She slows to a careful pace, her hands out in front of her again. She will run into the rail ties and surely trip onto the tracks if she isn’t careful. Threadbare grass beneath her feet reveals rocks that stab her tender sores, but she ignores them, focusing on the dark path ahead of her. She stubs her toe on something hard. Quickly, she kneels and touches solid, smooth metal. She puts her ear to the tracks and listens for the train. Which way is it going, and which direction is the way she came?
A low hum reaches her ears. She places her hands on the metal rail and senses a weak vibration. The low hum fades to nothing. The tracks become still, dead in her hands. She is surrounded by silence. A slow panic builds in her chest. Which way? The wind is the only sound, the stars the only light in the darkness. Then a faint whistle shrieks like a faraway phantom. Did it come from the right? She turns her head in that direction and listens for the spirit’s ghostly cry, but it doesn’t come again. Hana rises to her feet and turns, trusting her ears, her heart and the vast silence that presses on her skin as she heads left, following the railway tracks, hoping they will lead her south.
She walks through the night. Afraid to lose her way, she endures the pain of walking on the wooden ties and the rocks between them. She hasn’t had anything to drink for two nights, and she is light-headed, her tongue swollen in her mouth. Water is all she can think about. In the morning, she tells herself; she must wait until daylight to find water. Right now, she must keep moving, while she has the cover of darkness. Wait until morning.
When the sun is high, she will find water, and perhaps a place to rest. There must be a lake or a river to keep the land fertile and the birds flying in the sky. She will find it in the morning. Don’t stop, not yet. The distance to the sea is further than she can imagine. Her only hope of reaching it is to keep moving. One step after the other, she makes her feet move, even as they cry out to her for rest.
When dawn approaches, the night transforms into a hazy grey, and at first Hana can barely see the outlines of her pale hands splayed in front of her. As the sun rises further, she can see the railway tracks beneath her feet and soon the landscape around her. The tall grass has fallen away to rolling fields of yellow flowers.
To her dismay, she sees a gravel road following the path of the railway track. A convoy of soldiers could have driven by at any time, and she would have had nowhere to hide. Quickly, she darts off the tracks away from the road and heads into the flower fields. They only reach up to her knees, so she continues running further away from the tracks until they are a distant feature on the horizon. She warns herself to stay parallel to the tracks so she won’t lose her way, or she could end up walking in circles.
In the distance, she notices brown shapes huddled in the grass. The deep bellow of an ox pierces the silence. She crouches on her knees and searches the fields for farmers or herding nomads. The sun lights up the countryside, but the beauty is lost on her. Her eyes scan the field for signs of people, but the oxen are alone. A low moan escapes one of them, and Hana thinks it might be giving birth. Milk, she suddenly thinks, and runs towards the labouring creature, never resting her eyes as she searches for any sign of people who might help or hurt her.
When she reaches the ox, her hopes fade as she realises it isn’t in labour. It has fallen prey to an old hunter’s trap, and the rusted metal jaws have snapped closed on the ox’s leg. The lower hind-leg bone juts through a flap of skin. It has become separated and hangs lifelessly next to the other leg. The ox cries again, and Hana covers her ears. The sound is a death moan.
She backs away from the pitiful creature, her hands shutting the terrible, deep groan out of her mind, but she can’t keep it out. When she hears it again, it’s as though it rises from her memories – the night she first arrived at the brothel and witnessed the Korean woman give birth to a dead baby. She hears the woman’s inhuman moans as though she is peering into the candlelit room once more. There was so much blood between the woman’s splayed legs. Hana remembers running upstairs and meeting Keiko for the first time, the geisha kneeling on her tatami mat and crying into her hands.
The ox moans again and startles Hana. She is not at the brothel anymore. She is free of that place, and she must do what she has to in order to remain free. Gathering her courage, Hana walks around the animal towards its head. The ox’s eyes roll wildly in its sockets, and it thrashes its legs as she approaches it. Fresh blood seeps from the wound where the skin has torn further from the ox’s frantic attempt to get away.
