Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story

by William Andrews

  “Where did she get it, Ummah?” I asked. “Who gave it to your grandmother?”

  “Hush, Ja-hee,” Soo-hee said. “Let Ummah tell the story.”

  Mother continued. “It was given to her by her mother. Your great-great-grandmother is the one who had it made. She was an important woman who lived in Seoul. When the Japanese became powerful, your great-great-grandmother sent her children here. She gave them this land and sent people along to watch over them. She visited from Seoul when she could, and one day, she gave her daughter this comb. Her daughter was your great-grandmother—my grandmother who gave me the comb.

  “Our great-great-grandmother had it made?” I asked. “She must have been very rich. A yangban! Why did she give her daughter the comb?”

  “She said the dragon had magic to help her,” Mother said. “She told me it must be passed on to daughters to help them, too.” Mother finished combing my hair and turned me around. She looked at me and then at Soo-hee. Her eyes were sad. “It was supposed to help me,” she said.

  “How was it supposed to help you, Ummah?” I asked.

  She did not answer. After a while, Soo-hee said, “You can tell us when we come back from the boot factory, Ummah. We must go to bed now. Tomorrow we have a long journey.” Soo-hee pulled at my sleeve. I wanted to ask more questions but Mother just stared into the fire. Soo-hee and I bowed to her and went to our mats to sleep.

  *

  I lay on my mat next to Soo-hee and tried to picture my great-great-grandmother, the important lady, the yangban, who could afford to have such a fine comb made for her daughter. I decided that she must have been beautiful with long black hair down to her knees. She must have commanded the respect of even the most powerful men. I wished my great-great-grandmother was still alive so she could stop the Japanese from making Soo-hee and me work in the boot factory. I wondered how the comb was supposed to help my mother. I hoped it would help me someday.

  I lay awake for a long time waiting for Mother to come to bed. The floor was hot from the ondol heating system in our house. I kicked a leg out from under the blanket but the air outside was hot, too. I peeked through an opening in the latticed doors and saw an orange glow coming from the kitchen.

  I crawled off my mat and went to the kitchen. The fire was high and the room was hot. Mother sat next to the fire still dressed in her white hanbok. A stack of wood was at her side. I asked her why she was burning all the wood. She stared at the fire and didn’t answer me.

  I pulled on the sleeve of her hanbok. “Ummah, Ummah, what is wrong? Come to bed now. You have to go to work tomorrow.”

  Mother turned to me and ran a hand along my hair. “No,” she said sadly, “I will not give them any more.”

  It frightened me to see my mother so sad, so I quickly went back to my mat. When I crawled under the blanket, Soo-hee was awake. “Soo-hee,” I whispered, “Ummah is burning all the wood.”

  Soo-hee put a hand on my arm. “I know. Go to sleep, little sister.”

  I closed my eyes and eventually, I fell into a fitful sleep.

  *

  The next morning, Soo-hee tugged at me to get me out of bed. “Ja-hee, wake up!” she said. “We must make the kimchi before we leave.”

  The house was cold and I didn’t want to get up. I rolled into my blanket but Soo-hee pulled it off of me. She yelled at me again to get up. “We don’t have much time,” she said.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes open. It was still dark outside and I couldn’t see well. I peered into the kitchen. The fire was out and the wood was gone. The shadow of Mother, still in her white hanbok, sat in the cold room staring at nothing. Her eyes looked like the eyes of old Mr. Lee when Soo-hee and I found him behind his house dead from starvation.

  As daylight broke through the aspen trees, I helped Soo-hee drain the brine from the nappa cabbage and daikons. We only had time to rinse them twice instead of three times like we always did. We made a sauce from garlic, ginger, and hot peppers. The spices stung my hands. We tossed in the vegetables and put the mixture into two large onggis. We dragged them to the back of the house and buried them in deep holes. By the time we were done, it was daylight and Soo-hee said we had to go.

  I washed the sting from my hands and braided my hair. I wrapped an extra set of clothes in a cloth sack and set it next to Soo-hee’s sack bag. Soo-hee packed a handful of rice and kimchi in a hide bag. She brewed some bori cha. All the while, Mother continued to stare into the cold stove.

