Tiger's Tail

by Gus Lee

  I looked across the valley. I stepped to the edge, where the wind gusted, whispering a keening reminder that we were all subject to change, to bending, to submitting.

  Even men. Even American men. Even Chinese firstborn sons.

  Tree prefers calm, said the calligraphy in the villa. Wind does not care. I heard BaBa's coda: God loves us all.

  I faced his grave. “Sergeant Major,” I said.

  “I'll get your boys their day in the sun. I'll tell them how you saved some people. The innocents.” I was knocking rocks down the cliff. The north wind shifted the cotton strings of fog around me.

  I looked toward the hidden Inmingun camps on the Z, at the shaman's Japanese green-tiled curved roof, at the black granite apex of Jungsan, at the emptiness of the winter garden's bare trees. I saw the promise of spring in its evergreens above an invasion valley, fertile with the bones of the dead.

  Inmingun, don't come. Stay home. Let peace do its work.

  I lit two joss sticks and stuck them in the ground when the paste began to burn. Hu-hau, Hu-chien, these are for you, for good fortune, from Ma and BaBa and your older brother.

  I had a full life, round with luck, robust with good yuing chi. Against this, I had had only a few bad moments. I was a fortunate man who had made too much of his losses.

  The joss smelled old and familiar. I remembered the joss in Naktong, and something made me lower my head.

  I felt McCrail's faith, glowing from a condemned, putrid cell, fighting off the curse of a life term in a toilet. That memory filled my chest. I humbled myself and spoke as the son of a laoban, a boy without a man's false pride.

  God, I'm sorry I killed the girl.

  I'm sorry my brothers died and I lived.

  The wind took the sound of tears. I looked up, just like McCrail. I give You the girl. I had her for seven years. My brothers, for twenty-four. It's Your turn. They were good kids who had to live in war. Please watch over the McCrails. If you have flowers up there, let them pick them, together.

  Winter finches called to each other in light clear song, flitting from branch to branch, dusting the air with snow.

  I felt the Korean willow branches, my gift for Fan taitai, who had foretold my life and put me in uniform.

  Something was above me. I cried for the beauty of the world. I felt the fine and preposterously supreme logic to all we did.

  I pulled the Randall knife from my boot, hefting it as I clamped on the cigar, took a breath, stepped into the throw, grunting as I hurled it toward the place where the sergeant major had delivered a final, zero-appeal ver-dict on the Wizard.

  It sailed and spun, catching failing light on its blade before distantly and silently striking the tree where the two men had died. I would miss the knife. I would miss the girl more.

  I pulled the glowing cigar from the ground, took a deep draw and stubbed it into the soft soil, the last plume of smoke wafting into the slate Korean sky. I stood and slowly saluted the sergeant major. I walked to the cliff, facing north, the land of my memories and birth, of McCraiFs heroic captivity. Only his body was in the ground. I took the cigar from my mouth and looked up.

  I remembered him singing to me in the gan-bang myunhae skill, the interview cell in Naktong. I closed my eyes, hearing his voice, recalling the words of an Irish blessing.

  “May the road rise to meet your step. May the wind be at your back, the rain fall softly on your fields. May God hold you in the palm of His hand.” I puffed on the cigar. “Goodbye, Patrick.”

  Goodbye, lad.

  A strong gust of Manchurian wind forced me back from the edge, pine needles rattling against me, my body bending in submission, pointing me toward the east, toward the future of the jia in far-off America.

  When the wind stopped, I straightened. The wind had blown out my smoke. I looked up into the endless sky that encircled the world, into a heaven that was a deliberate gift, a reminder of kindnesses, universally owed.

  A smile, full of Jen, universal benevolence, curled around the corners of my mouth. I pulled the coat collar tightly around my neck, picked up the flag and walked slowly down the mountain.

  EPILOGUE

  On the morning of 8 August 1974, Colonel Carlos Justicio Murray, senior legal counsel to The Inspector General of the Army, issued a five-point press release.

  Headquarters, U.S. Army, Washington.

  On 19 January, three U.S. servicemen died in a live-fire exercise in South Korea during field maneuvers with the Second U.S. Infantry Division. CPT Christopher Sapolu of Honolulu, an Army weight lifter, and PV2 Paek Ok-kyu and PV2 Kim Chae-yon, company supply clerks, both of Los Angeles, were fatally wounded during field maneuvers with the Second U.S. Infantry Division. IG investigation has ruled the deaths accidental. New safety measures for live-fire exercises are in place.

  In an unrelated incident at the DMZ in Korea on 20 January 1974, two U.S. servicemen died while mountain-climbing near the rural village of Tongducheon.

  COL Frederick C. LeBlanc, Staff Judge Advocate for the Second U.S. Infantry, fell to his death while climbing Jungsan Peak in northern South Korea. COL LeBlanc left no kin. A serviceman attempting to save COL LeBlanc was also killed.

  In unrelated legal proceedings, five Army lawyers in Korea were today sentenced to confinement at hard labor from two to fifteen years for effecting claims frauds.

