We’d made a small bomb. “Big enough to show you what it can do,” Byong-woo said. “But not so big to use too much material.” We took our bomb to the forest far away from camp and placed it in the tall grass in an open area. It was a lovely fall day with blue skies and a gentle breeze that made the aspen leaves quake. Byong-woo showed me how to set the fuse into the bomb by making a small hole in the beeswax with a stick and pushing the fuse into the fulminate. He gave me a sulfur match. “Light it,” he said. “Then run with me to behind that tree over there. It is a small bomb, but it can kill you.” I struck the match and held it to the fuse. The fuse caught fire and started to fizz and spark. I ran with Byong-woo to behind the tree and covered my ears. In a few seconds, the bomb went off. The shuddering explosion was bigger than I’d expected. Crows took wing and cawed noisily. A covey of quail flushed from the woods. I looked around the tree at the crater the bomb had created. Where there was once grass, there was now only dirt. I was thrilled that our bomb had worked so well, but I was horrified by its power.
Byong-woo took out a cigarette and lit it. “Well done,” he said, staring at the smoke from the explosion.
We stood for a while. The smell of burnt gunpowder hung all around us as smoke drifted high in the air. Finally, Byong-woo said, “My father and his father before him made fireworks. My father taught me how to make them, too. That’s where I learned how to make fulminate and work with black powder. When I was a boy, I worked alongside my father to make shows for the New Year celebration in Sinuiju. It took us months to make the fireworks for the show. On New Year’s night it was a thrill to see what we made shoot off over the Yalu River. We made red and blue and green bursts high above the river. They were like flowers on fire that lived for only a few seconds. Afterward, people would bow to my father and thank him for the show. They would give him money.”
He took a puff from his cigarette. “Then one day when I was thirteen years old, the police came to our house and arrested my father. They took the black powder and chemicals and the paper we used to make fireworks. They accused my father of making bombs for the rebels. My father was a peaceful man. He never made a bomb in his life. He only made fireworks. But after that day, I never saw my father again. After they arrested him, I decided to use what he had taught me to fight the Japanese. I joined the rebel underground in Sinuiju and taught them how to make bombs. They got me a job as Mr. Saito’s chauffeur so I could spy on him. I’ve been waiting ever since to get back to making bombs.”
Byong-woo faced me. “As you know,” he said, “we set off fireworks to ward off evil spirits. When I was young, I truly believed the fireworks my father and I made kept evil away. Now when I make an explosion like this one, I think of it destroying the evil spirit of the Japanese.”
“It doesn’t just kill spirits,” I said. “It also kills people.”
He sneered. “Just like spirits, if the people are evil, they deserve to die.” He tossed his cigarette butt into the weeds.
We walked back to camp side by side. As we neared camp, Byong-woo said, “You have done well, Suk-bo. But Il-sung and Jin-mo do not trust you. If you are to survive here, you need to be with a man. I am in good standing with Commissar Kim. He has put me third in command behind Jin-mo. It is an important position. Being with me will help you. I would be kind to you.”
Byong-woo took my arm and made me face him. “Some night I will send for you,” he said. “Think about what it means for you to be with me. Think about what message it sends if you refuse.”
I pulled away from him and met his eyes. Then I ran to the women’s tent.
He sent for me a week later. The messenger was Ki-soo. She came to where I was resting near the cooking area and sat next to me. She brought her knees to her chin. “You should go to Byong-woo tonight,” she said while looking out over the camp. “It would be the right thing for you to do.”
I had come to respect Ki-soo. She was Jin-mo’s woman and he was second in command. And though she was young, she was in charge of the women. She was level-headed, but she was strict, too. Once, when Jeon-suk refused to fetch water, Ki-soo kicked her out of the women’s tent and had everyone in camp ignore her. She didn’t give Jeon-suk anything to eat. Jeon-suk stayed outside of camp for three days, shivering in the cold and snow. On the morning of the fourth day she came back, bowed to Ki-soo, and said she would be glad to fetch water. Ki-soo made Jeon-suk fetch water alone that morning, and then she accepted Jeon-suk as if nothing had happened. After that, Jeon-suk never again refused to do her chores.
