Here, take a seat.
His movements were docile as he went over to the chair and sat down.
I don’t work for this police station, nor do I belong to the Party. I am a Christian, too.
I’m fully aware of that, sir.
Out of nowhere, he beamed as if he were overjoyed to see me. I was rather taken aback.
Are you saying you know who I am?
Yes, sir. I’m friends with Yohan.
I, too, was glad to hear that. Now that I was actively trying to place him, the lad did look vaguely familiar.
Is it true that you’ve joined the Unification Corps?
Some of my friends have, but not me. I was just hiding up in the mountains for a while, and then I came back home.
Why were you hiding?
Because the Church is against the war and I didn’t want to join the army.
I see. Well, first and foremost we need to keep you alive, don’t we? Tell them you’ll join the army.
Hanging his head, Sangho lowered his voice.
It’s too late now. The U.S. Army has landed in Incheon.
How can you be sure? I heard that the North has pushed all the way down to the Naktong River.
Well, now they’re falling back.
I’ll talk to them for you. Say nothing—just do exactly as I tell you.
After sending him back to the holding cell I went to speak with the police officer in charge, but before the man would speak to me he checked in with people at several different desks, deliberately taking as long as possible.
All right. If he wants to join the army, I’ll turn him over to the Department of Military Mobilization—but keep in mind that we need you, Comrade, and one other person to guarantee his trustworthiness.
I’ll have no problem doing it, but who else do you need?
Well, I’m afraid it will have to be a Party member.
It was then that I thought of Sunnam. I set out for his office at once. I explained the situation to him, got his signature, put down my name and my fingerprints, and brought it back to the police station. After that, though, no one really kept track of what actually happened to Sangho. The war was escalating too fast. Later on I learned, rather belatedly, that the recruits had been sent off to Sariwŏn in a truck. Thanks to the U.S. air strikes our vehicles could no longer move about during the day, so they only got started as twilight set in. Since headlights were banned, too, the truck was probably going about as fast as a bicycle. My guess is that Sangho simply jumped off the back of the truck as it made its way to Sariwŏn.
A breeze blew in through the open window, and the bedroom door came ajar with a clunk. Yosŏp woke up, dazed from sleep.
Come out here for a minute.
Eh, eh . . . who’s there?
Yosŏp squinted, peering through the darkness. He thought he could see something faint and whitish floating in through the crack of the open door. Fumbling in the dark, Yosŏp walked out of the bedroom. He had the feeling that someone was waiting in the pitch-black living room. As he came out of the room, he saw a row of milky white phantoms all clustered together. The one who’d called out to him was waiting by the door. As he might have expected, it was Big Brother Yohan. The thing was murmuring, This’ll probably be the last time. All of us are gathered here together.
Yosŏp looked around at the line of phantoms standing along the wall. More than a dozen of them, he thought. They looked like pieces of white laundry hanging on a clothesline under an aging moon. They looked like bleached pieces of darkness, slightly less drenched in black.
Sŏngman. You, too. Come out here.
Yosŏp turned around to look towards the voice and saw Uncle Sunnam standing in front of Uncle Some’s room. Just like Yosŏp, his uncle, too, came stumbling out of his room. Without being told to do so, Uncle Some came over to stand beside Yosŏp, staring at the phantoms lined up by the wall. Uncle Sunnam opened his mouth again.
Before we take Yohan away we’re going to free him—him and all the people he killed. The things you do in life, the good and the bad, may be dissolved when you die, but we should still go over what really happened before we leave.
Yosŏp and his uncle, the two living men present, sat down towards the upper end of the living room. Big Brother Yohan and Uncle Sunnam seated themselves across the way, at the lower end, and the phantoms of the villagers slowly slid down from their places along the wall and sat down on the floor. The different genders of the ghosts were vaguely discernible, but it was almost impossible to identify them exactly.
As in a dream, the scenes were completely out of sequence, impossible to piece together, some of them shown in great detail while others whizzed past.
A river runs through wide fields. The area beyond the levee is thickly wooded with willows and poplars. Over there, where Chosan Hill comes into view—that’s Chaeryŏng. Under the aging moon, the neighborhood is pitch black. A man hurries home from the fields. Gasping loudly, he stops briefly to catch his breath, exhaling deeply, and slows down for a moment. Apparently in spite of himself, his steps quicken once more.
He’s not taking the main road that leads into town—he turns down an alley instead. Drawing closer to the Sŏbu Church, he walks further down the alley. The path is packed on either side with straw-thatched huts and shingle-roof houses. He stops in front of one of the wooden doors, looking at it for a moment before extending his hand to knock. The bell hanging on the door rings out, followed by the sound of someone coming out into the yard. The voice is cautious.
Is someone out there?
It’s me. Ryu Yohan.
The door opens and Ryu Yohan steps into the yard. His host leads him to a room in the backyard. Inside the messy room filled with heaps of grain sacks, two men sit together on a straw mat. They get to their feet to greet the new arrival. At one end of the room a low oil lamp glows quietly, blinking in and out. Yohan enters, his host following closely behind. Yohan shakes hands with the two young men, then asks his host to sit down.
Presbyter, please accept my humble bow.
Come, there’s no need—Presbyter Ryu Indŏk is also safe and well, I assume?
