Who Ate Up All the Shinga?

by Yu Young-nan

As the ROK forces advanced briskly northward, conscripts who had managed to desert the people’s volunteer army or deliberately straggled behind returned home. When Mother came across young men in tattered clothes, she asked whether they were on their way back from the people’s volunteer army. If so, she brought them home and fed them, asking one question after another. She rejoiced over their stories, exclaiming at them in the faith that such a joy might one day be ours as well. At every meal, she first scooped up rice into Brother’s bowl. When wind rattled the gate, she rushed out. What would happen to her son if the ROK Army retreated before he had a chance to escape? Mother couldn’t bring herself to even allow Brother’s death into her imaginings, so she had no choice but to keep him as a Korean People’s Army soldier in her mind.

  It became a virtual certainty that the ROK would retreat much farther south than Seoul. When the city’s population dwindled by half during the first cold spell of that year, Mother made an important decision.

  “You have to flee, even if it means going alone.”

  I’d actually been intending to do so, but hearing Mother say it made me choke with grief. My leaving would mean that everyone else—Mother, Sister-in-law, my nephews—had to stake their fate with Brother. I couldn’t picture him in the Korean People’s Army, but it was all too clear what would happen if they threw their lot in with Brother. Even if Seoul were recovered and I returned after this “strategic retreat,” the house would be empty. I could flee alone, but making up my mind to say a permanent goodbye wrenched my guts. Mother had already decided the matter, though. From the depths of clothing chests she withdrew the fabrics one by one that she’d prepared over the years for my wedding. She packed them up, repeating, “Live a good life, even if we can’t.”

  But before I left, Brother came home looking like a beggar. He was really back! He could not have looked worse, but a triumphant return was hardly something we envied—at least, he hadn’t returned as a Korean People’s Army soldier. We embraced him, crying and laughing. Were we dreaming?

  But almost immediately, his return made matters worse. He had changed so completely that our hearts sank. First of all, he was a physical wreck. We couldn’t believe that he’d pushed through the front line and walked so far to get home in the condition he was in. But this was nothing compared with his complete lack of affect. He showed no joy in his homecoming, no desire to hold the son born in his absence. His thoughts were a mystery, but it wasn’t that he was expressionless. His eyes darted about with anxiety. He started at the tiniest sound. At night, the rustle of wind and the scampering of mice terrified him, and fear remained on his face no matter what we said. A hot meal and a bed failed to calm him down. He couldn’t sleep. Where had he been? What had he gone through? He obviously had an extraordinary tale to tell of how he had risked his life, but he told us nothing and showed no trace of willingness to talk. He now suffered from extreme paranoia.

  Mother was at a loss. She related what had happened to Uncle and all we’d gone through and pleaded with him to pull himself together. But her attempts to jolt open the closed doorway to his thoughts with the news only aggravated his condition. Agitated, he begged us to flee right away, burying his head into the corner of the room and quaking.

  “Let’s get out of here. I’ll die if the People’s Army comes. Let’s get out of here.”

  The urgency of the mass evacuations made him hypersensitive. He couldn’t remain still. And so we entered his nightmare with him.

  My solo departure was automatically called off. It wasn’t time to cut ties with the rest of my family. If it had been, how could things have gone wrong so coincidentally? Even if Brother hadn’t begged us, we were all eager to flee as soon as possible. We no longer had to picture casting our lot with the North; the mere thought of what we would likely go through if Seoul were recovered made our hair stand on end. Given the vengeance wreaked on those who’d stayed behind when the government promised to defend Seoul to the death, how would it treat citizens who remained when advised to flee? And all the more so, now that it had built a temporary bridge over the Han. We wanted to leave. Our desperation was making us crazy.

  But several problems loomed for Brother, including that damn citizen’s card. The fear of spies amid the refugees had given rise to stringent inspections around the city. Those who’d escaped from the people’s volunteer army weren’t necessarily branded Reds, but they still faced a strict screening process before their cards were issued. We didn’t believe that Brother was up to it, and although he didn’t want to go through screening either, he badgered us to secure a card for him as soon as possible.

