“I have already written them,” he said, his voice low and solemn. “They are addressed to—”
He held out the letters for Liang to see. Liang nodded and Yul-chun proceeded.
“In case the letter to the President does not reach him, I have this friend—” he pointed to the second letter—“who will then go personally to Washington. He has access to the President. This is essential, for the President does not know our history, else how could he have suggested two years ago that Korea be placed under the international trusteeship of China, the United States and, he said, one or two other nations? We, who have been a nation for four thousand years! What if that one other nation were Russia! In my letter to him I have explained the fearful peril of Russia.”
Here Yul-chun felt compelled to pause, so great was his agitation. He set his lips, he cleared his throat and heaved up a sigh from the bottom of his heart. Then he continued.
“I repeat to both of you, who will outlive me, the day may come when we will look back to these years under the Japanese rulers and call them good. At least the Japanese have prevented the Russians. I say this, although I have known the torture of my flesh and the breaking of my bones under the hands of a Japanese torturer.”
They listened to him in silence, motionless, their quiet expressing their respect and their awe. They loved him for the legend that he had become in their country, the Living Reed, and for what he was now, heroic, selfless, a tall powerful man, worn with suffering, his face noble and bold but lined too early with pain, his thick dark hair already gray. Suddenly Liang spoke.
“Uncle, I told Sasha that she was going to the United States with letters. Did I do wrong?”
“You did very wrong,” Yul-chun exclaimed. Then realizing what he had said, he turned to Mariko. “My son is not evil. I am sure he is not evil. He has not lived in his own country and now he seems somewhat lost here. We must win him to our family. Liang, I cannot blame you, but—”
The door to the right opened, and as though he had heard his name Sasha came in. He was dressed in western clothes, a hat in his hand, a coat over his arm. He looked at the three, surprised. Or was it pretense at surprise? Liang could not decide. Yul-chun spoke immediately and too quickly.
“Come in, my son. Liang has told you. We are sending the letters. I have made them very brief but firm, very firm. As for example, to the President I—this is the copy, I kept it for our own records. Now that you know—I am very glad you know—Liang, I change my mind, it is well that you told him. I would like Sasha to become part of us—”
Yul-chun was fumbling among papers in the secret compartment. “Yes, here it is. Yes! To the President as follows—”
And again Yul-chun lifted the paper and read in his loud clear voice. “We in Korea have been deeply disturbed for the past two years. Those few words agreed upon by you, Sir, and the British Prime Minister and the Nationalist Chinese ruler Chiang, haunt us day and night. I repeat them, Sir, lest you have forgotten what we can never forget. ‘The aforesaid Powers, mindful of the enslavement of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea become free and independent.’ These words, Sir, are carved into our hearts and they bleed. ‘In due course.’ Sir, in the space of these three small words Korea is doomed.”
When he heard this, Liang had one of his moments of foreknowledge. He could not explain the prophetic weight, he tried to escape it, he shrugged it off. He rose and walked about the room, but could not escape. Doom! The heavy word resounded in his ears as though he heard near him the single heavy beat of a great bass drum, and the echoes reverberated into the future.
Behind him, afar off, he heard Sasha’s voice. “I am going into the city, Mariko. The carriage is at the door. Come with me.”
Liang turned. Mariko rose, unwilling, and looked from one to the other bewildered. Her asking eyes rested on Liang’s face. He nodded as though she had spoken and she bowed to Yul-chun and followed Sasha from the room.
“But here are the letters,” Yul-chun exclaimed.
“I will take them to her tonight,” Liang said. “It is better that she does not have them with her now—”
… She was in the house directing the packing of her costumes for her tour when he went to her that evening. Japanese kimono, narrow Chinese robes slit boldly up the thigh, French evening gowns, English tweed suits and Russian furs were piled on the mat-covered floors. Three maids worked silently and without rest under her command. She sat in a deep chair, frowning with decisions made quickly and without argument. At the sight of Liang she rose and went to the other room and closed the wall screens.
“But at last,” she exclaimed when they were alone. “Where have you been? I thought I would have to leave without seeing you.”
“I came by horseback,” he said. “The snow is a foot deep. I inquired at the airport to know if the planes were stopped, but they are not.”
“Are you coming to the theatre tonight?”
“Yes, but not to your room. And not to the airport. We shall not meet again until you return.”
She stood motionless as a deer stands, suddenly afraid. “How has Sasha so much money? Those new clothes!”
“I do not know.”
“Are you afraid of Sasha, too?”
“No, I am afraid of no one.”
“Why, oh why did you let him take me away?”
“It is not the time to quarrel with him. And you must not be afraid. You are an artist. No one can destroy you unless you destroy yourself by fears.”
“Let us not speak of Sasha,” she said with resolution. “Have you the letters?”
“Yes.” He took them from his pocket and she thrust them into the bosom of the Japanese kimono.
“Tell Sasha not to come to the theatre!”
“If I see him.”
They stood looking at each other, suddenly speechless, the abyss of being parted already between them.
“When you come back …” he said and stopped.
“When I come back,” she repeated. “Oh when I come back—yes—yes—yes—”
“The war may be over. And we—”
“Yes!”
