Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story

by William Andrews

  Soo-hee returned to her basin and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “This dirty water reminds me of the day that pig got away from Father and Mr. Lee from up the road. They were butchering it for the New Year’s feast. Do you remember?”

  “Yes, I think so,” I answered.

  Soo-hee continued. “It was raining that day and the pig slipped out of their arms. Mr. Lee said they should put out cabbage for it and catch him that way. But Appa was impatient and chased after it.”

  Soo-hee began to chuckle and I could feel a smile forming on my face. She continued. “Father chased that pig all around the pen. He slipped and fell in the mud twice before he caught him. And Mr. Lee refused to help.”

  Soo-hee laughed. “Appa was covered with mud when he got home. Ummah was angry with him for tracking mud inside the house. She made him take off all his clothes and wash outside at the well. He was so mad, he had three helpings of roast pig that night!”

  We laughed together, careful to cover our mouths as we did. But our laughs quickly went away. As I dried my hands, I looked at my onni’s face. “How is your cheek?” I asked.

  “It’s healing,” Soo-hee answered, turning to the basin.

  The ugly purple and yellow bruise on Soo-hee’s cheek made my heart sink. Three days earlier, Lieutenant Tanaka had punched Soo-hee when she asked the kempei if a new girl could see the doctor about a pain in her stomach. It was only the latest cruelty that my onni had had to suffer at the hands of Lieutenant Tanaka.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “You should have kept the comb. Then, you would have better luck and the kempei wouldn’t be so mean to you.”

  “No, it is better that you have it. It has given you good luck. You are the Colonel’s favorite.”

  “It is not so lucky that I am,” I said.

  Soo-hee stared vacantly at the basin. “Little sister,” she said, “I have something to tell you.”

  “Oh?” I said. “What is it?”

  Soo-hee took in a long breath. “I’ve missed my monthly bleed. My breasts are sore. I’m sick in my stomach in the morning. I think I am pregnant.”

  My heart stopped. “Onni, are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yes. I have to tell Lieutenant Tanaka. He’s the only one who doesn’t use a condom with me. There is no saying what he will do.”

  I felt like the ground was opening up and swallowing me in. “Soo-hee, they will give you an abortion with a wire, just like they did with Maori and Yo-ee before they died.”

  “Not everyone who has an abortion dies, Ja-hee. Bo-yun and Mee-su were just fine after their abortions. And Jin-sook was only sick for a month before she came back to work.”

  I gripped Soo-hee’s arm. “You have to take the comb! It will give you good luck like it has for me.”

  Soo-hee shook her head. “No. You keep it.”

  “But Soo-hee, if you die I will die, too. I’ll hang myself with my obi like Sun-hi did.”

  “Do not talk like that!” Soo-hee snapped. “You will do no such thing.”

  I lowered my eyes and took a few deep breaths. “When will you tell Lieutenant Tanaka?” I asked.

  “I’m supposed to be with him tonight. I will tell him before then. The longer I wait, the riskier the abortion will be. I should have it tomorrow.”

  “I’m with the Colonel tonight,” I said. “I’ll ask him to send you to the hospital in Pushun.”

  “He will not do that. Doctor Watanabe will do the abortion.”

  “Soo-hee, you cannot die. You cannot!” I wanted to cry.

  Soo-hee put her hand on me. “I will be all right, little sister. I will not leave you here alone.”

  *

  As I sat on my step in the fading light waiting for my time with the Colonel, I tried not to think about what life at the comfort station would be like if Doctor Watanabe’s abortion killed Soo-hee. I wouldn’t be able to do it anymore. I could not possibly go on. I desperately wanted the doctor to send her to the hospital in Pushun for the abortion. But I knew he would not. He didn’t even send the geishas there when they got sick.

  Suddenly down the barracks, a roar came from Soo-hee’s room. It was Lieutenant Tanaka. I stepped out to the courtyard and watched Soo-hee’s door. The door swung open and Lieutenant Tanaka backed out dragging Soo-hee by the hair. He pushed her down to the dirt and kicked her in the chest. Soo-hee quickly got to her hands and knees, and lowered her head to the lieutenant. “I’m sorry, Kempei,” she said.

