The White Vixen

THE WHITE VIXEN

By

David J. Tindell

Copyright © 2012 David Tindell

All rights reserved.

To Susan.

My muse, my inspiration, my wife.

“Be brave, my heart. Plant your feet and

square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him

among
the man-killing spears. Hold your ground.

In victory, do not brag; in defeat, do not weep.”

Archilochus

PROLOGUE

Tokyo, 1961

“Round Eyes! Round Eyes!”

Jo Ann tried to ignore the taunts. She turned her head neither right nor left as she walked, but always faced straight ahead, as her father had taught her. Yet she also remained alert, as taught by her martial arts instructors. Her brown eyes flicked here and there, taking in her surroundings, missing nothing. Her stride purposeful, she kept her shoulders back. What she did not realize was that this made things even worse for her, but she was only eleven years old and had much to learn.

Today, the words weren’t nearly as bad, or as plentiful, as they sometimes were. Today she could walk relatively unmolested. She walked alone, of course. Most of the other girls in her class at the embassy school were Americans, and they stuck together. As for Japanese girls from the neighborhood, there were some she thought of as friends, and sometimes she visited them at their houses or apartments. Very rarely would they would visit her home. When that happened, they laughed and played as girls do, but they would not walk with her. To be seen with her in such a public way might invite some of the ridicule to be heaped on them.

Jo Ann was beginning to understand why the other children acted the way they did. For one thing, she was taller than every other Asian girl her age, taller even than some of the boys. She took after her father, who was taller than most of the other Western men she knew. Like most Asian women, her mother was short, although that was a relative term, her father had told her. Here,
Umma
was of average height, but among Westerners, like the women at
Apba
’s embassy, she was short.

Jo Ann looked different, too, from the Japanese girls she knew. Her complexion wasn’t quite the same as theirs, and hints of copper ran through her black hair. And of course there were her eyes. Not as round as Western eyes, but certainly much more so than those of the other children. The eyes were the first things the other kids picked up on.

“Round Eyes! Hey, Round Eyes, how’s the weather up there?” Laughter followed the remark, from the group of boys that started following her. One or two trotted in front of her, then turned to face her in a belligerent pose. Though she walked past them without acknowledgement, they were getting more persistent, and she was still some blocks from her destination. Her heart beat so loudly she thought it possible the boys would hear it.

“Hey, Round Eyes, what kind of silly outfit is that?” She didn’t see who had shouted that question. Then a boy stepped directly in front of her. His arms akimbo, a smirk on his face, he said, “I asked you a question, Round Eyes. What is that silly outfit called?”

Other boys hemmed her in on either side, forcing Jo Ann to stop. She recognized the boy from her neighborhood. He didn’t go to school at the embassy, as she did, but Jo had heard of him from other girls. He was two or three years older than her and renowned as a bully.

Older he might be, but she was almost as tall as he was. She realized this probably aggravated the boy all the more. She tried to control her breathing, as her instructor always advised. “This is what I wear to
keiko
,” she said politely, even though these boys didn’t deserve to be treated with politeness.

“Is that some sort of dress?” he demanded.

“It is called a
hakama
,” she said of the navy-blue, wide-pleated skirt, which extended to her ankles.

“And that?” He pointed to her plain white belt.

“It is an
obi
. And this is my
keiko-gi
,” she said, touching her white cotton jacket. “This is what I wear to
naginata
class.” Thinking about her class gave her a much-needed shot of pride. She stood straight and lifted her chin slightly, looking straight into the boy’s eyes. Her right hand gripped her wooden naginata staff. It was only a children’s training staff; the
ebu
, made of stout oak, was five feet long instead of the standard six to eight, and the
habu
blade was two foot-long strips of bamboo tied together. When she got older, Jo would be allowed to use a full-sized
shiai
naginata, with a steel blade up to three feet in length.

Jo Ann had studied naginata since her family moved back to Tokyo from Seoul two years earlier. She picked up the art quickly, and once a week participated in keiko with a dozen other girls. At eleven, Jo was the youngest student in the class, but she was progressing faster than her instructor had expected. Jo was not surprised, since she had spent four years studying
tae kwon do
in Seoul and now held a brown belt. Her father encouraged her study of martial arts, and had procured a private tae kwon do instructor for her here in Tokyo, as formal classes in the Korean art were unknown. Naginata, however, had been taught in Japan for centuries; the wives of
samurai
warriors developed the art as a means of self-defense for women and girls.

“Well, I think it is a silly outfit,” the bully said. He poked her in the chest. “Just what I’d expect from a round-eyes.”

“Please let me pass,” she said. “I have done nothing to offend you.”

“Oh, you haven’t? You don’t talk to any of us. You walk through the neighborhood with your nose held high. But what else can we expect from a round-eyed
yariman
?” Jo Ann didn’t know what that word meant, although she’d heard it whispered once or twice among older girls. She was pretty sure it was an insult.

“I am not a yariman,” she said. “Now please let me pass.”

“Yariman
ama
!” The boy flung the words at her. His companions fell silent, shocked. Jo Ann knew the meaning of that last word. One of the American boys in her class had told her it meant “bitch”, and the way he laughed convinced Jo that it was a derogatory. Used in combination with yariman, the bully surely intended it for a truly filthy purpose.

That was enough. She refused to stand there and be insulted any longer. Her mother had always taught her to be properly deferential, like a good Korean—or Japanese—woman, but her father said that American women were not always deferential; polite and respectful, yes, but also proud, and able to stand on their own. “You will let me pass, and you will do it now,” she said, calmly but forcefully.

The bully laughed. “Or what, round-eyed yariman? Will you hit me with your little stick?”

