Comfort Woman

by Nora Okja Keller

  “Shame-u, shame-u!” they mimicked in singsong voices. “You maddahs mustu be so sad-u!”

  When I first saw the frail, wild-haired lady in pajamas throwing handfuls of pebbles into the crowd, I did not realize she was my mother. Only when she raised her arms into the air and pivoted toward me for a moment, only when I caught the faint cry of “Induk,” did I recognize her. I wanted to scream, to tell the kids to shut their mouths and go to hell. I wanted to pound the laughing heads into their necks. But I couldn’t; looking at the only part of myself that I thought contained power, I saw my hands as the others around me must have seen them: feeble, scrawny, ineffectual. And I knew them then for what they were: the skeleton hands of death; and the light for what it was: Saja laughing just under my skin.

  I wanted to help my mother, shield her from the children’s sharp-toothed barbs, and take her home. And yet I didn’t want to. Because for the first time, as I watched and listened to the children taunting my mother, using their tongues to mangle what she said into what they heard, I saw and heard what they did. And I was ashamed.

  “Shame-u shame-u, sad-u sad-u!” my schoolmates chanted, unintimidated by the moxa balls or my mother promising vengeance from Induk, until they were interrupted by the vice principal and several burly teachers.

  “What the hell is going on?” Vice Principal Pili demanded once the crowd had quieted. When no one spoke up, he looked around for familiar faces, children he recognized from detention hall. “You, Angelo Villanueva. You, Primo Beaton. You, Toots Tutivena. You causing trouble again?”

  “No, Mr. Pili! Wasn’t us. Was that crazy lady,” said Angelo.

  “Yeah, was her t‘rowing fire at us,” agreed Primo, who rubbed at a black mark on his forehead.

  And Toots Tutivena, whom I dubbed my eternal archnemesis in that moment, said: “Was that crazy lady who I know for a fact is Beccah Bradley’s maddah.”

  Vice Principal Pili scowled at them. “Okay, all of yous. Get out. I don’t wanna see your faces hangin’ around here after school no more unless it’s in detention.” After the three he singled out worked their way to the edge of the crowd, where they remained, reluctant to leave before the action died and the bag lady went home, he swung his face toward my mother. “Can I help you?” He frowned, his question almost mocking.

  Recognizing authority, my mother straightened the strap of her shoulder bag and smoothed the front of her pajamas with fingers that left black streaks. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I looking for daughteh. Name is Roh-beccah Blad-u-ley.”

  “Rebeccah Bradley?” Pili asked. “Is that right?”

  When my mother nodded, he yelled out, “Rebeccah Bradley! Is Rebeccah Bradley here? Does anyone know Rebeccah Bradley?”

  Before Toots Tutivena could finger me in the crowd I had joined, merely curious, when they started chanting, “Shame-u shame-u, sad-u sad-u,” I slipped away. At the moment I was called upon to claim my mother, I couldn’t. Instead I ran away, and the farther I ran from my mother, the smaller I seemed to shrink, until I was smaller and flimsier than the cheap moxa balls my mother burned to ward off the sal of malevolent beings.

  9

  AKIKO

  I undress my daughter slowly, taking care not to bend her arms at odd angles as I slip the shirt from her head, tucking my fingers between her skin and the pins as I undo her diaper. I dip a finger into her belly button, see her wiggle in surprise, and I remember how, just a few short weeks ago, she screamed with anger and fear when I peeled each piece of clothing from her body to reveal the red and wrinkly vulnerable skin surrounding the stub of her umbilicus.

  Now she laughs as she stretches her legs and I tickle the rolls of fat on her thighs. I love nothing more than this: the velvet of her body underneath my fingertips, her powder-and-milk smell, her laughter and her perfect nakedness.

