So Far from the Bamboo Grove (6 page)

“I can't hear,” I said.

There was a sharp pain in my chest. My hand went there automatically and felt warmth. I looked at my hand. Blood.

I tapped my ears but I was wrapped in complete silence. The soldiers . . . airplanes . . . explosion. I said loudly, “Where are the soldiers?”

Ko's lips formed the word, “Dead.” Then she fumbled in my sack and took out paper and pencil.

“Shut up!” she wrote. “We may be discovered by soldiers again. You were not badly wounded. Just a piece of bombshell that burnt your skin. My hearing is not clear either. Yours will come back.”

She opened her sack, took out her chemise, and wrapped it around my chest. Mother put my blanket over me and stroked my head, her tears dropping onto my face. I did not bother to wipe them away. I fell off to sleep.

Again I slept all day and all night. I was wakened
by Mother early the next morning. Still I could not hear what she said. Both my ears seemed plugged with thick cotton. But I looked at Ko with astonishment. She was wearing a Korean Communist uniform and her thick, long black hair was shaved off. And then I suddenly saw that Mother too was wearing the uniform of a soldier. The dead soldiers', it came to me slowly.

Mother made me sit up, and with her small scissors she cut my hair. “Please, don't shave my head!” I begged.

Ko wrote, “Mother is protecting us from being harmed by soldiers.”

When my hair was shortened Ko poured a little water on my head. She soaped it. I fussed and cried and said, “I don't want to be baldheaded!”

“Be still!” Ko wrote. She gave me a look as if to say, “You spoiled brat!”

Mother had brought out from somewhere the family's precious treasure, our ancestors' short sword. Her left hand, holding my head, was trembling. She began shaving. The sharp, thin blade slid over my head and I sobbed. “Where was the sword?” I asked. Mother patted her chest.

Then she said, “Finished,” wiped the thin blade carefully, and put it into the sheath. She held the slender sheath out in front of her, and bowed.

Ko put a small mirror in front of me and I adjusted her hand to take a peek. I looked horrible. Ko smiled at me but I gritted my teeth in anger, grabbed an
empty canteen, and threw it on the ground as hard as I could.

Mother told me to disguise myself by putting on a dead soldier's uniform. “I am not going to strip clothes from a dead man,” I said.

“I already have,” said Ko.

She handed me the uniform. It smelled of armpits and smoke, and she helped me put it on. She rolled the sleeves and pants, but it was still much too large.

Very close to us lay the stripped bodies of the three soldiers, who had not flattened themselves on the ground when the bomb burst.

We folded our own clothes, stuffed them into our sacks, cleared everything away, and started to march. “But it's daylight,” I protested.

“That's all right. We're wearing Korean uniforms,” Ko reminded me.

For a hungry stomach my rucksack was very heavy. With each step the stiff, smelly uniform rubbed against my wounded chest. I said I could not carry my blanket. “It's like iron on my back.”

“Give it to me,” Ko said. “It's the only bedding you have.” She rolled my bloodstained blanket and added it to her own bundle.

We had been walking the tracks for eleven days.

H
IDEYO, WORKING WITH THREE FRIENDS
from Nanam, was packing assembled machine guns into thick, metal-lined wooden boxes. He had been at the munitions factory five days.

Now Shoichi straightened and said, “Let's take a break.” This meant a trip to the restroom for a cigarette.

Hideyo did not smoke. “Go ahead,” he said to Shoichi, Makoto, and Shinzo.

Just as the three disappeared into the restroom Korean Communist soldiers burst into the factory.

There was a terrified rush of workers to cover, though the great factory
space offered almost none. Hideyo instinctively dove into the big empty box that lay on its side before him. While hiding in the box, he could look out and see some of the workers. He saw Yasuo, his classmate, grab one of the machine guns, stuff it with bullets—fire.

The soldiers fired back.
Dadadadadadadadada!
Yasuo fell, blood streaming.

Someone at the side threw something heavy—one of the boxes—at the soldiers. Again the enemy machine gun fire. Now there was the sound of people falling all around Hideyo. The blast of the machine guns overpowered his ears. Farther and farther back he squeezed, made himself smaller and smaller, and held his breath.

