There were thousands of people on the hilltop, but only about two hundred of them were men. And the women seemed to recede as the men advanced, so that when the men looked back there was now an expanse of land between them, though only a few hours before the hilltop had been so heavily peopled that there was no room even to walk.
Mr. Kwak carried one of the books he’d purchased the day before, an old Korean history. He had it open to a page concerning the invasion they were about to try to repel.
“It says here that the defenders of Puyo hill were made up of a handful of poorly equipped palace guards and another handful of conscripted militia, laborers and peasants who’d been rounded up from the surrounding estates.”
It was light enough now for them to see the men they stood with and easy to understand that most of them represented the militia. Among them only a dozen were in costumes of any kind. These guys were the palace guards and quickly began shoving the militia around. “Hurry fools, there are boulders waiting near those trees. Bring them over, one at a time.”
Boulders, indeed, Bobby thought. The man spoke roughly, but Bobby put it down to him trying to get into the spirit of the thing, and when Mr. Kwak turned, Bobby followed, just a couple of peasants doing their jobs. From below them they could now clearly hear the shouts of the invading troops. And though there had been no room the night before for anyone to move, when they looked among the trees now they did find boulders, multicolored and numerous and made of papier-mâché.
Except for the cumbersome quality of the boulders Bobby could have carried six, and he tried to suggest to Mr. Kwak that they take as many as they could, setting them nearer the hilltop’s edge so that they’d be readily at hand.
“No,” said Mr. Kwak. “One at a time.”
Judo Lee, though he would have been an excellent boulder man, had been told to stand among the peasants who would pour the boiling water. It had supposedly been prepared on fires since the night before, but when Mr. Kwak and Bobby got back to the hilltop’s edge they could plainly see that the water was cold. Nevertheless there were barrels and barrels of it, and Bobby wondered how in the world they had gotten it up the hill.
While the guards were busy shouting at the water-carrying peasants, Bobby took the opportunity to move closer to the edge, to look down and see what he could of any T’ang-dynasty soldiers close at hand. There were wagons down there, and people were coming from everywhere to pull T’ang uniforms from them. The army was forming before his eyes.
“I get it,” he said. “Those who come early are the victims, those who come late get to be the Chinese.”
“‘The hill was sealed off for the night,’” said Mr. Kwak, reading from his book again. “‘But the women and a handful of guards, hearing of the Korean defeats farther to the north, knew that the hilltop would offer them only temporary safety.’”
“Right,” said Bobby. “Not enough food, not enough shelter either.”
“‘The peasant girls of the town surrounded the palace virgins and all pledged to die for their maidenhood.’”
Bobby looked back at the women, who really were on the other side of the hilltop now, and wondered which ones were peasant girls and which palace virgins. Surely those on the teeter-totters had been royalty. Surely, too, Gloria and the grandmother would be their peasant protection, both of them chaste again.
“This is exciting,” Bobby said. “When will the invasion begin?”
“‘The T’ang had amassed a thousand men,’” read Mr. Kwak, “‘and attacked the hill at first morning light.’”
When he looked down Bobby could see that there probably were a thousand soldiers now, but it had been light for an hour. And would they really fall when the boulders hit them, bouncing harmlessly away? What were the rules in this war?
“The T’ang are coming!” yelled one of the guards. “Prepare to die for Paekche honor!”
For a while the T’ang-dynasty troops tried to catapult papier-mâché boulders of their own up to the top of the hill, but the boulders had nowhere near enough weight for such a lofty ascent, and as soon as their foot soldiers began to traverse the path, the water men soaked them down with a perfect shot, a barrel of it on the heads of the leading dozen. Maybe they were fighting a losing battle, but it was fun. They would not make it easy, no matter what Mr. Kwak’s book said.
For a couple of hours the battle raged. With their ability to catapult gone and their cloth-tipped arrows easy to avoid, the T’ang soldiers had no other choice but to savage the paths with their bodies, running up the hill five abreast. And when they did so the defending water men got most of them. Those with boulders were told to wait until the T’ang were closer, crushing their skulls when they saw the whites of their eyes.
God, the barbarity of times gone by! Bobby mused. Though they had lost no one and cheered when T’ang men fell, by the time of the second major attack, they were out of water and could defend themselves only with their boulders and their hands. This time the T’ang advanced quickly, and though the hill was as steep as it had been the day before, they were soon so close that the call came out for boulders. Mr. Kwak and Bobby stepped up to the hilltop’s edge.
“Steady now,” said one of the guards. “Aim well.”
They waited until a group of about ten were within a few yards of them, and then Mr. Kwak gave a sign. Bobby did aim the boulder well, angrily tossing it down upon their heads. Unfortunately, the same air that had foiled the catapult caused the boulders to bounce off the head of the first man and then float way out from the hill, off to the side. That one man fell dutifully down dead, but the rest of them were up the hill instantly, even as the defenders raised their second boulders up.