  The missionaries dressed the days in prayer. We gave thanks and praise-bes throughout the day and were taught to begin and end our day in communion with the Lord. After waking each day, we met in the basement, where we sat for a while in silent prayer before the sermon. And at the end of each day, we met in the basement again for singing and more communal prayer. We prayed for an end to hunger, for world peace, and for salvation. The minister taught that in all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. That if we prayed hard enough, fervently enough, and to the right God in the right heaven, our prayers would be answered. Blessed were the meek, the persecuted, the reviled, for we would be exalted in the Kingdom of Heaven.

  Often the missionaries would describe heaven as a place of spiritual freedom and God as Korea’s own avenging angel. In chorus, we sang out words like: Fight, O Lord, against those who fight me; war against those who make war upon me. And what I remembered most from each sermon were the verses that focused on justice: When God arises, His enemies are scattered. As smoke is driven, so are they driven; as wax melts before the fire, so the wicked perish before God.

  I pictured heaven as a Korea liberated from domination, where the angels trod over rivers littered with the charred bodies of the Japanese.

  Of God, I had no picture. But in the darkest part of the night, when my prayers were peeled back and laid bare, the face I cried for, called out to, was always Induk’s.

  During the silences when we were supposed to commune privately with God, I prayed for Induk to return to me. I spiraled my mind away from my body, trying to find her, to catch a glimpse of her. I listened for her in the empty spaces of my days and nights: in the spaces between the beats of words and music, of my breath and my heart. I waited, wondering if she had abandoned me; I called out, Where are you, Where are you? until the words lost their meaning and I was nothing but a bag of skin.

  During the silences, and in the privacy of the darkest part of night, this is, as I came to know in the months and years that followed, what the missionary man prayed for: salvation from his sins. And the fulfillment of them.

  We all think we have our secrets, the minister said when I refused to tell him where I had come from, but we cannot hide from God. Only when we share our burden with Him, only when we give ourselves over to Him, are we uplifted and relieved.

  He patted my head, brushing his fingers across my ear, and I jerked away.

  Poor child, he murmured. You have suffered.

  I am no longer a child, Sonsaeng-nim, I told him.

  He forced his breath into laughs. Please, he said. I am not so much older than you.

  I stared at the silver fanning across his temples.

  Well, okay, he joked, his voice smooth as glass. I meant that in God’s eyes we are all equal. Quick as a snake, he touched the end of my nose. So call me Richard, he said, or Rick. May I call you Akiko? Rick and Akiko, our names somehow match.

  I felt as if he had slapped me with the name the soldiers had assigned to me. I wanted to shout, No! That is not my name! but I said nothing, knowing that after what had happened to me, I had no right to use the name I was born with. That girl was dead.

  Akiko, the minister said, you are so different from the other girls. You look younger than many of them, yet you seem so mature. The way you carry yourself, the way you measure your words, as if you are always thinking, as if you know and have seen too much. How old are you?

  I wanted to say that I was so old I was already rotting in my grave, but I shrugged and said nothing.

  How old are you? he repeated, brushing a finger across my knuckles.

  Eighteen, I lied. I did not want the missionaries placing me in an orphanage, where many of the older children were adopted by Japanese families looking for an extra worker.

  The lids of the missionary man’s eyes dropped until he looked at me through slits. If that’s what you say, he said, nodding, though he seemed unsure. Sometimes war makes people older than they should be. I myself have been lucky, pampered and taken care of all my life. He said this with scorn, as if bitter, then added, As if God has never seen fit to test me.

  But you! The missi
onary grabbed my shoulders. Just a child, and you have experienced tribulations equal to Job’s so that you may feel the full measure of God’s glory! Will you tell me what you have done so that I can help you? Confess and come to me and I will lead you into the Body of Christ!

  I shrugged away from him, and he dropped his hands. Please, Akiko, do not forsake me or the one true God. Tell me! His voice fell to a whisper, and he leaned toward me. I have heard rumors, terrible rumors, about women being sent north of the Yalu—is that where you’ve come from? I mean, I noticed your uniform, and—if it is true, then know that God will love the greater debtor. He has said of the fallen woman, Her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much. Akiko, the minister cried, the sins of the body will be washed away by the blood of the lamb. His body will become your body; your flesh, His. Just give yourself to Him!