There was silence. An eerie silence.

“Don't move! We shoot!” The commanding voice spoke in poor Japanese. A Korean, Hideyo thought.

“Line up!” the voice commanded. There were reluctant footsteps toward the front of the room.

“Hands up!”

Hideyo's heart almost failed. Who had been killed? Who had surrendered? All of those students, many not bright enough to be accepted by Japan's Imperial Army but still a good group, working hard for their country, trying their best to live with humor through the dark days of separation from their families.

And Shoichi, Makoto, and Shinzo, in the restroom. Surely the soldiers would look there. The
opening of the box Hideyo was hiding in faced the washroom door. Perhaps they would see him too.

“March! Outside!” The voice was commanding. “We'll get this ammunition after we deliver the prisoners. Check all the bodies. If they are still breathing, shoot!”

“Yes, sir!”

Hideyo edged himself forward. Yasuo's body was so close he could touch it, and he leaned out cautiously and smeared some of the blood streaming from his friend on his own face, his hands, and his clothes. Then he backed into his box.

There was the tramp of feet as soldiers and prisoners left the factory, but other soldiers were moving about. One came so close that all Hideyo saw were his boots. Hideyo closed his eyes, and lay down as if dead.

Dadadadaaaaaa!
went a machine gun. Someone had still been alive.

The soldier before Hideyo kicked Yasuo's body. Then he saw Hideyo's arm, and he kicked it. With the tip of his machine gun he poked in at Hideyo's face and side. Hideyo lay as dead.

The man went toward the washroom. Hideyo heard the door kicked open. He held his breath.

“No one in here, sir,” the soldier reported. “All the others dead.”

“Lock the doors,” he was told. “Bring dynamite and blast the building as soon as the ammunition is moved out.”

Hideyo heard the commander and the last soldiers leave the room. Still he stayed motionless. The factory door was slammed. Silence.

He waited, staring at Yasuo's body. He heard no sound. Cautiously he crept out from the box and over the body of Yasuo. There were bodies everywhere. Sick, terrified, he crawled among the bodies and the blood, stopping to listen.

He reached the washroom door and pushed with his head to open it. The rusty hinges squeaked.

“Makoto!” Hideyo whispered.

No response.

There were four toilets, all the doors reaching to the floor, all closed. Hideyo stood up.

“Shoichi, Shinzo, Makoto! It's me, Hideyo,” he whispered.

The third toilet door opened slightly. Makoto peeked out. “You! Alive!” he gasped. Shoichi and Shinzo came from the same cubicle, shaking, their faces ghostly white.

“We heard the machine guns,” said Shinzo, his lips trembling. “We hid together. They never looked. Who got killed?”

“Yasuo was killed right in front of me,” Hideyo told them. “I don't know who else. They're going to blow up the building. We have to get out.”

Makoto peered cautiously from the window. “They're making the captured ones walk toward the street. They're pointing machine guns at them.”

Stealthily they crept to their bunkroom next to the
washroom. They crammed belongings into their rucksacks. Then they went back to the washroom and carefully, slowly, so as not to make a sound, they pushed the window open. The soldiers' backs were turned. One by one the boys jumped out and ran around the building toward the mountain.

They had not gone far when they heard the explosion. They turned and watched the factory exploding into the air. Hideyo thought of Yasuo.

“It's almost noon,” he said, looking at his watch. “If we take the mountain path now we can be home by early morning.”

They began walking. Suddenly Hideyo wondered what had happened to his mother and sisters. He walked faster and faster, the others following.

They walked until they were so weary they had to stop, and Makoto said, “Hey, I'm hungry. Does anyone have any food?”

They all searched their sacks. Mother had packed only six days' rations for Hideyo, as he had expected to go home the next afternoon for the weekend, so he had only some strips of fish and dried biscuits. They sat on the roots of a tree and shared what little he had.

“What time is it?” Makoto asked.

“Five o'clock,” Hideyo answered.

“I'm still hungry,” said Shinzo.

“Let's look for mushrooms,” Makoto suggested.

“Yes! Roasted mushrooms are good!” Shoichi agreed.

