me to give him American advisers. He has a hundred plans—all good ones—a good man, this King of yours—he could build the nation if he had half a chance, and if our government only knew—if they could only see what they are throwing away—the chance to help him build a strong independent free Korea—a bulwark in Asia!”

“Why do you not go home and tell them?” Il-han asked.

He was embarrassed by many emotions, fear for his people, dismay lest the Americans were indeed unable to help them, and despair for the King. They must fall into the abyss of the greedy nations if no hand stretched out to them in friendship. Who could save them if the Americans did not?

“In addition to all else,” Foulk was saying, “my ambassador was reduced in rank. He was no longer Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. He was only Minister Resident and Consul General. Of course he resigned.”

Il-han could bear no more. “Stupidity—stupidity,” he cried under his breath. “How could your government send us a minister of first rank and then degrade him?”

“He resigned,” Foulk said, “and there is no one to replace him. I am the only one left.”

“Shufeldt?” Il-han suggested.

“Shufeldt will not come,” Foulk replied. “He knows too well what it means—a prudent man! I wish I were as prudent!”

“How old is all this trouble between your ambassador and your government?” Il-han inquired.

“Old—old,” Foulk groaned. He sat down again. “Even before the dinner when Min Yong-ik was nearly killed.”

“And you did not tell me!” Il-han exclaimed.

“I was ashamed,” Foulk said, “and I still had hope that we could persuade those men in Washington.”

“When did your ambassador leave us?” Il-han asked.

“The year after that dinner.”

“And you?”

“I have been in charge ever since, without rank and helpless. And now I too give up. I want one Korean to know why—and you I can trust.”

“I pray you, tell me everything,” Il-han urged. “It may be that I—”

“No hope,” Foulk repeated. “But if you—want to know the worst, here it is.”

With this he enumerated, one by one on his ten fingers, the steps by which he had come to his present despair. Left alone, he had returned to the task of beseeching his superiors to send the American advisers for whom the King so urgently asked.

“The most pressing need of Korea in her present deplorable situation, I told Washington, is competent western instructors for her troops—many of them. Well, what happened? Three teachers were recommended by the Department of State! The King said he would pay for their expenses, but they were not permitted to come, except under private support. And where was I to find the money?”

Now that he had begun his confession to Il-han it seemed that Foulk could not stop himself. He wrung his hands together, he ground his teeth in anguish. “I had no money, I tell you! Because I was acting chargé d’affaires I couldn’t even draw my navy pay—I was allotted half the minister’s fund, but I couldn’t draw the money. And then that German, that von Mollendorf, he got himself appointed head of customs in your capital, since no American advisers came, and he has worked against me continually, trying to get German advisers into Korea with the hope of establishing German influence here—”

“He did not succeed!” Il-han exclaimed.

Foulk went passionately on, as though he recited a program of doom and Il-han could only hold his head and groan as he listened.

“No, but failing to get German advisers, he employed Russian advisers, at least for your armies. Then and for once China and Japan united in pleading with the King that American advisers be sent—they being above all afraid of Russia. Well, the American military advisers are now scheduled to come next year—four years too late! The King has lost confidence in my country and my government and how can I blame him?”

Here Il-han opened his mouth to speak, but Foulk was not finished. “My pay drafts have been returned. Insufficient funds! Appropriations for Korea have been exhausted! And meanwhile I must handle affairs at Chemulpo as well as at Seoul, my country being the only one without a consul in Chemulpo! I resigned six months ago!”

“But you are still here.”

Foulk made bitter laughter. “No one reads the dispatches I send, therefore no one is sent to replace me! In spite of this, your people—” Foulk paused here and leaned his elbows on the low desk, and shaded his eyes with his hands. His voice broke. “Your glorious people still look on me as the representative of the United States, the lodestar of their hope of independence! But I have had to tell them—the leader of the new independence group—a brave young man—I won’t speak his name even here—I have told him that my government is interested only in collecting the indemnity for the
General Sherman
—lost so many years ago.”