So Far from the Bamboo Grove

by Yoko Kawashima Watkins

  Hideyo alone headed toward Seoul next morning. He felt lonesome, with no one to talk to, but he kept walking on the railroad tracks, holding the dream that soon he would meet with his mother and sisters.

  FIVE

  KO, TALL AND BROAD-SHOULDERED, was well suited to the army uniform and looked like a real soldier. Mother was short and slightly built and looked awkward in the high-necked khaki outfit. Her dusty hair was covered by a soldier’s hat.

  Even though Ko rolled my trousers, they kept unrolling and dragged on the ground.

  I could not see my hands, only long sleeves flip-flopping.

  The baggy trousers kept falling down even when tied with the rope Mother had tied my wrist with. Ko made rope suspenders for me.

  But soon the edge of the trousers rubbed against my chest. My right ear was throbbing. It still felt plugged and I could not hear when Mother or Ko talked to me from the right side.

  Mother comforted me. “Give it a chance.” But the August sun was hot on my shaved head, my mouth was dry, and my entire body ached. I whined.

  “Gosh! Whiny sister! Can’t you shut up for a change?” Ko was disgusted.

  “I hurt!”

  She gave me a harsh look. “Just shut up and keep on walking.”

  I cried as I walked, wiping my eyes and nose with my uniform sleeves. “Save your body water,” Ko told me. “With each tear you are dehydrating yourself.”

  I shaded my head with one hand and shed more tears over my shaved head. “It will grow back,” Ko said without emotion.

  I pitied myself for not hearing well and for the constant pain in my chest. And I was mad at Ko. “Shut up!” she was always saying, or “Walk!” and Mother never corrected her for her rough talk. I longed for Father. If Father were here, Ko would still be spunky but a tender sister. Finally my crying got on Mother’s nerves.

  “Why can’t you be strong and good like your honorable sister?” she asked, wiping her forehead.

  I yelled. “I’m not her! She’d cry too if she’d got hit.”

  “I would not!” Ko snapped. “You have done nothing but whine and fuss. This journey would be easier if you had got killed!”

  I stopped walking and stared at her, dumbfounded. My big sister wished me dead.

  “Ko, don’t you ever talk like that again!” Mother said. “Do you understand? Never!”

  Ko just walked faster. Faster and faster. Mother took my hand and we followed at a slower pace.

  The tracks were entering mountains. The shade of the tall trees was cool, and I picked leaves and sucked their juice, but it was bitter.

  Ko was out of sight, but suddenly her voice came from a thicket. When she appeared, she was smiling at us. “Do you want to rest, Little One?”

  I was not going to speak to a sister who wished me dead.

  “Let’s rest, Mother,” Ko repeated.

  Deep inside, I hoped we were going to rest. I was dry and starved, but mostly I longed to lie down. The pain in my ear and in my chest seemed unbearable. Mother and I kept on walking, “Aren’t you ever hungry?” I asked Mother, because she never complained.

  “I am very hungry and tired, but what good would it do to complain?” she said. “I am grateful we are alive. We must make it to Seoul and meet Hideyo.” She choked with tears.

  Ko called again, this time from the top of a hill, and waved to us to come up. We puffed our way up and she led us to a small cave. I knew she wanted to make up for what she had said, but I sulked. I dropped my rucksack, took off the heavy, smelly uniform, threw myself on the ground, and fell asleep.

  Then Ko was shaking me gently. “Little One. It’s dinner time.” Something smelled good and I sat up. Mother was eating corn on the cob. Ko was eating a red, juicy tomato. She took an ear of corn from the campfire, rolled it in a cloth, and handed it to me. I gazed at the food with my mouth open.

  “Eat it before it gets cold,” Ko said. “It’s delicious.”

  I had forgotten that I was angry at her. “Where did you get it, Honorable Sister?”

  “I’ll tell you when you’ve eaten.”

  Hungry as I was, I had a hard time eating. Swallowing was difficult and my chest felt tight. I took small bites.