  I brought my hand to my mouth to stifle a cry. I watched in horror as Lieutenant Tanaka kicked Soo-hee a second time and growled, “You whore! We must take care of this.” He grabbed my onni by the hair and marched toward the infirmary. Soo-hee got to her feet, stumbled and fell, and scrambled to her feet again. Lieutenant Tanaka never slowed as he dragged Soo-hee to the infirmary to see Doctor Watanabe.

  T WELVE

  Colonel matsumoto’s men said he was a brilliant military tactician. It was rumored he was being considered for an even higher office. He worked long hours and I never saw him when he wasn’t deep in thought about something. He could be cruel to me, but he could be surprisingly gentle, too. He no longer humiliated me when he raped me and almost seemed ashamed afterward. But he still raped me nearly every night he was in Dongfeng.

  I lounged on the daybed alongside the Colonel in his private quarters near the center of town. I hadn’t slept the night before thinking about how to convince him to send Soo-hee to the hospital in Pushun for her abortion. I ran a finger over the rosewood table next to the bed. “Colonel Sir, have you gotten a letter from your family in Nagasaki?” I asked.

  “I received a letter yesterday,” he answered.

  “That’s wonderful. What do they say?”

  “Nothing you need to know.”

  I wrapped my yukata around me and reclined on the silk bed covers. Next to the bed was a picture of the Colonel’s family—his wife with an upper-class smile, a pugnacious-looking boy about eight years old, and a girl only a few years younger than me dressed in a pretty white kimono. Next to the picture was a bowl containing two round amanatzu. Their citrus smell filled the room. I laid my legs alongside the Colonel’s muscular frame. The smooth skin on his chest shimmered with the afterglow of sex. His head rested on a dakimakura pillow and he stared at the ceiling where a fan slowly turned.

  “When will you see your family again?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” he said. “I cannot see the future. It might not be for a long time. Why do you care?”

  “I have heard the war is ending.”

  The Colonel glared at me. “Who told you that?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It is just a silly rumor.”

  The Colonel turned his eyes to the ceiling again. He folded his arms over his bare chest. “Eat some amanatzu,” he ordered. “They were shipped from Kumamato for the senior officers. I doubt you get much fruit at the comfort station.”

  I put a hand on the Colonel’s leg. It was warm and dewy. “Thank you for taking care of me.” I picked up one of the yellow fruits. “What will happen when the war ends? I mean, when Japan has defeated the Americans?”

  “We will rule all of Asia of course,” the Colonel said.

  “Yes of course. I mean sir, what will happen to the ianfu when the troops return to Japan?”

  The Colonel pulled his head off the pillow. “Why do you ask such questions? Am I a prophet? How do I know what will happen to anyone when the war ends?”

  He was right. I was asking too many questions again. I lowered my head. “Please forgive a silly girl for asking stupid questions,” I said.

  The Colonel lay back on the dakimakura pillow. “You haven’t eaten any amanatzu. Eat some. You are too thin.”

  “Thank you, sir.” As I peeled the amanatzu, I let my yukata slip open revealing my breast.

  The Colonel eyed my breast and the fan in the ceiling turned. “I don’t eat amanatzu this time of year,” he said staring.
“They are sour. Take as much as you want.” He returned his gaze to the ceiling.

  I ate a section of the fruit. It was indeed sour, but I ate it anyway.

  “Colonel Sir,” I said, “may I ask for something?”

  “Ask.”

  “Sir, my sister is pregnant. Doctor Watanabe is giving her an abortion. Please sir, have her sent to the hospital at Pushun for the abortion. She will be better off there.”

  The Colonel shook his head. “I will not do that.”

  “Please sir, as a favor to me.”

  With a powerful swipe of his arm, he pushed me off the bed. I fell on the floor with a thud and what was left of the amanatzu tumbled across the floor. “Why should I care about what happens to a Korean girl?” he said. “I only serve the Emperor.”

  I scrambled to my knees and crawled to him. I brought my face over his thighs and began to unbutton his underwear. He looked down at me as I pulled his penis from beneath his underwear and began to stroke him. He didn’t respond, so I brought my face in close. The musty smell from the sex we’d had earlier was strong on him.

