Who Ate Up All the Shinga?

by Yu Young-nan

  As it happened, we were also on the verge of losing our house in Pakchŏk Hamlet. Elder Uncle had lost his taste for the village after Liberation. He’d wandered from place to place at first, but now he shut himself up at his concubine’s in Kaesŏng, and our family’s fortune was dwindling fast. What’s more, the issue of my cousins’ education had arisen. Brother and Younger Uncle agreed that it was time to bid farewell to Pakchŏk Hamlet. They’d bring my cousins to Seoul and start fresh. The plan was taking concrete shape.

  As soon as I passed my entrance exams, Mother commissioned a real-estate agent to rent our house in Tonamdong. Then she busied herself with preparations for the move. Brother wanted to shift house during his school vacation, but Mother made haste, as though catastrophe awaited if we didn’t have freshly picked lettuce to wrap our rice in when summer rolled around. She became a woman possessed. As usual, her spasmodic energy came back to her with the move.

  “Looks like moving is your hobby, Mom,” I teased, seeing her eagerness to pack up again after just over a year. Mother was so caught up in the move that she seemed indifferent about leaving me behind at Uncle’s. I was slightly put out.

  But Mother sighed. “There’s an old proverb that says you move when your days are numbered.” She seemed in a far-off world.

  Mother was still haunted by her own demons. Just as she’d run away in vain from the leftists, she was trying to flee the consequences of Brother’s defection from their cause. To me, her fears were neurotic and irrational. I thought that moving would be the best treatment for her.

  That May held a special beauty for Mother and me, filled as we both were with dreams for the future. But of all years and all Mays, it was May 1950. Mother was a woman endowed with an unusual wisdom of her own, but she didn’t realize as yet how silly it was to inflate expectations without bracing for them to burst. June was fast approaching.

  12. Epiphany

  SCHOOL ENDED IN MAY, AND SO THE NEW ACADEMIC year followed on, naturally, in early June, but our admissions ceremony wasn’t held until the middle of the month. A tenant was found to rent our house, a contract signed, and a second installment of contract money accepted. My room at Uncle’s was papered. Likewise, the house at Brother’s school was papered and fixed up. Mother picked an auspicious moving day according to the traditional method of divination, and we were waiting for it to arrive. When Brother returned for the weekend, we divided up the books we’d each take to our new homes. But then, only several days into the term, June 25 rolled around.

  A report came that the Korean People’s Army had attempted to push south across the thirty-eighth parallel. Border clashes were common enough, but the ROK Army had always driven the North back, so we didn’t take the latest news too seriously. Even if it escalated into all-out war this time, we never dreamed that anything major would occur before our move. This rather selfish way of thinking was based on our still fresh memories of World War II. We assumed that we’d have no reason to regret our move and that instead we’d wind up patting ourselves on the back over how clever we’d been to relocate to the countryside near Brother’s school. The Syngman Rhee government tried to convey the impression that if war broke out we’d sweep northward, eat lunch in Pyongyang, and have dinner at the Yalu River. And although we certainly didn’t take this propaganda at face value, their brainwashing wasn’t to be dismissed so lightly. We took it for granted that the worst-case scenario would be a protracted conflict, with the two sides pushing to and fro somewhere north of the thirty-eighth parallel.

  That Monday morning, Brother left for his school at dawn, and I went to college in Tongsung-dong. Military trucks were moving toward Miari Hill, carrying ROK soldiers in camouflage, their helmets covered in leaves taken from the trees lining the streets. When I caught sight of them, I had the shocking realization that war was indeed upon us, but I clapped enthusiastically and shouted my hurrahs along with the other pedestrians. After morning classes were over, someone suggested that we sneak in and listen to a lecture by the colorful literary critic Yang Chudong on the sly. The thought of sneaking in for lectures gave me the agreeable feeling that I’d become a university student. Even more exciting was the opportunity to see a famous scholar in the flesh. Although it wasn’t “listening on the sly,” soon after school started, I attended a lecture by renowned academic and poet Karam Yi Pyŏng-gi, my heart racing with excitement. I simply felt proud to glimpse a celebrity; I knew nothing about his scholarship or his accomplishments.

