The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (44 page)

To this the Chief of Police made no reply. For a long moment he glared at the two old men in their white robes and tall black hats, staves in their hands to support them, and they looked steadily back at him and showed no fear. He turned then to a soldier who stood in the room with his bayonet fixed.

“Show these men out,” he ordered.

The soldier put down his gun and seized each old man by a shoulder and led them out. As soon as he opened the door, however, he saw that a crowd stood there, angry and defiant.

“Where is the woman?” one shouted.

“Let the woman come out free!” another yelled.

“Put us in prison, too, or release the woman!” others cried.

Such shouts went up that the Chief of Police rose from his seat and went to the door and made himself stiff and straight and hoped thereby to frighten them into silence. Far from this, they shouted more loudly than ever. He hesitated a moment and then shouted back at them, whereupon they shouted still more so that he could not be heard. He hesitated and then turned back into the room.

“Let the woman go free,” he muttered. “One woman is not worth so much time and trouble.”

The crowd waited, the two old men standing in front, side by side. In a few minutes two soldiers came out with Induk hanging between them. She was conscious, but she could not speak. Blood had dried on her face and half-clothed body, but under the dried crust fresh blood, bright red, flowed out slowly. A great moan rose from the crowd. A strong young man came forward and took her on his back and carried her away. The crowd followed, the men groaning and the women wailing. Last of all the woman came who had sheltered Induk’s child, and so they took Induk and the child home again.

… When Yul-han came home at the end of the day as usual, his son with him, Ippun met him at the door, her hand on her mouth for silence.

“Where is my son’s mother?” Yul-han asked, for Induk was always at the door to meet him and take off his shoes.

Ippun led him aside into the kitchen. “My mistress was beaten,” she said in a loud whisper, her garlic breath at his nostrils.

He stepped back. “Beaten?”

She began the story and he listened, unbelieving and yet knowing that what he heard was true. He did not wait for Ippun to finish.

“What can we do when a decent woman is not safe outside her husband’s house,” he muttered and he hastened to the room where Induk lay on her bed. Ippun had bound her head and washed her many wounds, and she lay there stiffly, her lips puffed and her eyes swollen shut. He knelt down beside her.

“My wife, my heart, what have they done to you?”

Tears came from under Induk’s purpled eyelids, thick tears like pus.

“Tell no one,” she whispered.

“Let me fetch my mother,” Yul-han urged.

“No one—especially no woman—not even my own mother,” Induk whispered.

“Then I must get the American doctor immediately.”

So saying, he went again to the city, only stopping long enough before he went to bid Ippun not to tell his parents.

“I will tell them myself later,” he said and made haste away.

Neither he nor Ippun noticed that Liang had heard everything, for she was in the kitchen again, feeding the little girl, who clung to her now that the mother could not care for her. When Liang saw his father gone, he went to his mother’s room and stood in the doorway, and stared at the fearful sight. This was his mother! He put both hands to his mouth to stop his sobs and then he ran outside and into the bamboo grove and threw himself down against the earth.

First Yul-han went to the missionary and told him what had happened to Induk and then the two went together to the American doctor, and Yul-han told him how Induk was wounded and swollen by blows. The two Americans looked at one another.

“How long can we be silent?” the doctor muttered between his teeth. “Are we not to defend these people whom we came to serve?”

He put his tools together and with no more talk he went to Yul-han’s house. Skillfully the American washed all wounds, and he gave Induk a drug to breathe which put her to sleep and he took needle and thread and stitched shreds of torn flesh together again.

While this went on, Liang had come to the door and stood looking in. At first he was frightened, and he covered his mouth with his hands to keep back a cry. Then as he saw his mother peacefully sleeping he tiptoed into the room and came to his father’s side and slipped his hand into his father’s hand, all this in silence.

When the doctor was finished he saw the boy and smiled at him, and Liang was encouraged to ask a question. He came near and looked up at the American with grave eyes.

“Will you tell Woodrow Wilson to help my mother?”