  Ko told her story. She had looked for a stream and found a cornfield. All she thought of was bringing an armful of corn to surprise Mother and me. Then the Korean farmer caught her. He called her a damned Japanese and told her to drop the corn.

  Ko, in her perfect Korean, had denied she was Japanese. She had told him her little sister was wounded, that her mother was with her. “The Japanese army police chased us away from Nanam,” she told him, “and we are heading for relatives in Seoul. We are starving.”

  He asked whether she was a boy or a girl and she told him about Mother shaving her head.

  The man hated the Japanese. He had been lying in wait for thieves who stole his vegetables. It would be a great day, he said, when they lost the war, and he spat on the ground.

  Then he let Ko fill the canteens at his well, picked ripe tomatoes for her, and gave her a burlap sack to fill with corn.

  Mother gave a deep sigh when Ko’s story was finished. She had never expected Ko to become a liar and robber. “I had to,” Ko said.

  She roasted all the ears of corn, to take with us. For the first time since we had left home I went to sleep without fear of attack and with a full stomach.

  Ko rearranged our rucksacks at dawn. Now I was to carry the light things—aluminum mess kits, knives, matches, candles. Mother had the corn. Ko carried the heaviest bundle. I had to put on the heavy uniform again. We walked.

  One morning slopes began to flatten and we saw people coming across the fields. My chest began hurting again and my earache persisted, but I did not cry anymore for I did not want Ko to wish I was dead.

  Now we saw men carrying rucksacks and bundles and women carrying babies on their backs with a wide sash, Japanese-style.

  Mother called, “Excuse me.” They stopped and looked us over. “Are you going to Seoul?” Mother asked in elegant Japanese. They still stared at us. “We are Japanese,” said Mother.

  “You’re wearing Korean Communist Army clothes,” a man said.

  “Excuse our appearance.” Mother bowed slightly. “We had to disguise ourselves.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Far north. Nanam.”

  “That’s almost in Manchuria!” the man said. “You’ve been walking all this time?”

  Mother explained about the train. Then the man told us that he had sold his barbershop in a nearby town to a Korean friend. He was returning to Japan with his relatives. “Since Koreans began attacking Japanese, we cannot sleep peacefully.”

  Mother asked where we were. The man pointed. “The brown roof you see in the distance is the Seoul station.”

  At last! I could not believe it. A bath house, Mother had said, a good place to sleep and maybe plenty to eat!

  Without warning we found ourselves at the end of a seemingly endless line of people. “What is this?” Ko asked the last man in line. He wore Korean clothes so she spoke Korean.

  “This is the checkpoint for escapees. We must show what we bring.”

  These people had little to show, and we were almost there when two armed Japanese policemen, a stout one and a tall one, suddenly shouted and pointed their guns at us. I trembled and my ear and chest began throbbing.

  They questioned us. We were wearing Korean Communist Army uniforms—were we seeking political asylum? Ko told them we were Japanese. Where were we from? Could we prove this?

  Mother showed our insurance documents and school report cards. Finally the men put their guns down. We had reached the head of the line now.

  The interrogation went on. Did we carry a large amount of money? A little cash, Mother said, bringing a pouch from her shirt pocket. They checked and gave it back. Did we have a savings book?

  “Yes,” Mother said and looked through her bundle. She pulled out everything but there was n
o savings book. “I must have left it,” Mother said in tears of distress.

  “We will have to search you,” they said.

  They went through our clothes, all our pockets, and the rucksacks, but no savings book was found.

  They found the roasted corn. What was this? Our food supply, Ko told them.

  Finally the stout policeman asked where we were going, and Mother told him we would stay in Seoul until her son arrived. When the war was over we would return to Nanam.

  “The war is over,” he said.

  We were stupefied. “When?” Ko asked.

  “Yesterday. You cannot go back. That is why there are so many escapees from the north. The Japanese are in peril in Korea now.”

  “What is today?” Ko asked.

  August sixteenth. Hadn’t we heard about the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? No.

  “Japan lost,” the tall policeman told us. “Those two cities have turned to hell.”

  Suddenly Mother dropped to the ground.

