The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (38 page)

In the fourth month of that sun year, when spring was come, trials were proclaimed for those who had been accused of the attempted assassination of the Governor-General. The day set to begin was the twenty-eighth day of the sixth sun month and Il-han prepared to attend the trials.

The morning of that day dawned with a red sun in a sky white with heat, and Sunia scolded him.

“Why must you go to the city this day of all days? Crowds, dust, noise—you are too old for such things on a hot day. And what if you are recognized? Though who will see in your bag of bones the handsome man you are—”

She scolded him through tears of tenderness and he knew the tenderness and said not a word while she helped him to put on the garments she had washed snowy white for him and pounded smooth and ironed until not a crease remained. She tied the strings of his hat under his beard and bade his old servant take the packet of cold rice and beans she had prepared for his meal and the jar of tea, and she stood at the gate and watched them walking down the village street toward the city, Il-han’s skirt swaying from side to side as he planted one foot after the other in the fashion that old scholars walk, their toes turned outward. She felt a deep aching pain in her breast and watching those two she began quietly to weep, for what reason she did not know except that life had become a burden she could scarcely bear. And yet bear it she must, for what would Il-han do without her? Impatient with him she often was, and too quickly, and why, when she loved him, she said something unloving, she did not know.

“I am a sinful woman,” she muttered, her eyes on his tall frame, dwindling in the distance, “but of all sins, there is one I will not commit. I will not die before you, my husband—I promise—I promise—”

… The sun was well over the horizon when Il-han reached the hall where the trials were to be held. It was a special building behind the district court and built for the purpose for these hearings, a large place some eighty-four or eighty-five feet long and thirty feet wide. The door was open wide, but guarded by soldiers.

“Where is your permit, old man?” a soldier asked when Il-han came to the door. “You cannot walk in as though you were the Governor-General.”

Il-han did not know such a permit was necessary. He drew himself up to his best height, and stared at the soldier.

“I am Kim,” he said with strong dignity. “My name is Il-han.”

The soldier hesitated, but seeing before him a gentleman of rank, he allowed Il-han to enter. Inside the hall Il-han now saw the prisoners already seated in two groups in the middle, each group divided into smaller ones of ten men, manacled together. On the sides were seats for the counsels and for reporters. At one end of the hall were the seats for the judges, and at the other end were seats for the people. The prisoners were separated from both judges and people by a barrier, and Il-han pushed his way as closely as he could to this barrier so that he might see the faces of the prisoners. He searched each face and cursed the dimness of his eyes because those in the center were not clear. Was Yul-chun there? He could only wait for the trials to proceed.

Alas, the whole morning was wasted in preparations. Impatiently he waited while after long delay the judges took their places, their interpreters beside them, one Japanese, one Korean. Impatience grew in him while the names of the prisoners were read. He did not hear his son’s name and if Yul-chun were there, it could only mean that he used a false name. The indictment was then read, an hour in length, another hour in translation from Japanese into Korean.

By this time the judges were hungry and the Court adjourned for an hour. In the hour Il-han ate his food and drank his tea and made haste to return early and get himself a seat again next to the barrier, but on the opposite side from where he had sat before. Behind it the prisoners waited, unfed and thirsty. One man just inside the barrier, within reach of his hand, sat with his back toward him and his head bowed. His hair was cut short as all prisoners had their hair cut, so that this man’s neck showed bone thin and slender as a broken bamboo. Through the holes in his ragged garments his shoulder blades stood out like wings. The garment was filthy and soaked with sweat, for heat filled the hall with a hot fog, a miasma of evil odors and stagnant air. Il-han, observing this prisoner, saw his body heave in great gasps, and with instinctive pity he seized his half-empty jar of tea from his servant, crouching on the floor at his feet, and he reached over the low barrier and held the bottle before the prisoner. A claw of a hand, the man’s right hand, grasped the bottle, and in that instant Il-han recognized the hand. It was the hand of his son. It was the hand of Yul-chun.