  I sidled up to Soo-hee. “What’s wrong with Ummah?” I whispered. It wasn’t at all like Mother to be quiet like that.

  “She is very tired,” Soo-hee said. “Now drink some bori cha and eat some rice.”

  I drank my bori cha and, though I wasn’t hungry, I ate a little rice. The comb was on the table in front of me. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I stared at the two-headed dragon and it stared back at me. I brought my face close in and something made me turn an ear to it. For a moment, I thought I heard the dragon speak to me.

  “Come little sister,” Soo-hee said. “We must say good-bye to Ummah.”

  The dragon had hypnotized me and I didn’t respond. “Ja-hee!” Soo-hee said. “We do not have much time!”

  “Yes, Onni, I’m coming,” I said. I forced myself away from the comb and joined Soo-hee in front of Mother.

  Soo-hee bowed low. “We are leaving to work in the boot factory, Ummah. We made kimchi and buried it in an onggi in the back of the house where the Japanese will not find it. We buried the rice, too. We will write if we can.” She bowed again. Mother continued to stare into the ashes.

  I stood in front of Mother to bow. Instead, I took her by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Ummah, wake up!” I insisted. “You have to go to work!” She didn’t move and I took a step back, afraid that my mother’s spell would never be broken.

  Soo-hee took me by the arm and pulled me toward the tarpaulin door. She told me it was time to go. We gathered our sacks and walked out of our house leaving our Mother inside, alone.

  *

  The sun had climbed over the hills in the east and the morning air was warming as we walked past the persimmon tree onto the dirt road. I slipped my hand inside Soo-hee’s and we walked down the road toward Sinuiju. We had gone only a little way when there was a rush of noise behind us. We turned to see Mother running toward us. Her feet were bare and her white hanbok billowed out. When she got to us, she stopped suddenly. I was glad to see that she was normal again. But then I saw she wasn’t. Her eyes were wild and scary.

  “Here,” she panted, “take it!” In her hand was the comb with the two-headed dragon. She held it out to Soo-hee.

  “Ummah, I am sorry,” Soo-hee said. “I cannot. The Japanese will steal it.”

  “I do not want it anymore,” Mother said.

  When Soo-hee didn’t take it, Mother took Soo-hee’s hand and pressed the comb into it. “Do not let go of it,” she whispered. “It has not helped me. Perhaps it will help you. And then you must pass it on to your daughter someday.” She gave Soo-hee a firm nod.

  She turned to me and took me by the shoulders. “Ja-hee, listen to your onni,” she said. “Do as she says. It is important that you do.” She let go of me and stood straight. She looked from Soo-hee to me. Her mouth opened, her brow furrowed, and I was afraid that my mother might cry in front of me for the first time in my life. “My babies,” she said. “Ye deulah.” Then, she lifted her hanbok and walked to the house without looking back.

  Soo-hee held the comb as if it were a baby bird that she didn’t know where to put. Then, she put the comb in her sack and took my hand again.

  “Come, little sister,” she said. “We have a very long journey.”

  S EVEN

  “We have come to work in the boot factory,” I said in Japanese to the soldier behind the desk. Soo-hee held our orders out to him. On the soldier’s arm was a white armband with Japanese characters that identified him as Kempei-tai, the Japanese military police.

&
nbsp; We were standing in a large room with high ceilings, wide plank floors, and many desks. Dozens of Koreans stood in lines, waiting to speak to soldiers sitting at the desks. Outside the window, the daylight was fading.

  The kempei glanced up from his work. “Address me as ‘sir’. I am Kempei-tai and you must show respect.”

  “Yes, sir,” Soo-hee said in Japanese.

  “Let me see your orders,” the kempei said. He took the orders and scanned them. “Yes. You’ve come to the right place. The truck to take girls to the boot factory will be leaving in a little while. Wait over there with the others.” He pointed to an open area where five other girls sat on the floor. Soo-hee and I went and sat with them.