Now, Ki-soo was telling me I had to forget that I was married to Hisashi and be with Byong-woo. If I refused, they’d discipline me as they did Jeon-suk. They would also label me a traitor and kick me out of camp. They might hurt my son.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Good,” Ki-soo said. “Go after the sun sets.” Then she left me sitting alone.
Just before sunset, I went to the river, stripped off my clothes, and cleaned myself in the cold, clear water. I twisted my hair into a braid. I washed my clothes and wrung them out. I had to put them on while they were still wet. I went to camp and headed to Byong-woo’s tent. I stepped inside and bowed. A lamp threw shadows against the tent walls. Byong-woo sat on a mat. Next to him was a bottle and two cups.
“You came,” he said.
Though he wasn’t as handsome as Hisashi, Byong-woo was pleasant to look at. He’d washed and put on clean clothes. And although he’d lost weight, with his long wavy hair and rugged good looks he didn’t look like the rough, unkempt rebel I’d come to know.
“Come,” he said, putting a hand on the mat next to him. “Have some makgeolli with me.”
I kept my eyes low as I sat next to him. My heart beat fast and every muscle in my body tensed. He took the bottle and poured the milky-white rice wine into the cups. He handed one to me. I took a sip. It was strong and harsh, not like the sweet makgeolli Hisashi bought in Sinuiju.
“Commissar Kim grants his senior officers a few privileges,” he said, lifting his cup high and examining it. “I get cigarettes and makgeolli. Neither are good, but they’re better than nothing. Makgeolli is very hard to get, here. I saved my ration for you.” He grinned at me. “Drink!” he said.
I took another sip and the wine started to warm me. Byong-woo emptied his cup and poured himself another.
“I am glad you decided to come here,” he said. “Now that I am third in command, I have this tent to myself. I want to share it with you. You must not like the wine. You aren’t drinking much.”
“As you said, it isn’t good.”
“Hah!” Byong-woo chuckled. “It is not, but it does the job.” He lifted his cup to his mouth and emptied it.
He looked at me. “You asked me once why I saved you in Sinuiju. I told you it was because I felt sorry for you. But it was more than that. It was because I was attracted to you.” He lifted my chin with his finger. “You are a beautiful woman, Suk-bo. I want you to be my woman.”
I shook my head. “I love Hisashi,” I said.
He jerked his finger away. In the shadows of the tent, Byong-woo’s eyes turned cold. “Hisashi!” he said as if it was a curse. “He works for Doctor Ishii and you have heard what they do in their camp. Is that the man you are in love with?”
“I have only heard what you say,” I said, “but I don’t believe it. You are making it up to make me hate him. I will always love him, no matter what you and Commissar Kim say.”
Byong-woo snorted. “What is love if you can love a man like that?”
“Love is a commitment you make every day for the rest of your life,” I said.
“Then why did you come here to my tent?” Byong-woo asked.
“I do not know,” I answered. “Perhaps it was a mistake.”
Byong-woo grabbed my arm. “I am not Hisashi,” he said, “but I am Korean. You are Korean, too.” He pulled me into him and kissed me. I put my hands on his chest and tried to push him away, but he was too strong. He grabbed my hair and p
ressed his mouth into mine. The makgeolli bottle fell over, spilling its contents onto the mat.
“No!” I cried.
“I am doing this for you,” he said. “If you don’t have me, they will kill you. Don’t make me force you.”
I knew that I couldn’t fight him. If I resisted him, they would think I was a chinilpa and they would, indeed, kill me. And they’d put Young-chul on the street where he would die. I stopped struggling and forced myself to breathe. I relaxed my shoulders. I lay back on the mat. I opened my dress. Byong-woo clumsily unbuttoned his trousers and climbed on top of me. As he thrusted himself inside me, I tried to pretend he was Hisashi and that we were making love. But there was no love in what we were doing, and all I felt was pain. And there I broke my promise to my beloved Hisashi.
