Black Flower

by Kim, Young-ha

  One day, when Bak Jeonghun was passing a firing range, Obregón asked him, “Didn’t you say that you were once a soldier?” When Bak Jeonghun said that he was, Obregón promptly took an American rifle from a soldier standing nearby and tossed it to him. “Shoot for me.” Bak Jeonghun declined, saying that it had been a long time since he had fired a gun, but Obregón persisted. Bak Jeonghun shot ten rounds from the prone position and hit the target one hundred meters away with eight rounds. He was given ten more rounds at Obregón’s command, and he fired all ten into the center of the target. Obregón helped him up. “You don’t have to worry about being a barber anymore.” Obregón was fond of this taciturn Asian. He had always maintained friendly relations with the native peoples, such as the Yaqui Indians, so the barber’s nationality was of no concern to him. Furthermore, the man had no interests in Mexico, so there was little worry that he would betray him, and he could not understand complicated conversations in Spanish. Bak Jeonghun said to Obregón, “I have a young wife, so it will be difficult for me to go to battle.” Obregón smiled as he spoke. “It won’t take long. Villa and Zapata are both amateurs at war. They may be laughing in Mexico City now, but they won’t last. You will soon be able to return and go eat Chinese food with your young wife.”

  72

  CHOE SEONGIL AND Ignacio Velásquez knelt at the entrance of the cathedral in Mérida, dipped their fingers in holy water, and crossed themselves. Inside the cathedral were Jesuit priests, students, and those of like mind to Ignacio. With their weapons in hand, their expressions were so grim as to be comic. The bishop of Mérida blessed them, calling them crusaders who fought against atheists. The Mass was performed hastily, as if they were pressed for time. “Amen, amen, amen.” A nervous tension blanketed the cathedral. As soon as the bishop who had officiated the Mass said, “Go and spread the Gospel,” he retreated to the vestry and fled through the rear door.

  Some of those in the sanctuary kept watch through the loopholes in the wall on what was going on outside, and when they grew fatigued from the tension and yawned, torches began to appear one by one from afar. As the torches passed by city hall and the park, they suddenly increased in number and speed. “They’re coming!” The sound of shouting in the cathedral echoed like the hymns of a choir. The cathedral was as noisy as a market, with the sound of guns being loaded and pews being piled into barricades. Choe Seongil went up to the belfry and looked down. The square in front of the cathedral was a sea of torches. Gunfire could already be heard. “Punish the landowners! Seize the Church’s property!” The torches flooded in with the shouting of slogans. Ignacio Velásquez’s gun spit fire. The fortress-like cathedral, built on the former site of a Mayan shrine, did not fall easily.

  It was then that Choe Seongil realized that those like Ignacio were the minority. He had lived only on Buena Vista hacienda, so he had thought that most Mexicans were secretly fanatics like the hacendado. But that was not the case. They were put on the defensive.

  Choe Seongil came down from the belfry and saw the cross above the altar. Jesus barely managed to hold up his body as he hung there, his face twisted in agony. Ignacio was cooling down the heated barrel of his long rifle with a wet towel as he fired. Having fought through all sorts of hardships, Choe Seongil had a foreboding that neither guns nor anything else would be able to stop those rushing torches. He went down to the crypt. Light and air came in through a slanting hole where the ceiling met the wall. He shoved his body into the vent, which was barely large enough for a person to fit through. When he had wriggled all the way through like a maggot, he came face to face with a steel grate. He shook it, but it did not open. Gunfire still rang outside. He only barely managed to crawl back down the way he had come.

  The cries outside the cathedral gradually grew louder. He returned to the sanctuary. Ignacio was praying behind a fortification of sandbags. Choe Seongil sat down next to him. His mind was a flurry of thoughts. When they had entered the church, he had not imagined that the situation might turn so grave. They were completely surrounded by the mob. There was nowhere to run. The thief from Jemulpo grabbed a gun. Then he looked down at Ignacio. He had never been able to understand his God, but it was his God that had driven off the old man that had sat on his shoulders. Though Choe Seongil did not believe in God, he did believe in miracles, like the way his epilepsy attacks had disappeared when he’d met Ignacio. That blasted old man, who had appeared suddenly, choked him, mumbled nonsensical words, and brought him to strange places, had tucked his tail between his legs at a few drops of holy water from the fat Ignacio and that mangy priest.