Yul-han hastened to explain how Liang had made the American President his idol. The doctor listened as he gathered his tools again and nodding toward Induk, who still slept, he spoke to Yul-han.

“Your wife will be well again in a few days but she must rest. Lucky that she did not lose what is in her.”

Then he paused for a moment before Liang, who still stood straight and tall and watching all he did.

“Better not to have idols,” he said and a sad smile trembled about his mouth as he went away.

Late that evening when Induk was still sleeping under the drug which the American had given her, and while Ippun fed his two children and put them to bed, Yul-han went to his father. Il-han was already in his night garments, and when he opened the door, a candle in his hand, the flickering light spread uncertain shadows and Yul-han saw for the first time how age had gripped his father. All his life he had leaned on his father. Even when he was distant from him because of some argument it was only for a while and soon he came back again. Now he stood irresolute. Should he put his woes, too, on his father’s back?

“Come in,” Il-han said. “The candle gutters in the wind.”

Yul-han demurred. “It is too late.”

“No, no,” Il-han insisted.

His need was so great that Yul-han could not resist. He came in and Il-han led him into the library and put the candle on the table.

“Sit down,” he said.

He sat in his usual place but Yul-han was too restless to sit. He stood, looking down at his father, thinking how to begin so that his father would not suffer shock. Suddenly his throat was caught in such a knot of sobbing that he could not say anything. However he tried to control himself he found his body shaking, his face twisting. Il-han was alarmed indeed. This calm son of his!

“Speak out,” he commanded. “Else something will break in you.”

The sound of his father’s firm voice had its old power over Yul-han now as when he was a child, and abruptly, in jerks and pauses, he told the bare story of what had happened to Induk. Il-han listened, his eyes wide, his lips pressed together, and he did not once interrupt. It was soon told. Yul-han felt the lump in his throat melt away. He was able to breathe. He sat down and wiped his face with his white silk kerchief.

“Father,” he said, “I must join the people. I can no longer stand apart.”

“We must both do that which we have never done before,” Il-han replied. He hesitated, debating in himself whether he should not now tell Yul-han of his elder brother, and then he knew he must.

“Son,” he went on, “you spoke of a man who hides behind the name of the Living Reed. That man is your brother.”

“I know, Father,” Yul-han replied, and went on to tell of how Yul-chun had come to him in the night, and Il-han related the details of the trial that he had seen with his own eyes. He told Yul-han why he had not shared his knowledge with him then, nor even with Sunia, for if she had known she would have found ways of taking food and fresh clothing to him in his prison cell, which might have endangered all their lives.

The night wore on toward dawn, and it was a blessing that Sunia had gone early to sleep, else she would have been in and out time and again to ask why they did not go to bed and whether they would have food or drink. But she slept soundly and they talked on, nor was it idle talk. The two men came slowly to a vast resolution, set firm when Il-han suddenly slapped his two hands on the table before him.

“I will go again to America,” he declared. “I will go to see Woodrow Wilson myself. Face to face, I will tell him what our people suffer. He will put a stop to it. He has ways. He is the most powerful man on earth.”

Even this did not astonish Yul-han overmuch, in his present mood. He considered for a moment and then had a sudden thought.

“Father, you speak no English! You have forgotten after these years even what you used to know.”

Il-han would not be discouraged. “Put it that Woodrow Wilson speaks no Korean! No, no—it will not be difficult to find a young Korean to go with me who speaks both languages. Nothing is easier than to learn a language. It is only that I have no time now to learn again. I must go at once. It is not only for the sake of these here in our own country. Everywhere in the world our exiles are waiting for the day of freedom—two million and more abroad, waiting to come home! A million in Manchuria, eight hundred thousand in Siberia, three hundred thousand in Japan, and who knows how many in China, Mexico, Hawaii and America? America. I go there as an old man, a father. Woodrow Wilson will respect my gray hairs.”

“I will go with you,” Yul-han declared.

“You must not,” Il-han retorted.

“But my mother will not hear of your leaving home at your age to go so far!”

