The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (46 page)

“‘Victims of an older age, when brute force and the spirit of plunder ruled, we have come after these long thousands of years to experience the agony of ten years of foreign oppression, with every loss to the right to live, every restriction of the freedom of thought, every damage done to the dignity of life, every opportunity lost for a share in the intelligent advance of the age in which we live.

“‘Assuredly, if the defects of the past are to be rectified, if the agony of the present is to be unloosed, if the future oppression is to be avoided, if thought is to be set free, if right of action is to be given a place, if we are to attain to any way of progress, if we are to deliver our children from the painful, shameful heritage, if we are to leave blessing and happiness intact for those who succeed us, the first of all necessary things is the clear-cut independence of our people. What cannot our twenty millions do, every man with sword in heart, in this day when human nature and conscience are making a stand for truth and right? What barrier can we not break, what purpose can we not accomplish?’”

Il-han listened, his head bowed. Over his heart and into his mind a great peace descended. The purpose of his people had been carved clear and plain in stately words.

Days passed and Yul-han was seldom at home in the evenings. He told Induk that he had new work to do but what it was he did not say, and she feared to know and would not ask. She spent her evenings alone, reading the Sacred Scriptures and praying often, her children asleep beside her while she waited for the yet unborn. She kept her candle lighted for Yul-han’s return but if by midnight he had not come, she obeyed his command that she go to bed and leave the house in darkness.

He could not have told her where he spent his evenings, even if he would, for he was never in the same place twice. He and his company met in open fields, under the darkness of trees; they met in caves in the mountains, in hidden gullies and behind rocks. He learned to walk in the black of the night, feeling the path with his feet, guided by a star hanging in the east over the dying sunset sky. He learned to know when another human being came near without a sound. He knew what the rustle of a bamboo meant, and how to give no sign when he felt a paper, folded small, thrust into the curve of his hand. He learned not to look up or to speak when a servant in a teashop gave him a message with his pot of tea, or a student in his class wrote words between the lines of an essay. He thought nothing of getting messages from any country in the world where his countrymen gathered their strength into one great dream.

Yet even here in their hearts, single for independence, there was division. One leader was for violence, declaring himself for an armed uprising inside their country, while another protested that such an uprising could not succeed since the invaders were far stronger and they would only make excuse that they were compelled to use force to quell the rebels. No, that leader said, the nation must resist without violence, protest but not by arms, and this protest must take place on some national occasion. This man prevailed, and Yul-han was with him. Prudent he was and wise beyond his years and he, too, believed that an armed attack against the rulers could only lead to defeat.

What occasion could there be? The Governor-General forbade all gatherings of the populace in public places. Even in churches there were always spies present, and Yul-han had more than once been called before the official who had let him be Christian to answer questions as to who was Christian and who was not and whether one Christian or another belonged to the New Peoples Society. He learned to lie easily and without conscience if a life could be saved by lies.

It was the old King who inadvertently came to their aid, and in this fashion. After the great war, the Japanese rulers, foreseeing that Korea would ask for independence, had written a petition to be signed by Koreans, saying that they were grateful to the Emperor of Japan for his good and kindly rule and that they were asking of their own free will to become a part of the Japanese nation. This petition the ruling Japanese had presented to the old King, now deposed, for him to sign. He had shown no courage during these years and his people had all but forgotten him, but, confronted with the heinous sheet, he summoned his strength and refused to sign it. His people were amazed and for the first time they acclaimed him and in his consequent agitation he had an apoplexy and he died. Since all knew he was thin and bloodless and since he had died two days before his death was announced, rumors flew about, one that he had been poisoned, and another that he had killed himself rather than give permission for his son to be married to the Japanese Princess Nashimoto. Whatever the cause, he was dead and Yul-han and his company seized the King’s death as an occasion for the announcement of the freedom of Korea. They disputed bitterly as to whether there should be a bloody uprising or a peaceful demonstration of what was now called the Mansei Revolution. The Christians were for peace instead of blood, and among these Yul-han was the leader. Nor were the Christians the only ones who so declared themselves. The sect of Chuntokyo, who believed in a God who was the Supreme Mind, and the sect of Hananim, who combined the Christian doctrine of brotherhood with the Confucian ethic and the Buddhist philosophy, joined with the Christians. These together had written the Declaration of Independence and Yul-han had spent long nights in a dark cellar under a temple, the monks assisting, while he and his fellows printed the Declaration from hand-carved wooden blocks upon thousands of sheets of papers. The sheets were sent throughout the country to every city, village and hamlet, to every farmhouse and every factory, and to Koreans over the whole world. Lovers of freedom in every country seized upon the sheets and treasured them.

And while this work was being done, thirty-three men, fifteen of them Christians, were preparing in secret the day of announcement of independence. In every township they set up a local committee, each committee knit to the next, and this though spies were everywhere. Meanwhile the leaders, in the name of the people, besought the rulers to allow them a day of mourning for the dead King, and the request was finally, though most unwillingly, granted. The first day of the third month was the day allotted and toward that day all worked together. The plan was this: crowds were to assemble everywhere, and the sign, village to village, was to be fires blazing on the mountains as beacons, until over the whole country people were ready to gather at the same hour to hear the announcement made of their independence. Then the crowds were to parade the streets of every city and town and village, waving their national flags and shouting the national cry, “
Mansei! Mansei!
”

… Somehow the secret was kept, the instructions carried in loaves of bread, in the coils of men’s hair, under their hats, in the long sleeves of women, until every citizen knew that on the first day of the third month, which was the seventh day of the week, at two hours past noon, all were to gather in their own streets. The Japanese rulers, still aware of nothing, had nevertheless feared what might happen, and to every hundred Koreans over the nation they had appointed a policeman and had added many hundreds of spies to those already at work.

