The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (43 page)

“How is this?” Induk cried. “The child knows you! Why, he was never like this, even with us!”

“One would say he recognizes you from some previous life,” Yul-han said, and was troubled, for a strange excitement had taken possession of Liang. He was between laughter and tears, he was struggling to speak and had not enough words, nor could Yul-chun soothe him except by yielding to him and holding him close. This he did for a few moments. Then he gave the child to Induk and he strode from the room.

In the dark garden the two brothers clasped hands and whispered a few last words.

“When shall we meet again?” Yul-han asked.

“Perhaps never,” Yul-chun said. “But perhaps sooner than we dream. I am going back to China!”

“China! Why there?”

“The greatest revolution in man’s history is brewing there. I have much to learn there still—and some day I will come home again to use what I have learned. Have you any money?”

“Yes, I thought you would need it.” Yul-han had prepared a packet of silver coins, all that he had saved, and he gave it now to his brother. They parted then, but Yul-chun suddenly came back the few steps he had taken.

“I do not know why Liang behaved as he did, brother, but this I do know. A great soul came into him somehow when he was born. I am no Buddhist, I have no religion, but I know this is no usual child. Respect him, brother. He has a destiny.”

With these last words, Yul-chun disappeared into the night and Yul-han returned to his house, his heart heavy with concern over what Yul-chun had said. Yet when he came into the room where the beds were spread on the floor, he saw Liang peacefully asleep while Induk, in her nightdress, braided her long hair.

“Is the child himself again?” Yul-han asked.

“Yes,” Induk replied, “except to me he will never be the same again. I know now how Mary, the mother of Jesus, felt. Some day our son will say the same cruel words to me, ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’”

“Now, now,” Yul-han said comforting her. “We are overwrought and we communicated our feelings to the child.”

But Induk would not be comforted. “Some dreadful future lies ahead,” she insisted somberly.

“We must not run to meet it,” Yul-han replied and did not dare to tell her what Yul-chun had said.

Yul-han was a man of quiet prudence and persevering patience. Had the times been as they were before the invaders came, he would have lived the life of a scholar and a country gentleman, his tenants farming his land, his children taught by tutors, and his wife a lady who busied herself only in her house. All his instincts were toward peace. It was revolution enough for him to become a Christian, and he was drawn to that religion because it advocated peace between peoples and kindness between persons and this in a time of war and violence and cruelty. Beyond becoming a Christian he might never have gone except for what befell Induk one spring day.

His small daughter was past a year old, a gentle intelligent child of clinging nature. She could not be separated from her mother, so that wherever Induk went the child was with her, grasping her skirt or holding to her forefinger. When Induk sat down to rest in the house or garden the child was in her lap, refusing even her father. For this reason Yul-han scarcely knew his daughter and he drew his son closer. Because of the difference in the two children, the girl demanding her mother and the boy following after the father, a distance had grown between the parents, imperceptible to both except in small ways. Yul-han in the evening withdrew from the fretfulness of his daughter and Induk’s constant preoccupation with her, and he went into his study and his son followed while Induk and the girl sat in the central room. Nor would the girl go to bed without her mother, and Induk must sit beside her until she fell asleep. Then often she herself was weary and went to her bed, too.

Yul-han, drawn to make his son his companion, did so in adult ways. He told the boy his thoughts, he shared his knowledge and together they discussed what happened each day in the nation. The boy spoke of Woodrow Wilson as though the American were his grandfather, and he began passionately to love that distant country which he had never seen. He kept in a box bits of newspapers where he saw pictures of anything American, and he began to visit his grandfather, who once had been to that country.

“Tell me what America is like,” he begged.

So he would coax Il-han and Il-han searched his memories and spoke of kindly people and tall buildings and big farms and great cities, and all that he could remember of America went into the fresh retentive mind of his grandson. And Liang, with that love of truth and goodness natural to those born with wisdom, absorbed into his being these qualities wherever they were to be found and he was enlightened from within.

Easily then did the boy come to believe in the greatness of Woodrow Wilson, and his image of this man as he thought of him was of a great kindly presence, someone like the Christian God of whom he heard from his mother and from the missionary, a being alive in a mist of music and brightness and righteousness and all hope and beneficence. Wilson, so he believed in his poet’s mind, would come one day out of those heavenly clouds and he would make everyone free and happy. He dreamed how he himself would approach Wilson, with flowers in his hand or fruits. He began to save the best of anything he had for Wilson. If in the autumn he saw a persimmon larger than the others, or an orange more golden than others, or an apple more sweet, a pomegranate more red, he would put it aside for Wilson, however tempted he was to eat the fruit himself, until sometimes Induk would find the fruit rotted and then she would throw it away, reproving him for waste. But Liang never told her why he had saved the fruit. It may be that she was inclined to greater impatience with her son because he was his father’s companion, and even, unknown to herself, because he grew so tall and strong for his age, escaping the ills of childhood, thriving on any food, and always quick to learn and understand, and all this in contrast to her sickly daughter. Yet in justice she knew she could not blame the child, for her own indulgence toward the girl was the means of her separation from Yul-han.

She was glad, therefore, when in the autumn once more she became pregnant, for she hoped that a third child would release her from the clinging girl and so mend the division between herself and Yul-han. She was almost three months pregnant when one day she went to the village market to buy fresh fish for the noonday meal while Ippun stayed to wash the family garments at the brook outside the gate, where women gathered for this task. The little girl went with her as she always did, clinging to a fold of her skirt, and slowly they walked to the village. The child grew weary before they reached the end of the road and Induk stooped and let her clamber to her back and she carried her thus until she came near to the market.

