Outside, it’s turning hot and humid again. A breeze kicks up dirt on the street. The cab. I forgot about the cab. Fifteen dolla’ American every fifteen minute. I grab my purse and tell Mrs. Hong I have a cab outside and should let it go. I have to give him a time to come back. “How long will your story take?” I ask.
“It’s a long story,” she says, picking up the photographs from the table. “A very long story.”
I say I’ll tell the cabbie to come back at 3:00. I wait for her to say okay but she just stares at her photos and says nothing. I tell her I’ll be right back.
I go to the door, pull on my shoes, and run out to the cab. The driver rolls down the window when I get there.
He tells me he’s been waiting twenty minutes and I owe him thirty dollars. “Fifteen dolla’ American every fifteen minute,” he says.
I take thirty dollars from my purse and give it to him. I tell him I need to stay and ask if he can come back to pick me up. He says okay and asks for a time.
“Three o’clock,” I answer.
“Okay, three o’clock,” he says. “If I wait, fifteen dolla’ Amer…”
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I say. “Fifteen dolla’ American every fifteen minute.” The driver flashes his bad teeth in an amused grin and drives off.
*
Mrs. Hong’s apartment door is open when I get back. She is standing by the table framed by the light from the window. She has changed her blouse and slacks for a yellow hanbok made from what looks like silk. It has long, loose sleeves and a hem a few inches above the floor. She has braided her hair and pinned it up with an ornate binyeo. She invites me in. “Granddaughter, unlinahyi. Are you ready to hear my story?”
I nod and say yes. I feel like I’m in a dream.
“Come,” she says. “Sit.”
I sit at the low table again. She moves the flower blossom and the photographs to the center of the table, next to the package containing the comb. She sits straight, with her hands in her lap. She takes a long breath and starts in a voice clear and strong.
“A young soldier on a rusty motorcycle delivered the orders from the Japanese military command in Sinuiju…”
F IVE
September 1943. North P’yŏngan Province, Northern Korea.
A young soldier on a rusty motorcycle delivered the orders from the Japanese military command in Sinuiju. I was the first to see him, motoring up the hill toward our house. As he came near, I wanted to run outside and throw a rock at him. I wished I was strong like a boy or older—I was only fourteen—so I could throw a big rock and knock him off his motorcycle back down the hill.
I had seen him before. He had come the previous fall to deliver orders for my father. The orders said Father was to report the next day to the military headquarters in Sinuiju so he could work in Pyongyang in the steel mill there. The next morning, the sun had not yet climbed over the aspen trees and the morning air was cold when Father said good-bye to me, my older sister Soo-hee, and our mother. I think Mother cried a little as Father walked past our persimmon tree with his head held high and his orders in his pocket.
I loved my appa. He let me get away with things my mother never would. But after that day, I never saw him again.
As the soldier came near, I quickly gathered the nappa cabbage I had been washing. I wrapped it in a large cloth and stuffed it under the sink. I ran to the back door.
“Soo-hee!” I said to my sister who was digging up clay onggis of rice and vegetables we had hidden behind the house. “The soldier on the motorcycle is coming!”
Soo-hee stood and looked down the road. When she saw him she said, “Stall him.” She dropped to the ground and began to push the onggis back into their holes.
I ran back inside the house and watched the soldier from the kitchen window. I hoped he would drive past to another house up the road, but he stopped and leaned his motorcycle against the persimmon tree. He took off his gloves and slapped the dust out of them across his legs. He reached into his leather satchel and pulled out a yellow envelope. He came up to the front of our house.
“Hello!” he called out in Japanese. “I have orders from military command. Come out! Come out!”
I pushed aside the gray tarp where our beautiful carved oak door had once hung. I folded my arms across my chest. “Go away,” I said in Japanese.
The soldier eyed me. “Is that any way to treat me?” he asked. “I’ve come all this way to deliver your orders.” He held out the envelope. “Here, take them.”
“You should throw them into the Yalu River instead of bothering us with them,” I said not moving an inch. “Why do we always have to do what you say?”