‘Hush, poor creature,’ she whispers in a soothing tone.
She kneels next to its head and pats its brow. The ox grows quiet. Its breath is shallow. Flies congregate on the wound, and wriggling maggots infest the flesh. She strokes its neck in long, slow motions. It must have been lying here for days. Hana can imagine its pain. She can feel it, as she feels the caress of wind on her face. She knows what it is like to lie helpless while her body is broken. Hana leans in close to the ox and whispers into its ear.
‘Go to sleep, dear ox. Please, go to sleep. Rest your heavy head on this earth. Give up your tired spirit and flee this wretched place. Go soon, dear ox, go soon. And forgive me, please … forgive me.’
Hana presses her lips to the ox’s ear before crawling towards its broken leg. She makes sure to keep one hand on its hide as she moves behind it, still making soothing sounds as she nears its leg. The ox snorts but doesn’t kick. It may not have enough energy to fight, but she can’t be sure. She reaches slowly towards the broken leg.
Before she can change her mind, she seizes it and, in one quick motion, twists it while yanking as hard as she can. The skin doesn’t tear away as she hoped. Hana is leaning backwards, halfway to the ground, her heels digging into the earth to keep from sliding across the grass into the thrashing ox. The metal trap is rattling about, but the chain keeps it secure to the ground. The ox is screaming, and the sound is worse than the low moan. Hana pulls and yanks and twists, while the ox scrambles desperately to get away from her. She is suspended in a kind of tug of war.
The ox bellows its death moan. The trap clatters against her foot. Her arms threaten to give in – she is so tired. Fearing she can’t hold on much longer, she contemplates letting go, but then, in one mighty rip, the hide splits in two.
She falls to the ground clasping the severed leg. The ox continues to kick at the earth, desperate to crawl away from her. She cannot bring herself to look at the terrified creature. Instead, she stares at the patch of crushed yellow flowers left in its wake as it inches away from her. As though resigned to its fate at her hands, it lies still with only its chest heaving and nostrils flaring.
Disgusted with herself, she releases the severed leg from the trap. The leg is heavy in her hand. She tries not to think about what she has done. Hana quickly rises to her feet and runs away from the poor animal, still clutching the hoofed leg in her hand. This is no time to think about the violation she has committed. She looks down at the leg, and to her horror, her empty stomach grumbles. A wail escapes her mouth. Just one. And then there is nothing but the sound of her feet pounding the earth as she flees the scene of her transgression.
When she can go no further, Hanna sinks to her knees and stares at the bloody leg. She doesn’t know what to do with it or how to eat it. Her only good fortune is that most of the maggots have fallen off. Her stomach growls, and she feels disgusted. She squeezes her eyes shut. It’s not a leg, she tells herself. It’s not a leg. It’s – a fish, a thin, long ocean creature that found its way into her net. Her father taught her to skin and debone countless fish, and that is what this is. A dead fish. Her father’s dark, suntanned hands appear in her mind. They hold a mackerel and a sharp blade, and she watches as he expertly fillets the creature in sure, steady motions.
As though his hands are her own, she begins to skin the leg. Her fingers peel the hide from the broken end, tentatively at first, but then with more force, and using all her might, she pulls it down towards the hoof. The hide doesn’t peel e
asily, and she must work it free from the flesh with harsh jerking motions. When the hide is halfway down the bone, Hana cannot wait any longer. She raises the leg to her mouth and takes a bite.
The flesh does not tear away easily either, and she has to rip it from the bone. Blood seeps down her throat. She tries not to taste it on her tongue. She tries not to remember where the flesh came from. In her mind, it is just a fish.
It was a skinny ox, and it doesn’t take her long to pick the bone clean of meat. She sucks the bloody marrow from the end of the bone as well and is surprised to find that she doesn’t mind the dark, heavy flavour. She hasn’t tasted fresh, bloody meat since her captivity began, eating only flecks of dried fish if they were lucky.