“I allow your mother much freedom,” Il-han said with dignity, “but not to decide what duty I am to perform. If evil is to befall me and I die in a strange land, then all the more reason that you, my son, should be here to take my place in our family and our nation. Do not oppose me, my son! The war is near its end. The peace must be carved out for the future. I must have my part in it—why else do I live?”

So the two men came to agreement and Yul-han rose to depart before the sun came up over the wall. The sky was lit already with a rosy opaline light when he bade his father farewell. If they could do all they planned, Yul-han to discover a young man to accompany his father and Il-han to prepare for the journey, within seven days they would be on their way.

“And tomorrow,” Il-han said to his son as they parted, “I will tell your mother. It will exhaust me, but I shall not allow her to change my mind.”

… Yul-han knew the next day that his mother had somehow heard of what Induk had suffered for she came to his house in a quiet solemn mood, such as he had never seen in her before.

“Come in, Mother,” he said when she stood in the doorway.

“What of the child?” she asked Yul-han.

Yul-han supposed she spoke of his daughter. “She seems unharmed, and she is with Ippun.”

“No, no,” Sunia cried at him, “I mean the one not born!”

“She holds it safely in her,” he said, and led the way to Induk’s bed.

Sunia had never been affectionate with her son’s wife, but now she knelt on the floor and gazed tenderly at Induk, her tears flowing down her thin cheeks. She took Induk’s swollen hand and held it gently, and she sobbed once or twice before she could speak.

“How is it here?” she asked softly and laid her hand on Induk’s belly.

“I shielded myself,” Induk said, her voice coming faintly. “I turned myself this way and that when the blows fell.”

“To think that we women go on bearing in such times,” Sunia sighed.

They said little more, the two women, but in the silence they came nearer together than they had ever been, and Sunia rose after a little while, saying that she was brewing a special ginseng soup with whole chicken broth and when it was done she would bring it.

“Sleep, my daughter,” she said, and went away again.

And Induk did sleep, for she could not keep herself awake. Part of her drowsiness was her body’s need to escape but part was the foreign drug which the American doctor had left.

Sunia went to the outer door then, Yul-han following her, and on the threshold they paused for a few words.

“Has my father told you what he will do?” Yul-han inquired.

“He has told me,” Sunia said.

“Can you bear it?” Yul-han asked.

“No,” Sunia said, “but I must.”

With this she went away, and Yul-han watched her as she went and saw how bent her body was these days as though it bore a heavy weight, the head drooping and the shoulders dropped. He remembered her straight and slender and her head held always high.

Yet when she was gone, his mind returned to its work. Whom should he send with his father? He cast about for someone he knew and reflecting upon this one and that his mind fixed on his fellow teacher, Sung-man, and he sent word to him by his father’s servant, inviting him to meet in the teashop where they had met before. He had pondered whether this was the safest place to discuss dangerous matters, but so vigilant were the police that he dared not seem to do anything hidden. Wherever he might go in secret with Sung-man some spy would discover it, either Japanese or a traitorous Korean.

The servant brought back word that Sung-man would meet him the next evening and so they met. In the midst of the full teahouse, and all the busy noise of men coming and going and servants running everywhere with tea and food, Yul-han put it to Sung-man whether he would go with his father to America. Sung-man, who seemed always careless of everything except his food, listened while he guzzled a bowl of noodles. Without changing the careless look on his face or the careless grin he wore as disguise, he filled his mouth and swallowed two great gulps and then, as though he told a joke, he said that he would go whenever Yul-han wished. Moreover, he could provide the money, for although he himself had no money beyond what he earned, yet he knew where money was.

“Are you a member of that—”

Yul-han put the half question, for he would not say the New Peoples Society, but Sung-man nodded.

“They are also in that country you have named,” he added.

The fighters for Korean independence were also in America! Yul-han received this news with surprise and comfort. His father would be among his own countrymen, there would be persons to welcome him and see that he was safe. He looked at Sung-man’s silly face with new respect. How much was hidden behind that grotesquerie!