The soldier grinned and leaned against our house. “Because you are Japanese subjects. If you don’t follow our orders, you will be shot.”
“It would be better to be shot,” I said.
The soldier’s grin dropped to a scowl. “Soon, you will learn how to serve Japan.”
I was about to tell him how I felt about serving Japan when Soo-hee came from the back, wiping her hands on her dress. “Yes? What is it?” she asked in Korean. She couldn’t speak Japanese like I could.
“Konnichi wa,” the soldier said. “I see you haven’t learned to speak Japanese yet,” he said switching to Korean. “Perhaps you should take lessons from your disrespectful little sister.”
Soo-hee bowed her head. “I’m sorry for my sister. She is young.”
“She is not so young,” the soldier replied, eyeing me.
He straightened and lifted his chin high the way the Japanese do. “Your landlord is not pleased with the harvest this year,” he said. “You are in debt to him now.” He held out the envelope. “These orders are for you and your sister. They are what you must do to repay him. Take them.” With a small bow, Soo-hee took the orders.
The soldier looked at me in a way that made me glad I hadn’t told him what I thought about serving Japan. “You better take care of your little sister,” he said to Soo-hee. “She could get you all in trouble.” He gave a quick nod, and then went to his motorcycle. He turned it around and started it with a kick. He drove away down the road followed by a curl of dust.
“What is it?” I asked over the motorcycle’s fading snarl. “What do the papers say?”
Soo-hee tucked the envelope inside her dress. “Don’t worry about them, little sister,” she said. “We must start soaking the vegetables soon or they won’t be ready to make kimchi in the morning.” She headed to the back of the house.
“But Onni, Big Sister, the soldier said they were orders for you and me. What do they say?”
“Hush, Ja-hee!” Soo-hee said turning on her heel. “You must learn to do the right thing. Mother will read them tonight when she comes home from the factory. Ummah should see them first. Now go back to your chores.”
Soo-hee always sounded like Mother, and I didn’t like being told what to do. So I stomped inside the house and pulled the nappa cabbage from under the sink. As I prepared it for the kimchi, I worried about the orders tucked away in Soo-hee’s dress. I guessed they were orders to work in a factory during the winter months. When our skinny Japanese landlord with the big ears had come to collect that year’s crop, he had told us the Japanese needed more workers to support their war efforts. “We are winning glorious battles against the Americans!” he had said climbing inside his truck filled with the vegetables we had worked so hard to grow. “If you do what you’re told, the filthy Americans will be pushed back across the ocean, never to trouble us again.” He started the truck and eventually found the right gear. As the truck began to roll down the road, he stuck his head out the window and I thought his ears might flap in the wind. “Then, you will be rewarded for the sacrifices you have made,” he said. “You will be glad you are Japanese subjects!”
*
By the time the sun had set over the fields in the west and the evening turned cold, Soo-hee and I had two pots of vegetables soaking in brine. We had the biggest farm for miles around,
but we didn’t have enough to feed us through the winter. Then, Mother would have to beg for an extra sack of rice, just like our neighbors did every year.
It seemed like we had to wait forever for Mother to come home. Soo-hee and I sat at a low table and ate nappa cabbage and a handful of rice for our evening meal. Our house had a large main room with a kitchen, eating area and family sitting area. It was here where Mother taught us how to read and write. In the back of the kitchen, an iron cook stove fed heat to the home’s ondol under-floor heating system. The floor was wood plank, polished smooth from the feet of generations of my ancestors. In the kitchen were two wooden stools, and in the eating area a low table with mats on the floor. Mine was the blue one. Sliding latticed doors separated a sleeping room from the main room. The sleeping room had straw mats on the floor and an ornate cabinet that Mother had refused to sell, even though Father said we should. I was glad she didn’t.