The word was a yearning sigh. He put out his hands and she clasped them in hers and then loosed them and pressed herself against him. He bent his head and kissed her deeply. They stood for a long moment, until the maid called from behind the wall screen.
“Mistress, shall I put the gold dress into the box for Paris, or is it to be worn in New York?”
She tore herself away, gave him a pleading look, and left him, and he knew he would not see her alone again.
… Whether Sasha went to the airport Liang did not know. He did not see his cousin at the theatre and he returned to the hospital. The next day he performed a difficult and new operation alone for the first time, the American doctor at his side but taking no part. The necessity for concentration helped the hours to pass, and Liang finished his task at noon, his patient still alive and likely to live.
“Good work,” the American exclaimed. “I thought for a moment that the artery might slip from your hand. But you’re a born surgeon. I never saw better hands for it.”
The patient was a young man who had been stabbed, the lung pierced and the heart damaged. Liang knew how it had been done. He recognized the man as a leader of the new terrorists. Now he would live again to kill others!
Liang pulled off his rubber gloves. “Thank you, sir,” he said to the American. “You have taught me all I know.”
“I’d like to send you to Johns Hopkins,” the American said warmly. “Some such great hospital, anyway. Techniques for heart surgery are improving every day. Say, I never saw an artery tied like that, though!”
“A Korean knot,” Liang said, taking off his white coat. “It holds fast, but a touch can release it—if you know the touch!”
“You sure have the touch.”
The American clapped him on the shoulder and Liang smiled and went to his office.
By now Mariko must be nearly h
alfway to New York. The first letter would soon be safely out of her hands. Those little hands, so supple, so graceful in the dance! On that last night she had made her farewell program of old Korean folk dances, the Sword Dance, the climax of the evening. All knew that it was not by chance that she had chosen to perform the story of the famous boy dancer of the ancient Silla Kingdom who perfected himself in a dance, holding a sword in each hand. His fame spread over the whole peninsula until he was summoned to appear before the King of Paekche, the enemy of Silla. There before the throne he danced so well that the audience cried out, beside themselves with pleasure, and the King rose from his throne. At that moment the dancer leaping forward thrust his sword into the King’s heart He was killed, of course, but by his courage he had inspired his own people in Silla and in his memory they preserved the Sword Dance. Mariko had performed it with classical style, even to wearing the mask of a boy’s face, her dance-swords, the blades connected by wires to the handles, striking in rhythm with her flying feet. When she had finished, the audience rose shouting to its feet. She had snatched off her mask to show her own lovely face, and bowed again and again, her eyes fixed, as Liang knew, upon his face. Then she had run away, the ends of her wide golden sash flying behind her, and he saw her no more.
The endlessness of time until they met again! For the first time in his life he, the light of heart, felt his heart heavy in his breast. “Attachment,” Buddha had said, “is the cause of grief.” He pondered the saying, and that night in his room, he wrote it down. After a time he made a poem.
Buddha was both right and wrong.
Attachment with all its pain,
Is now my deepest gain,
My inward Song—
Life long!
He copied it carefully and without writing his name beneath it he put it in an envelope and addressed it to Mariko in New York. They had agreed it would be too dangerous for them to write. But what could a Japanese censor make of a poem?
The American President died suddenly one spring day. The news echoed around the world and into every city and village in Korea. Liang heard it in the hospital and hastened home to announce it to his grandfather and uncle.
Yul-chun drew him aside. “Do you know whether the letter was delivered?”
“I have heard nothing,” Liang replied.
“We cannot know in any case whether the one who takes his place will see the letter,” Yul-chun said, downcast.
“We cannot know anything,” Liang agreed. “We can only wait.”
… Spring passed and summer entered. Liang worked day and night at the hospital and saw little of Sasha until the school year ended. Silence filled the land, a tension of waiting. The end of the war was inevitably near, the world knew it, and yet the mechanism to force that end could not be found. In Seoul the police grew every day more oppressive and all controls were tightened throughout the country. Jails were filled and schools put under surveillance. Germany surrendered and the tension increased. Every Korean now knew that Japan must surrender and every heart was impatient because there was no surrender.
“A blind and stubborn people, the Japanese,” Yul-chun declared.
“The people know nothing of what goes on behind the military screen,” Liang replied.
It was midsummer and they were in the garden for respite from the heat. Sasha was teasing a puppy by dipping it into the goldfish pond, and Liang could not bear to see the small creature’s fright. He walked abruptly to the pool and took the shivering dog into his arms and Sasha threw pebbles into the water to scare the fish.
“I am going to Paris,” he announced.
They heard this in silence. Then Il-han spoke. “I was in Paris once, to see Woodrow Wilson. Many people were there from many countries. He was surprised to see us pressing around him, each begging for his help. I know now he was frightened.”
“Of you?” Sasha asked idly.
“Of himself,” Il-han said.
A roar of thunder rumbled from the mountains to the north, and a naked flash of lightning forked across the twilight sky.
“Come into the house!” Sunia cried at them from the door.