He fell back into his seat, overwhelmed by a sudden giddiness. His thoughts whirled in his head, a mass of confused colors and shapes. What should he do? What could he do? He felt impelled to cry aloud that this was his son, and his son must be released. He put down the impulse. His son did not know it was he who had given the bottle. He watched while Yul-chun drank the tea in great gulps. Before he could finish, a guard saw him drinking and he came up to the barrier and snatched the bottle away.

“Who gave you this bottle?” he bawled.

“I found it in my hand,” Yul-chun said.

The guard turned and glared at all those near the barrier. Since Il-han sat nearest, he fixed upon him.

“Was it you, old man?”

Il-han was too dazed to speak and before he could recover, his servant spoke for him. “This old man is stone deaf,” he said. “He cannot hear you.”

The guard, getting no better answer from the fearful people, satisfied himself with striking a blow on Yul-chun’s right shoulder, and so heavily that blood trickled out from the broken flesh and mingled with the sweat, but Yul-chun did not move, not even to lift his head.

Now the judges returned and the trials began again and Il-han gathered his wits together to understand what was said. The first prisoner summoned was a teacher in a Christian school, a thin tall young man who had, it seemed, confessed the day before the trials that he had been compelled by the missionary American who was the headmaster of the school to appear at the place of the assassination. Now he denied what yesterday he had confessed. He denied, too, that he was a member of the New Peoples Society, to which yesterday he had also confessed. The judge, hearing these denials, was indignant.

“How can you deny before the Court today what yesterday you confessed to the procurator?” the judge demanded.

The man, who said he was once a corporal in the Korean army but was now a gymnastics teacher in a Christian school, replied, “I made false confessions yesterday because I was tortured by the authorities.”

“What!” the judge exclaimed in further anger. “You, a teacher, demean yourself to make false confessions because of torture?”

The man said doggedly that he could not hold out longer, and so he had lied. To all further questions he repeated no, he had never been visited by a ringleader in the conspiracy; no, he had never heard the plot discussed; no, he had not told the missionary of such a plot; no, he did not know there was a party of conspirators armed with revolvers at the railroad station at Syun-chun on the day of the attempted assassination; no, he had not even heard that the Governor-General was passing there; no, he did not know whether students in the school had been approached by the ringleader in the conspiracy; no, neither he nor his pupils had revolvers—how could they, when all were searched before being allowed on the platform?

So went the questions and answers, the prisoner standing in dogged patience until the questioner for the Court grew more and more loud in his demands. He pointed to a large box on the platform.

“Do you not know that this box was kept in the Christian school and in it were hidden revolvers?”

“I only went to the school to teach gymnastics. I know nothing else,” the prisoner replied.

The judge now lost patience and shouted.

“Next prisoner!”

The next prisoner, a squat, sturdy fellow who said he was thirty-eight years old and a farmer, answered all questions in the same fashion as had the first prisoner. He knew nothing of the New Peoples Society, nothing of the alleged meetings in the Christian schools; nothing of the purchase of revolvers or of assassination. He had never given money to buy revolvers, nor had he heard speeches against the Governor-General. Neither did he know whether the missionary headmaster had told the story of David and Goliath, and he knew nothing about the story, or about David or Goliath; no, he did not know which was the brave man, David or Goliath, yes, he had before confessed that he knew all these matters, but his confession was false and made under extreme torture.

The judge now became grim. He ordered the prisoner dismissed and the next man brought forward. Il-han had fully recovered his wits and he listened with both ears and his entire attention. The pattern of the trials was becoming clear. Under his son’s instruction, for who but Yul-chun could conceive so clever a plan, each prisoner denied every charge to which he had before confessed, saying that he had confessed only under extreme torture. The judges, the entire Court, also perceived the pattern, and the trials went on in ominous calm until evening. Then the Court adjourned until the next morning.

“I will not go home,” Il-han said to his servant. “Find me a bed in an inn and tell the mother of my sons that here I stay until the trials are concluded.”

The man obeyed, and Il-han ate a hearty meal at the inn and laid himself down on a mattress in a room with three traveling merchants. Pulling his quilt to his neck, he reviewed the day and marveled again at his son’s cleverness, and laughed under his beard, and then slept as he had not slept for many a night.

