So Far from the Bamboo Grove

by Yoko Kawashima Watkins

  Then it was my turn. The water was very cold and Mother’s fingers, soaping my back and my head, careful to avoid my chest and not get water in my ear, were icy. Even colder was the sharp blade that slid over my head. Mother changed my dressing and put drops in my ear. She said the new skin was growing nicely. I put on dry underwear and Ko rinsed all our wet underclothes and spread them on the rocks to dry.

  We had been in Seoul for five weeks when one day Ko brought a warning. “We must get out of Seoul. I saw several Korean men dragging girls to the thicket and I saw one man raping a young girl.” Ko was shivering. “The girls were screaming for help in Japanese. Will you shave my hair again now?”

  At the river Mother shaved both our heads. Then she bound Ko’s breasts tightly with the long cloth Dr. Takeda had used to wrap my chest, so that she would look even more like a boy. We all put on our filthy uniforms, protection against the chilly autumn air.

  Back at the station our spots were taken so we sat outside in the warmth of the sun.

  Mother interviewed the stationmaster. She told him we could not afford to ride to Pusan as passengers and would have to go on a freight car. He told her so many were heading for the port that he doubted we could even get on. The trip took two and a half days.

  “Let us take last freight train tomorrow,” Mother decided. “Perhaps Hideyo will be on it when it comes.”

  Ko and I carved word to Hideyo on the station posts and wherever we found wood. “Hideyo. To Pusan,” I carved, hoping desperately that he would come before we left.

  Then Ko took me to the narrow alley of the hospital and told me to hunt for food in the garbage cans. I opened a can and the strong rotten smell went through my nose. I could not put my hand into that garbage.

  “Do it!” Ko ordered sharply. She was poking through a can with her jackknife. Already her sack was half filled.

  I gagged. “I cannot, Honorable Sister.”

  “Go find sticks,” Ko said.

  Finally, with chopsticks I found, she showed me how to look for food. I found a half-eaten jelly sandwich, a meat sandwich, and lots of potato strips fried in oil, some cheese, and lettuce. These were our food supplies for the train trip. We rushed back to where Mother guarded our belongings, ate, and sat through the night.

  It was three o’clock the next afternoon when the last freight train pulled in. In vain we looked for Hideyo. Everyone—Japanese, Koreans, young, old, children, feeble people—were trying to get on the train. Mother held my hand tightly and Ko, ahead of us, made her way, bumping people with her large bundle.

  The first boxcar was packed. “No room!” a man shouted.

  The next one was even worse and still many were trying to crawl in. Others were clinging to the edge of the train.

  “Try the flatcar!” Ko yelled. The train whistled.

  The flatcar was piled with lumber and people, but a Japanese man on the train called to us. “Come here! Quick!” Ko handed him her bundle. Knowing my chest was tender, she lifted me like a baby and handed me to the man, who dropped me on some lumber and extended his arms to Mother. She was on. Ko tossed up our rucksacks.

  The train whistled three times and began moving. “Honorable Sister, hurry!” I screamed.

  She jumped, the man pulled, and he and Mother pulled Ko onto the car.

  “Oh!” Mother bowed deeply to the man. “Thank you!”

  “A close call,” he replied. I saw him now for the first time, elderly with a white beard, with a gentle way of speaking.

  We swayed on the flatcar, and the wind blew so hard that when Ko opened my rucksack the wind almost blew our food away. She handed our elderly friend a cheese sandwich. “I have not eaten for three days,” he told her, and devoured it.

  Night came and I shivered with cold. Ko and Mother got out coats and uniforms, clutching them tightly lest the wind take them away. Wrapped in my blanket too, I clung to Ko.

  In the morning we ate whatever was not spoiled of the fruit, sharing with the old gentleman. Ko gave him bread and he was overjoyed. “This is moldy but better than none,” he said.

  At one point the train stopped and we watched a man jump off, turn his back, and urinate. Then he called to us. “If you have to go, go now. No telling when we’ll stop again.” We managed to get off and squat right there, shielding each other.