  The Colonel leaned back and grabbed a bottle of sake off the nightstand. “It will not work,” he said evenly.

  “Please sir,” I pleaded, “I will do anything.”

  The Colonel pulled the cork from a sake bottle and reached for a glass as if I wasn’t there. “Leave me. Now,” he said.

  I removed my hands from him and slowly stood. As the Colonel poured a glass of sake, I bowed and pulled on my tabi. At the door, I slipped on my zori and left the Colonel alone in his quarters.

  I walked between the low stucco buildings toward the comfort station with my head down. I took the path next to the infirmary. I stopped and put a hand on the infirmary wall. Inside was Soo-hee, waiting for her abortion.

  I had tried. I had been willing to do anything. But I had failed and now my onni’s life was in the fat hands of Doctor Watanabe.

  *

  “You’re clean,” Doctor Watanabe told me as I lay on his cot inside the infirmary’s tile inspection room with my legs spread. “I don’t know how you do it. All ianfu eventually get pregnant or contract some kind of disease, but not you. You’re lucky.”

  I was seeing the doctor for my monthly inspection for venereal disease. Every month the fat doctor would poke and probe each girl looking for signs of disease. The soldiers were supposed to use condoms with us, but the Japanese were low on supplies and we had to reuse condoms until they broke. They usually lasted only two or three times and all of the girls got venereal disease except me. Perhaps the comb was giving me luck after all.

  “Doctor Sir,” I said as I stood from the cot and pulled on my short pants, “may I see my sister before the troops come back tomorrow? I will be too busy to see her after that. She is only upstairs from here. Please, sir?”

  “No. She is too sick for visitors,” the doctor answered from the washbasin.

  “Sir, she is my sister.”

  “Don’t talk back girl,” the doctor said over his shoulder. “I said no.”

  I lowered my eyes. “Will she be all right?” I asked. “Will she recover from the abortion?”

  “She’s bleeding inside,” the doctor answered drying his hands on a towel. “I don’t have time to do an operation. If she doesn’t stop bleeding on her own, she will die.”

  The doctor’s words hit me like a punch in the stomach. I stopped buttoning my shirt. “She must go to the hospital in Pushun!” I cried. “Please doctor, send her there.”

  The doctor turned his fat frame toward me. His eyes were red and his face sagged. “Do you think they will take an ianfu when they have so many Japanese soldiers to care for? They will laugh at me for sending her.”

  “Can anything be done? Please, doctor.”

  The doctor motioned for the nurse to send in the next ianfu. He ordered me to go back to the comfort station. “There is nothing I can do for your sister,” he said.

  T HIRTEEN

  The laundry was four poles supporting a corrugated metal roof next to the latrine. Three metal washtubs rested on low wooden tables. Behind the laundry were wire clotheslines strung from posts. Several sets of bedding dried in the warm sun.

  As I washed a stack of bedding, Jin-sook and Mee-su came in, each carrying an armful of the geisha’s laundry. Mee-su asked me what I had heard about Soo-hee.

  “She is no better,” I answered.

  “She’s a fool,” Jin-sook said dropping bedding into a tub. “She pushes the kempei too much. She should do as I do. Make friends with them.”

  “The Japanese are not our friends, Jin-sook,” I said.

  “You pretend they aren’t,” she said, “but you have become friends with the Colonel. He gives you books and you never get a beating. I became friends with Lieutenant Tanaka and haven’t gotten a beating since we came here. I have made friends with the geishas, too.”

  “You are their slave,” Mee-su said, kneading the laundry into the water. “You do everything they say.”

  “That’s not true,” Jin-sook said. “I just… respect them.”

  “Well, I’m glad Soo-hee stands up to the kempei,” Mee-su said. “We will all be in trouble if she dies.”

  “She will not die,” I said, looking at the tub. “I have a plan.”

  Jin-sook looked from the laundry tub. “A plan? What is it?”

  Yes, I had a plan, but I was not going to tell anyone, especially Jin-sook. Without answering her, I gathered my laundry and headed to the clothesline. “Be careful,” Mee-su said. “Kempei is watching you.”