  I watched him searching for words that would split open my silence. I looked at him, stripping away his mantle of piousness and humility, and kept looking until I could see the inside of his heart.

  Forgive me, he stammered, if I press when I should not. I only want you to know that God does not judge, that I would not. I seek only to offer solace, knowing that God would not give you more than you could handle. Trust in Him. And me. Please, Akiko, welcome the Lord—and me—we who wait for you with open arms.

  Even as words continued to spill from his mouth, the minister backed away, but not before I discovered his secret, the one he won’t admit even now, even to himself, after twenty years of marriage. It was a secret I learned about in the comfort camps, one I recognized in his hooded eyes, in his breathing, sharp and fast, and in the way his hands fluttered about his sides as if they wanted to fly up against my half-starved girl’s body with its narrow hips and new breasts.

  This is his sin, the sin he fought against and still denies: that he wanted me—a young girl—not for his God but for himself.

  I gave up eating, folding bites of food in my napkin so that I could offer it to Induk later. I sipped water sparingly, leaving glass after glass for Induk. When I lit the candles or the stove, I would imagine that each flame ignited a stick of incense that burned for Induk. And always, always I prayed her back to me. I needed her protection.

  One night, as I was on my knees for the last prayer of the day, chanting her name in my head and my heart until her name ran together, seamless in its repetition, I fell to the ground. My body turned to lead, so heavy that I could not lift a finger or a toe, much less an arm or a leg. And then it was as if I liquefied; I lost the edges of myself and began to soak into the floorboards. Waves surged through my arms and legs, rushing toward the center of my body, where I knew they would clash and explode out the top of my head. I became afraid, knowing that I would feel naked and vulnerable without my body.

  The fear grew until it pressed against my chest, until I felt I would drown under the weight of it, until it began to take shape and I saw that it was Induk straddling me, holding me down to the earth.

  Afraid and angry because I could barely breathe, I still could not ask her why she had abandoned me. I was too happy to see her again. I tried to tell her this, but she began choking me.

  Why did you leave me? Induk was the one to ask my question. Why did you leave me to putrefy in the open air, as food for the wild animals just as if I were an animal myself?

  Induk, I panted, I had to do what the soldiers told us to.

  Liar, she sneered, why did you leave me?

  Please, Induk, please, I cried: I was afraid of becoming you.

  She rolled off me, then wailed so long and hard she blasted the air into my lungs. See me, she said as she stood up. See me as I am now.

  I looked and saw: hair tangled through and around maggoty eye sockets and nostrils. Gnawed arms ripped from the body but still dangling from the hands to the skewering pole. Ribs broken and sucked clean of marrow. Flapping strips of skin stuck to sections of the backbone.

  I forced myself to look, to linger over the details of her body. I found her beautiful, for she had come back to me.

  I grabbed her hand, and my fingers slipped into bloated flesh. I kissed it and offered her my own hands, my eyes, my skin.

  She offered me salvation.

  When my daughter still had her umbilical cord, my husband worried about infection. Thick and ugly, the color of dried blood and beef jerky, the cord was resolute and did not fall off when it was supposed to: after a month it was still there, dangling by a persistent thread of flesh. Though her navel turned pink around the edges, my daughter did not seem to be in pain, so we continued to dab it with alcohol, wiggling the umbilicus like a tooth loose in its socket.

  Then one day I bent over my baby to change her diaper, and the birth cord was gone. Instead yellow fluid, sticky like glue, filled her navel. I swabbed at the glue, unveiling the indented star of her belly button, then undid the diaper to look for the umbilical cord. It wasn’t there. I felt through her sleeper, checked the crib and the floor, but still couldn’t find the cord.

  I panicked, suddenly frantic to find this one piece of flesh that was both me and my daughter. I threw clothes out of drawers, dug through dirty hampers, and poked into the diaper pail, before I found it on the bathroom rug, already dusted with hair. I brushed it off and placed it in the center of my palm, where it looked tiny and fragile.