The second day of the trials proceeded exactly as the first, except that Il-han overslept and arrived too late to seat himself close to the barrier. He could not tell, therefore, where Yul-chun sat, and he could only stretch his head high to watch for his son’s appearance in the prisoners’ dock. All day he waited, listening to each prisoner deny the confession made before under torture. Most of these prisoners were young men, teachers or pupils from Christian schools, and the more he heard the more alarmed Il-han became for his second son lest he, too, become Christian. Fourteen men were examined on this second day. David and Goliath were also discussed, but all fourteen prisoners denied knowing these characters, although one young man of weak intellect said that he believed David was considered the braver of the two. Nothing else did the fourteen know. So ended the second day of the trial, and Il-han returned in high spirit to the inn, where his servant waited with a dish of kimchee from Sunia, who said the kimchee at the inn doubtless was not fit to eat.

The third day was not different from the first and the second. To the questions asked before, only a few new questions were added.

“Did the American Christian headmaster address the students, urging them to be bold and undertake a great effort?”

“Did you go to the railway station disguised as a Christian student?”

“Did you not see American Christian missionaries signal their pupils as the Governor-General walked along the platform?”

“Did you tell the students at the Taiyong Christian School to inspire one another with the same ideas that were declared by the assassin of Prince Ito in Harbin?”

“Do you not remember the names of the men to whom revolvers were given?”

“Do you not know that a man came from Pyongyang to Syun-chun to warn the members of the New Peoples Society that the Governor-General was coming?”

To all these questions the answer was no, and to the charge of previous confessions, the plea was duress under torture.

So it went until the eighth day. Nor were the prisoners only students. Some were Christian pastors, some were merchants, but all denied any part in the conspiracy. At last on the evening of the eighth day Il-han saw Yul-chun on the stand. He wore the same rags, but around his head he had wound a towel to hide his cropped hair. Now Il-han strained his attention to hear every word. He had come this eighth day at dawn, so that he might be as close as possible to the stand, knowing that this must be the day for which he had waited so long. His heart beat heavily in his bosom and he felt half choked as he heard the first question.

“What is your name?”

“I am called The Living Reed.”

“In the eighth month two years ago you went to Kwaksan to tell the local members of the New Peoples Society of the arrival of the Governor-General whom it had first been decided to assassinate at Chanyon-kwan. Is this true?”

“I admitted it under torture but it is not true.”

“You bought revolvers in Manchuria with money given you by the merchant Oh Hwei-wen. Is this true?”

“I admitted it under torture but it is not true.”

“You went with others also to Wiju to assassinate the Governor-General there.”

“I admitted it under torture, but it cannot be true. The platform at Wiju is too small—we would have been noticed.”

“In the spring of 1909, when Prince Ito accompanied the King of Korea on a tour of inspection, did you not determine to attack the Prince at Chanyon-kwan? Then as the imperial train did not stop there, you took the next train and followed Prince Ito to another station. Is this true?”

“I admitted it under torture but it is not true.”

“Do you know that the object of the New Peoples Society is to build a military school, to assassinate high officials, and to wage a war to establish the independence of Korea if war breaks out with China or America?”

“I do not know such a thing. If I admitted it under torture when I was half conscious it is not true.”

At this moment the judge, a Japanese general of high rank, lost his temper. He pounded the table before him with his clenched fists.

“Torture—torture! What is this torture?”

In the same steady voice with which he answered all questions, Yul-chun replied.

“My arms were bound behind my back with ropes of silk. They cut into my flesh. Two sticks were put between my legs, which were then bound tightly together at my knees and ankles. Two policemen twisted these sticks. Pieces of bamboo, three-cornered, were tied between my fingers and tied so tightly that my flesh was torn from my bones. Day after day I was pulled out flat on the floor and beaten with split bamboo until my back was raw. Each night I was thrown into an underground dungeon where I lay in wet and slime. Each day I was taken out for torture again. I do not know how many days. I was not always conscious.”