  Due to normalization of relations between Washington and Peking, four U.S. prisoners from the Korean War have been repatriated after twenty-four years of captivity.

  The four servicemen, whose names are being withheld pending notification of kin, are at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

  It is noted that Hong Kong newspaper accounts attributing the release of these four servicemen to the covert work of Chinese bandits and a Chinese-American soldier of fortune are untrue. Nor is there any truth to the rumor that these POWs had been held captive in Arsenyev, in the Russian Far East.

  The press has published reports that North Korean military terrorists recently attempted the seizure of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons. We state unequivocally that these allegations are suppositional and irresponsible, since the United States has no tactical nuclear weapons in the Republic of Korea.

  The press release drew little attention; on the same day, amidst a press storm of unprecedented dimensions, President Richard M. Nixon announced his resignation from the White House, effective the following day, Friday, 9 August.

  On Thursday, 15 August 1974, Chang Duk-kyo, a burly worker at the Jungsan Mountain orphanage in Kyonggi Province, broke his pledge to the local shaman by abandoning his work.

  Five days later, an Inmingun special purpose team attempted the assassination of South Korea's president, Park Chung Hee in the Blue House, the executive palace in Seoul.

  The team assassinated his wife, the first lady, and deepened fears of an imminent North Korean invasion. Eleven members of the team were killed by ROK security forces.

  United Nations Command Korea, Eighth U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet went on full invasion alert.

  Three Inmingun soldiers survived to be executed and buried in low ground. One was an unnaturally large man.

  Western reporters who scoured Korea for stories that summer heard rumors of a “Korean nuclear crisis” and accounts of North Korean spies, called Tiger Tails.

  They heard descriptions of a suicide squad of steroidal mesomorphs in the American Army. No rationale for or proof of the existence of such men was found. In time, the stories faded into legend and innuendo.

  One journalist persisted. Julie Wong of the Sacramento Bee settled in Tongducheon for two months, interviewing residents and taking pictures. She, the daughter of a man who used to ride the currents of the Yangtze River with a junkboat family, later won a Pulitzer for a photograph that seemed to typify a troublesome Year of the Tiger.

  It depicted a long-haired woman and a teenaged girl kneeling at two petal-strewn graves in a green ginkgo garden, high on a windswept mountain in the far northern border c
ountry of South Korea. One gravestone is gray with age; the other is a bright white. Flowers adorn both stones.

  In the photo, the woman lifts gnarled fingers to the sky. She has an oval, sunlit face marked by large, feline eyes.

  The contrast between the old hand and the beautiful face captures a boundary and paints a bridge between vast unknowns and seems proof of things invisible. The woman smiles as she faces east, toward America.

  HONOR AND DUTY

  also by Gus Lee

  As the war in Vietnam escalates, Kai Ting, a cadet at West Point, must confront dangerous preconceptions about Asians and struggle to maintain his Chinese and American identities.

  The candidate buses unloaded, and my status of being the first was lost. The reminder, in echoing tones, of a five-year service obligation after graduation, induced a few to leave, beginning a process of attrition that would last for over three years. The grim words invited me to belong to something honorable; there was no going back. We were briefed on the oath of service and directed to Central Area. I was the only Chinese 1 saw.

  As we left with our bags to meet our fates, the sergeants gazed at us as if we were boys instead of projections of parental ambition. The Negro janitor and I exchanged a glance. He was solemn, as if he were saying farewell to someone he knew. I nodded, appreciating his presence, wishing he knew that I had been raised as a Negro youth, knowing that, for an American, I always dipped my head too low in deference to China.

  We stepped into the bright and angry flare of a day that was now alarmingly hot. The heat broiled my skin. I was entering a huge quadrangle filled with a deep, primitive roar of voices.

  A breathtakingly immaculate cadet awaited me. He thrust his intensely focused features directly into my face and I jerked. Man—too close! “Hi,” I gulped, “my name's Kai and—”

  “DROP THAT BAG!” he roared, and I recoiled as my unguarded mind took his angry words like punches to the head. I gaped as my smarts fled before this yu chao, bad omen. I placed my luggage at my feet. Others began to drop their bags in small “whaps” across the Area.

  “PICK IT UP!” the cadet screamed, then bellowed, “DROP THAT BAG!” I winced as the bag smashed onto the concrete: it contained my father's carefully preserved Colt super.38 automatic pistol. “PICK IT UP!” I picked it up, faster. “DROP THAT BAG!” I dropped it. “PICK IT UP!” I recovered it before the “UP!” I had become a human marionette, bobbing at my master, disarmed by the emotion.

  “MISTER!” the cadet shouted. “YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY EXECUTE THE COMMAND GIVEN. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

  “Yes,” I said, voice quavering, eardrums ringing, “MISTER! You have THREE ANSWERS: ‘YES, SIR,’ ‘NO, SIR,’ AND ‘NO EXCUSE, SIR.’ DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

  “Uh, yes, sir,” I said, politely.