Sometimes, a soldier at the brothel would bring in a small bag of fresh fruit or vegetables to treat his favourite girl. Keiko often received these gifts, and she would share with Hana each time. What is Keiko doing now? Hana imagines the elegant geisha crouching in the solitary-confinement cell in the basement of the brothel. The prison cells were half a man high, so they had to remain seated the entire time. How many days and nights will Keiko suffer for Hana’s escape? And the other girls, will they suffer, too?
She closes her eyes and physically wipes the image away with her bloodstained hand. She cannot think of Keiko or her other sisters. In order to keep going, she can only think of home.
Hana buries the bone in the dirt as though hiding her offence, but she keeps the strips of hide skinned from the flesh. She rubs the fur against the ground to scratch off the ox’s blood. At first the dirt mixes with the blood and soils the fur, but with repeated scrubbing, the bloody dirt dries and finally rubs off. Using her teeth, she tears the hide into shorter strips and then ties them in successive layers around the balls of her feet. Taking a few steps to make sure they are on tight, she traces her path back to where she first heard the ox and continues on her journey, running parallel to the railway tracks.
Hana keeps an eye out for people, trucks and trains, but also for waterfowl. She is so very thirsty now, the blood having done little to assuage her.
The afternoon feels hotter than it should. The clouds have bulked up into massive grey mountains in the sky. Hana is now walking so slowly, her feet shuffle in the grass. The hills are gone; everywhere is flat. She lost sight of the railway tracks miles back. They disappeared behind one of the hills and never reappeared. She wandered aimlessly in search of them, and now she is lost. No roads, no railway tracks, no sign of human development – Hana is alone in the wilds of Manchuria surrounded on all sides by fields of grass.
A high-pitched ringing in her ears sounds like the constant whistle of a lone train she cannot find. There are no signs of animal life either. Not even cattle tracks to lead her somewhere with hope. Once, she saw a pack of wild camels, but they disappeared so fast she couldn’t be certain they weren’t a mirage, her mind playing tricks on her. She has eaten handfuls of grass when they appeared different from the other grasses she has passed. Flowers, too, but after retching from a particularly peppery flower, she stopped trying to eat the vegetation surrounding her. Now she is walking. Nothing more.
Her thirst torments her. In the brothel, she awoke each morning and went downstairs to fetch water. At the time, it seemed so far away as she dragged her used body out of her room and to the kitchen. Keiko would always beat her there, and they would stand in silence and drink. Then the other girls would arrive and they would prepare their meagre breakfasts.
There was never enough food. The other girls said their starving condition was due to the difficulty of transporting supplies so far north. They said even the Japanese soldiers were nearly starving, but they never seemed to lack energy. Hana thought they filled out their uniforms better than the Japanese soldiers from home. It occurs to her that they were fed so little in the brothel so that they would have energy for nothing more than fulfilling their duties. There would be none left over for escape.
The girls were allowed to listen to a small radio during chore days. The stations consisted mainly of news reports that spewed nothing but Japanese propaganda. The girls didn’t mind because in between reports they would play a song or two. They listened as they did their chores or ate their meals.
The news reports warned that the foreign armies were everywhere, arming against the Japanese, and the emperor needed as many volunteers as possible to hold them at bay. The Chinese, the Mongolians, the whole of Europe and America, they were all enemies of the emperor. Even the Soviets were suspicious, their tentative treaty with Japan weakening with each passing day. Fear was struck into the girls’ minds, fear of the wilderness beyond the brothel and fear of the enemy lurking within it.
There is nowhere for Hana to run, except south to Korea. But home is a long way off. Perhaps if she can find some water. Thoughts of home cloud her vision. Water tumbling in bucketfuls from their well. Cold and delicious, crisp like melted snow. Closing her eyes, she can almost taste the memory.
‘You spilled on me,’ her little sister squealed, dropping her cup and darting away.
