by Martin Limon
“Forty li,” he told me, pointing toward the east. He said there was a bus that ran from the village to the town of Sokdei. I could take that.
“Tone oopso,” I told him. I don’t have any money.
His mouth fell open. “But you are a foreigner.”
“Some foreigners,” I explained, “don’t have money.”
While he chewed on that amazing thought, I chewed on the ddok he had brought me. A thick, glutinous cylinder of rubberized rice powder. Awful stuff. In South Korea, I’d often turned my nose up at it. Here, after three days of eating only the occasional rotten turnip or wilted cabbage leaves, it tasted like four courses at a five-star restaurant. In seconds it was gone. The boy brought me more water.
As I drank, he asked, “Are you a soldier?”
“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t going to tell him in which army.
“And you’re going to the Kwangju Mountains.”
I nodded.
“Why don’t you ride in a truck?”
“Not all soldiers ride in trucks.”
“Yes they do. They all do. I saw them, between here and Sokdei. Maybe five trucks.”
“Where were they going?”
“Many places. Each truck went in a different direction.”
They were setting up a line, I thought, between me and the mountains. How much did the North Koreans know of my mission? How important did they think I was? Important enough, anyway, to send five truckloads of infantry. In the last three days, I’d searched in vain for the village Hye-kyong had told me about, the village called Neibyol. I decided to risk asking this boy.
“It’s over there,” he told me, pointing. “To the south. On the other side of that mountain.”
Sokdei, where the boy had seen the soldiers, was to the east. It made sense for me to travel south toward Neibyol. Still, my strength was fading and it would only be a matter of time until the soldiers closed in on me. Now was the time to take a chance.
“Have you ever heard of someone called Moon Chaser?”
“Moon Chaser?” The boy’s eyes opened wide. “You know him?”
“We’ve never met,” I said.
The boy started shaking his head. “My mom never does business with the Moon Chaser. She loves the Great Leader. She would never do such a thing. The Great Leader provides everything for us.”
The boy was nervous now, stepping away from me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He shook his head. Then he turned and ran.
I moved out, heading south.
A red sun cast long shadows by the time I reached Neibyol. It was the most unprepossessing cluster of shacks I’d seen during my entire three-day sojourn in these hills. The buildings were made of rotted wood, some of the planks knocked loose; the thatched roofs had turned rust brown and looked as if the bundled straw hadn’t been replaced in years.
I was well hidden in a stone grotto, with escape routes both ways, because I was worried that the boy had alerted someone to my presence. But even if the army knew about me, they would have trouble navigating their way through these hills. The countryside looked as if it hadn’t changed since the Chosun Dynasty. The massive roads and trains and canals leading into and out of the capital city of Pyongyang were not to be found here. There was little arable land in North Korea, so all the big agricultural communes were located in the Taedong River valley, to the northeast. Neither were there any mining activities that I’d seen. I knew from my briefings that massive amounts of copper, zinc, lead, and iron ore were found in North Korea, but those deposits were located in Hamgyong Province, far to the north. These hinterlands, between Pyongyang and the DMZ, were like a land that time forgot. Soldiers in trucks would have a lot of ground to cover and poor roads to do it on, which would be good for me. My goal was to reach the Manchurian Battalion somewhere on the slopes of Mount O-song. If I kept moving, I had a chance.
A white fluffy dog, a common breed in Korea, was chained to a stake outside a hovel on the edge of Neibyol. Smoke rose from metal tubes that jutted out of a few of the homes. At a stream less than a mile away, women squatted, hammering laundry with sticks. I contemplated knocking on a door, startling the homeowner, and asking for Moon Chaser. The odds of anyone here owning a phone and being able to notify the authorities were slim to zero. Still, I decided to remain hidden, to observe. Food was on my mind. Inside one small fence, earthenware kimchi pots were half buried in the ground. I could lift the lid, rip off the cheesecloth covering, and shovel handfuls of the fiery-hot fermented cabbage into my mouth. Just the thought caused saliva to form at the edge of my dry tongue. But I wasn’t a thief. There must be a better way.