“Yes,” Jo Ann said. She moved into a sideways fighting stance, with the tip of her naginata blade pointed right at the bully. But instead of striking with that end, she quickly reversed the staff and performed a perfect strike into the bully’s solar plexus with the butt-end of the naginata, punctuating the strike with a loud
kiap
spirit yell. The bully let out a woof and collapsed like a sack of potatoes. Before his comrades could react, Jo struck the boy to her left on his knee, eliciting a howl of pain. Turning with expert footwork that would have made her instructor proud, she lashed out at the two boys behind her. One went down after a crack to his shin; the other was reaching down for a rock when the bamboo blade cracked him on the wrist. He shrieked.

The remaining boy, on Jo’s right, faced her, trembling, and Jo saw the front of his pants darken. Then he yelled and took off at a run.

The lead bully struggled to get to his feet, and he coughed out a curse at her. Jo swung the naginata around and brought the blade within a few inches of the boy’s face. His eyes opened wide. She poked slightly with the staff, and he fell back onto his seat with a yelp, even though the blade had not made contact.

“I will now pass,” Jo said.

***

She tried to stifle her sobs that night, pressing her face against her pillow. Why did they hate her so? Even the few girls she’d befriended here seemed to be uncomfortable around her. And boys? Most ignored her. They seemed to be afraid of her, and yet she had noticed them looking at her. The demure outfits her mother dressed her in could not quite hide the developing curves of her body and her budding breasts. She wanted to talk to the boys, but they wanted little to do with her. Even the American boys snubbed her.

A hand touched her shoulder, and she heard a soft voice speak in Korean. “Why are you crying, little one?”

“Oh, Umma!” She sat up and fell into her mother’s arms. The tears flowed freely. Earlier, when she first told her mother about the encounter with the bullies, she held the tears in. She felt such shame, yet she couldn’t quite understand why. She had acquitted herself well in the fight, and indeed was proud of her abilities. But she couldn’t help feeling it had been wrong, so wrong, and she said so.

“Now, now, little one,” her mother said soothingly, stroking Jo’s hair. “Why are you so upset?”

“The boys, they…they don’t like me,” she said, also in Korean. “Nobody likes me!”

Her mother kissed the top of her head. “You are different, little one. Sometimes people don’t understand something that is different.”

“Why am I different, Umma? Because you are Korean and Apba is American?”

“That is partly true, Jo Ann. But it is more than that. Your heritage runs much deeper. Your father will explain it to you.”

“Is Apba home?”

“Yes, and he will speak with you shortly. He has wonderful news for you. He just shared it with me.”

Suddenly the bullies were forgotten. “What news, Umma?”

Her mother smiled. “He will tell you, little one. But first, about today. You must not feel ashamed. You are different from the other boys and girls, so this may happen again. You must be like the white fox.”

“The white fox, Umma?”

Her mother smiled, and her eyes took on a far-away look, which they always did when she told Jo Ann stories of her childhood in Korea. “There is a legend,” she said. “It is about a white fox who is a hundred years old. He has nine tails, and can do many wondrous things. The most wondrous thing he can do is transform himself into any other animal. This is how he protects himself, and how he helps others. You must be like the white fox, little one,” she said, stroking Jo’s hair again. “You have the ability to do wondrous things. Later you will learn how to use these abilities to protect yourself, and help others. You will be a female fox, though. A vixen.”

Somehow that made Jo Ann feel much better, and she sighed, drying her tears with the sleeve of her pajamas. “Thank you, Umma.”

Mama-san kissed her again. There was a tapping on the bedroom door. “Your father is here now.”

Jo Ann looked up expectantly, and burst into a smile as her father walked into the room. Oh, how she worshiped him! He was so tall, so regal in his suit and tie. His face was lordly and yet kind, with its pencil-thin mustache and thinning hair on top. His gray eyes were soft now, although sometimes Jo had seen them turn steely as he talked to people about very serious things.

Joseph Geary sat down on the bed in the spot his wife had just vacated. “How is our little warrior this evening, Kim?” he asked his wife in his deep voice, speaking in English.

“She is fine, my husband,” her mother said in her adopted language. “I will leave you two alone now.” With a slight bow, Kim Nam-soon Geary left the room.

“Your mother told me what happened today,” Joseph said. He touched her cheek. “I’m sorry for what happened, but I’m proud of the way you handled it.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Jo Ann said in English, deferring her eyes and nodding in a slight bow. Then she looked up. “Mama said you would tell me about my heritage.”

He smiled. “Yes. Well, one’s heritage is a special thing, Jo Ann. It says much about who you are, and what you can be.”

“I know that you are American, and Mama is Korean.”

“Yes. Your mother’s family is very important in Korea. She is descended from great warriors, in the Silla Dynasty. You remember reading about them in your classes in Seoul, don’t you?”

“Yes, Daddy.
The Silla united Korea a thousand years ago. Their warriors were the
Hwa rang dan
, even better than the samurai of Japan.”

“Well, I’m sure our Japanese friends here would disagree with that,” he said with a modest chuckle. “But the Silla were indeed mighty warriors, and they developed the martial art of
tang soo do
, the forerunner of tae kwon do, which you are learning so well. As for your American side, my ancestors have always served our people, going all the way back to the Revolution.”

Jo Ann’s eyes were wide. “So your people were mighty warriors, too, Daddy?”

Joseph smiled. “You might say that,” he said. “The Gearys fought for our freedom, all the way back then and through the years to this day.”

“You were a warrior in the war, weren’t you, Daddy?” She
was learning about the war in her history classes. It had been a terrible thing. The Japanese she knew said nothing about it, but some of the buildings she saw in Tokyo still bore its scars.

Joseph looked away, and his eyes grew distant. “Yes,” he said. “Someday I will tell you the stories, Jo Ann. In those days the Japanese were our enemy. But today they are our friends.”