Hana laughs aloud at the memory. It was a hot summer day, they were thirsty, and Hana had doused her sister with the cold water from the well. She focuses on the memory as though she can see it, as though it is happening now, though her parched mouth aches for a hint of saliva.
‘Come back, I promise I won’t do it again,’ she called out.
A small face peeked at her from behind the house. ‘Really?’
Hana’s heart leaps in her chest as she remembers those innocent brown eyes, so open to the world. Whenever she looked down into them, a surge of responsibility coursed through her. She made it her duty to keep those eyes from seeing the truth of the war. The death of their uncle would have cast a shadow over them for certain, so she had made their parents keep it from Emiko. Hana had helped her sister write letters to their uncle and then pretended to mail them. Once, she had even written a reply in her uncle’s handwriting. When her mother had found out, she was less than pleased but did nothing more than make Hana promise not to write any more letters.
‘Please, come back,’ Hana called out again.
With tentative steps, her little sister returned to the well, holding her tin cup in front of her. Hana drew the bucket up and carefully set it on the ground.
‘There, dip your cup in, that’s the safest way,’ Hana instructed.
Her sister crouched and plunged her whole hand into the bucket, then shivered.
‘It’s cold!’
Hana knelt beside her and dipped both hands beneath the water. It cooled the heated blood vessels in her hands and wrists. She bent her head down until her lips touched the curve of her cupped hands. The water smelled like ice. Before she could taste it, a small hand shoved Hana’s head down into the bucket. Water surged up her nose. She stood, water dripping from her mouth, as she coughed and sneezed the cold liquid from her nostrils. Laughter trailed away as her sister flew into hiding.
Hana remembers the sound, like tinkling bells swaying in the breeze. A southerly wind picks up. It cools her skin. She stops walking, slightly swaying against the strong current of air that whips around her. It feels like a sea wind. Hana can taste the salty air on her lips, which are cracked and dry against her sandpaper tongue. Perhaps it is the salt of her blood she tastes, but closing her eyes, she pretends she has made it home.
She is standing on the black rocks piled high on the sandy shore, staring out over the vast dark sea. The waves are whirling dancers, celebrating her homecoming and crashing into the rocks beneath her like a massive applause. Voices travel on the wind, and she hears her mother call her name. She turns. Her mother is running towards her with arms outstretched. Her father is there, too. He’s shouting her name above the roaring wind and the splashing waves.
‘I’m here,’ Hana calls to them. ‘I’m here,’ she cries, taking a step towards them. But her feet feel like they are buried in sand. She has travelled so far, and now, exhausted, they are too heav
y for her to lift.
‘Sakura,’ her father calls. ‘Sakura!’
A third voice rides the wind and reaches her ears. It is small, like a child’s, and sounds as if it has travelled from a faraway island behind her. Hana turns back to the sea and shades her eyes against the blazing sun. A young girl in a white fishing boat in the tumultuous ocean calls her name. Hana squeezes her eyes to focus on the girl’s face, and her heart leaps in her chest.
‘Emiko!’ she shouts. ‘Little sister, I am home!’ She waves and tries to jump for joy, but her feet will not lift out of the sand tethering her to the earth.
The girl climbs onto the bow of the boat, and Hana is instantly worried.
‘Little Sister, be careful!’ she shouts, afraid her sister cannot swim in such powerful waters.
The girl looks up once and calls her name before diving into the dark sea. For a moment, Hana is stunned by the girl’s graceful dive, but in the next moment, she is taken aback. The girl called out for Hana. The name her mother chose and the one her family knew her by – not Sakura. That is the name carved on a wooden board, nailed beside a door: cherry blossom.
Hana turns to look back at her father, but the seaside vision fades away. On the horizon she sees not her parents running towards her, but a black horse galloping at full speed. The outline of a man sitting atop the beast is unmistakable, lashing its haunches with a whip. Morimoto has found her. It is too late to run, but still she turns away from the oncoming charge and tries to flee. Her muscles don’t want to obey her frantic mind, but she doesn’t give in.
White Chrysanthemum Page 16