A door slid open. An old woman in a baggy skirt and tunic stepped off a wooden porch, carrying a pan that she placed in front of the dog. The dog wagged its tail gratefully and immediately stuck his snout into what looked like rice gruel. The woman left the dog and puttered around in a small garden. Nothing was growing at this time of year, but still she squatted through the rows, pulling out weeds where she found them.
Her hair was gray, her face covered with liver spots. Certainly, she’d been an adult two decades ago during the Korean War. The experiences she’d lived through, I could only imagine. I decided to take a chance on her. I rose from my hiding place and walked slowly into the village. As I approached, she looked up and I greeted her.
“Anyonghaseiyo, halmonni?” I said. Are you at peace, grandmother?
To my surprise, she didn’t seem shocked at the sudden appearance of a foreigner. The wrinkles on her face deepened as she smiled.
“Anyonghaseiyo,” she replied.
She seemed delighted to see me. There probably wasn’t a lot to do in this sleepy village of Neibyol. Even a filthy foreigner emerging suddenly from the hills was a welcome diversion. I apologized for my appearance and told her that I’d been traveling and asked her if she had any rice gruel she could spare.
Still smiling, she nodded and told me she had. Placing both hands on her knees, she rose stiffly and walked with her back bent into the house. Two minutes later, she returned with a pan that looked very much like the one she’d given the dog. I bowed and thanked her and squatted near her porch, shoveling the delicious rice gruel laced with what I believed to be turnip greens into my mouth with the pair of chopsticks she’d furnished. When I was finished, I bowed and handed the pan back to her, using both hands, as was the custom.
She was still smiling. “You’re very hungry,” she said.
I nodded, wiping my mouth.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m searching for someone.”
“Who?”
I decided to risk it. “Moon Chaser,” I said.
Her expression didn’t change.
“Are you a Soviet?” she asked.
“Romanian,” I replied.
The word apparently meant nothing to her. “Why are you alone?”
“I got lost. Moon Chaser will help me return to my unit.”
She nodded at that. “Do you know what Moon Chaser does?”
“No,” I replied. “Not exactly.”
“He’s a capitalist,” she said. “He exploits the people, sucks their blood. And worst of all, he doesn’t follow the precepts of our Great Leader.” Her face broke into an even broader grin and she was cackling madly, as if at some great joke. “A capitalist,” she said, slapping her knee with the mirth of the statement. “A capitalist.” She was almost choking on her laughter now. “Can you imagine those idiots? Here they almost starve us to death, work us to the bone, steal our sons to spend their lives in the army, and then they tell us to beware of capitalists. Capitalists who would exploit our labor. Capitalists like that skinny idiot, Moon Chaser!”
She was beside herself with laughter now. I was grinning too, keeping up with her.
“And what has Moon Chaser ever done,” she asked me, “except maybe make a little extra money for his mother and his grandmother? Except maybe build
a new gravestone for his father. ‘Exploit the workers.’ Bah! ”
Then she glanced around, realizing she’d said too much. She turned back to me. “Are you going to turn me in?”
I shook my head. “I am a simple soldier. I only want to talk to Moon Chaser.”
She squinted at me, suspicious for the first time. “Why do you speak Korean?”
I shrugged. “Practice.”
“You are a soldier,” she said, “but not so simple.” She studied me pensively, her mind reaching back in time. “During the war, I saw many foreign soldiers. They all looked like you. Dirty, dark beards, filthy clothes. But to us they looked like princes. They had food. They had medicine. At night, when there was no fighting, they’d sometimes set up tents and fire up diesel-fuel heaters. They lived like kings.”
She was staring off into space, conjuring up ghosts.