When we finished eating, Soo-hee set some rice and vegetables aside for Mother. She would soon be walking up the road with the other women from the uniform factory where she worked every day since the harvest. Mother was very smart—too smart to work in a uniform factory. Our house had many books that she and Appa were very proud of. We had books in Chinese and Japanese as well as a few in Hangul, even though the Japanese banned them. We had the great novels, the teachings of Confucius, Chinese poetry. Even western literature like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Dickens translated into Hangul or Chinese or Japanese. It was wonderful. After a long day of work in the fields, the four of us would read until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any more. It was how I learned to speak Japanese and Chinese so well.
But Soo-hee wasn’t good with languages like I was and that was a problem. The provincial government insisted that all Koreans speak Japanese. I didn’t like Japanese—it was rough and harsh sounding—but Mother insisted we speak it when they were around and she told me I had to help Soo-hee. So to pass time, Soo-hee and I sat on the great room floor and I tried to help her learn Japanese.
“What is the word for sheep?” I asked.
Soo-hee thought for a while and then shook her head.
I snorted. “Why is it so hard for you to learn these? ‘ Hitzuji’ is the word for sheep. What about ‘tree’?”
“I know that one,” Soo-hee answered. “It’s ‘moku’.”
“Yes!” I said. “See? It’s easy! You look for patterns, things you already know that you can connect the words to. And to pronounce them right, you pretend you’re Japanese. It’s like acting.”
“Do you mean like this?” Soo-hee stood and puffed out her chest. “You must speak Japanese!” she said in Korean.
That made me giggle and I stood too. “Yes, like that!” I said. “But do it in Japanese.” I puffed out my chest as Soo-hee had done. “You are now Japanese subjects!” I said in Japanese, wagging my finger. “You must learn to obey!”
Both of us laughed, careful to cover our mouths. But our laughing died quickly and Soo-hee turned melancholy. “You will have to speak Japanese for me, little sister,” she said. “I can understand most of what they say, but I can’t bring up the words when I have to.”
“Why do I have to do it?” I said. “Why can I learn it and you can’t? The white crane must have left you at the door. You’re not my real sister.”
Soo-hee smiled at me, but it was an embarrassed smile. I had hurt my sister’s kibun—her feelings and honor. I quickly said, “I’m sorry, Onni.”
“Ja-hee,” Soo-hee said gently, “you are smart like Ummah. You were born in the year of the dragon. You are luckier than me, and prettier, too. You must be careful with these things you have been given.”
“I’m just mad that we always have to do what they say,” I said.
My onni put her arm around me. “Don’t be stubborn, little sister. We have to be careful with the Japanese.”
“I hate them,” I said.
*
A full moon was rising over the aspen trees when Mother trudged up the road, grimy from work. Soo-hee and I pulled aside the tarpaulin and ran to greet her. Our mother, her name was Suh Bo-sun, was dressed in her old wool coat and faded purple scarf. She smiled when she saw us. “My babies, ye deulah,” she said. “How are my babies today?” Mother always called us ‘her babies.’
“Ummah! Ummah!” I blurted out. “The soldier came on his motorcycle today with orders. He said they are for Soo-hee and me.”
“Ja-hee!” Soo-hee scolded. “We must first show our mother respect!”
I sighed, but bowed to Ummah with Soo-hee. Then Mother led us inside the house. “Orders?” she said. “What do they say?”
“Soo-hee said we couldn’t look at them until you got home,” I said. “Can we look at them now?”
“Little sister, you must learn to hold your tongue!” Soo-hee scolded. “Ummah is hungry. Let her eat.”
Mother slowly removed her scarf and sat at the low table without taking off her coat. Soo-hee placed the rice and vegetables we had made in front of her.
“Let me see the orders, Soo-hee,” Mother said, ignoring the food.
“Ummah, you should eat first. We can read them later.”
“Daughter!” Mother scolded. Then, more gently she said, “Let me see the orders.”
Soo-hee bowed. She was always more respectful than I was. She reached inside her dress and pulled out the yellow envelope. She handed it to Mother.
Mother read the orders to herself and her shoulders sagged. She gave the orders to me. “Here,” she said, “you read Japanese, too. Make sure we understand them correctly.”