  On the train jolted, south to Pusan. Now I felt not only cold but feverish. My throat was sore and I had lost my voice. But I did not whine because these were nothing compared with the pain I had been through with ear and chest. And at last, on the third day, the train pulled into the Pusan station.

  The station was packed. We must go to the warehouse by the harbor. “I must wait here for my son,” Mother told a Korean official.

  “You cannot. We are going to have our Independence celebration here. Go!”

  I did not think I could walk an inch farther, for I was burning with fever now and my head pounded. But we dragged on. Koreans of all ages, dressed in their best and carrying flags, were heading for the celebration at the station, and there were American soldiers too, with cameras.

  The warehouse had belonged to the Japanese navy until the war ended, and slogans were still large on the walls. “Victory!” “Attack with Courage!” “Great Imperial Navy!” Now the warehouse was filled with people.

  Again it was Ko who found a corner, and I put my blanket on the concrete floor and fell asleep. But I was not allowed to sleep long. A man was yelling at me, telling me to sit up and make room for him. Mother told him I was ill but he looked about to choke her. At that, I grabbed his legs and he fell. Angrier than ever, he got up and came toward me, threatening.

  Then I saw Mother, the sword blade pointing at his chest. “Try and touch her!” she said in a low voice. And the man went away.

  “Lie down, Little One,” Mother said as if nothing had happened. “Save your sister’s spot.” She put the blade into its sheath.

  Ko brought orange peels and rotten apples she had found near a mess hall. There were peaches too and plenty of those fried potato strips.

  “I have to go to the toilet,” I said.

  There were six toilets at the end of the building for us to squat on, but no doors and no separate toilets for men and woman. A woman ahead of us, embarrassed, pulled down her trousers and panty and squatted, and I tried not to look at her. Then Mother went and stood in front of her, and I saw the young woman come out. In a moment she screamed for help. I turned to see that she had been seized by four men at the end of our line. There was nothing we could do.

  When we got back to our space Ko wanted to go. Mother’s lips were pale. “Is the wrapper around your breasts tight?” she asked. “Ko, you must do it the way boys do.”

  From then on we did it the way boys do. It was awful. We were wet and our clothes were wet. But we were safer.

  That day was a nightmare. Drunken Koreans, celebrating their independence, were all around us. One who swayed back and forth demanded of Ko, “Are you a boy or a girl?”

  “A boy,” she answered.

  “You sound like a girl. Let me feel.”

  “Go ahead,” Ko said.

  How I prayed someone would come to rescue us. No one was trying to help young women, for they knew that if they made the Koreans even angrier they might burn down this warehouse and the people in it. The Koreans were free of the Japanese Empire after all those years. The drunken man put his large hand on Ko’s chest. “Flat,” he said. “Boys are no fun.”

  The group of men left us but they staggered among the people, hunting maidens for their pleasure, and whenever they found one they dragged her outside. Women’s shrieks echoed.

  Mother and Ko did not sleep that night. In the morning their eyes were bloodshot and they looked worn out. Ko said she must sleep and I must go for food. She gave me directions.

  Voice still missing, head pounding, throat aching, ear throbbing, I put my rucksack on my head as the Koreans did and headed for the building Ko had directed me to. With a ma
ple branch broken from a tree I poked through garbage cans. There were milk cartons with a few drops in them. Flour in bags. We could make a fire outside and mix flour and water for dumplings. There was bread half-eaten. Browned bananas—what a treasure. I ate a banana as I poked through. Soon I put my filled sack on my head and started back.

  At a small stream I stopped to drink and I heard a cry. In the weeds was a Korean man on top of a girl. She was kicking wildly and screaming. My knees began to shake, and, holding my sack on my head with both hands, I walked as fast as I could to Ko and Mother.

  “We cannot stay here any longer,” Mother said when I told her. “We must get to Japan.” Her eyes filled. “But Hideyo. He will be all alone in Korea.”

  A week later it was announced that a cargo ship was coming and could take a hundred people to Japan. Japanese must surrender any dangerous weapons—guns, knives. We must get in line for the ship.

  With all the others we scrambled for the line. “I cannot surrender our precious sword,” Mother whispered.

