The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (57 page)

“Bear and tiger?” Sasha had sat down on a rock, brushing away the light snow, but now he suddenly stood up.

“Yes,” Liang said, “and so we Koreans have kept the mountain tiger as our national symbol.”

“Bear is the symbol of Russia,” Sasha exclaimed.

Liang laughed. “Let us not stretch symbols too far! Some of our patients say the tiger has nothing to do with gods, that it is our national animal because the map of our country looks like a sitting tiger. Some say it is because we tell the other peoples to leave us in our lair and we will not disturb them, even as the mountain tiger will not attack unless he is attacked.”

Sasha did not answer. He lay back on the cold rock, hands clasped behind his head, and gazed into the purple sky. Too much was happening, and too fast. He was Korean, and among the Russians he had felt alien. Now that he was here, he felt more alien than ever. Yet this was his family, his cousin, his father, his grandparents—those grandparents, like two ancient dolls in their old-fashioned garments! And this cousin, so handsome that it made a man jealous to look at him, and yet this air of being saint, poet, scholar, all that was remote and impractical except that he was a doctor, a surgeon, and wanted to practice among the poor!

“I wish I could remember my mother better,” he said suddenly.

“Tell me about her,” Liang said.

Sasha stared into the sky. “I should remember her better,” he said, “but she worked day and night for our food, and she never talked much. And I was too young to ask the questions that I wish now I had asked. She came of landfolk. I think she did, for she read no books. But how came she to have a jade seal? Yet here in this scholar’s family, I feel out of place.”

Liang rose as he spoke. “Rather, you have been out of place until now. Come—we must buy those clothes. And I have taken half a day’s absence, but I must be back at the hospital and you may come with me—after you are dressed in your own clothes!”

And suddenly he went running down the mountainside like a boy, Sasha following.

… “Dr. Blaine, this is my cousin, Sasha.”

The American stopped in the corridor of the big new hospital. “I didn’t know you had a cousin.”

He put out his hand. Sasha looked at it and Liang laughed.

“He has not known Americans. Sasha, put out your hand, please, like this!”

Sasha put out his hand and felt the warm, strong, foreign hand. The American turned to Liang.

“Did you take that throat culture yesterday, Liang? The woman’s fever is up this morning.”

“The report is on your desk, sir.”

“Good.”

He hurried away, and the two young men went on. Sasha had never been in a hospital before but he was too proud to say so. He looked at everything as though he had seen such things, until at last they came to a ward of young men.

“This is my special ward,” Liang said. “I am responsible for these men. They are all wounded either by accident in some industry or in a political battle.”

“Battle!” Sasha exclaimed.

“Many battles,” Liang said. “We have our underground war. This patient, for example—”

He stopped by the bedside of a haggard boy of seventeen or eighteen. “How were you wounded, Yu-sin?”

“I am a student, sir. Our school went on strike with the factory workers—who get paid only half what Japanese workers get—we were marching—they attacked us with bayonets—we had only sticks we held over our shoulders, symbols of the guns forbidden to us.”

“He has a fractured skull, his right arm broken, three ribs—and a strip of flesh torn from his right hip.”

They went from bed to bed, Liang telling one story after another. In one bed a man lay near death and Liang sent for a nurse and a hypodermic, then called his superior. It was too late. The man ceased to breathe. Liang covered him with the sheet.

“No one knows who he is,” he told Sasha when they were outside again. “He was in the underground and would give no name, either his own or another.”

“How will they know he is gone?” Sasha asked.

“They know,” Liang said. “And another has already taken his place.”