I stayed with Byong-woo from then on. I had become his woman. But every time we had sex, every time he touched me or when Il-sung, Jin-mo, or Ki-soo regarded me as if I was now one of them, I felt guilty. Guilt clung to me like an odor I could not wash away. At night after sex, when Byong-woo fell asleep, I cried into my hands. I prayed to the spirits of my mother and father to help me. I prayed to Hisashi to forgive me. I wanted to run away, back to Sinuiju, back to when I was with Hisashi and we were happy. But I was two hundred miles away, and Hisashi had said we couldn’t be married anymore. I could never return. So I did my duties, stayed with Byong-woo, and tried to cope with the guilt.
I wasn’t sure if Byong-woo loved me. Although I could tell he was attracted to me, our being together seemed mostly utilitarian for him. Having a woman gave him the stature he needed to command respect from his troops. I tended to his needs. We had sex most nights—a clumsy, perfunctory act that only helped him fall asleep. We ate together to show Byong-woo’s men that he had a woman. We worked together. He was kind to me as he had promised. But emotionally, my relationship with him was the same as it had been when he was the Saito chauffeur.
Truly, I didn’t care if he loved me or not.
Byong-woo’s position as third in command kept him busy. Every day he drilled the men on how to conduct raids. He led target practice. He inspected weapons and the status of the ammunition, vehicles, and horses. As Il-sung and Jin-mo plotted their next raid, Byong-woo made sure the men were ready for it.
Il-sung was away often during that time. The rumor around camp was that he was meeting with Joseph Stalin of Russia or Mao Zedong, the head of the Chinese communist party. I didn’t think it was possible that Il-sung would meet with such important men. But the rebel raids under Il-sung had been successful and apparently, he was quickly moving up in the rebel organization.
One day before the snow came, Jin-mo informed us we were moving south, “closer to our homeland,” he said. After he’d issued his orders, the entire camp went into action. The women took down tents and packed cookware, dried fish, venison, and the roots and plants they’d gathered. The men took up their weapons. I helped Byong-woo put the black powder, fulminate, and bomb-making materials in the truck.
Byong-woo turned his attention to his other duties, and I went to help Jeon-suk fetch water. We put the water toks on the horses and led them to the river.
“How is it being the woman of an important man?” Jeon-suk asked.
“It is not as easy as you think,” I replied, feeling guilty again.
“You have your own tent,” Jeon-suk said. “You are served food with the men before the women are served. The women respect you now.”
“I suppose,” I said.
We’d come to the river and Jeon-suk untethered a tok from the horse and dropped to her knees to start filling it. “I know why they chose you to be with him and not me,” Jeon-suk said with a look of satisfaction.
“Oh, why?”
“Because you married a Japanese man.”
“But I am with Byong-woo now.”
“Yes, and he is teaching you how to make bombs, isn’t he?” Jeon-suk said, strapping a tok onto a horse. “There were two before you who made bombs. They were both orphans. They sent them on missions where they were killed. They used them just like they are using you.”
As I strapped a tok onto a horse, I wondered if Jeon-suk was right. Though I’d tried to show that I was not a chinilpa by taking up with Byong-woo, they would never forget that I’d married Hisashi. My love for him would brand me for the rest of my life. For the time being, I was useful to them, helping Byong-woo make bombs and being his woman. But I knew that Byong-woo didn’t love me, not the way Hisashi did, not the way my mother said true love should be. And I would never love him either. So when the time came, they would send me on a mission as they’d done to the orphans. And then they would be done with me, the cursed woman who’d married a Japanese man.
TWENTY-THREE
The winter sky was as gray as slate when we left. All together there were one hundred of us. Il-sung and two of his lieutenants rode on horseback, leading the procession. Jin-mo was far out front, scouting, watching for the Japanese. Byong-woo drove the big truck as he always did. Four men walked in front of it, clearing the way. I followed behind, keeping a watch on the fulminate and black powder that we’d packed into the truck. We left the three-wheeler behind because Byong-woo said there was not enough fuel for both vehicles to make the trip.
We hiked for ten days over hills and through valleys. At night, I slept inside the truck with Byong-woo out of the cold. Every day we rose when it was still dark and made camp after the sun set.