  We had walked all day to Sinuiju and hadn’t arrived until the sun was low. Father always said he would take me to Sinuiju someday, but he wasn’t able to before he left home. I had imagined the city having tall, shimmering buildings, shiny cars speeding along on paved boulevards, and elegant ladies on walkways carrying pink parasols, just like in the books I had read with Mother. But when we arrived, all I saw were low shabby buildings, noisy military trucks cutting ruts in dirt roads, and hundreds of ragged workers heading home.

  We had stopped at the city’s outskirts and asked a soldier where we should go with our orders. The soldier pointed down the road. “Military command,” he had said. “The two-story building with the Japanese flag.” We finally found the large stucco building flying the white flag with the red sun. We went inside with our orders and a soldier pointed to the kempei’s desk.

  As we waited for the truck to take us to the boot factory, I studied the other girls. Their eyes darted about nervously. I recognized a tall girl from down the road from our farm. Her name was Sun-hi. All the girls were pretty and young. It concerned me that I was the youngest. I moved closer to Soo-hee.

  My onni leaned into the circle of girls and whispered in Korean, “Are all of you going to the boot factory, too?”

  “Yes,” whispered an older girl with light skin. “That is what our orders say.”

  “I thought the factory was here in Sinuiju,” whispered Soo-hee, “but the kempei said we will be going on a truck.”

  “Quiet over there!” shouted the kempei from his desk. “No talking!”

  We bowed our heads and stayed silent, sitting on the cold floor, waiting for the truck to arrive.

  *

  An hour later, the kempei approached us followed by a Japanese regular army soldier with dark eyes and a thick chin. “This man has come to take you to the boot factory,” the kempei said. “Follow me.”

  We followed the soldiers outside. The sun had set making Sinuiju even grayer. In front of us was a large green truck with a canvas top. The soldier with the thick chin helped us into the back. Inside were crates of supplies and sacks of rice. There was only a small area for us to sit. He handed one of the girls a water jug and slammed the truck gate closed as the kempei walked back inside the building.

  We huddled together and stared at each other wide-eyed. The boxes and sacks of rice hovered over us. The engine roared to life and the truck lurched forward. Several girls let out a squeal. We grabbed each other and held on. The truck rumbled down the street and I could see that it was heading out of the city. Soon, we were in the country rolling past farms and rice paddies. Sinuiju’s lights faded in the distance.

  “Soo-hee,” I asked, “where are we going?”

  “I don’t know,” Soo-hee answered. “But I don’t think we’re going to the boot factory in Sinuiju.”

  The older girl with light-colored skin shook her head. “I knew we weren’t going there,” she said. “My mother said that girls our age are sent to Seoul to work in the textile mill. At first, I didn’t want to go but she told me I had to. She said it’s easy work and we get as much rice as we want.” She turned to me and Soo-hee. She asked what our names were.

  I spoke up first. “My name is Ja-hee, and this is my onni, Soo-hee.”

  “My name is Jin-sook,” she said. My mother said that all we need to do is obey the Japanese,” Jin-sook said to all the girls. “Listen to me and do what I say.” Jin-sook looked like she was the oldest so we all nodded. No one said anything more as the boxes and sacks of rice swayed over our heads.

  The truck rolled on until the sky was dark and the stars twinkled. The smell of farmland and the diesel fumes made me sleepy. I was hungry, cold, and thirsty, too. I leaned into Soo-hee who pulled me close. Someone passed the water jug. When it came to Soo-hee, she handed it to me without taking a drink. “Take my share, little sister,” she whispered. “I’m not thirsty.” I took two swallows and passed the jug on.

  Eventually, I fell asleep.

  *

  I jerked awake in the middle of an odd dream where the dragon from Mother’s comb was chasing me. The truck had come to a stop and its engine was silent. It was completely dark and the air was still. I rubbed the dream from my eyes. “Where are we?” I asked in Korean. “What’s happening?”

  “Shush!” Jin-sook whispered. “You’ll get us all shot.”

  A light came from around the side of the truck and pointed in at us. I raised my arm to shield my eyes. A hand behind the light reached in and lowered the truck gate. The driver said, “You, come with me.”