Yul-chun seemed to live in idleness for many months after he returned to his father’s house. This was partly to deceive the Japanese police and partly to allow himself time to decide what he should do. It was true also that he found himself weary after so many years of danger and hardship. He had been plagued by pains in his joints while he walked south with Sasha, but he had not spoken of it, knowing he was under surveillance, and now he decided to return to writing while he waited for the war to end with victory for the western nations, as end it must since the Americans were using their vast national machinery for war. It was a bold decision. As long ago as the end of the war with Russia, Japan had forbidden such Korean newspapers as were not favorable to Japanese. When she annexed Korea in the Christian year 1910, all Korean newspapers were stopped. Only the underground newspaper upon which Yul-chun had worked during the Mansei Demonstration could not be stopped. Ten years later, however, three newspapers were allowed if they did not speak of political matters. The year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, these were stopped. There were now no newspapers in Korea except those Japanese. He prepared to publish as soon as possible not a newspaper but a magazine, wise, clever, subtle, which to an ignorant Japanese would show no hint of subversion, but to an intelligent Korean would convey information. It was not to be a magazine for the merchant, the trades, the landfolk or the seafolk. It was for the intellectual, for the thinkers, for the planners. He would take time for its conception, its preparation. He would choose his associates carefully, and none should be of his own family.

Yul-chun now assumed the life of a recluse and a scholar, traditional for one who had retired from public and political life. He put aside his western clothes and the trousers and jacket of the Chinese and wore the white robes of the Korean gentleman. He bought a horsehair hat, he let his beard grow, he seldom left his father’s house.

Il-han could only be delighted. He assigned two rooms for Yul-chun’s use and gave orders to the household that his son was not to be disturbed, which orders Sunia disobeyed whenever she felt that Yul-chun should be given food and tea. They were poor these days, and she had trouble to arrange for the delicacies she wished him to have, but Ippun was crafty and when she went to the markets she brought back more than she paid for, and Sunia asked no questions. In these times theft was right and lies were necessary.

The household settled itself around the two newcomers, and outwardly all was well enough so long as they were careful not to seem concerned with government. For Il-han this was easy. Age was creeping into his bones and marrow, and he lived in the past. He was typical of his people, conciliatory and peaceful, inclined to resignation. He quoted old proverbs more and more often to express what he could not put into words.

“Can one spit on a smiling face?” he inquired; or he said, “Vengeance cannot last a night’s sleep.” His only reproach to a lazy servant or an idle farmer on the land was a handful of gentle words. “The man who lies under a persimmon tree with his mouth open may never get food, however long his patience.” Most of the time he slept—the sudden short slumbers of the old. Only Sunia did not sleep or rest. She grew old very thin, but the handsome outline of her bones gave strength to her face and bearing. Only her voice did not change. Clear and strong, scolding or tender, to hear that voice without seeing her one would say she was a young woman.

Among these three, the young men lived a life of their own. The difference between them, Yul-chun reflected, was of communication. Sasha could not explain himself to others, nor could he understand beyond the sound of their words to him. But Liang moved in total comprehension. There was a genius in him, and it sent forth a shaft of light between him and every human being. He scarcely needed to speak, it seemed, for in the wholeness of his comprehension of the feelings, the thoughts, the very being of others, they gave him their confidence in return. Enlightenment, the Buddhists called it, and had Liang been Buddhist he would have been a high abbot, or if Tibetan, then a Dalai Lama, an incarnation. The result of this difference between Liang and Sasha was that Liang lived in peace and without apparent struggle, as though when he was born he had already climbed his mountain, while Sasha, imprisoned within himself, fought against the bonds of his own wayward moods, and could not climb beyond himself.

Yet Yul-chun was troubled. The joyful recognition which Liang had given him in babyhood was not renewed. Open as Liang was with him, ready always for talk or service, the special moment did not come and Yul-chun found himself waiting for it as though for ascension.

… In his quiet room in the house of his ancestors Yul-chun now began to spread the net which was to cover not only his own country but other countries as well. His purpose was twofold; first to prepare the Koreans for victory so that when the moment came and the Japanese were expelled, the nation would have its own government ready to function; and second, he planned to hasten victory by rousing the Koreans in other countries, and especially in the United States. Somewhere in the periphery of his mind and consciousness was the warning that Russia must be watched. For hundreds of years Russia had wanted Korea for its seacoast, its treasures of metals and minerals hidden in the mountains, its fisheries, the power of its rushing rivers and high tides. He did not believe that the heart of Russia was changed. Her ambitions might even be sharpened and intensified by a new government of hungry men, whose ancestors had been half-starved peasants. It was now their turn to grow fat and grow rich.

