One Left: A Novel
Page 19
CHAPTER 7
Mun P’ilgi: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
Mun P’ilgi: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
Kim Haksun.
Kim Haksun.
Ch’oe Myŏngsun: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
Kim Poktong; Kim Ŭnjin: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
Kim Okchu: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 3; Ch’oe Myŏngsun: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
Kim Ch’unhŭi: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
Yi Oksŏn: CNN interview, December 29, 2015.
Kil Wŏnok: Yŏksa rŭl mandŭnŭn iyagi.
Kil Wŏnok: Yŏksa rŭl mandŭnŭn iyagi.
CHAPTER 8
1Pak Ch’asun: An Sehong, “Na nŭn Ilbon’gun sŏngnoye yŏtta 3hwa: Wianso nŭn Ilbon’gun ŭi kongjung pyŏnso yŏtta” [I was a sex slave of the Japanese military 3: The comfort station was the Japanese military’s public toilet], internet posting, February 2, 2016.
2Hwang Kŭmju: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
3Pak Yŏni: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
4Axx (pseudonym; b. 1930): Tŭllinayo?
5Kxx (pseudonym; b. 1923): Tŭllinayo?
6Ch’oe Kapsun: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
7Ch’oe Kapsun: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
8Ch’oe Kapsun: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
9Kim Ch’unhŭi: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
10Yi Oksŏn: Yŏksa rŭl mandŭnŭn iyagi.
11Ch’oe Kapsun: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
12Ch’oe Chŏngnye: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2; Ch’oe Kapsun: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
13Ch’oe Illye: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
14Kim Kunja: “Nae ka sarainnŭn han.”
15Kang Muja: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
16Kim Yŏngja: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
17Kim Sunak: Nae sok ŭn amu to morŭndak’ai.
CHAPTER 9
1Kxx (pseudonym; b. 1923): Tŭllinayo?
2Fxx (pseudonym): Tŭllinayo?
3Ixx (pseudonym).
4Ixx (pseudonym).
5Hwang Suni: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 3.
6Kxx (pseudonym; b. 1923): Tŭllinayo?
7Kxx (pseudonym; b. 1923): Tŭllinayo?
8Kxx (pseudonym; b. 1923): Tŭllinayo?
9Kim Tŏkchin: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
10Hwang Suni: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 3.
11Kil Wŏnok: Yŏksa rŭl mandŭnŭn iyagi.
12Cho Sundŏk: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 3.
13Cho Sundŏk: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 3.
14Yi Yongsu: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
15Kim Hwasŏn: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
16Kang Muja: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
17Kang Muja: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
18Kang Tŏkkyŏng: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
19Kim Poktong: “Nan p’yŏngsaeng chŏng iragon chuŏbon chŏk i ŏpta” [Never have I given my heart away], Hangyŏre, December 12, 2015.
20Han Oksŏn: Yŏksa rŭl mandŭnŭn iyagi.
CHAPTER 10
Kim Ch’unhŭi: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
Chang Chŏmdol: Yŏksa rŭl mandŭnŭn iyagi.
Chang Chŏmdol: Yŏksa rŭl mandŭnŭn iyagi.
Hwang Suni: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 3.
An Pŏpsun: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa; Im Chŏngja, Yŏksa rŭl mandŭnŭn iyagi; Kim Poktong: “Nyusŭmaegŏjin Shik’ago” broadcast, December 27, 2013.
Kim Poktong.
Mun Okchu: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
Hwang Kŭmju: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
CHAPTER 11
Kang Tŏkkyŏng: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
Kim Ŭnjin: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
Mun P’ilgi: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
Chin Kyŏngp’aeng: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
CHAPTER 12
1Kim Poktong.
2Yi Sudan.
3Yi Sudan.
4Hwang Suni: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 3.
CHAPTER 14
1Kxx (pseudonym; b. 1923): Tŭllinayo?
2Yun Sunman: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
3Kim Poktong.
4Kim Yŏngja: Kiŏk ŭro tashi ssŭnŭn yŏksa.
5Kim Poktong: CNN interview, April 29, 2015.
6Kim Haksun.
CHAPTER 15
Yi Yongsu: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
2Yi Yongsu: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
3Yi Oksŏn.
4Yun Turi: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
5Zang Zhendu: “Kkŭnnajianŭn chŏnjaeng, Ilbon’gun wianbu.”
CHAPTER 16
1Zang Zhendu: “Kkŭnnajianŭn chŏnjaeng, Ilbon’gun wianbu.”
2Hwang Kŭmju: Yi Toŭn, “Ilbon’gun kkŭnnajianŭn iyagi” [The endless story of the Japanese military], YouTube.
3Chŏng Oksun: “Chiok ŭi hyŏngbŏl poda tŏ ch’ittŏllinŭn Ilbon’gun ŭi manhaeng.”
4Kim Yŏngsuk: “Pukch’ŭk chonggun wianbu p’ihaeja Kim Yŏngsuk halmŏni chŭngŏn.”
5Yi Yongsu: interviews based on testimony by Yi Yongsu halmŏni in Washington, DC, April 21, 2015.