  Choe Seongil looked down again at the sea of torches surging outside the cathedral. There was no way out. He grasped the butt of his rifle. He pointed it at those who were thronging in to destroy the happiest time of his life and he pulled the trigger. In that moment he was an overseer in a leather vest and a soldier of the Lord and the adopted son of a fanatical hacendado. Ignacio and Jesus, not that mob, had given him his whip, his boots, and his sombrero. Ignacio finished his prayer, approached Choe Seongil, and gave him a bandolier. “Those cowards, if they take just a few rounds, they’ll run off screaming for the Blessed Mother and for Jesus. Don’t worry. If they break through the cathedral door, just keep shooting.”

  Choe Seongil prayed in earnest for the first time. “Jesus, in truth I do not know you. But this has happened because of you, so please help me.”

  Boom! “Raaaaah!” A log that played the part of a battering ram shattered the front door of the cathedral and hundreds of people poured in like water through a ruptured dam. The landowner crusaders pulled their triggers as one. But those in the rear knew nothing of the carnage taking place in front and continued to push forward. No matter how many they shot down, it was no use. Like David’s Sabine Women, the crowds climbed over the bodies and stormed into the church. The only difference was that there were no bare-breasted women. The brown-skinned crusaders retreated to the higher ground of the altar and choir and fired their guns. But the attacking crowd was much faster.

  The looting began as soon as the barricade fell. The people carried out sacred relics and treasures, candlesticks and vestments. The riflemen who had defended the cathedral were being dragged out. The mob struck them on the head with clubs. Choe Seongil’s gun felled three more of them, but it was meaningless. He threw away his gun and fled toward the belfry. But the mob had already climbed up ladders and was entering the belfry through the top. They struck Choe Seongil in the chest as he ran up the spiral stairs, and he tumbled back down. He immediately lost consciousness.

  Time passed. That acute pain and illusion that he had forgotten so long ago returned to him. The shapeless darkness spoke: “I am the one who died in your stead.” Choe Seongil waved his hands and shouted, “No! Who dies in someone else’s stead? Who on earth are you? Who are you?” The shape choked Choe Seongil. “I am the Jesus of those you killed.” Choe Seongil struggled. “What is my sin? I killed them because they deserved to die. And you choked me on the Ilford, before I killed them. Ah, please take your hand away! I cannot breathe!” The shape said, “My time and your time are different. There is no before or after for sin. Your sin is not acknowledging your sin.”

  He opened his eyes and found himself in the square. His shoulder joints hurt so badly it felt as if his arms were being torn out. The tops of his feet burned as if someone were searing them with a hot iron. He looked around. It was amazing. He was floating in the air. Am I already dead? But he was not. People were gazing up at him from below. He looked to his side and saw Ignacio Velásquez lying on the ground, tied to a cross. A bald man smiled and drove a nail into Ignacio’s palm. Only then did Choe Seongil realize why his shoulder joints hurt so much. He was hanging on a cross with his arms spread out. Gravity kept pulling his body downward. The blood that flowed from his palms soaked his armpits. His feet, which were pierced by a large nail, hurt so badly it felt as if millipedes were gnawing their way into them. Choe Seongil shouted urgently, “Look her
e! I do not believe in Jesus and I am not even Mexican! I am a Korean! I am a bystander! Save me, please!” A man approached, pointed at him, and said, “You beat us and raped us and killed us. You must die.” Sweat trickled into his eyes. Choe Seongil recognized him: he was a Mayan laborer from Buena Vista hacienda.

  The hammering ended with a clamor, and dozens of people pulled on ropes to hoist Ignacio’s cross upright. They tried several times but lost their balance, and Ignacio slammed to the ground. He screamed like an animal and cried. He desperately prayed the Hail Mary. But no one could understand him.

  Seeing Ignacio like that, Choe Seongil thanked God that he had lost consciousness. Gunfire rang out from afar. The reinforcements of Governor Alvarado were entering the square from the north. The mob, having finished their looting and executions, fled into the twisted alleys of the market to the south. Someone approached Choe Seongil and aimed a gun at his head. Choe Seongil closed his eyes. “Hurry, hurry!” he pleaded. The conclusion was not as long as he thought it would be. With a bang, everything ended. Choe Seongil enjoyed a feeling of peace that he had never before experienced. There was no pain and no rage. There was only the feeling that a long and tedious journey had finally come to an end. Suddenly his spirit, floating high in the sky, was looking down on the chaos of the square before the cathedral. Like a close-up in a film, he saw Ignacio Velásquez’s end as well. Someone swung a sword at him as he lay on the ground, still nailed to the cross. He was being sliced up like a fish on a cutting board.