  I was terrified he was talking to me, but the driver reached in and grabbed the tall girl named Sun-hi. “The rest of you stay put,” the driver barked, “or I will cut off your ears.”

  Sun-hi cried out, “Where are you taking me?”

  “Quiet!” the driver commanded. There was a slap and a muffled cry. The light disappeared into the darkness. I sat close to Soo-hee and trembled. I could feel Soo-hee trembling too.

  A short way from the truck Sun-hi cried out again. “No,” she said. “Please, no!”

  There was another slap and the sound of tearing fabric. “Quiet,” the driver barked. “Better get used to it you Korean whore.”

  I tried not to listen to Sun-hi’s cries, but it was the only sound in the dark night. After a few minutes, Sun-hi stopped crying and the driver grunted. He started breathing hard, then grunted again and again. Then he was quiet.

  Eventually, the light came again and pointed in at us. I was terribly afraid. I looked out the back of the truck for where to run in case the driver came for me next. All I saw was smothering blackness. I pushed myself tight against Soo-hee and blinked back tears. All the girls sat perfectly still. The driver shoved Sun-hi into the truck and she flopped down next to me and curled into a tight ball. Her dress was ripped and her hair hung in strings over her face. A streak of blood ran down her chin.

  The gate slammed closed and the light went toward the front of the truck again. The engine started and the truck jerked forward.

  As we rolled along in the darkness, one girl started to cry. “I thought you said we would be all right,” she said to Jin-sook. Jin-sook didn’t answer. Two other girls began to cry. I was about to cry too, but before I could, Soo-hee drew me close and whispered, “Do not cry, Ja-hee. We must be strong. We must be strong or we will die.”

  For the first time in my life, I was going to have to be strong. Until now, my parents and Soo-hee had always taken care of me. But now I had to do what Soo-hee said, so I pushed my cries down and felt my insides harden a little. I brought my knees up and curled into a tight ball like Sun-hi. I thought about the comb with the two-headed dragon. I hoped that if I stayed strong the dragon would protect me and I would be spared Sun-hi’s fate.

  But as the truck rolled on toward our destination, I wondered if the comb was nothing. After all, Mother said it didn’t protect her. Maybe it was only a trinket she had bought in Sinuiju and the story about my great-great-grandmother was a tall tale to make Soo-hee and me less afraid about leaving home.

  Maybe the comb with the two-headed dragon, hidden in Soo-hee’s sack, was nothing at all.

  E IGHT

  Fear kept me awake for the rest of the night. By the time the sun rose, I was further away from my h
ome than I had ever been before. Outside was a landscape I had never seen. There were only a few trees among the high rolling hills and brown wheat fields blanketed the flats. It was cold and the air was very dry.

  I asked Soo-hee where we were. “I think we’re in China,” she answered.

  By midday, we rolled into a town of low stucco buildings with gray-green tiled roofs. Men in strange clothing hauled carts down the narrow dusty streets. The truck stopped at a wooden building at the edge of the village. The driver came to the back of the truck and lowered the gate. I tried to hide behind Soo-hee.

  He ordered everyone out and told us to form a line. I climbed out with the other girls and we formed a line facing the building. The driver pulled Sun-hi out by the arm and pushed her into the line. Standing before us was a thin Japanese officer in a gray army uniform and a white Kempei-tai armband. He had sharp, black eyes, and a pointed nose. He slapped a shinai against his leg. The bamboo blade made a thwacking sound with each strike. Off to the side, a young regular army soldier with a rifle leaned against the narrow building.

  “What happened to this one?” the officer said, pointing his shinai at Sun-hi.

  The driver straightened. “The clumsy girl fell out of the truck when we stopped to piss, Lieutenant.”

  “Really? That had better be all that happened to her, corporal.” I wanted to tell the kempei what really happened, but I stayed quiet.

  “Lieutenant, sir,” the driver said, “I must unload these supplies at once, and take injured soldiers to the hospital in Pushun.” He gave a quick bow and ran back to his truck. The engine started, and the truck rumbled off.