The orders were signed by the same official who had signed Father’s orders a year earlier. As I read them, I said aloud, “We are to report to the Japanese military headquarters in Sinuiju tomorrow where we will be sent to work in a boot factory. We will live in a dormitory. They will subtract rent and the cost of the meals from our wages. Anything left over will go to our landlord.”
I pushed the papers back at Mother. “I am not going. They can’t make me.”
Mother stared at the orders in her hand. “You must go,” she said, shaking her head. “We don’t have enough food for the winter. And you must always do what the Japanese say.”
“But how will we plant the crops in the spring?” I asked. Mother could not possibly plant them by herself.
Mother didn’t answer. After a while, Soo-hee said, “Hush, Ja-hee. You ask too many questions.” She was right. I always asked a lot of questions.
Eventually, Mother folded the orders into the envelope and laid it on the table. “Go, girls. Prepare for bed,” she said, gently. “Prepare for bed and come back to me. Tonight, I will comb your hair with the comb with the two-headed dragon.”
S IX
Soo-hee and I went out to the well and washed. When we came inside to change for bed, Mother was building a fire in the iron stove. That surprised me. We only burned wood on the coldest days of winter.
When we returned to the kitchen, the fire was high and Mother was kneeling on the floor. She had washed the grime from her face and hands, and had changed into her white hanbok that she only wore on special occasions, before the Japanese outlawed them. She held her back straight and her chin high as I remembered she did many years earlier. Next to her, on the table, was the comb with the two-headed dragon.
I had only seen it a few times before. When I was young, Mother would comb our hair with it during the Korean New Year, before we paid our respects to our grandparents. Father was always away when she did, visiting a friend in need or helping the village men butcher a pig for the New Year’s celebration.
I had always wondered where Mother had gotten the magnificent comb with the gold spine and the strange two-headed dragon. I asked her about it once and Soo-hee scolded me for asking too many questions. But I could tell Soo-hee wanted to know, too. Mother had said we were too young to understand.
Then, when I was eight years old, the Japanese forced us to give our land to the skinny landlord
with the big ears. They told us we had to celebrate the New Year the Japanese way. Mother did not comb our hair with the special comb that year, and I never saw it again. I thought she had sold it along with our furniture to buy rice. But now there it was, on the table in front of me.
Mother told us to come and sit by her so she could comb our hair. Soo-hee was the eldest so she got to go first. She knelt in front of Mother, facing the fire while I sat close. As the fire danced on the wood in the open stove, Mother pulled up the sleeves of her hanbok and carefully combed Soo-hee’s hair with the beautiful comb. Its gold spine gleamed in Mother’s hand and the dragon was white as new snow. Ummah worked slowly, carefully teasing out Soo-hee’s tangles.
“You never told us where you got the comb, Ummah,” I said, as I watched her work on Soo-hee. “You always said we were too young. Will you tell us now, please?”
Mother didn’t answer and I thought Soo-hee would scold me for asking questions again, but she didn’t. Ummah combed Soo-hee’s hair until it was smooth and shiny. And then it was my turn. I knelt with my back toward Mother. The comb pressed softly against my scalp. The fire threw black shadows against the kitchen walls. Our house was pleasantly warm and it smelled of burning aspen wood.
Then Mother began in a far-away voice. “My grandmother gave the comb to me after Soo-hee was born. Back then, our family owned the fields behind the house all the way to the tall trees. We raised pigs and cattle. We grew potatoes and nappa cabbage, and carrots, radishes, and onions. When I was a young girl, my father had to hire twenty men to bring in the harvest.”
I remained perfectly still as Mother combed my hair and told her story. Soo-hee, her hair smooth as silk, knelt off to my side facing mother as the fire softly crackled.
“My grandparents had two sons,” Mother continued. “Their youngest, my uncle, went to Manchuria to join the forces there that opposed the Japanese occupation of our country. The Japanese killed him, so my father was the only child, and I was his only daughter. My grandmother told me that is why she gave me the comb—because I was her only female descendent.”
Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story Page 3