Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story

by William Andrews

  Without a word, Jin-mo pulled the car to the side of the road and let it idle while Ki-soo got out and squatted in the ditch.

  *

  Pyongyang. I had heard about the great city with tall buildings on the Taedong River. Appa had been there once and had told us all about it. But after my disappointment in seeing Sinuiju for the first time, my expectations were low. But Pyongyang was different. It was a marvelous city teeming with people on bicycles, on foot, in cars, in trucks, on boardwalks and on the streets all rushing to get somewhere. Hundreds of electric wires on tall posts ran along the streets. Buildings—some several stories tall—were everywhere. The sounds, the sights, the smells, the energy was like nothing I had ever imagined.

  Jin-mo produced a map from the glove box and gave it to Ki-soo. She did her best to decipher it and help Jin-mo navigate around the trucks and bicyclists on the busy streets. The Fiat rolled through the heavy traffic before we finally came to a stop in front of a massive, four-story, stone building. “This is it!” Jin-mo said excitedly. “You two stay here while I check in.”

  He changed his shirt, brushed his hair, and slipped on his leather shoes. Then he disappeared inside the building while Ki-soo and I stayed in the car. Ki-soo kept her back to me, staring out the car window at the people on the street. After a while, she said into the window, “I will not let Jin-mo destroy me and my baby.” I sank in my seat among the suitcases and bedrolls and prayed that Jin-mo would return soon.

  An hour later, Jin-mo came running out of the building and jumped into the car. He held some papers in his hand. “It’s all arranged,” he said with a nod. “We have a furnished apartment close to here. I report to work the day after tomorrow. I think I will be able to get a job for you too, Ja-hee.”

  As he started the car, he turned to Ki-soo, then to me. The joy in his smile made my heart beat fast. “Welcome to the new Korea,” he said.

  T WENTY-THREE

  Sixteen months later

  It was another late night in the provisional government headquarters building. I sat at my desk, helping translate documents into Hangul for the meeting two floors above. The meeting was between delegations from the American-controlled South and the Russian-controlled North. The two sides were trying to reconcile their differences and unify Korea under one government. It was the third day of meetings and, according to Jin-mo, a delegate for the North, the meetings were not going well.

  My desk was surrounded by a dozen others in a large bullpen on the second floor. The bullpen was dark except for the area around me. The head of my department, Mr. Chee, paced behind me reading the translations aloud. He was a middle-aged, bookish man who had been educated in London. He always wore reading glasses on a chain around his neck. When I had first started in the translation department eighteen months earlier, he had been angry that Jin-mo’s friends forced him to work with someone so young, so he put me on low-level translations. But Dongfeng haunted me and I was determined to put my shame behind me. I desperately wanted to prove that I could do something more than lie on my back and let men rape me. And I didn’t want to disappoint Jin-mo. So I worked very hard at learning languages.

  I studied every day and late at night when I should have been sleeping. I never took a day off. I learned dozens of new words everyday and researched their precise meanings and pronunciations. I was obsessed with grammar. I read everything I could get my hands on in English and Russian and Japanese. I snuck away to the cinema to watch foreign films. I saw Gone with the Wind three times and read the book in English twice, making long notes in the margins of every page. I practically memorized a book on English grammar that Jin-mo gave me. I used my dictionaries so much, they fell apart.

  And I had a gift. It’s hard to explain, but I only needed to hear a word once and I was able to recall its meaning, remember the context, the correct pronunciation, and everything about its usage. People said I was a genius, and I suppose I was. But they didn’t see how hard I worked at it. Eventually, Mr. Chee had to make me his top translator.

  But my success didn’t help. I often woke up at night from nightmares about the comfort station. I could still clearly see the machine gun cut down my ianfu sisters that last, horrible day. I could feel the sting in my thighs where Lieutenant Tanaka had beat me and the ache between my legs where Colonel Matsumoto and a thousand men had raped me. And every day I yearned for my onni, Soo-hee.