  “You must not,” Ko agreed. “Let us go to the toilet. Stay in line and guard our belongings, Little One.”

  When they came back Ko was walking strangely, her left leg not bending. “Little One,” said Mother in a low voice, “your sister’s leg is wounded. She has a cast on it. You understand.” I nodded.

  When the ship finally docked the Korean official counted one hundred. “Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and one hundred!”

  There was a cry. “Please, officer!” It was a middle-aged Japanese woman. “Please let my father come with me!”

  “No. The rule is the rule.” This official, like all Korean officials, looked harsh to me. “That is what your government always said to us.”

  “He is old and he needs my care. I will pay! Please.”

  “The rule is the rule.”

  Then a man behind the old father offered to change places, so both the woman and her father stayed behind.

  I watched the boat fade away toward the horizon and wondered how long I would have to wait until I was on a ship to the homeland I had dreamed of all of my life.

  A hundred had left but more hundreds poured in, and we continued to wait in line, not daring to leave lest we miss our chance on the next boat. A week later the ship returned, but we were not among this hundred.

  Mother continued to search among the crowds for Hideyo. Ko, walking awkwardly, her left leg stiff, went searching for food.

  Rain came. We covered ourselves with our blankets but soon we were soaked. It rained for three days and we sat on the ground, in line, day and night. Our belongings were sodden.

  I began to cough and Ko remembered the aspirin Doctor Takeda had given us. Somehow it had slipped our minds until now. We all took aspirin, crushing the sour tablets with our teeth.

  At last we saw the ship again, and when Ko went to the toilet she counted the people. We were seventy-nine, eighty, and eighty-one.

  They began loading early in the morning. As each one walked onto the gangplank, Korean officials inspected belongings. They touched our bodies to make sure we were not carrying concealed weapons.

  They searched me first and I winced with pain when my chest was touched. Then I began to cough and could not stop. I pulled up my uniform jacket to show where I was bandaged. “Go,” the official said.

  I was afraid for Ko, carrying our family treasure. The official checked her sack and found nothing but food from the garbage. He touched her chest, sides, back, and hips. His hands moved toward her thigh. Ko’s face was white and I trembled. The official must feel the gauze that tied the sword. He was feeling the gauze.

  “My leg is wounded. Don’t press hard, you are hurting me.” Ko grimaced as if in pain.

  “Go,” said the man. I made myself stay calm.

  They let Mother through easily with the filthy, damp clothes in her bundle, but they took the small nail scissors.

  There was space on the ship and we spread a blanket and sat on it. Ko handed me a slice of moldy bread and I wiped off the mold on my trousers and ate it. When the sun tinted the sea a brilliant red the boat slowly left the dock.

  “At last! No more fear,” said Ko. She leaned against the rail.

  At last. Soon I would be meeting my grandmother and seeing my beautiful homeland. I joined Ko at the rail. Mother sat still on the blanket, head buried in her arms. Her hair, all gray now, blew in the wind.

  Ko kept staring at the Korean peninsula, fading away slowly, and tears were falling on her cheek. It was the first time I had seen Ko cry since we left home. Quietly I went to sit close to Mother, whose face also was wet with tears that she could not stop.

  SIX

  THE TRACKS SEPARATED, HEADING IN two directions. Hideyo stood there. Which way? He looked at the sun, which was going down, and using the sun as his guide, he took the southwest track to Seoul.

  As dark was coming on, the tracks entered a narrow gorge through mountains, and Hideyo decided that he might be able to find mushrooms. He had eaten almost nothing since he had left his friends two weeks before.

  He was not only hungry but terribly lonely. To ease his loneliness he had thought about Shoichi, Shinzo, and Makoto and all the doings he had shared with them since kindergarten days. He had even smiled, remembering some of their mischief.

  He got off the track to hunt for mushrooms and decided to camp there, for there was no moon and he could not see to go on. Mushrooms were plentiful. He stuffed them in the pockets of his trousers and shirt and the side pockets of his rucksack. Then he built a small fire. Roasting and eating mushrooms, he thought of his mother and sisters and wondered how they were faring—if they were still alive. He thought of the bankbook he was carrying and wondered if his mother had any money.