  “Why the hell can’t we find someone with the clout to get me a citizen’s card without all the rigmarole?”

  He said this without a trace of shame. How could Brother—my brother, so full of integrity—have become so craven? It must have been his paranoia talking, but his gutlessness was even more difficult to take. I couldn’t bear to witness it. But there was no way I could undo the bonds that had drawn us together once more.

  Brother’s pestering prompted Sister-in-law to think of the country school. Maybe we could rely on his fellow teachers’ artless honesty and the respect that teachers commanded among villagers. She went first to talk things over with them. They were happy to cooperate, so she persuaded Brother to come along. There Brother could receive a provincial resident’s card, if not exactly a citizen’s card. Almost everyone had fled the village. The genuine sympathy extended by the handful of remaining teachers and villagers and relief about obtaining an official card helped Brother improve slightly, so Sister-in-law left him there and came home to make preparations to evacuate.

  We were so eager to flee and so envious of those who could that we never thought through the difficulties that awaited us on the road. We were simply happy to fulfill our dream of escaping at last, to cross the river, climb over hills, and pass through fields. The more tangible problems—how we’d care for two infants, only a year apart, so that they wouldn’t freeze to death; what we could bring to keep ourselves from starving—didn’t bother me at all. Actually, these burdens sat on me alone, but my heart was soaring, as though someone awaited me across the Han who would shoulder my troubles and let me rest. We could hardly pack a refugee bundle like we were going on a picnic, but the feeling remained with me. All of us—not just me—had buried in our hearts the fear that we might not be able to pull off our escape. And so it came to pass.

  News of the worst sort arrived. At night, fields near the highway and large buildings had been turning into makeshift camps for retreating UN and ROK Army soldiers. Back then, there was also something called the Youth Defense Force. I don’t know how it differed from the ROK Army, but its soldiers were also armed and engaged in battle. They were now on the retreat, and some set up camp in Brother’s school. Brother had been staying in the watchman’s room and shared it one evening with an officer who was looking for a warm floor to bed down on. The following morning, a private took apart the officer’s gun for a routine check, but it misfired and a bullet penetrated Brother’s leg.

  We rushed over as soon as we received the news. Brother had been left behind in a small clinic. Its middle-aged doctor had yet to evacuate, but the military unit had moved on. More information would scarcely have helped us, but even so, Brother refused to tell us anything beyond what we’d already heard. He was pale and had lost a great deal of blood, but he looked calmer than before. Although the doctor was kindly, his family was preparing to flee. Brother’s life wasn’t in danger, he said, but an infection could prove extremely troublesome, so he explained how to care for him. Treatment was straightforward. The doctor showed me how to extract the bloodied gauze from the bullet hole that passed through Brother’s leg and insert a new piece. That hole seemed to me a dark, gaping chasm into hell. As I watched, a fear came over me that I was about to be sucked in forever.

  Brother didn’t cry out in pain; he even smiled faintly. This serenity that came to him with the loss of a
ll hope struck me as ghastly. The doctor fled with his family after giving us everything he had for Brother’s treatment—gauze, dressing, antiseptic, ointment. The village emptied out. Three or four days after we became the sole occupants of the clinic, the final signal for the so-called January 4 retreat was given. We assumed that almost everyone had already left, but those who’d been watching the situation and nursing a tiny hope now poured out as one. From a lowflying helicopter, a voice amplified by a megaphone was urging escape, and the small clinic shook with the thump of running feet on the highway. But our hearts quaked more violently than the building itself.

  Mother spoke up: “Let’s leave. If they’re telling us to go, let’s get as far as we can, even if it means dying. Better to die than have them treat us so horribly again.”