They went in slowly, reluctant to leave the coolness. Sasha lingered alone in the doorway. Suddenly he saw the puppy under a bush and dragging it forth he dropped it into the pool.
… The summer days wore on, hot and long. Liang still heard nothing from Mariko and there was no announced surrender, although the Japanese were losing on every front. People were weary with waiting. Yet they could only wait. One night a man with a gunshot through his leg was brought into the emergency ward and Liang’s duty was to tend the wound. When it was cleaned and bandaged, the man pressed a small square of folded paper into his hand. Accustomed to such messages, Liang said nothing. He turned his back and unfolded the paper. It was addressed to the Japanese people but signed by Americans and it gave the conditions of surrender, warning them also that if Japan did not surrender, eleven cities would be bombed.
He returned to the wounded man now lying on the bed and leaned over him, pretending to adjust his pillow.
“Were they bombed?”
“Six cities.”
“We have not heard of it here.”
“I am just back from Japan.”
“No surrender?”
“None. The Japanese government is split. The peace party has asked Russia to mediate. They ignore the American warning—with scorn.”
“The other cities?”
“They will be destroyed. Millions of leaflets have warned a second time.”
“The people?”
“Dazed, immobile, waiting.”
“What next?”
“The Americans have a new and terrible weapon. It is next—unless Russia acts.”
“Will Russia—”
“No.”
A nurse came near and Liang went away. He hastened to his room, took off his western garments and put on Korean robes. Thus disguised, he left the hospital and the city and returned to his grandfather’s house.
… In the house, meanwhile, there was already confusion. Yul-chun had received a secret message, carried by a fruit vendor from the north. Among his apples and peaches the man had hidden certain objects which could only be Russian, and Yul-chun in the garden recognized them as the man bargained. The man nodded mysteriously when Yul-chun inquired, then drew near to whisper.
“The Russians are pouring into the north!”
These fearful words fell upon Yul-chun’s ears and he hastened to tell them to his father. Il-han was lying in a long chair of woven rattan, smoking his long bamboo pipe as he listened. He knocked the ash from the small brass bowl at one end and filled it with the strong sweet tobacco he enjoyed in his old age.
“Father!” Yul-chun exclaimed. “Do you say nothing?”
“What is there to say?” Il-han replied. He lay back and drew hard on the pipe and two streams of smoke came from his nostrils.
“Then I must go into the city,” Yul-chun exclaimed, more than a little angry with his old father. “I must get in touch again with the underground—”
“Calm yourself,” Il-han told him. “You will only get yourself killed. Do you think the Japanese are not watching for you? They are waiting to see what you will do.”
“Why do you say this?”
“Because they know everything, and nothing you can do now will save us. Pretend you are ill. Go to bed. Declare that you have a fever. I will tell everyone you are not expected to live. We must wait. Then when the Japanese surrender we must all be ready to seize the power.”
“But if the Russian troops—”
“There will be a brief moment, a few hours between the surrender and the arrival. Let us hope there will be the brief moment—the few hours—”
They were interrupted by Sasha bursting through the gate. His eyes were wide, his whole face exploding with what he had to tell, too impetuous for greeting his elders.
“A new bomb, a new bomb has fallen! The whole sky lit in
Japan—a city burst into flames. This morning—it was early morning, just as schools were opening and men going to business—”
It was at this moment that Liang reached home and, following upon Sasha, heard what was said. “The military will not surrender, even though the Emperor wishes it,” he exclaimed.
Sasha gave a loud laugh. “They will see another bomb! Another bomb will fall!”
They were startled by his laughter, they looked at him and at one another, and none spoke. No one, not even his father, knew Sasha well enough to reprove him for such laughter, yet all were frightened by it.
Il-han spoke. “Russia will now declare war on Japan.”
“Let that war be declared,” Sasha said joyously. “What the Americans have begun the Russians will finish!” He laughed again, that loud cruel laughter, and the other three hearing it, could only be silent as he went into the house.
“How did Sasha know of the bombs before any of us?”
They looked at one another and none could answer.
… Two days later Russia declared war on Japan. The news leaked out. Everyone knew and no one talked. Still Japan did not surrender. Russia moved her troops into Manchuria, and still Japan did not surrender. On the third day the second bomb fell on the city of Nagasaki. How many bombs did the Americans have? On the fourth day Japan sent an offer of surrender, stipulating only that the Emperor be left upon his throne.
These blows fell, and the men in the house of the Kim—Il-han, his son and his two grandsons—prepared themselves. The orders from the secret Korean government were that all must wait for the coming of the Americans. Until then there must be no move from Koreans, no reprisals against the Japanese, no sign of rebellion. Let all wait quietly in their houses. Their hope must be in the Americans.
In obedience Liang did not go to the hospital and Sasha stayed, too.
“When will they come?” Yul-chun groaned.
He was the restless one. Il-han was calm with the deep philosophic calm of the old. He watched Yul-chun with something like amusement one day as that one walked from house to garden and garden to house, unable to sit or to read or even to put his hand to a useful task when Sunia suggested the mending of the roof where a few tiles had fallen in a windstorm a few days before.
The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea Page 48