How was he to achieve such immense purpose? He pondered long on the question. He was too well known and he did not doubt that the vital men and women of the underground knew he was at home and were only waiting to reach him. There were many small but important signs of their knowing. Rude drawings of young bamboo appeared on the walls and gates. Certain products of daily use were named Bamboo. Poems about spring and growth were scattered in the streets, none mentioning his name but some using the words “living” and “reed.” He maintained a steady silence, nevertheless, knowing very well that the Japanese authorities understood such signs and knew where he was and were watching him.

He could only conclude as months passed that he must have help. It would be foolish to risk his life and lose hope for his purpose, and after further thought and with reluctance he decided that he would talk with Liang. He hesitated to do so, for he knew that he might involve and imperil his nephew who would some day be the head of the family, and perhaps soon, since his own life was always in peril. Yet so far as he knew, Liang had no interest in politics or government. He seemed absorbed in his hospital, in his patients, in his people. He came and went freely, greeting Japanese as easily as he did his own countrymen, and speaking Japanese without accent. He had many patients among the Japanese who did not trust Korean doctors but did trust Liang. He had graduated with high honors from a Japanese university in the capital yet he had never gone to Japan, saying when he was invited that he was too busy, and that some day he would go when his internship was ended. To the American doctor he behaved as a son, speaking English perfectly and working with warm affection.

Yul-chun observed this universality and hesitated for a matter of weeks before he approached Liang. Could it be possible that a man beloved by all was really to be trusted? Who knew where his secret heart was? In the night he was beset by doubts and questions, but in the morning again, he had only to see Liang’s open face and hear his voice, clear and confident, and especially hear his laughter, to trust him again. At last, compelled by his necessity for help, he decided that he would indeed speak. He waited for the opportune moment.

It came one day in winter, upon the second anniversary of the day when the Americans entered the war. It was evening. The old couple, his parents, had gone to bed early for they felt the cold, and Sasha had been in the city all day and had not returned, might not return, perhaps, for he was restless and often away. Liang was not on duty at the hospital that night and Yul-chun, putting all these signs together, made up his mind to speak after their evening meal.

“I need advice,” he told Liang when Ippun had taken away the dishes and had filled the teapot again.

Liang smiled. “You flatter me, Uncle!”

“No,” Yul-chun replied, “I have been too long away from home and I cannot remain idle.”

With this, he outlined for him his twofold purpose, and thus continued: “It is not difficult for me to communicate with our countrymen abroad. I know all the leaders. Of these the most important are in the United States, and the next in China. The first group must shape American opinion and persuade the American government to recognize our right to independence and to realize that we are able to govern ourselves. Our provisional government is still in existence, its officers now in the United States. Through them we must work, and it is our task from here to keep them informed in both countries of what is taking place. They must keep us informed in return so that proceeding together we shall be ready to take back our country at the moment the Americans arrive upon our shores in victory.”

To his surprise, Liang’s whole being changed. The moment returned, that moment when as an infant he had recognized the man. His face was illumined, his eyes shone, an electric force beamed from him. He put out his hands and grasped Yul-chun’s hands.

“I have been waiting ever since you came back,” he exclaimed. “I thought you would never speak, yet I knew you would, I knew you must.”

Yul-chun was amazed and overjoyed and yet half afraid. This was what he had hoped for, this was what he needed.

They talked long then, Liang assured yet modest, his mind quick and clear. He listened to the long story Yul-chun now told of his life in China, and how he had fought wholeheartedly side by side with the revolution there, and had learned the technique and the tactics, had maintained his work of writing and printing, and then had left, repelled by cruelties and driven by his fear of new tyrannies.