  We’d been keeping our eyes on a rickety wagon in the clinic’s backyard. The very few privileged enough to have access to cars had fled long ago. Later, people carried children and bundles of valuables on hastily put-together wagons—basically just wheels attached to a board. We placed Brother on the wagon, which must have been abandoned because it was so broken down. Mother and Sister-in-law each carried a baby on her back and bundles on her head and in her hands. I was in charge of rolling the wagon. It seemed to weigh half a ton. We jumped into the ranks of the final retreat, but found ourselves lagging farther and farther behind. After traversing Muak Hill, I collapsed in exhaustion. Dusk was falling.

  “A little farther, just a little farther.” Mother pressed on mercilessly.

  “How can the bridge over the Han possibly be just a little farther?” I thought I’d explode with rage.

  “Getting away isn’t in the cards for us. It must be fate. Let’s just pretend that we’re escaping. I know a house in that neighborhood over there. We can stay and go back home when things change and people come back. That’s the only way left.”

  Mother must have been plotting it all along. Speaking reasonably and calmly, she motioned to a large group of houses visible from the hill: Hyŏnjŏ-dong, the refuge-to-be for our mock escape. Hyŏnjŏ-dong again! Oddly, though, my heart calmed and new strength returned to my limbs, which only moments before I’d found impossible to move. The upward path to the steep neighborhood meant a detour, but we took it rather than the steps because of the wagon. The last batch of refugees was dashing down like startled rabbits in flight. Moving in the opposite direction, we arrived in our new shelter, huffing and puffing.

  The house that Mother pinpointed belonged to the family she’d relied on when she was supplying necessities to Uncle when he was in prison. The family had left, and the house was locked. But the humbler the house, the looser the lock. We joined forces and tore it away, door fastener and all. The family had evidently left just minutes before. One side of the room was still warm; on the other, a small table lay scattered with half-eaten dishes. Teeth marks stood out on a long piece of radish kimchi. The first thing we did was to ransack every spot we thought might hold something to eat.

  The food we had with us was inadequate, and no matter what circumstances we human beings find ourselves in, our stomachs come first, so we had no compunctions about what we were doing. There was no rice to cook in the house. All that was left was a handful of grain and half a bag of wheat flour. We didn’t make supper but managed to stave off hunger with cold rice that had been left behind and used twigs and branches to feed the furnace under the floor. Amid that peace obtained when a situation can’t get any worse, we fell into a deep sleep.

  A new day broke. Brother stretched, saying that he’d slept well for the first time in ages. I felt frustrated and weighed down by my family. They were thinking about when the government would come back after its retreat, but ignoring the pressing matter at hand. How would we survive all the upheaval? I may have put Brother down from the wagon, but I wasn’t relieved of my burden. To see how the world looked after this latest reversal, I cautiously stepped out of the gate.

  The entire neighborhood was visible from our position on the hill. Directly below lay the prison, home to liberated revolutionaries, home to Uncle’s execution. There was no human sound. Goosebumps spread over my flesh. It was as though a cold, steely dagger were fluttering down my spine. I’d never before experienced the total absence of people, and it spawned panic within me. No one was to be seen, not on the avenue visible all the way to Independence Gate. No one in the alleys, no one in the houses. No smoke rising from any dwelling, not the barest wisp. It would have been less frightening if, at the very least, a Communist flag had been hoisted in the prison. We were the only ones left behind in all of this large city. I alone was watching this vast emptiness, and we alone would view the unfolding of the unknown in the coming days. It all seemed impossible. Had I known a magic trick to make us disappear, I’d have used it.

  But an abrupt change in perspective hit me. I felt as though I’d been chased into a dead end but then suddenly turned around. Surely there was meaning in my being the sole witness to it all. How many bizarre events had conspired to make us the only ones left behind? If I were the sole witness, I had the responsibility to record it. That would compensate for this series of freak occurrences. I would testify not only to this vast emptiness, but to all the hours I’d suffered as a worm. Only then would I escape being a worm.

  From all this came a vision that I would write someday, and this premonition dispelled my fear. I stopped worrying about our meager food supply. The clustered, vacant houses were now my prey. I was certain that each held at least a few handfuls of wheat flour, a small container or two of barley. I had accepted my gullet as my gang boss and no longer felt ashamed about it. I already planned to steal from those houses.