Mr. Kwak and Bobby quickly retreated toward the area of the virgins, pulling boulders along with them as they ran. But though Bobby made it through the trees, Mr. Kwak was caught from behind. When Bobby turned, he saw a T’ang soldier raise a sword, Mr. Kwak holding up his history book as if it were protection. “No!” Bobby shouted, but he was too late. Though he threw one of his boulders at the man, crushing his skull, Mr. Kwak’s eyes had lost their luster, the life completely gone from them when he fell.
Bobby backed away. That a man like Mr. Kwak could lose his life in such a battle had not occurred to him before. What about his learning? What about the things he knew? As he ran he mourned for Mr. Kwak, but got the idea of using his remaining boulder as a kind of mammoth boxing glove at the same time. He held tight to the closer folds of the papier-mâché and began to run the thing against the invaders, knocking them down and out en masse.
“Hey!” said one of the T’ang, “a man can’t wield a boulder like that!” and though he’d been killed, he got up and limped back the way he’d come, looking for a referee.
Most of the defenders were dead now, but about twenty of them still formed a semicircle, their backs to the virgins, who were edging toward the cliff on the far side of the hilltop, the one from which they all would eventually leap. When the others saw how Bobby had used his boulder, they picked up boulders of their own, and the defense went on much longer than it would have otherwise. They were like twenty Samsons knocking away at the hordes.
But there were too many T’ang troops even for boulder-wielding men, and the virgins, sensing that their part in things had been put off for too long, began wailing so loudly that the defenders all turned to see whether some T’ang men might have slipped in around the side. There were three thousand of them, Bobby remembered, pushed so far back against the cliff’s edge that it was possible someone really would fall.
Bobby tried to see Gloria or the grandmother, but could not make them out in the mass of women. And the T’ang now were everywhere. He threw his boulder at the closest group and then knelt there, dead tired, a certain resigned spirit overwhelming him.
“Well, well, don’t this beat all,” said one of the T’ang men, and Bobby looked up at the helmeted face of Mr. Nam. The Goma was beside him and smiling.
“I got h
ere early,” Bobby said. “I’m defending the hill.”
Mr. Nam smiled as he did in the teachers’ room and then raised his sword for the kill, but the Goma pretended that someone had shoved him from behind and fell against Mr. Nam so skillfully that the sword cut into the dust at Bobby’s side. Bobby took the opportunity and stood, limping in amongst the three thousand virgins, who swallowed his entry with the quick opening and closing of their gowns.
Bobby could hear the roar of the T’ang and moved with the virgins toward the cliff. But the women moved slowly and he, by making a beeline, was able to get there first, over to the edge of the cliff just ahead of them. He looked over the precipice. Whereas on the town side the hill had been steep, here it was concave, its edge cutting in and down, giving a clear view of the river below, and of the rocks on which all the women had died.
There was a restraining rail, but the lip of the cliff was at best three-feet thick and Bobby was afraid it would crack under the women’s weight, breaking off and really killing them all.
“Hold it,” he shouted. “Don’t come so close, there’s real danger here.”
But though he waved his hands and slapped the sides of his filthy pants, he was like a man on foot in front of a mammoth stampede. What could they possibly have planned, other than real death? he wondered. There was a sign on the other side of the restraining rail telling him that this was the spot of the original virgins’ leap, but now, as the women got near, they turned, choosing another direction, though Bobby still shouted in front of them to the point of such profound exhaustion that his own death, right then, would have been fine. God it was strange to him! He was on his knees when very suddenly he felt like he was watching a marching band or a military unit on parade, column after column of them neatly visible in rows, marching in order, away from him now, and away from the dangerous cliff.
There was an area of designated death that the women would reach before the T’ang got to them, because this was all a dance. They were not running now but moving in review, though Bobby was the only one who’d broken through their ranks and thus the only one really watching. He would have saluted had he had the strength, but the women kept their eyes forward, their arms swinging perfectly at their sides. Three thousand women? he wondered. Surely there couldn’t be so many, for they passed as quickly as if there were only hundreds. When the last of them went by, the T’ang came in behind, and one of them saw Bobby and quickly came over to take his life, a sword touch upon his shoulder, gentle as rain. And as his head slipped under the restraining rail he remembered thinking that surely real death could not be so much different from this and he thought, life should be lived calmly, and he felt himself let go.
Though he could hear sounds, he didn’t move, and though his eyes were open, the blue of the sky seemed to come down and cover them like water. He could feel the three-foot thickness of the earth below and he could taste the blood in his mouth, and he could tell that the T’ang soldier was still standing nearby, waiting to kill him again should he show any sign of life. Such peace and comfort. Ah well, he told himself, there are things in life to consider besides longevity and there would be other lives for him to live.
After that Bobby dozed and the next thing he knew Gloria was there gently shaking him awake again.
“Hey G.I.,” she said. “Pretty fine. Come on. Let’s go.”