  “What do they mean by this phrase?” Mr. Chee asked. “A dictatorship of the proletariat through which the socialization of the means of production can be realized?”

  “It’s the basis for a communist government,” I said. “It means the workers will build a government that controls economic production for the benefit of everyone.”

  “Why do they call it a dictatorship?” he asked.

  “It’s a Marx idea,” I answered. “He believed the workers need to take complete control from the proletariat capitalists for a more fair economy.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Mr. Chee asked, shaking his head. “Never mind,” he said quickly with a wave. “Let’s just get the translation done. They’re waiting for it upstairs.”

  We worked for a while longer, tossing phrases and words back and forth. When we finally agreed on the translation, I wrote it out and handed it to Mr. Chee. As he read it, he said, “You need to stay. They could go all night again.” I bowed and said I would. He smiled a tired ‘thank you’ and hurriedly headed to the stairs to deliver the translations to the delegation.

  I leaned over my desk and laid my head on my arms. I closed my eyes, and words in three languages danced awkwardly in my head. Soon, I fell into a restless sleep.

  *

  “Ja-hee!” someone said, over the impossibly long line of Japanese soldiers in my dream. “Wake up! It’s time to go.” I forced my eyes open and lifted my head. Jin-mo's handsome face replaced the faces of the Japanese soldiers in the comfort station. “You fell asleep again,” he said. “Come, we have to go. Ki will be worried about us.”

  I walked with Jin-mo through the empty street toward our apartment six blocks from the provisional government headquarters. We had made this walk together nearly every night since we’d started working for the provincial government. At first, I was uncomfortable being alone with a man who was not my husband. But over time, I realized that Jin-mo was a gentle, kind man. He had a way of talking to me that made me believe that I was someone important. His passion for Korea and his ideas for a new kind of government were infectious. I felt alive around him and had feelings for him I had never known before.

  As we walked in the cool spring air, I asked, “How did the meeting go today?”

  Jin-mo sighed. It worried me how sunken his eyes had become and how his back was beginning to bend. “Not well,” he said softly. “Both sides feel they have the legitimate right to rule the entire peninsula. Neither is willing to give ground.”

  “What is going to happen?”

  “If the Americans and Russians would leave us alone, maybe we could work something out,” he said. “They have both agreed to leave this year if we can form a unified government. But the Russians want a communist government and the Americans won’t tolerate it. They want to make a stand against communism here in Korea. It’s turning into a stalemate.”

  We walked for a while in silence. The huge fronds on the weeping willows that lined the street swayed in the gentle night breeze.

  “What side do you think is right?” I asked. As soon as I asked it, I wished I hadn’t. I was asking too many questions again, especially in Pyongyang where questions were discouraged. But it did not appear to bother Jin-mo.

  “I used to think it was the North. This is where Korea was born. We have more industry here than they do in the South. And as you know, I believe a socialist government would be right for us. But what is most important is that we come together under one government. We’ve been divided our entire history—the North always aligned with the Chinese, the South with the Japanese. This is our
chance to be one nation if the Russians and the Americans don’t keep us divided.”

  “What must we do?”

  “I’ve presented ideas, but my comrades won’t listen. They’re inflexible. They won’t compromise and I think they are wrong.” Jin-mo raised an eyebrow. “Of course, my comments are just between you and me.”

  I nodded, pleased that he had taken me into his confidence. “Of course,” I said.

  When we came to the apartment there was a black car with a driver inside parked out front. Jin-mo gave the car an uneasy look. He quickly opened the apartment door and I followed him inside.

  The government had given Jin-mo a furnished, western-style apartment across the street from a park filled with the giant willow trees that Pyongyang was famous for. There were four rooms—a large main room with European upholstered furniture and a fireplace, a bedroom, a kitchen with a cast-iron stove, and a small room off the back where I slept.