6Yi Yongsu: interviews based on testimony by Yi Yongsu halmŏni in Washington, DC, April 21, 2015.
7Mun Okchu: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 1.
8Yi Okpun.
9Axx (pseudonym; b. 1930): Tŭllinayo?
10Pak Yŏni: Kangje ro kkŭllyŏgan Chosŏnin kun wianbu tŭl, vol. 2.
11Mun Okchu: Morikawa Michiko, Pŏmŏ chŏnsŏn Ilbon’gun “wianbu” Mun Okchu [Mun Okchu, “comfort woman” for the Japanese military at the Burma front], trans. from the Japanese by Kim Chŏngsŏng. Chŏngshindae halmŏni wa hamkke hanŭn shimin moim, 2005.
12Zang Zhendu: “Kkŭnnajianŭn chŏnjaeng, Ilbon’gun wianbu.”
13Yi Ch’i (an Indonesian comfort woman and victim of the Japanese military): “Kkŭnnajianŭn chŏnjaeng, Ilbon’gun wianbu” [Endless war, comfort women for the Japanese military], broadcast on “KBS p’anorama p’ŭllŏsŭ,” August 11, 2013.
And in this living hell the girls were flogged with soekkudae, whips with metal handles; beaten with red-hot fire pokers or with metal bars; hit with the flat of a sword; or kicked indiscriminately. And they stuck red-hot metal rods into the girls’ vaginas. The rods came out with charred flesh stuck to them.
To save time, instead of taking off their pants, the enlisted men merely unzipped and undid their loincloth. She often felt the dagger sheath on their belts poking her belly.
They toyed with her all night long, a 13-year old girl, as if they were playing pick-up sticks.
She takes a break from the dishes and sits down on the floor. Something is moving in her crotch, creaking like a loose, rusty nail.
The sun was setting and the afterglow was blood red.
If haha said that starting that day a girl was Okada, then the girl became Okada.
A head severed by an axe fell to the ground and the eyeballs popped out and rolled free.
At the “nice place” Aesun had anticipated, her body became a graffiti board. With needle and i
nk the Japanese soldiers inscribed her belly, vulva, and tongue with tattoos.
Whenever she had an injection of the dark red, endlessly burning 606, she felt her arm was coming off, it hurt so much. For the next several days, it was like heaven and earth had switched places; she couldn’t keep food down and she gave off a pungent, nauseating smell. Her monthly cycle went out of whack. No one told the girls they were being injected with an arsenic compound that could leave them sterile. Not even the nurse who injected them. Haha told the girls it was a blood purifier—a flat-out lie.
The strong-smelling pills felt like fire in their nostrils. The girls had no idea they were made of mercury.
Miok ŏnni had told them she was in a place called Heilongjiang before coming here. She was locked up in a room like a pigsty and that’s where she took soldiers. And she was fed like a pig or a cow, her meal of millet pushed through an opening in her door. When she needed to relieve herself she had to holler to the soldier on guard duty to bring a can. Holding it in until the can arrived was as difficult as taking the soldiers.
She feared haha more than the soldiers.
Suok ŏnni kept mum, but haha told her to go to Singapore anyway. The next morning haha handed a bundle to each of the girls bound for Singapore.
And it’s obvious to her why she of all people has been chosen by her nephew to occupy the leased house: she’s childless, which will present one less problem in the future.
Poking with a nail was something else they did. Once when her overworked and swollen privates shut down, she was met with curses and the next she knew, they’d poked a nail inside her.
The girls had been told they’d be issued new rubber footwear and be fed full portions of rice, not the chaffy stuff. They had no idea that the place they went to upon hearing these promises was a living hell.
Punsŏn, taken from the cotton fields where she worked. Punsŏn, calling out It hurts, it hurts, every waking moment at the comfort station.
A mass of corpses floated down the river, reddening the water, before coming apart at the bow of the ferry taking the girls upstream.
Lacking a mental roadmap, she struck out toward hills where during the war Japanese soldiers had lit fires to flush out bandits.
“Think about it, girls—if you don’t look after our brave soldiers, how can they win the war?” said haha.
At that place the girls’ bodies were not their own.
She can’t remember how many men came and went that first night.
She stole a dead boy’s clothing to disguise herself and avoid being caught by the Soviets. She felt as if she were stealing his soul. The boy looked like he was taking a nap and at any moment would get up, brush off his clothing, and continue on his way.
She herself had a birthmark-like bruise on her face. From a soldier who hit her after seeing her using part of a gaiter as a menstrual pad. He swore it was bad luck.
An officer once gave her a Manchurian banknote. She gave it to haha along with her tickets for the day. To the girls, paper money was just that, paper, just like the tickets. She and the other girls had no idea of the value of money.
The soldier’s eyes were the color of pus. When she tried to escape his clutches, he undid his belt and the next she knew, he’d tied her ankles together. And when she closed her eyes in resignation, he assumed she was dozing off and slapped her back and forth. Eyes snapping open, she looked daggers at the man’s red-hot, contorted face; it had turned so strange and scary.