Though he tried, he was not able to break loose from the mood that had overtaken him, nor could he slip out from under the restraining rail. It had all been so real: the war, the flight, the death of Mr. Kwak, and the march of the virgins to their own deaths on the rocks below. But it was, after all, still quite early in the morning and Gloria was telling him that everyone wanted to go back down into Puyo for breakfast. The afternoon train would be full, she said, and none of them wanted to brave it as they were.
So Bobby finally stood, letting some air come into his damaged lungs and bending while the Goma slapped the dust from his back. When they crossed the hilltop and started their descent once more, the land seemed as crowded as it had been the night before—more so, of course, with the T’ang soldiers and the virgins settling into the festive spirit again, straightening out their blankets and calling to the hawkers for rice balls and makkoli and beer.
It was difficult going down, and though Gloria chattered away, holding Bobby’s arm when the trail allowed it and smiling in the morning light, his head was still full of the thoughts he’d had when dying there on that hilltop battlefield thirteen hundred years before.
People are won over not by coercion, but by unaffected sincerity. I have known that all my life. Every morning for thirty years I have presented that message, in one form or another, to the teachers in our school. That was my main job, presiding over the morning meeting.
A strong man does not rely on the outward evidences of success in order to form his opinion of himself, but on what he knows to be the true elements of his makeup. This is what I know, this is what I have learned in my life.
Today I presided over my last morning meeting, gave my last address to the teachers, scolded my last student and poured my last cup of teachers’ room tea. Everyone was very kind. When the headmaster spoke of my leaving, he said that thirty years in the same school was a feat not soon to be accomplished again. Of course, that is because the transfer system is now in effect.
When the other teachers stood to speak they followed the old tradition, with everyone saying some little thing, so class was put off until first period was nearly over. And all of the teachers were unfailingly kind, even my enemies, those who are secretly glad to see me go.
Now it is 9:00 P.M. and I am still here, the cardboard box in front of me slowly filling with my small number of personal things… I have been trying to make the day last.
It has occurred to me lately that men don’t live long enough, I think not nearly long enough, and I will tell you why. There is too much to learn and we are too slow at learning it. In two weeks’ time I will become an old man and will be looked to, by my family anyway, for stoic support in times of hardship. In other words, in two weeks’ time I will be wise. But it really seems to me now that these first sixty years of mine, the first sixty years of any man’s life, should be looked upon as the period of childhood, after which a strong and healthy adult can emerge for a good long middle age. That would mean that an entire life would take four times longer than it does now, say about two hundred and forty years, but that would be all right with me.
When the teachers were standing and saying farewell to me today Mr. Bobby stood too. It was very quaint, very precious. His suit had been tailored to fit his shrinking body and the skin of his previously mammoth cheeks was sagging down like melted wax, but what he said was this: “Good-bye Mr. Vice-Headmaster, I have always listened to your morning speeches and tried to let them mark my day.” That was all, but I am inclined to believe that I would be a wise man already if I could only bring myself to truly understand that that is enough.
Written in one of the first-floor classrooms, on my final day, by the light of the outside moon.
Darkening of the Light
Nine at the beginning means: Without rest, he must hurry along, with no permanent abiding place.
As soon as Bobby returned from Puyo, his condition worsened. He managed to finish the school term, but though he was supposed to stay for yet another four months, in the end even the headmaster insisted that he not carry on.
The big news at school, however, other than the poor condition of their Peace Corps volunteer, was that when the provincial teacher transfers were announced, Mr. and Miss Lee were not on the list. Perhaps Taechon was already considered the end of the road, or perhaps the Ministry of Education simply had no idea how to handle dissidents, but for whatever reason, Mr. and Miss Lee were to continue teaching physical education at Taechon Boys’ Middle School. Several of the other teachers were transferred, but the biggest surprise was this: when school resumed again there would be a new vice-headmaster, and the
man chosen for the job was Mr. Nam.
At Policeman Kim’s, the grandmother, whose health hadn’t deteriorated at all since his arrival, took Bobby into the main room of the house so that he could call America, a final gift from Policeman Kim, who, though not at home, left a message that he was saddened by Bobby’s departure and sent his best regards.
It took a long time for the man at the post office to answer his phone, and it took longer once he understood that Bobby actually wanted to call the United States for anything else to be done. But in a while Bobby was able to hear the distant sound of a telephone ringing, way over there in America, so very far away. He realized as it rang that he had not calculated the time difference, so he did it in his head. Five A.M. It was 5:00 A.M. in America.
“Hello,” said his grandmother’s voice.
“Grandma?” Bobby said. “It’s me in Korea. I miss you.” As soon as he spoke, his heart was in his throat, but his grandmother hadn’t heard.
“Hello?”
“Yes, this is Bobby,” he shouted. “In Korea.”
There was a short silence, but then she said, “Bobby dear, how wonderful. When are you coming home?”
“Soon,” he said, “next week perhaps.”
“Yes, dear,” said his grandmother.
It was so good to hear her voice that Bobby clutched the phone and shouted, “What’s new with you, Grandma? How’s Mrs. Nesbitt? How’s everybody!”
Festival for Three Thousand Women Page 18