“The Great Leader wants us to hate them,” she continued. “I suppose I should-two of my brothers were killed in the war-but I can’t bring myself to hate them. They were just doing what their leaders forced them to do. Like us. Always under the thumb of the emperor.”
In all my time in North Korea, no one-not even Hero Kang-had spoken so boldly.
“You are very brave, grandmother,” I said.
She cackled. “What are they going to do? Shoot me? I’m old. They’d be curing the ache in my bones. Still, I don’t normally talk like this. Not to these nosey old biddies here in this village. But you are a foreigner. No one listens to a foreigner. I can say whatever I like.”
“What kind of man is Moon Chaser?”
“Smart,” she replied immediately. “Despite what the people around here say. He does business. He survives. He takes care of his mother and his grandmother. Isn’t that what a son is supposed to do?”
“I thought you said he was an idiot.”
“An idiot to take the risks he does. But smart to get away with them.”
“How can I find him?”
She glanced around the village. “They’re all out working now. Go hide somewhere. When I see him, I’ll tell him to go to you.”
“Where should I hide?”
The old woman thought. “Are you afraid of ghosts?”
“Ghosts? No.”
“Good. Just ignore them. They won’t harm you. You’re a foreigner. Wait at the grave mounds, on that hill over there. Stay well hidden. I’ll send Moon Chaser to you.”
Before I left, she handed me a few rubbery lengths of ddok. I bowed and thanked her gratefully.
It must’ve been nine or ten p. m when the army trucks pulled into Neibyol. I lay flat on a grass-studded grave mound, my ddok long since eaten, wondering when-or if-Moon Chaser would show up. There were two trucks, Soviet-made, judging by the triangular shape of their engine compartments. Had the old grandmother betrayed me, or was this just part of their regular search pattern? Actually, it didn’t make much difference. Either way, the smart move was for me to canvass the area. Still, I waited. I wanted to find out as much as I could about this patrol.
Shadows leapt off the backs of the trucks, about a dozen from each. They fanned out toward the flickering candlelight from the straw-thatched hovels. Voices were raised in fright and in protest. More voices shouted them down. Soon the entire village had been searched and people were lined up to be questioned. My eyes were well adjusted to the moonlight by now, but only by listening to the quavering tone of children’s voices could I imagine the tears on their faces. And then one woman was screaming. The soldiers were taking something valuable from her, an heirloom of some sort. The gruff voice of the officer in charge accused her of harboring contraband and hoarding wealth against the will of the people. She screamed that the heirloom belonged to her grandmother, but she was smacked down, and except for her whimpering, the village became deathly quiet. Using lanterns confiscated from the villagers, the soldiers started searching the outlying barns.
I contemplated trying to steal a truck. My feet were raw and the soles of my shoes were about to fall off. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to march through these mountains. In the end, I decided that letting them know that I was here would be the worst thing I could do. Reluctantly, I backed away from the grave mounds, leaving the ghosts behind, disappointed that I hadn’t been able to make contact with the man called Moon Chaser.
When the sun rose ahead of me, I was still walking. No matter how painful each step was, it was better than stopping and allowing the cold to seep into my bones. There was little frost on the ground, so I figured the temperature was just above freezing, but that didn’t mean that my teeth weren’t chattering. It seemed that my upper and lower jaw had been clacking together for eons.
Following the contours of the terrain, I traveled as close to the top of the ridgelines as I could. In the valley below, I glimpsed the occasional pair of headlamps during the night, moving east, as if the soldiers searching for me anticipated that I would continue my march toward the Kwangju Mountains. Or did those headlamps have nothing to do with me? I couldn’t be sure, but I had to assume they did.