  He was impeccable in a starched white shirt with blue, gold-striped shoulder epaulets; a bright, black-visored, snow-white cap; razor-sharp, black-striped gray pants; brilliant shoes; and advertising-quality white gloves. His name tag said “Rice,” a name I liked. I had never seen anyone so marvelously perfect.

  “I CANNOT HEAR YOU, SMACKHEAD!” he bellowed, as if I were back at the hotel rather than an inch from his clanging tonsils.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, pupils and testicles contracting.

  “POP OFF, MISTER! KNOCK YOUR EQUIPMENT TOGETHER! YOU SOUND LIKE A WEEPING GIRL! DO YOU HEAR ME?! DROP THAT BAG!” he screamed.

  “YES, SIR!” I cried, wincing at my own voice, the bag slapping the concrete. His face filled my vision. Uncle Shim believed that shouting was for thoughtless men. To my mother, shouting was a mortal sin. A street ditty inanely ran through my addled brain:

  Step on a crack, break yo’ momma's back. Yell at her face, lose all yo’ grace.

  “BRACE, MISTER! You are CROOKED! PUSH that neck IN! KEEP YOUR EYES UP—SQUASH THAT NECK BACK! MAKE WRINKLES IN YOUR CHIN! CRAM IT IN! ROLL YOUR SHOULDERS BACK! PUFF OUT THAT PUNY, BIRDLIKE CHEST! HEELS TOGETHER, FEET AT FORTY-FIVE DEGREES! ELBOWS IN! THUMBS BEHIND THE SEAMS OF YOUR TROUSERS! KEEP YOUR HEAD STRAIGHT! ROLL YOUR HIPS UNDER! How old are you, SMACKHEAD!?”

  I balked. He had almost spit in my face. “Se-seventeen,” I said. Ten years in the ring spoke to me: take your stance, gloves high, and box this bully with the Godzilla voice. It was an old tune: China boy trips in and bingo from the jump, it's Fist City.

  “IRP!—IMMEDIATE RESPONSE, PLEASE! ‘SEVEN-TEEN, SIR; RIGHT?! NOT ‘Se-seventeen.’” The “IRP!” was the dark, sonorous belch of a thunder lizard; “RIGHT?!” was the sound of silk being slit by a sharp butcher knife. The cadence and emphasis of his speech were almost Negro, but there was no comfort in it.

  “Yessir, seventeen, SIR, YESSIR!!”

  “CROTHEAD” he hissed, “I WANT SEVENTEEN WRINKLES! PICK UP THAT BAG! BRACE.’ ROLL YOUR SHOULDERS DOWN AND BACK! LIFT YOUR HEAD UP! CRAM YOUR NECK IN! BRACING IS THE MILITARY POSTURE FOR A MEMBER OF THE FOURTH CLASS! IF YOU SURVIVE BEAST, YOU WILL BRACE FOR ONE YEAR! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, DUMBJOHNWILLIE CROT!? SOUND-OFF!”

  “YES, SIR!” I cried.

  “KEEP YOUR BEADY LITTLE EYES STRAIGHT AHEAD! NEW CADETS ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO GAZE AROUND! REPORT TO THE MAN IN THE RED SASH AND SAY, ‘Sir, New Cadet X reports to the Man in the Red Sash as ordered.’ PRESENT ARMS—SALUTE HIM. DO YOU UNDERSTAND, CROTWASTE!”

  “YES, SIR!” I screamed, catching only the inner threat of his incomprehensible speech. I struggled with the seventeen parts of bracing while recovering my luggage and trying to breathe the bad air and survive the truly awful lack of ho, harmony, in this place.

  “NEW CADETS DOUBLE-TIME WHEN THEY ARE ABOUT THEIR DUTIES. ‘DOUBLE-TIME’ MEANS YOU WILL RUN IN A MILITARY MANNER, FOREARMS PARALLEL TO THE GROUND, HEAD IN. POST, MISTER!” he bellowed, and I trembled isometrically in exaggerated rigidity, trying to simulate an American picket fence post, stiff, unbreathing, and white.

  “POST, MISTER! DO NOT SPAZ ON ME! TAKE YOUR POST AND GET YOUR SORRY UNMILITARY WAYS OUT OF MY AREA! MOVE IT!”

  HONOR AND DUTY By Gus Lee

  Published by Ivy Books.

  Available in bookstores everywhere.

  Gus Lee is the only American-born member of a Shanghai family. He attended West Point and received a law degree from King Hall, University of California at Davis. He has served as a drill sergeant, paratrooper, military criminal defense lawyer, command judge advocate, deputy director for the California District Attorney's Association, and senior executive for the State Bar of California. He is also the author of China Boy and Honor and Duty. He is married, has two children, and is now a full-time writer.

  ivy Books

  Published by Ballantine Books

  Copyright © 1996 by Gus Lee

  Map copyright © 1996 by Mark Stein Studios

  Excerpt from Honor and Duty copyright © 1994 by Gus Lee

  www.randomhouse.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96–94871

  eISBN: 978-0-307-48083-5

  v3.0