  With this, the shaman’s second prophecy was fulfilled. “When the flames move and the sound of thunder is heard, death will come quick. Death!”

  73

  PANCHO VILLA WAS chewing on a chicken leg and staring at a map. His staff officers stood around him, leaning over the map. Something bothered him about the fact that the army of Obregón, who had been driven away to Veracruz, had skirted around Mexico City and entered Querétaro. The region of Jalisco, including Guadalajara, was strategically vital to Villa’s northern division and Zapata’s southern division. Obregón’s intentions were clear: he was trying to divide them. Villa set up his corps headquarters in the city of Irapuato, on the border of Jalisco. In accordance with Villa’s orders, Ijeong stopped the slaughter in Mexico City and moved to the military headquarters. Villa’s troops and Obregón’s troops faced each other at a distance of seventy miles.

  Pancho Villa liked to scare his enemies out of their wits with a thunderous cavalry charge, and this tactic was also well suited to his character. He had to lure the enemy out onto the plains in order to effect the charge, but the foolish enemy commander Obregón had crawled down onto the plains of his own accord. Villa’s confidence soared and his troops’ morale was high. For his part, Obregón devoted all his energy to acquiring cannons and machine guns. Unlike Villa, Obregón knew well the lessons of the Great War that had broken out in Europe not long before. He could not overlook the power of Villa’s lightning charges, but he could apply methods used on the battlefields of France and Belgium: if one dug deep trenches and laid down barbed wire before them and fired machine guns from behind them, the cavalry charge that was Villa’s forte could be neutralized. So the plains of Celaya, which Villa had thought were to his advantage, were perfectly suited to Obregón’s plans as well. Irrigation ditches for wheat farming stretched out left and right on the flat ground, and if these were dug a little deeper and a bulwark raised in front, they would be ideal for use as military trenches. Obregón mobilized fifteen thousand troops, dug his trenches, set up fifteen cannons and about one hundred of the latest machine guns, and waited for the decisive battle.

  The Villista general Felipe Ángeles counseled against a great battle. “Obregón is luring us. If we simply cut off his supplies and stall for time, he will surrender. Their supply lines are growing longer now. It would be to our advantage to cut off his supplies with Zapata’s troops and wait for our chance. The enemy is the one who wants a quick battle and a quick conclusion.” In the end, his words were correct, but they were not the right words to convince a man like Villa. Villa, the former bandit, was a thug to the bone. In the world of thugs, cowardice was even more hated than death. Thus Ángeles’s advice only strengthened Villa’s determination. He had led a mere eight thugs across the Rio Grande and had ultimately become a general who led tens of thousands of troops. Why should he do now what he had not done when he led only eight? Villa also knew that Zapata’s troops were nothing more than a disorderly rabble that had no skill in regular warfare. He had entrusted the storming of Veracruz to Zapata’s troops, but they had not been able to advance a single step. He thought of himself as the only person able to turn the tide of the revolution back in their favor.

  Before daybreak on April 6, 1915, Ijeong was cleaning his gun with the soldiers. Miguel approached and offered him a cigarette. Ijeong lit it and said, “Villa’s probably going to give the order to attack soon, isn’t he?” Miguel nodded. “I saw the cavalry saddling their horses.” Ijeong blew out smoke and asked Miguel, “You really think a permanent revolution is possible?” Miguel looked at Ijeong for some time, to try to judge his thoughts. “Look here, politics is all a dream. Democracy, communism, anarchism, it’s all the same. They were all created so we could shoot at each other.” Miguel lifted his gun. “This comes first, and words come later. Of course I believe that. Even if I didn’t believe it, that’s the only way. I was seventeen when I first killed a man. Back then I was with Zapata’s troops. And now I serve under Villa. Yet nothing has changed for me.”

  When the sun rose, Villa gave the order for his infantry units to advance. He did not use his cavalry, his strength, because he had seen the long trenches and barbed wire stretched out across Obregón’s encampment and the gleaming barrels of the machine guns. Even Villa knew what that meant. Because machine guns had a shorter range and were less accurate than rifles, Villa’s troops had the upper hand early in the battle. They pushed Obregón’s forces from the city of Celaya and entered it. Ijeong’s regiment formed the vanguard. A member of the regiment took the belfry of Celaya’s cathedral and went up and rang the bell excitedly. When the clear, rich sound of the bell reached the battlefield, the morale of Villa’s troops rose.