At noon upon the chosen day the thirty-three signers of the Proclamation gathered to eat their noon meal together in the Bright Moon Restaurant in the capital city. As soon as the hour struck two, they rose and walked together to give themselves to the police, and this without violence or any resistance. Among them Yul-han walked first, his steps measured, his face calm.

The police at first were dazed when the men stood before them. They hesitated, not knowing whether they should arrest these ringleaders. In doubt they accepted them, but left them in a room in the police station, free except for two soldiers as guards, while they went to ask for orders from their superiors.

“These guards are not necessary,” Yul-han told them as they went. “We have no wish to escape. It is our purpose to go to prison.”

The police were further confounded by such words and fearing some trickery and shaking their heads, they went on. Meanwhile all over the nation the people were obeying instructions and the streets were crowded everywhere with singing, shouting people, waving flags and crying “
Mansei
.” But the thirty-three sat waiting with the two guards for many hours.

At the end of that time the police still had not returned, and going toward the window, Yul-han saw a strange small commotion. The glass was so clouded with dust that he could not see through, but as he watched, and he had learned to watch small signs without speaking, he saw a round place washed clean, and he saw that this spot was being washed clean by Ippun wetting her forefinger in her mouth and then rubbing the glass. To the clean spot she applied one eye and a part of her face, enough for her to see Yul-han and to motion to him violently with her finger crooked. The guards by this time were careless and drowsy, and without sound he went to the door, tried it and found it not locked and so he went out. It was twilight and to the east he saw a glow that lighted the sky.

East? Then it could not be the sunset.

“Fire!” Ippun breathed hoarsely at his ear. “They have set the church on fire. Your daughter is there—and her mother—”

He did not wait for more. Through the crowds still milling in the streets he ran, past the bellowing police and the soldiers everywhere beating and berating the people, stooping to crush himself between legs and pushing bodies out of his way. Now he knew why they had been left so long with only two guards. The whole city was under attack. Hundreds of men and women and children were lying in the streets, bleeding from the blows of clubs, dead from the bullets of guns. He stayed neither to look nor to ask. He ran to the church and saw it ablaze. He ran up the steps and tried the doors. They were locked. From within came cries and wailing and yet above all he heard the sound of human voices soaring through the flames, singing the words of a Christian hymn.

“
Nearer my God to thee
—”

“Induk!” he shouted. “Induk—Induk!”

He remembered the vestry and the little door there that led into the church. That door they may have forgotten to lock! The flames were only on the roof. She might still be alive and he could snatch her out of the fire. He ran through the glittering brightness, the blackening shadows, the clouds of smoke to the rear of the church. Ah, the door was not locked! He was choking and coughing in the vestry, feeling his way to the door into the church. He felt the knob. The door opened and he flung himself into the shadows streaked with wild and livid light. At the same moment he heard a thunder of falling beams, a booming crash and human voices screaming in agony. The blazing roof had fallen in. For one instant he knew, and then he knew no more.

… Outside, Ippun waited. Now she saw and she covered her ears with her hands and shut her eyes and ran through the night. She ran without stopping, her arms flailing like wings at her shoulders to speed her way. Through the unguarded city gate she ran, and down the country road until she reached Il-han’s house. Still without stopping, stark-mad with fright and horror, she ran into the house where Il-han and Sunia sat side by side. Before them on the ondul floor Liang played with a vehicle he had made from a paper box. He had built wheels to it, and he was working with a broken wheel.

Upon these Ippun burst, her hair streaming down her back and her face a grimace, the wide mouth stretched, the eyes ready to burst from their sockets. She pointed with her shaking forefinger at the child.

“That—that one,” she stammered, her voice a high strange whine, “that one—he is all you have left—”

And she fell upon the floor unconscious.

All, all was lost. Before the night had passed, Il-han knew that thousands lay dying in the streets. In every city, town and hamlet they lay dying. Before days had passed he knew that villages blazed against the night sky and other Christian churches were burned, many with their congregation inside. The deadly stench of roasted human flesh hung about the streets of the capital.

… Meanwhile the beatings continued of those who had been taken prisoner. The missionary haunted the streets like a white ghost to prevent what he could, and an American, hired to be adviser to the Japanese, could not restrain his horror though he dared not give his name. What he wrote to his own countrymen and what was printed in America was printed also on the small sheets which Il-han still found under his door:

A few hundred yards from where I sit, the beating goes on, day after day. The victims are tied down to a frame and beaten on the naked body with rods until they become unconscious. Then cold water is poured on them until they are revived, when the process is repeated many times. Men and women and children are shot down or bayoneted. The Christian Church is especially chosen as an object of fury, and to the Christians is meted out special severity.

Il-han read this as he read all else that was brought to him by his servant or told to him by those who passed his house, and his heart was cold as death itself. His mind knew, but his heart no longer felt. Sunia, too, neither spoke nor wept. She moved about her house slowly as though she were very old, beyond seeing or hearing or feeling. Her only thought was for Liang, and she stayed by him night and day and he was never out of her sight. Ippun, without request or permission, came to live with them, and she did the work of house and garden and they let her.

Some explanation must be made to his grandchild, Il-han told himself, yet what could he say? For the first few days he said nothing. Then he went to Sunia.

“What shall we tell the child?” he inquired.

She looked at him with lackluster eyes. “I will feed and clothe him, but do not ask me to do more.”

Yet the matter could not be put off, for Liang began to press.

“Where is my father?” he asked. “Why shall I not go home?”

He forgot to eat, and he sat with his chopsticks loose in his hand.

“When I go home—” he began again and then he paused. “When shall I go home?”