  He looked up at the twilight sky at the sound of geese, flying in V formation, heading toward somewhere warm. All talked excitedly as they flew, and Hideyo wished he were one of them. I must hurry, he told himself, I must get to Seoul.

  He let the fire die. He would sleep until dawn. Going deeper into the forest, he spread his little sister’s fur coat beneath him and curled up in his blanket. The ground was damp and the wind bit sharply through his summer clothes.

  Suddenly he awoke. In complete darkness he sat up and listened. There were human voices mingling with the wind and coming toward him. Speaking Korean. Hideyo pushed his blanket and rucksack into the trees and covered his head with the fur coat, hoping he looked like an animal.

  “The campfire was still warm,” a voice said. “The escapee cannot have gone too far in the dark.” The footsteps came nearer and nearer, and a powerful flashlight blinded Hideyo. Korean Communist Army, he thought, patrolling the mountain. How many? Silently he pulled his jackknife from his pocket.

  The searching footsteps went this way and that. Hideyo’s heartbeats went faster and louder.

  “Not much use looking in the dark,” said the same voice.

  “Let’s go back to the squadron and patrol early in the morning,” said another voice. “Anyhow, we’ve caught more than enough today.”

  “How many?” a different voice asked.

  “Sixteen. Seven Japs, the others Communist resisters.”

  The flashlight was still circling and several times aimed at the tree where Hideyo was hiding. It came closer. Hideyo shrank behind the tree, still holding his jackknife in his right hand, prepared.

  “I don’t see anybody. Let’s go.”

  The voices and the flashlight were moving away, but the wind carried the voices clearly to where Hideyo hid. Finally they died away. Again he covered himself with his blanket. He was exhausted but he could not fall asleep right away for fear he would not wake early, before the patrol came back. If I had that flashlight, he thought, I’d cover the light and walk.

  He did wake when the forest was dark but pale pink showed in the eastern sky. Quickly he rolled the little fur coat in the blanket, draped it over the rucksack on his shoulders, and headed down to the tracks. That w
as the shortest way to Seoul.

  The mountain became lighter and lighter as the sun rose. He had gone deep into the forest the night before and now he was not sure of his direction. Again he used the sun as his guide. He came to a clearing that dropped off in a sharp cliff, and, holding branches of trees, he went down the cliff. Lo, there were the shiny tracks stretching for miles toward Seoul. He stopped and took a deep breath of relief.

  Then, on the tracks some distance ahead of him, he saw people walking.

  Maybe they are all escapees, he thought, excited. He was very happy to see them after his great loneliness. He ran down the rest of the cliff and took fast steps to catch up.

  Suddenly machine gun shots burst in the air beyond where the people were walking. Hideyo froze. Then he ran back up the cliff and headed in the direction of the shots. They trapped those people! Damn, damn, damn! He spoke to himself.

  The clearing became woods. No path, but he pushed through.

  There was commotion on the tracks below. He seemed to be above the spot where the people had been shot, but he did not dare go down the cliff to look.

  “All dead.” The voice speaking Korean came up to him.

  “Check their belongings. Take all valuables,” said another voice. “Strip the bodies. If they have gold fillings, pull out their teeth.”

  Hideyo was shaking. He waited.

  “All stripped,” a voice shouted.

  The soldiers were climbing the cliff, and he looked frantically around for a hiding place. There was no thicket, and they would see him if he ran for shelter. Except for one tall pine, the trees were not large enough to hide him. Shall I play dead? he thought. Then they would strip him, pull out his gold-filled tooth, and take the savings book.

  The men were much closer. Still carrying his rucksack, draping the blanket over his shoulders, Hideyo climbed the pine tree. As he climbed, the blanket slipped, the fur coat appeared, and his Korean pants caught on the sharp branch and tore. If I drop this coat it will be the end, he thought. Clutching the tree with his left arm, he yanked the fur coat from the blanket, gripped the sleeve in his teeth, and climbed until he reached a thick branch. Hugging coat and blanket, he sat.