Hideyo said, “Look, my friends, let's look for mushrooms as we walk. Every moment is precious.”

At dawn they reached Hideyo's home, our home, which stood in its bamboo forest at the edge of the village.

“What the hell!” yelled Hideyo. The main entrance door had been burst open. The service entrance door stood wide. They rushed into the house.

“Mother!” Hideyo called.

Makoto surveyed the desolation before them. “The Korean Communist troops have been here,” he said.

“I'm going to my house!” Shinzo cried.

“Let's meet at Shoichi's house later,” Hideyo called after them.

He was shocked at the ransacking of his home. He examined the rooms carefully. The hanging scroll painting in the receiving room had been slashed to pieces. Closet doors stood open, their contents pulled out. Fur coats, hats, and his sisters' muffs had been stolen, except for a tiny fur coat lying on the floor.

Little One's, Hideyo thought, and picked it up. Holding it in one arm, he continued to check the rooms. The phonograph-radio was gone. The collection of classical records lay scattered on the floor. Kimono drawers were empty.

He saw the treadle sewing machine. Why had the robbers not taken this? Probably because they did not know how to use it. The machine was covered, as
always when not in use, with a black velvet cloth, but a rice bowl sat perched on top. Strange, Hideyo thought. Mother never left anything on top of her machine. He went up to the machine and then he saw Mother's note in script writing beneath the bowl. He read it.

“Honorable Son: We must leave. We shall be waiting for you at the railroad station in Seoul.”

The note was dated the day he had left for the factory. And, he observed, it was written in the cursive style, so that no one who did not know calligraphy could read it. He was putting it in his pocket when he saw that Mother's savings book had been with it under the rice bowl. They must have left in haste, he thought, and he took the savings book.

He went to his own room. Whoever had entered here had liked what he possessed. The wall clock, ski shoes, radio, collections of wooden tops he used to play with on the ice, fountain pens, his kimonos as well as formal attire were all gone. His desk drawers had been opened and left in a mess.

In the kitchen he found cookies in the cupboard, and rice in the rice bin. He gathered them all into his rucksack. He stuffed in an aluminum cooking pot, candles, and matches. There was a small barrel next to the rice bin where Mother kept pickled plums, and he put as many into his lunch box as it would hold and wrapped the box in a dish towel. He filled his canteen with water from the kitchen pump.

Then he went back to his own room to gather underwear, socks, and a sweater that had not interested the enemy soldiers. His overcoat was nowhere to be seen. In the bathroom he hastily washed his bloody face. I must go, he was thinking now. They may come back to finish stealing our belongings. He took a bar of soap and a bath towel.

Then he rolled the tiny fur coat in his blanket and tied the blanket on top of his already full rucksack.

Out of habit, he closed and locked the service entrance door. There was no way of locking the main entrance, for it was broken, and he wished he had time to nail a board across the opening.

He headed for the narrow bamboo path when suddenly he turned and ran back to the house. He rushed into the family room and picked up an old family photo album he had remembered seeing. Carrying it under his arm, he left the house behind. He looked at his watch. It was 9:15
A.M.

The sun was above the bamboo trees now, and carrying his heavy bundle made him hotter. He hurried to Shoichi's house, meeting no one on the street and feeling the silence ominous.

Makoto and Shinzo were already at Shoichi's. Makoto was sobbing. Shinzo's and Shoichi's parents had fled south, where their relatives lived, but Makoto's aged parents were dead. An only child, he had no place to go. “Don't you have any relatives at all?” Hideyo asked.

“Not in Korea.” Makoto sniffed back tears. “I
want to go with you. They are killing Japanese. I am scared.”

“You can,” said Hideyo. “But we cannot flee from this town in Japanese students' clothes.”

They looked at each other. “What are we going to do?” asked Makoto, still crying.

Hideyo snapped his fingers. “I know. Let's go to my family's friends, the Lees. They have been working for my family faithfully for years. Even though they are Koreans, they are not Communists. They'll lend us some clothes.”

When they found the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Lee, beginning to decay in the summer heat, the four students at first were speechless. The stench assailed their nostrils. They had thought Koreans would be safe.