  Jin-mo and I removed our shoes and stepped inside the main room. Ki-soo sat on the sofa with her legs folded underneath her. Her eyes were red. On the sofa next to Ki-soo was her winter coat and on the floor in front of her was a suitcase. Lying next to her was their sixteen-month-old son, Suk-ju. The little boy was leaning against his mother, sleeping. He wore a traveling coat.

  Jin-mo saw the suitcases and stopped. “What is this?” he asked.

  Ki-soo said, “I can’t risk it anymore, Jin. I’m leaving and I’m taking Suk-ju with me.”

  “What do you mean?” Jin-mo asked. “What can’t you risk anymore?”

  Little Suk-ju pressed his face into his mother’s side and moaned.

  Ki-soo said, “I don’t want to talk about it. You will wake Suk-ju.”

  “If you’re leaving, when will we talk about it?” Jin-mo asked, trying to keep his voice down.

  Suk-ju opened his eyes and reached his little hands to Ki-soo. “Ummah?” he said.

  I stepped forward. “I will take him so you can talk.” Ki-soo looked at me angrily, but let me take the boy.

  Suk-ju wrapped his arms around my neck as I carried him to my room and closed the door. I sat on my mat and held him close. The boy was warm against my breast. Over the previous year and a half, I had come to love this little boy as if he were my own. I took great delight in everything he did—the way he clung to my finger when he was just a few days old, his first steps, his first words, his mischievous toddler grin, his eyes, soft and intelligent like his father’s.

  Suk-ju fell back to sleep while the voices of Jin-mo and Ki-soo—low at first—argued in the living room. I tried not to listen, but the voices grew loud and clear.

  “I said you could not reason with these people, Jin-mo!” I heard Ki-soo say. “It’s going to be a bloody dictatorship, just like in Russia with Stalin.”

  “I’m being careful, Ki. We have to try.”

  “You have made too many compromises.”

  “Look, the Russians have agreed to leave in a few months. It will be different then.”

  “Different? Your leader is murdering people, Jin-mo! Once the Russians leave, it will only get worse.”

  “The South is murdering people too, Ki.”

  “So that makes it right? What happens when the murdering comes here, to our home? I will not let that happen.”

  “I work for them. They won’t do anything to us.”

  “Don’t be so sure. You have enemies. You are on the wrong side of this.”

  “I’m not the only one. And I won’t stop trying. It’s the only way we can bring the North and South together. We cannot give up. We can still make it work.”

  There was silence for a while. Then, there was a crash of porcelain breaking. In my arms, Suk-ju jerked but didn’t wake up.

  “You and your ideals!” Ki-soo cried.

  “Keep your voice down, Ki.”

  “No, I will not! You said you were going to get rid of her a year ago.”

  “She doesn’t have anywhere to go. Anyway, she loves Suk-ju and he loves her. I’m not going to just throw her out.”

  “I told you I will not allow it!”

  “Ki-soo, nothing has happened between us.”

  “I don’t care. Go ahead. Live with your pretty little chinulpa, your comfort woman whore.”

  Every nerve in my body snapped to life. Had I heard Ki-soo right? Had she just called me a comfort woman? I hadn’t told anyone about what I had done in Dongfeng. How had the secret I kept for nearly two years possibly have gotten out? How could they know?

  There was another crash from the living room. “Shut up, Ki! We have to help each other.”

  “That’s not why you won’t get rid of her.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Okay, go ahead. Leave.”

  “I’m taking Suk-ju.” I heard the sound of footsteps marching to my door. The door flew open and Suk-ju jerked awake. Ki-soo took her son from me. She marched out to the living room. She grabbed her coat and suitcase and stomped out of the apartment.

  *

  For a long time, I sat on my mat with my knees to my chin. Ki-soo’s words, ‘comfort woman whore’ rang in my ears. I hadn’t heard those words in nearly two years. I put my hands on my head and tried to make them go away, but they stayed, like the insults the Japanese had thrown at me every day at the comfort station.