  I hung the bedding on the line and took a clean set for my room. When I got to the courtyard, Lieutenant Tanaka was sitting in a chair leaning against the geisha’s barracks. His shinai rested in his lap. Private Ishida looking bored as usual, leaned against a wall. Tanaka bent forward as I walked by. “Come here girl,” he said.

  I walked to him and lowered my head. His high, black boots were freshly polished.

  “Look at me,” he said. I looked at him. His eyes were small and sharp. “You’re not going to cause trouble for me if your sister dies, are you, Namiko Iwata?” He stroked my thigh with his shinai.

  “No, Kempei,” I answered.

  “You won’t do something stupid like run away or hurt one of the men?”

  “No, Kempei.”

  “Good, because Colonel Matsumoto cannot help you if you do. I am Kempei-tai—military police. The Colonel has no authority over me. So do as I say or you will earn yourself a beating.” He tapped my thigh with his shinai. “And I will give you a good one. Understand, girl?”

  “Yes, Kempei.”

  “Go on now. The troops are returning tomorrow. They need you. It is a great service you do for them.” He leaned his chair back against the stucco wall.

  As I carried my laundry to my room, I glanced at Private Ishida who turned away.

  *

  After I had spread my bedding, I went to the courtyard. It was humid and clouds were forming in the west. The ianfu had put on their yukatas and were waiting on their steps for the soldiers to arrive.

  I went to the geisha barracks and inched open Seiko’s door. “Seiko,” I said with a slight bow, “I need your help.” Inside, Seiko was preparing her room. The room was twice as large as mine and had a table and a light. Instead of a mat on the plank floor, there was a low bed with a mattress.

  “Why should I help you?” Seiko asked.

  “Please. I need to see Soo-hee. She’s dying.”

  “I don’t care,” Seiko said.

  “Seiko, you and I, we are not so different. I heard you crying in your room the night Maori died.”

  Seiko spread clean bedding across her mattress. “Maori was a good Japanese woman. Soo-hee is a Korean.”

  “I promise to be your servant for a month if you help me. Please, Seiko.”

  “I will not do anything that will get me in trouble.”

  “You are Japanese and Doctor Watanabe is a regular customer of your
s. Talk to him. Tell him if Soo-hee sees me, she will recover and return to work. He will listen to you.”

  Seiko raised an eyebrow. “If I do that, you will be my servant for a month?”

  “Yes, I promise. I’ll do anything you say.”

  “What if the doctor says ‘no’?”

  “You are his favorite. If you ask, he will agree.”

  Seiko turned to her bed. “Okay. I will talk to him. I’ll let you know what he says.”

  “Thank you, Seiko.” I bowed as I backed out of her room.

  *

  A while later, Seiko came to me from across the courtyard. She told me she had good news. She said she talked with Doctor Watanabe and persuaded him to let me see Soo-hee. She said she cleared it with the kempei too. “And now you must be my servant for a month,” she said.

  My heart skipped. “Thank you, Seiko.”

  “Lieutenant Tanaka said you should go before the soldiers come. You have a half hour. And then come back here. You can start working for me right away.”

  I bowed and thanked Seiko again. I ran to my room and closed the door. I took the comb with the two-headed dragon from inside my chamber pot. The dragon was so white and the gold spine so bright that I knew it would give Soo-hee good luck. I slipped it inside a fold of my yukata and quickly headed for the infirmary. In the courtyard, the comfort women rested on their steps, fanning themselves in the summer heat. Mee-su and the other girls watched as I crossed the courtyard. Mee-su slowly shook her head at me.

  When I got to the infirmary, I didn’t see Doctor Watanabe or Lieutenant Tanaka. I hadn’t seen Seiko talk with the doctor or the kempei. I thought Seiko might be setting me up, but I didn’t care. I was already in the infirmary and Soo-hee was on a bed on the second floor. I had to give her the comb.

  I hurried up the stairs to the infirmary ward. At the end of the hallway, a Japanese nurse sat at a desk writing on a chart. I snuck across the hallway to a large, white room with a long row of evenly spaced cots. Sheets hanging from metal rods surrounded several cots. High on the wall, small windows opened out to the town. I did a quick scan of the cots, but didn’t see Soo-hee.