By the twelfth day, the landscape looked like Korea, with granite peaks and pine forests. “Are we in Korea?” one of the women asked as we ate rice and dried venison.
“No,” a lieutenant replied. “But we are not far.” He pointed south. “Over those hills is the Yalu River.”
The Yalu River. I thought of Young-chul. The Saito house where I’d last seen my son was less than a mile from the Yalu. I could see from the high hills around us that we were far upriver from Sinuiju, but still, it was the Yalu River, a place I knew. It was near where I’d grown up. It was where I last saw Hisashi.
I closed my eyes and let my mind travel over the hills and down the river to Sinuiju. My mind walked through the city park and past the houses. I came to the gate of the Saito house. There in front of me was the beautiful house with its white plaster walls and blue roof. I saw Young-chul on the veranda. He was a toddler now, playing with a ball. Kiyo stood behind him, watching. I reached for my son, but he didn’t see me. I wanted to call to him, but I couldn’t bring up the words.
“Suk-bo,” someone said.
I snapped out of my daydream and opened my eyes. There above me was Byong-woo. “Yes?” I said, shaking away the image of my son.
“Come with me,” he said.
It was getting dark and the wind was picking up as I followed Byong-woo to the shelter of some trees away from the rest of the rebels. Commissar Kim was there with Jin-mo and two of their lieutenants. We stopped and waited as the men examined maps and talked. They all nodded. The lieutenants bowed to Il-sung and headed to the rebel camp.
Jin-mo waved for us to come close. Byong-woo and I went to Il-sung. I kept my eyes low.
“Suk-bo,” Commissar Kim said, “Byong-woo tells me you have learned how to work with bombs. That is good. We will need you for our next raid.”
Jin-mo stood in the shadows behind the commissar and watched me closely. Il-sung continued. “We will strike the Japanese in our homeland tomorrow night. In the morning, you will cross the Yalu River with the fighting men, where we will strike an army compound. We need you to sneak around to the opposite side and set off a bomb to create a diversion. If you can do it so it kills Japanese, all the better. When the bomb goes off, we will attack. If all goes as planned, we will kill many Japanese.”
I kept my head bowed but felt the eyes of the others on me. A gust of wind swept through the gathering.
“Of course,” Commissar Kim continued, “if the bomb does not go off, we will not have an advantage. And then, many of our comrades wil
l be killed.”
Commissar Kim crossed his arms over his chest. “What we are asking you to do is dangerous. There is a chance you will be captured or killed. But you will do it, Suk-bo. I remind you that we still have your son. It would be tragic for the boy if you betrayed us.”
Jin-mo came forward and nodded at Byong-woo. “Byong-woo will help you with the bomb, but we will need him with us,” he said. “One of the men will guide you to where you need to go. You will have to manage the final stage on your own.”
“The final stage?” I said.
“Getting back without getting killed or caught,” Byong-woo said.
I didn’t want to do what they were asking me to do. I didn’t want to kill anyone, even Japanese soldiers. But I had no choice. They had Young-chul and they had me. “I understand,” I said. “I will do my best.”
That night inside the truck as the wind howled, I couldn’t fall asleep. I could tell Byong-woo wasn’t sleeping, either.
I said, “Will we make the bomb in the morning?”
“I have already made it,” Byong-woo answered. “It is a big one.”
“I’m afraid,” I said.
“It is normal to be afraid before a battle.”
“What should I do if they capture me?”
“There is nothing you can do. They will torture you for answers about us. You should resist, but you will not be able to for long. By the time you give in, we will be far away.”
“Will they kill me?”
“If they capture you, yes. But”—Byong-woo moved himself so our faces were close—“they won’t. Listen to me, Suk-bo, and listen well. After you light the fuse, run to the river as fast as you can. When you get there, go downstream. Do not rejoin the fighting men or go back to camp. If you do, they will kill you.”
“Our own people will kill me? I don’t understand. Why?”
“Just do as I say. You will be on the Korean side of the river. Only move at night. In three days, you will come to a town called Wiwon. Find a fisherman named Xu-han. Tell him you are my wife. He will help you.”
The Spirit of the Dragon Page 19