Before the sun burnt off the morning mist, I found a spot amongst a clump of rocks that provided some shelter from the wind. Storm clouds rolled in, dark and enshrouding. I prayed that they wouldn’t do what I knew they were going to do. But they did. The clouds opened up and as the first splats of rain hit me on the forehead, I searched for shelter. There was nowhere to hide. The best I could do was huddle with my back against a large boulder, arms crossed, legs pulled up. In minutes I was sopping wet and shivering more than ever. No need to stay hidden behind rocks now; the overcast sky would protect me from prying eyes. I rose to my feet and continued walking, rain pouring off my hatless head. I thought of Hero Kang and how my soft cap had stanched his stomach wound and how he’d died a true hero. And I thought of his daughter, Hye-kyong, and the way she’d gone down fighting like the heroine she truly was.
They were the smart ones. I was still alive, suffering through this. Like an idiot.
By the time night was about to fall, I’d reached such a state of exhaustion that it was like being in a coma and swimming through a sea of pain. I stumbled down muddy ravines and back up again until somehow I reached a rocky precipice enveloped in mist. The rain had stopped but the valley below was stuffed with clouds. I glanced up and that’s when I saw it, clinging on the ledge of a plateau-an old wooden pagoda. A few broken tiles lay at my feet. Stone steps led up to the holy place. At the side of the cliff, I began to climb. The stone was slippery and there were few handholds, but by not looking down I managed to reach the plateau before the last of the sunlight had faded. With clouds floating across the sky, the world was intermittently enveloped in pitch darkness. Still, I managed to grope my way to the old wooden building and step up on wooden flooring. I slid back a rotted door. From what I could see in the little starlight that seeped in, the place seemed to be deserted. I flopped down on the floor, my back pressed against a wall, and collapsed into sleep.
Later, in the middle of the night, the shriek of a banshee startled me awake.
When I was a kid growing up in East L.A., there was much talk of ghosts. The old Mexican neighborhoods seemed to be crawling with brujas, old Indian women steeped in the lore of the ancients, who scared away the gangs of young toughs by threatening to cast spells on them. Although the fledgling criminals laughed off such threats, they studiously avoided the brujas. They had no fear of the Los Angeles Police Department, with its square-jawed officers and wooden cudgels. But witches, that was something else.
Still, I never bought into any of these superstitions. Moving from foster home to foster home taught me that reality, not supernatural forces, was what I had to worry about. I studied hard in school, finding the logical worlds of science and mathematics to be a refuge from the chaos that surrounded me. My science textbooks taught me that the brujas were charlatans. That’s what I believed then. That’s what I believe now.
Still, when I sat up, cold and wet and hungry
, in that abandoned Buddhist temple in the hills of North Korea, for that moment, and that moment only, I was a believer. If anyone could have seen me in that dark pagoda, I’m sure they would have noticed my filthy hair standing on end.
The screech was unearthly, like an old crone’s scream of terrible pain. And then I saw her eyes, huge and green and gleaming, fixed right on me. I’m not sure if I yelled, but I was aware of a massive amount of air suddenly being expelled from my lungs. The eyes lunged straight toward me.
I dodged, raising my arms, and then I felt the warmth of the creature and its feathery caress. I was scooting backward, sliding against the wall, willing myself away from whatever insane creature of the night had launched this attack. The wings swooped low and became black clouds before me. Finally, they settled high up on a rafter and, as if by magic, melted into a lantern shape. The green eyes were staring at me again.
I straightened up, breathing very fast now.
It was perched on the old wooden rafter above me. An owl. Not a ghost, not a witch, not a creature from hell. Just an owl.
A long, low “Whoooo” sounded from the valley below.
Sweating, keeping an eye on the owl, I rose to my knees and peered out the open window. The sound floated up again. “Whoooo.”
That wasn’t a bird.
Keeping low, I left the pagoda, slithered off the edge of the wooden porch, and moved to the edge of the cliff. Cautiously, I peered down into the valley and saw the silhouette of a man, out in the open. He raised his hands to his mouth and the sound floated upward again. “Whoooo.”
There were no trucks behind him. No other movement. He appeared to be alone.
He crouched, as if he’d heard something coming up the dirt road behind him, and melted into the night. There appeared to be some sort of pack tied to his back.