  Finally, I rose, cracked open my door and peeked into the living room. Jin-mo was in a chair in the shadows looking at nothing. Outside the window, the willows swayed gently in the night breeze.

  I went to the kitchen and got a broom and dustpan. I started to sweep up the shards from the broken celadon pot. “Leave it,” Jin-mo said from the darkness. “It’s my responsibility.”

  I set the broom down and went back to my room. I shut the door and sat on my low bed as the horrors of Dongfeng surrounded me again.

  T WENTY-FOUR

  “You run this upstairs while we start on the other one,” Mr. Chee said. “Hurry!” I grabbed the proclamation that the translation team had just finished and ran to the stairs leading to the fourth floor of the government headquarters. It was midday and the building was abuzz with activity. People in the translation department examined documents or talked on telephones. Others flitted from desk to desk, carrying file folders. They all stopped and stared when I ran by with the papers.

  As I climbed the stairs, I sensed a pending doom for the meeting on the fourth floor—and for the chance to unify Korea. The document in my hand was a proclamation from the Southern delegation declaring they were going forward with national elections as directed by the United Nations. And they would do it with or without the North’s consent. It further stated that as far as the South was concerned, these elections would determine who had the right to govern all of Korea, North and South.

  The translation department was feverishly working on a similar proclamation from the North. It stated that the North would not recognize the elections in the South which they believed the Americans would rig to elect the pro-American puppet, Syngman Rhee. It said the North would hold separate elections under the supervision of the Soviet Union. And just like the South, as far as the North was concerned, their elections would determine who had the right to govern the entire peninsula. It was, as Jin-mo had feared, a stalemate.

  I reached the fourth floor and ran to the huge, two-story, mahogany-paneled anteroom of the great meeting hall. I heard voices arguing on the other side of the giant wooden doors. A clutch of bureaucrats sat at desks, shuffling papers or talking softly to each other. They looked up as I approached. I went up to a desk by the door, bowed to the man sitting there, and offered the translations. The stern-faced man took the proclamation, read it over, and said, “Where’s the one from the North?”

  “Sir,” I said with another bow, “we have not finished it. It will be done soon.”

  Suddenly, the huge double doors swung open and a group of men carrying briefcases came marching out with their eyes resolute
ly forward. I quickly stepped aside to let them pass. Half the bureaucrats in the anteroom scrambled to their feet, stuffed papers into their briefcases and ran after them.

  Inside the great hall, Jin-mo and the other delegates from the North stood at the door staring at the backs of the men who were leaving. Jin-mo ran his hands through his hair. A bureaucrat asked aloud, “What do we do now?”

  Jin-mo and the others turned to their lead delegate. The man said, “Issue our proclamation.”

  I watched Jin-mo as he went to his desk and stuffed papers into his briefcase. Then he headed out of the great hall. As he walked past me he said, “Let’s go home.”

  *

  “It’s over,” Jin-mo said, sitting with me on a bench in the park outside our apartment. There were new lines in his face and the circles under his eyes were darker than before. “There will be no reconciliation. Korea is officially a divided nation.”

  It was a glorious spring day. The willows had just leafed out and were bright green against a cloudless sky. The sun was high and warm but the sadness on Jin-mo’s face made it feel like midwinter.

  “You did your best,” I said, facing him.

  He scoffed. “My best was not good enough. Now the only way to unify Korea is through a civil war. With the Americans and Soviets involved, it might lead to another world war. And they both have nuclear weapons. Fools! Why wouldn’t they listen to me?” He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  How could I know what to say? I had read about the global conflict called the Cold War. I knew that Korea was an important battleground. I had also read about nuclear bombs and their ability to destroy entire cities. But could Korea be the cause of another world war? Surely Jin-mo was exaggerating.

  Jin-mo stared at his hands. He was so handsome with his smooth skin and shiny black hair. It made me sad that he never smiled any more. I wondered if his sadness was from losing the fight for a unified Korea or from losing Ki-soo and Suk-ju.