Imagining someone sitting across from her, she begins to speak: “At first, when I was there, in the beginning . . . how I was taken there—I don’t tell anyone about Manchuria. I felt so ashamed . . . I wasn’t able to spill it out, even to my sisters. I don’t want to go home, no one’s there anymore. One of the girls reported that she was a comfort woman. That brought the TV people and the camera crews, and all the neighbors got to know about it. With her government assistance she had a house built. But a neighbor who used to visit her every day stopped coming. She learned the neighbor had called her a dirty cunt and said she sold her pussy to have that house built.”
People have no clue where she’s been or to what she’s been subjected.
Sŏksun ŏnni—born in P’yŏngyang, South P’yŏngan Province, died in Manchuria. Before arriving at the comfort station in Manchuria, she’d worked at a tobacco factory packaging cut leaves of Long Life tobacco.
So this is how it ends. At the very instant she accepted her death she heard a voice blast out.
The three plywood outhouses had locks made of a yellow metal. Haha gave the keys to the girls, in effect making the outhouses off-limits to the soldiers. Otherwise the pits would be overloaded in no time and stink to high heaven. The only time the girls gave out the keys was to the officers who arrived at night.
Whimpering and whining, another girl asked to be taken home. Not until she paid back all the money they’d spent to bring her here to Manchuria, said haha. No girl would go home until she paid off her debt. She herself wanted to tell haha she’d been taken away while she was outside looking for snails, but she was too frightened to open her mouth.
Haha didn’t bother burying Kisuk ŏnni. Why waste dirt and soil on her?
“What if I die and never get to see my little brother again?” lamented Hanok ŏnni, sitting out in the hallway with her legs stretched out. He was her only sibling and she’d promised him that when she came back from the needle factory she would buy him a couple of calves.
Punsŏn had a telegram sent to her home with the help of a regular customer, the field postmaster. The postmaster said he was from Tokyo and had graduated from Waseda University. After completing his military service he found a job in the postal service and was stationed at the field post office in far-off Manchuria. He sent the telegram for her.
Haegŭm’s lower lip was bruised and swollen from where an officer arriving later in the night had bitten her. The swollen lip looked like a blood-gorged leech at rest.
She feels resentful toward her nephew but wishes she didn’t. She doesn’t want to resent or feel hate toward anyone in this world.
No words can express her torment.
A peddler told her he would guide her and not to worry, then took her into a cornfield. He ditched her among the tasseled ears of corn.
Never at the comfort station had she taken a soldier because she wanted to, or in exchange for money. She would lie on her back like a corpse while the soldiers did what they had come for and left. There were guys who shot as soon they entered her, guys who shot while waiting their turn out in the hall, guys who barged in and pulled the guy on top of her away.
“Damn shame or not, I kind of wish I’d married an old man.” Aesun’s tone was strained and monotonous; if there is such a thing as a threadbare voice it was hers.
At the comfort station the girls were tormented by gonorrhea or syphilis. But there was something equally painful. Haegŭm, who had come down with a toothache so excruciating it had her thrashing in pain in the hall, was writing something on the ground with her finger, pressing so hard that dirt got wedged beneath her fingernail. She herself could barely identify numbers, but Haegŭm was literate enough to know how to write her name.
Very rarely there would be a stillbirth. Too much scrubbing with the solution and the injections of the toxic 606 tended to make sure a fetus wouldn’t survive till birth.
Yŏnsun and Haegŭm pledged themselves to sisterhood and sealed the pledge by giving each other a blue, threadlike tattoo.
From the time she starting having a period she was scared above all else by the tearing of a sakku, afraid she would catch a disease or get pregnant. Any semblance of a tear and she would bolt up and beg the irritated soldier to use a new one.
She who had waited all her life to hear those words, it had to be Kunja. She who had kept her silence all those years until that day on tele-vision when suddenly she opened her blouse, declaring that she couldn’t speak out unless she displayed her naked body for all to see.
They can only assume that her marriageable years were spent drifting from one housemaid job to another. She never imposed on her family but could never bring herself to spill the truth even to her younger sisters, who considered her a burden and an eyesore: that she hated men; the mere sight of them made her shudder, made her wish she had a gun with a silencer so she could exterminate them.
“Don’t cry.” Kŭmbok ŏnni sat her up and pulled her close. Rubbing her back, Kŭmbok ŏnni said, “You’re not dead, you’re still here, so there’s no need to cry.”
At the Manchuria comfort station the girls were livestock, no different from chickens or goats. If the girls didn’t obey or were caught trying to escape, otosan would lead them around by a leather leash looped about their necks.
“Let’s kill ourselves,” said Kŭmbok ŏnni to Tongsuk ŏnni.
After what happened to Kisuk ŏnni, she dreamed she was slinking down the hallway of the comfort station. Calling to Kisuk ŏnni, telling her it was time for breakfast. Haha provided only two meals a day, so if you missed breakfast you either went hungry all day or got by on hardtack from the soldiers. The girls often missed breakfast when officers arrived late at night. In her dream she just couldn’t find Kisuk ŏnni’s room—the names of the girls had all been removed from the doors.