  Unlike today, well-known scholars and other celebrities did not have much chance to appear in public, and neither their images nor their voices were widely recognized. They were more or less literally confined to the ivory tower. To set eyes on them was an intoxicating privilege of university students. Yang Chu-dong was immensely popular even then, and the class was standing room only. Crammed on my feet into the very back row, I was enthralled. My eyes were riveted on him as he roamed the podium, wit and knowledge cascading from him. The roar of artillery approached from time to time and shook the windowpanes in the lecture theater. Yang, small in stature but solidly built, continued unfazed. I found him thoroughly dashing.

  By the time I headed home from school, things were rather different from what they’d been in the morning. Troops were still moving toward Miari Hill, but they now looked tragic, not valiant, and the citizens sending them off appeared nervous and half-hearted. Mother kept complaining throughout the night that at times like these families should be together. I was worried about Brother, too, and that made Mother’s remarks all the more irritating. I resented not having a room of my own.

  The next morning, gunshots boomed closer, as though coming from the other side of Miari Hill. According to breaking news, the ROK Army had crushed the Korean People’s Army. The general public was urged to go about its daily activities. Assuming all had turned out as expected, I set out for school, but a stream of frightened refugees was making its way down along the streetcar tracks that stretched to Miari Hill. People tried to ask them questions as they passed by, wheeling their household goods on wagons, but were being held back by the police. From word of mouth we were able to establish that the refugees were coming from Ŭijŏngbu. Seeing them with my own eyes made me more frightened, but I took comfort in telling myself that they couldn’t be innocent. Maybe they were evil landowners, or from the families of police who had led the crackdown on leftists, and had been terrified even before anything actually happened. Even though I didn’t want the Korean People’s Army to invade, not even as an idle fantasy, my thinking had been quite affected by leftist ideology.

  Our lectures were canceled. Female students were sent home, while the boys were required to attend a rally in which they pledged northward reunification in the name of the Student National Defense Corps. I stood on the sidelines and briefly watched this rabble-rousing session. The cadres read out a resolution at the top of their lungs and led others in shouting slogans, but they weren’t terribly reassuring.

  I could sense the clouds of war thickening by the minute. To the accompaniment of incessant gunfire, pedestrians seemed to be rushing about randomly. I ran home, gripped by sudden fear for Brother. I prayed that he’d arrived while I was away, but no news had come. Mother was pacing outside our gate. When she spotted me, she mumbled, “Best to get out of here fast.” Her blank gaze unnerved me. The situation had passed beyond simple urgency. Sister-in-law was in the kitchen frying rice on a pot lid flipped upside down. By that point, she was already seven months pregnant. She breathed heavily, her shoulders rising and falling. My infant nephew whimpered, gaunt and malnourished with his mother expecting again so soon, but she ignored him. I lost my temper, watching her brown the rice with a big wooden spatula like a zombie.

  “Sister, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m getting rice flour ready,” she snapped. Her tone was even more irritated than mine.

  A stuffed canvas sack had been carelessly pitched out on the
edge of the veranda. A quick glance made it clear that it was Mother who’d sewn the sack and that she’d then stuffed it hastily. My sister-in-law was obviously following her directions and cooking under duress, but I snatched the spatula from her.

  “Don’t tell me you’re planning to flee in that state of yours.”

  “Do I have a choice? If your mother pushes us out, she pushes us out. I can’t argue with her. But your brother has to come before she makes us go.”

  Suddenly, an earsplitting boom. Aftershocks, deafening as a mountain top caving in, rattled the glass of our doors. They resonated for a long time. Mother flew in and held open a sack of cloth. “Hurry up and pour the rice in.”

  “But we haven’t ground it yet.”