  Ko loosened Mother’s collar and, as usual, I cried. Some men standing about were told to carry Mother into the station. The stout policeman ran for a bottle, and I smelled whiskey. They poured some into Mother’s mouth, and Ko unbuttoned the uniform front and massaged her chest and arms. I was overjoyed when she opened her eyes.

  “I must have blacked out.” She tried to get up, but the police told her to stay where she was. They were friendlier now, but the interrogation continued. We were told we must be sprayed with chemicals to kill lice and bugs we might have carried from the north. We must take off our clothes.

  Mother got up and took off all but the thin chemise she wore under her shirt. They sprayed her from head to toe, also the uniform she had worn. I was relieved that they did not notice the short sword against her skin. Then Mother put on her own clothes. How much more comfortable she looked.

  Ko was next, then my turn came. The men said something and laughed and I stood, hesitant about removing my uniform. “They say they never saw such a tiny soldier!” said one. “Now take off your uniform.”

  My chemise was stained with blood. The men were shocked. “You were wounded,” the stout policeman said. “How?” Ko told him.

  I was sprayed and the powder stung. I screamed. Then Mother handed me my own clothes. They were not clean but, oh, how much more comfortable I felt in them. I hoped I would never have to wear that uniform again. But Ko and Mother were folding the uniforms neatly and putting them into the clothes bundle.

  “We have no winter clothes,” Mother explained.

  They told us we could go, and we were leaving when the stout policeman stopped us. “Have your little daughter’s wound treated,” he said.

  We followed his directions to a group of large tents with red crosses painted on their roofs. Was this the Japanese hospital? Ko asked a medic who sat at a desk outside.

  “Right,” he told her. He saw my blouse stained with blood. “Come,” he said. He took my sack, and Mother and Ko followed to a cot where he told me to lie down. He took off my blouse.

  A young doctor came. “I am Doctor Takeda,” he said. Mother and Ko bowed. He pulled up a small stool and asked my name.

  “Kawashima Yoko.”

  “How old?”

  “Almost twelve.”

  He was filling in a form. “Tell me what happened.”

  I told him, and about my ear aching and being deaf. He asked how long ago and I told him six days.

  When he pulled my chemise carefully from the wound and examined my injury, he shook his head. “I don’t see how she could have stood it all this time. It is badly infected.”

  “My little sister did very well,” Ko told him.

  He sterilized the place beneath my right breast that was burned and infected, applied medicine, and the medic put on antiseptic gauze and wrapped my chest. “Now let me see your ear.” The doctor put a round mirror with a hole in the center on his head.

  He pulled my earlobe down and inserted a long thin wire. Tears streaming, I gritted my teeth and saw Mother’s agonized face. He showed me a piece of metal. “This was in your ear. Your eardrum has been punctured and it is infected.” He drained the infection, dropped in some medicine, and stuffed cotton in my ear.

  As he added information to his form he asked, “By chance, is your father’s name Yoshio?”

  “Yes,” Mother said.

  “I know him,” said the doctor. “My father and your husband were classmates at the University. My father is Kazuzo Takeda—he’s a member of the House of Peers. They get together at our house every year after their alumni association meeting.”

  “I know him!” Mother cried.

  Doctor Takeda told her that he had been assigned to the Japanese Army Hospital here six months ago, before the war ended. He asked Mother her plans and she told him about waiting for Hideyo.

  “Your little daughter should stay in the hospital,” he told her. “She is badly infected and needs treatment every day.”

  I was given a mat in the crowded patients’ tent and Mother stayed with me that night while Ko took her blanket, canteen, and two ears of corn back to the station. Mother fell asleep guarding what little we possessed, but, throbbing and burning and disturbed by the cries of other patients, I could not sleep. In the night the medic brought me powdered medicine in transparent paper and at last I drifted off.

  The sun was bright when I woke, and Mother was combing her hair. It was more gray than black now, and her face, once so beautiful, was deeply lined. She smiled at me, tying her hair at the back. “Wake up now, Little One. The doctor was here but he let you sleep. He wants to change your dressing.” She handed me a damp cloth and I wiped my face. “Here is the canteen. Wash your mouth outside and go see the doctor.”