There had been some disturbance in the city the day before, but this was so constant that Induk had paid no heed to what Yul-han had told her, which was that some of the students of the Christian school had been arrested a few days before for shouting “
Mansei
” when the Governor-General had passed by the school gate on his way to his palace. This cry was the cry of old Korea, and hearing it the soldiers in the Governor-General’s bodyguard fell upon the students and hauled them off to prison on a charge of plotting against the Governor-General. This was such a thing as could happen everywhere in the country and did happen every day and it only added to the rising revolt among the people, a silent smoldering which would burst into flames, if hope became opportunity.

When Induk came into the village she saw that it was swarming with soldiers today, a sight not usual in this quiet place. She argued in her mind as to whether she should not return unobtrusively to her house, but she remembered that Yul-han had especially asked about a fish of which he was fond and which was in brief season now. She walked on then, the child on her back, and as she passed the wineshop from which she had helped Ippun to escape, the wineshop keeper came outside his door to be among the soldiers. His face was red with drinking, although the day was not yet at noon, and he laughed and talked to the soldiers, who had also been drinking. Some could drink and remain themselves, but the peculiarity of the invaders was that drink made them ribald and bolder even than they were when sober.

The wineshop keeper saw his chance now for revenge and when Induk passed with the child clinging to her back he pointed at her with his forefinger and shouted, “There goes a Christian and the wife of a teacher in that Christian school where the students cried out yesterday against the noble Governor-General! I have even heard her cry out
Mansei
herself!”

Upon this the soldiers shouted for the village police who came running. Since police were always Japanese they and the soldiers surrounded Induk there in the middle of the street while the people went into their houses and shut their doors in terror so that they might have no part in whatever took place. Induk was alone then, with the child on her back. Seeing herself surrounded by angry faces, the child began to cry, whereupon a policeman snatched her from Induk’s back and threw her aside upon the stone-cobbled street. Other police seized Induk herself and held her hands behind her back.

“Have you ever cried
Mansei?
” a petty officer among the soldiers demanded.

His face was red and his eyes glittered. His short black hair stood erect on his head and he lifted his gun as though he were about to strike her with the butt. Induk was desperate and frightened, the screams of the child wracking her ears, and she did not know what to do. She remained silent, looking from one face to the other until her eyes caught the sight of the wineshop keeper.

“You,” she faltered. “I beg you—we are Korean, you and I—”

He laughed loud coarse laughter. “Now you beg me,” he chortled. “Now you are a beggar—”

“Take her to the police station,” the officer ordered. “Question her and get the truth from her. Did she or did she not shout
Mansei?
”

Induk’s heart all but stopped its beat. If she were in the police station where none could see what might happen, then she would be lost. She made haste to confess whatever would help her.

“It may be,” she faltered, her mouth so dry she could scarcely speak the words, “it may be that at some time, long ago, before I understood—it may be that I did cry
Mansei
, but I promise you—”

It was enough. The soldiers yelled and clapped their hands and the police seized her and hustled her down the street to the police station. Now Induk was all mother and she fought and kicked at the men and tore their faces with her nails.

“My child,” she gasped. “I cannot leave my child here alone—”

The child had run after her, screaming and sobbing, but a soldier seized her and thrust her down to the ground and threatened her with his bayonet. At this Induk was beside herself when suddenly a door opened and a woman ran out and took up the child and ran back with her into the house. Then Induk was quiet. She wiped her face with the hem of her skirt, but before she could speak the police seized her again. They bound her hands behind her back with a strip of cloth and forced her on. In a few minutes she was at the police station, surrounded by men. Terror filled her mind and her body. Her blood ran slow and cold in her veins, her eyes blurred, and her breath stopped in her breast.

As she entered the door of the low brick building a man who stood behind her, whether soldier or police she did not know, stretched out his leg and gave her a strong kick and she fell forward into the room. She struggled to get up but her bound wrists held her down and before she could do more than lift her head a policeman put his foot on her neck and began to beat her with his club. Then he hauled her to her feet and unbound her hands. No sooner had she drawn her breath and smoothed back her hair than the Chief of Police, who had entered the room meanwhile, ordered her to undress. She stared at him, unbelieving. She knew that many times women had been seized thus and made to strip themselves naked, but now that it was herself, she could not move. She only stood staring at him, as though she had not heard.

“Take off your clothes!” he bellowed.

She found her voice somehow. “Sir,” she stammered, “sir, I am the wife of—of—a respected man—I am a mother—For the sake of decency—do not—do not—”

With a strange howl the men rushed forward and tore off her garments. She clung to her undergarments but they were torn out of her hands. She tried to sit down to hide herself but they forced her up. She turned to the wall, trying to conceal herself from the many men in the room but they forced her to turn around again. She tried to shelter herself with her arms, but one man twisted her arms and held her hands behind her back and the others beat and kicked her. Bruised and bleeding, she would have fallen to the floor but they held her up to continue the beating until her head fell forward on her breast and she knew no more.

In the village word of what was happening flew from house to house. Among the villagers some stayed in their houses from dire fear, but others gathered in the street in a fury and outrage, and the hotbloods among them were for attacking the police station and rescuing Induk. Others declared that this would only mean that they and their families would next be attacked. After such argument two among them who were Christians were chosen to go to the police station and protest against the stripping of women.

Some hours had passed before this decision was come to, and when the two went to the police station, both old men and near the end of their days anyway, they found no women there. Wherever Induk was, they did not see her. Instead the Chief of Police received them courteously, sitting behind his desk in his office. When they spoke against the stripping of women, declaring it unlawful, the Chief of Police was only cold.

“You are mistaken,” he said shortly. “It is not against our law. We must strip prisoners to see that they carry no illegal papers.”

The older of the two men spoke up bravely. “Then why do you strip only young women? And why do you not also strip men?”