  “Who has time to grind it? If you have to eat it a handful at a time, you’re better off leaving it as it is.”

  She was in such a rush to put the half-burned rice in the bag that she didn’t even scold us for our shoddy work. I assumed she’d streaked in because she’d glimpsed Brother in the distance. Sister-in-law was on the verge of tears, thinking that she was about to be driven out of the house. I pleaded with Mother: “Brother can go take refuge by himself. Sister-in-law doesn’t have to go too.”

  “What are we in such a hurry for? He hasn’t even come back yet.”

  She smiled ruefully, realizing how absurd her behavior had been in the confusion of the moment. She headed out once more.

  Brother didn’t return that evening. No phone call came to Uncle’s store. Uncle, of course, had tried to reach Brother’s school all day long, but in vain. Late that night, Uncle and Auntie came over to shelter with us. Not only did our snug residential neighborhood feel safer than the major avenue they lived on, but they thought it would be less frightening to have others around for support.

  Brother’s absence loomed larger when we were all together. As cannonballs whizzed past in the Seoul sky, we huddled in the room without budging. We buried ourselves sweatily under cotton-padded quilts, because dubious rumors floating around at the end of Japanese rule said that they gave protection from shrapnel. Beneath the quilt, Uncle listened closely to the radio. He would pipe up immediately whenever there was any comforting news.

  Mother and Uncle could hardly have passed that night more differently from each other. No matter what we said, Mother refused to cover herself with a quilt or even to come into the room. She spent the entire night pacing our front yard and the alleyway outside our gate. But rather than wait idly for Brother, she observed what was going on, trying to glean information from passersby or from watching the movement of neighbors. She passed on to us that the line of refugees had slowed and that some, with nowhere to go, were even coming back. Once people stopped moving about, she sat frozen on the edge of the veranda, trying to pinpoint the location of the battlefront. She projected an expert’s confidence, as she listened to bombs screech past and their explosions when they hit their targets.

  Like Uncle, Mother wanted us to agree with her conjectures, but the two of them were at odds on every point and neither version was credible. They offered little comfort. I found it thoroughly baffling. It was as though we were watching a struggle between reality and propaganda. To see Mother so calm and dauntless after she’d been scared out of her wits during the day spooked me somehow. Finally, the battle noise quieted toward early morning, and Uncle urged us to go to sleep. He sounded relieved.

  Yawning widely, he added, “Just like I thought. The president pledged he’d defend Seoul to the death.”

  Mother shot him a pitying look: “Are you saying you really believe that old fart?”

  Uncle and Auntie left for their shop when day broke, assuming that they could open as usual. We didn’t stop them. The silence outside made us think that things had calmed down. But Uncle soon returned, out of breath. The world, he informed us, had changed overnight. His voice was remote, stupefied.

  Mother blanched: “Oh my lord, what should we do?”

  She sounded delirious. I took her hand and found it trembling slightly. Uncle seemed puzzled by mother’s change of heart. He joked, “What are you so worried about? You were bad-mouthing Syngman Rhee fearlessly before. Not such a bad turn of events, is it?”

  He told us that crowds had gathered along the streets to welcome the Korean People’s Army and urged us to go out fast and have a look. Mother sternly forbade us. Although Uncle, who’d accepted the president’s words at face value, was ready to blow with the wind, the change in regime terrified Mother, despite her loathing for Syngman Rhee. Concern for Brother clearly was what made her so timid, but I still thought she was being excessive, since I already had calculating thoughts of my own: Brother’s desertion of the cause might be a blot in his revolutionary résumé, but surely his circumstances would be taken into account.

  Back then, I was truly cunning and shameless, but I wasn’t like Uncle, who was essentially an opportunist. I was more resolute and hopeful. These hopes of mine became more concrete as I recalled Brother’s days as an activist and my own fleeting sympathy with the movement, although I’d largely forgotten about it by then. While I focused on his leftist credentials, Mother’s thoughts were on his desertion. Her fear was not so much that he’d be a target for revenge, but that shifting political currents might push my brother into another change of heart, leaving him a spineless good-for-nothing.