  My ear felt no better and I could not hold my head upright. The doctor took out the cotton, wet with pus, cleaned with the swab, and dropped in more medicine. Again I shed tears with the pain. He told me the swelling would go away and that I must have complete rest. Then the medic bandaged my chest.

  I was leaving when the doctor stopped me and handed me a bottle of milk. “Each patient has a bottle a day,” he told me.

  I stared at the creamy milk. Holding the precious treasure in both hands, I stood still. Then I gathered my courage. “May I beg two more bottles?”

  “For your honorable mother and sister?” the doctor asked. I nodded. He nodded too, and the medic gave me two more. I bowed to them deeply and walked as fast as I could to where Mother waited.

  I stayed in the hospital tent two weeks, Mother and Ko taking turns being with me. As I watched Mother walking now I saw that her walk was feeble. She seemed smaller and smaller.

  Either Mother or Ko was always at the station, waiting for Hideyo’s arrival. But there was no Hideyo.

  On September first the doctor spoke with Mother. “All patients will leave for Pusan by truck by the end of the month. A hospital ship will be leaving from there for Japan on October second. Come with us back to our homeland.”

  But Mother would wait for Hideyo. So on the last day of my hospital stay, Doctor Takeda gave us three bottles of milk, extra bandages, medicines, and cotton. He said I had made a good recovery but must take things easy and not catch a cold. He gave me a bottle of aspirin. “One tablet every three hours when the pain comes.” He and Mother promised to meet in the homeland, fate willing.

  We carried all of our belongings back to the station. The station was crowded with escapees from the north who had not found homes, Japanese soldiers released from the army, and civilians, all wanting to take the train to Pusan.

  We sat outside and whenever a train, passenger or freight, pulled in, Mother and Ko would dash to the platform. I was to save our spot and guard our belongings. No Hideyo.

  We drank some milk.

  There was no food when night came. Then Ko said there would be no train until early morning and we must sleep. We found a small space on a bench in the waiting room and Ko squeezed Mother
into it. She pushed our clothes bundle under the bench and she and I catnapped at Mother’s feet.

  As the night advanced I was so cold that I shivered, and my ear and chest ached. I crawled out. “I’m cold!” I said to Mother.

  She took me on her lap and wrapped us both in her blanket. Secure in her arms, I went to sleep. But some time later there was a violent altercation with the man next to Mother, who complained that I had kicked him. I hadn’t meant to. But Mother told Ko to give her the clothes bundle, and she pulled out my red overcoat and got it on me. She got out the Communist Army uniform and ordered me to put it on over the overcoat. Then she sent me back to my bed under the bench, where I cuddled up to Ko for warmth.

  Mother was on the platform when the early train pulled in. Our neighbor tried to take her place while she was gone, but Ko said she would kill him with her peeling knife and he backed off. Mother came back without Hideyo and we drank the last of our milk.

  “I will go and find food,” Ko said, and took her empty rucksack. Another train came in and Mother rushed to the platform.

  Then an elderly Japanese crawled under the bench and tried to take our clothes bundle. He claimed it was his. It was only when Mother returned and shouted, “Help! Thief!” that he gave up.

  Ko came back with her rucksack partly filled with food from the hotel garbage. Mother was almost speechless at the cunning Ko had developed and her technique of swimming through danger.

  While we lived at the station, the American soldiers came to Seoul. Confined to our small area, we hardly ever saw them.

  One day when Ko returned she brought out from the rucksack some orange and apple peelings and several slices of bread. She had taken them from garbage cans at the former Japanese hospital now used by the American medical team.

  We needed to bathe. We dared not leave our belongings at the station so we carried everything to the river. Autumn had come now, but still many people were bathing. Ko and Mother went into the water in chemise and panties while I stayed with the belongings. I saw Ko duck her head in the water, and Mother soaped it and began to shave. The sword’s short blade sparkled again and again.