  I cupped my hand over my daughter’s birth cord and vowed to keep it safe, just as I would keep my daughter safe from harm and unhappiness. I would keep the cord so that as she grows into the person she will become, a person I do not know yet, we will both be reminded that we share one body, one flesh.

  10

  AKIKO

  When my daughter cries in her sleep, caught in a dream of sorrow, I wonder what she has experienced in her short life to make her so unhappy, so afraid. I try to fold her into the comfort of my body, but she pushes away from me, startled into wakefulness. She watches me, her eyelids dropping solemnly until they shut her into sleep once again, taking her somewhere I cannot follow. Does she dream about her birth, about her expulsion from her first home? Or does she cry dreaming that she is there, trapped, once again?

  On August 15, 1945, as we pooled our rations to prepare bi bim kook soo for the afternoon meal, one of the missionaries turned on the radio for the news. Though most of the Japanese-controlled broadcasts still promised victory for Japan, explaining that they were retreating for covert military purposes, we heard what they did not say: that Japan was losing the war. When the Russian Allies and Korean freedom fighters had crossed the Yalu into Korea just a few days before, we knew that the end was near.

  Yet when it came, I thought it was a trick, one more attempt to ferret out traitors to the Japanese state. The radio announcer called for everyone to stand by, and after a spurt of static, the Emperor himself announced Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allied forces.

  Unable to reconcile that thin, watery voice, the voice of a broken old man, with the Descendant of Heaven who had the power to sacrifice thousands like me, I did not trust the announcement. Still, I let myself be pulled along by the cheers. Mansei, Mansei, the missionaries and their charges yelled out the windows. Koreans ran into the streets, unfurling the blue-and-red Taeguk-ki into the wind that carried their shouts and cheers. Everyone became silent, though, when they saw that Japanese soldiers still lounged in the streets as if nothing had changed, as if they had not heard the news.

  The war was over, but the search for traitorous foreign sympathizers continued, with pressures and demands from the various People’s Committees that struggled for political control. Day after day, as the Japanese were disarmed and replaced by Russian soldiers who stripped factories and farms, accusations and condemnations seeped through the walls of the Heaven and Earth Mentholatum and Matches building. Some of our neighbors—who had changed their names to Yamada or Ichida or Sakamaki during the war and were once again Kim or Pak or Yi and members of either the newly formed Nationalists’ North Korean Five Province Administ
rative Bureau or the Independence League—threw rocks and shouts at our doors and windows. Outsiders go home, they yelled at us over and over, until the day the missionaries started to pack their belongings.

  We are being called home, back to America, they explained to the girls in their care. We will find homes and sponsors for you, if you wish to come with us.

  Most of the girls declined, saying they would try to find their families, saying they had somewhere they could return to, now that the war was over. They could pick up the threads of their lives, weaving them into a future as if the war had been a minor disruption in the fabric, but I knew I had to leave with the missionaries. I knew, had known the moment I crossed the Yalu and entered the recreation camps, that my home village of Sulsulham was as far away as heaven for me.

  So when the minister told me I should marry him if I wanted to leave Pyongyang and come to America with them, I did. I made it easy for him to take me.

  This girl, he explained to his fellow missionaries, has no place to go, no one to guide her. I can give her a new life. God is giving me a chance to save her, to guide her into the flock by yoking her to its shepherd.

  Some of the women missionaries grumbled, Why not just adopt her?

  No time. The minister smiled. Besides, she is eighteen, an adult.

  One of the ladies blew—Humph—through pursed lips, and said something in English, too fast for me to follow.

  The minister touched her arm, then answered in Korean. She says she is, and we will not be unevenly yoked; before the marriage ceremony, we will baptize Akiko.

  He took hold of my hand and pulled me in front of the missionaries. His fingers slithered across my palm. No, he said, I am not sacrificing myself, for I am answering God’s call.