  Mother headed out alone to confirm that things had indeed changed. She returned to touch base with us and then went all the way to the avenue along Anam Stream to wait for Brother. From the stream’s edge, the backyard of Sŏngbuk Police Station had been fully visible. Shuddering, Mother said that the Korean People’s Army had occupied it and was rounding up reactionaries. Mother came back after watching for Brother’s return so intensely that she’d strained her eyes. They were glazed over, drained of vitality. I tried to comfort her: “Don’t worry. Brother’s not going to be arrested. Now he can live the way he really believes.” So I wished at least.

  “Is that any way for a human being to behave?”

  Mother’s tone conveyed open contempt for me. That damn concept of loyalty again. She was impossible and, to me, laughable, with nothing to cling to except two sharply distinct ideologies, like the sun and the moon in the sky. But she wasn’t as ludicrous as Brother, who soon made his appearance. Mother must have been waiting for him precisely so she could hide him. She may even have entertained the idea of shipping him straight off to Uncle or to her relatives.

  As it happened, Brother returned just as Mother stepped into the house. The timing was utterly natural. Imagine a child keeping close watch over a morning glory and shifting her attention briefly. At that very moment, the flower blossoms.

  But natural as the timing may have been, Brother looked more unnatural than he ever had in his entire life, and it wouldn’t have been any different if Mother had met him at the corner where she’d stood watch: he entered with a truck full of prisoners in tow. I call them prisoners because their heads were shaved and they were in prison uniform, but they beamed with all the dignity of triumphant, medal-studded generals and more. In contrast, Brother wore everyday clothes and a blank expression. He looked as though he didn’t have the slightest idea what he was doing. On Mother’s face was a look of equally dull perplexity. One of the prisoners gently lifted her as she stood on the terrace stones and set her down on the veranda. When he prostrated himself in a bow to her, the others followed suit. Only then did she recognize that it was the man who had been taken away from our Samsŏn’gyo house. She grasped his hand and expressed sympathy about his hardships, but no color returned to her face.

  Because Brother had been active in the movement at that point, he and the man had seen through each other’s identity, although no direct connection existed between them in the leftist hierarchy. The man said that in prison he’d always been grateful to us, for keeping his family as tenants. His wife had told him of our concern for their plight.

  The first thing the Korean People’s Army
did after entering Seoul on the morning of June 28 was to release those who’d been jailed for ideological reasons. The prisoners must have then just boarded trucks in their uniforms—they couldn’t have had anything to change into, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have, for prison garb itself became a proud revolutionary marker. They crisscrossed the city, responding to the crowds’ applause and fanning their excitement in return.

  In the countryside where Brother’s school was located, upheaval had come quietly. He said that he hadn’t taken matters seriously because the roar of artillery wasn’t especially loud. But someone reported that the flag of the Communists had been raised that morning at the township office and the police station, and that a major battle had taken place in Seoul. Brother was hurrying home when he encountered the truck.

  The man who relayed the news gave Brother a straw hat with a red ribbon and tied a red strip of fabric to his bicycle for him, but this made Brother uncomfortable, so he kept taking them off and putting them back on again while bicycling home, which goes to show how indecisive he was. Unsure which side he really supported, he would have gazed at those in the truck with ambivalence, since he couldn’t shun them but couldn’t cheer them on enthusiastically either. As Brother told it, when the truck approached, he edged back but someone held out a hand. Although Brother witnessed passionate handshakes and embraces between those on board and pedestrians that day, I picture him extending his own hand shyly. An emotional cry rang out, “Unbelievable! Meeting a comrade like this!” and Brother was then immediately hoisted up to join those in the truck. He didn’t even have time to call out for his bicycle, the possession he held so dear. He was stuck for half a day amid the excitement, as out of place as an unhusked grain amid polished rice. And so Brother returned, reluctantly trailing an entourage.