  Yet Ijeong’s rhythm was severely disturbed by the sudden sound of the bell. It was as if it had stirred up some sediment that had lain quietly inside him. Only then did he realize, paradoxically, that he owed that quiet, that indifference, to war. Thanks to war, he had been able to hide and hold back all the desires and conflicts inside. Thanks to the rigorous tension demanded by shooting, maneuvering, and commanding, he was free from the past he had left behind. The place where no one would reproach him for this was the battlefield. But the piercing, bright bell of Celaya shook him. Beneath that belfry, as bullets flew back and forth, he remembered the flame-shaped arch of Chunchucmil hacienda and Yeonsu’s warm body. He remembered his trembling hands when he pulled the trigger for his first murder and his second murder. Had Miguel not approached and touched him, he might have stood there, lost in thought, for some time. “Hey, Kim,” Miguel said, “something’s not right. I think Obregón is going to counterattack soon. He retreated a little too quickly.”

  Bak Jeonghun stood next to Obregón and watched the progress of the battle with him. They had also heard the bell of Celaya. Obregón was not particularly disturbed by it, and he reinforced his troops and ordered them to push forward. He arranged the machine gunners all along the line and suppressed Villa’s riflemen. Obregón had the upper hand in numbers as well. Even Obregón’s own unit, of which Bak Jeonghun was a part, participated in the battle and showered Villa’s troops with bullets. It had been a long time since Bak Jeonghun had participated in a real battle. This weighed far less on his mind than aiming his rifle at the guerrillas of his own country as a soldier in the strange army of a small and weak nation, and an army commanded in turn by Japan and Russia at that. He did not care whether it was Obregón or Villa. Yet judging by Obregón’s character, he fel
t that it would not be such a bad thing for him to become the leader of Mexico. With the curious philosophical attitude common to mercenaries, he calmly joined the battle. Bak and Obregón’s unit advanced to the bell tower of Celaya. Bak aimed at the Villista in the belfry who was ringing the bell. That soldier determined their morale, so he had to be taken out quickly. Bak’s bullet struck the bell. Ping! A sharp report rang out. The soldier dropped flat. The moment he lifted his head to locate the enemy, the second bullet pierced his forehead. Blood splattered on the white walls of the belfry. At that, Ijeong’s regiment abandoned the belfry and retreated. Bak Jeonghun climbed to the third story of a building in the center of Celaya and aimed his gun at the retreating file of Villa’s troops. Into his field of vision came a familiar face, a Korean face, though it was covered by a beard. Ijeong. The boy had become a young man. Bak Jeonghun did not pull the trigger and waited for the regiment to pass.

  The offensive and defensive skirmishes between Obregón’s and Villa’s troops continued throughout the night. The battle left the streets of Celaya and ended on the evening of the next day, April 7. Villa’s troops had retreated all the way to their headquarters in Irapuato and regrouped. It was a day of humiliation for Villa. But Obregón was not happy. His goal had been not merely to defeat Villa’s army but to annihilate it. If he did not cut their throats this time, there was no doubt that Villa, who was skilled in both guerrilla and regular warfare, would continue to hound him.

  In order to break through the slow tide of battle, Villa resolved to sweep the enemy away with one of his cavalry charges. With reinforcements arriving from Jalisco and Michoacán, Villa’s forces totaled 30,000 men. His cavalry was intact and he outnumbered his enemy two to one. He thought that he could simply go around the barbed wire. On April 13, Pancho Villa ordered his cavalry to charge. The northern cavalry, a legend of the Mexican Revolution, galloped out at once to the sound of trumpets. But the horses hesitated before the barbed wire, and at that moment Obregón’s machine guns shot forth flame. Bak Jeonghun’s rifle repeatedly spit fire from his position in the rear. Obregón steadily racked up points as horses without their riders and riders without their horses ran pell-mell before the barbed wire. On the other side, Villa committed the error of ordering the waiting second and third lines to attack. Obregón’s troops toppled Villa’s pride without budging from their trenches. This reckless charge continued all day. Between 3,000 and 3,500 cavalry were lost.