Yes, sir. We’ve left the church open as well.
It’s truly amazing that you’ve all been able to escape discovery for so long. These two have also just come down from the mountain. How far have our Crusaders gotten?
The word is that they will be in Haeju by tomorrow at the latest.
Good, good. This is all made possible by the grace of our Father. Well, go ahead and chat—I’m going back out to keep an eye on things.
The host steps out and Yohan begins the district meeting with the two Christian Youth members. One is the youth group leader at Sŏbu Church, and the other is a deacon who’s been shuttling back and forth between Anak and Sinch’ŏn, acting as a messenger.
It has been decided. This time, we will be the first to rise up and seize power, Yohan says.
The deacon nods.
Yes, we’ve also been informed. We got a message from Mount Kuwŏl.
Yohan continues, This coming October 13, Chaeryŏng and Sinch’ŏn will rise together. Mount Kuwŏl will come down to Anak, cutting off the path of retreat that leads to Hwangju and Sariwŏn.
And the weapons?
We must first raid the police box in the village and then the police station in town. Then we will take over the county hall.
It would be nice to have some guns.
Smiling at the youth group leader, Yohan replies, We have nothing but a few pistols—but remember, the area is completely empty. All the able-bodied boys have gone to the front. We can get by with picks and scythes if we have to.
Dozens of young men line the top of the levee, lying on their stomachs. In their hands they are holding picks, scythes, and clubs. At the corner of a three-forked road stands a police box, its light shining brightly. Someone whispers, How many inside?
Just a couple. The night watch.
We have to cut the telephone lines first. Then w
e can just beat them to death.
They don’t seem especially alert or tense as they get up and stroll across the street. The moment they get to the police box, they holler out in unison and rush inside. They fall on the two officers dozing at the desk, striking them with clubs and spearing them with their scythes. Moving into the back room, they kill a man who appears to have been taking a nap. They drag the limp bodies to the side, laying them side by side behind the desk, and break the locked storeroom door with a pick. Five rifles and some bullets. They arm themselves as well as they can. Cutting the telephone line, they turn out the lights and move back out into the street.
Thus armed, the young men make their way through the dark, moving towards the town. Without a moment’s hesitation, they swarm the police station. There are about two hundred of them. The ones who have guns head for the main building. They seize all the officers on night duty and make them kneel along the floor. In less than ten minutes, the attack is over. Not a single shot is fired. Here, they find plenty of weapons: automatic firearms and even a few cases of dynamite.
The youth group leader is one of over a dozen leaders—eventually it is decided that the group will be put under the joint leadership of a young member of the Unification Corps who has just come down from Mount Kuwŏl and a man in his thirties who came up North from the South by passing through some island. Next, the group seizes the county hall and takes over the office of the Department of Political Defense and the office of the Democratic Youth League and Women’s League, both of which are located nearby. Having arrested several more officers on night duty, they dispatch armed guards to every large building and all the major streets, and place sentry posts along the outskirts of town. Those who have been captured are brought to the police station and locked up. The ones with familiar faces are executed first, before dawn. Going through the documents at the county hall, the group makes a list. Armed young men in groups of two and three go to arrest the Party members who live in town. News of their insurrection has spread far and wide through the night and by now the quick ones have already slipped out of town. Those who haven’t yet fled are mostly in the lower ranks—regular Party members or members of the Democratic Youth League and Women’s League: people the armed young men have had to deal with for some time now, stifling their antagonism day in and day out. Without a command post to take orders from or report back to, they begin to slaughter the people in the alleyways and in their front yards.
Huh, I guess the bastard got away.
All right, everybody out! Come on, now—the whole family!
See, they run away to save their own hides, but they leave their goddamn litters behind.
These are Reds, too. With Reds, you gotta dry up their seed.
The families are herded out into their yards. Simultaneously, the men load the rifles with a series of loud clicks. It’s the first time in their lives to ever even hold such weapons. For one brief instant, they hesitate. Then they pull their triggers. A shot fired by one’s own gun sounds no louder than the dry crack of a bamboo stick striking a wooden floor. In the darkness, people thud down to the ground before it even occurs to them to scream for help. Once they kill a handful of people, they feel like gods—they are all-powerful. At their next stop, there is no moment of hesitation.
We shouldn’t waste our bullets on ones like these.
Anything they can get their hands on—an axe, a pick, a rake left lying around the yard—anything is good enough. When they run into a group of their own, dragging some Party members out into the street, they mock them.
Hey, hey now, what’s this?
This bastard’s a Party member, and this little thing here is a member of the Women’s League.
Why bother dragging this trash around fully clothed?
Someone leaps on the woman and rips open the front of her chŏgori. The garment is torn in half. They yank her skirt down violently, revealing her underwear and naked thighs. Unable even to scream, she falls to her knees and begs for her life.
Though he’s kept his mouth shut so far, the man who was captured with her protests, You call yourselves men?
Well, well, so the little son of Satan speaks, does he?
At once, they are all over him, beating him mercilessly with the butts of their rifles about the head and back. The man is sprawled out on the ground, soaked in blood, his legs twitching. Someone fires a couple of shots into his back. A bullet is used on the woman as well—in the beginning, there is no rape. Far from it. Many times, after a kill, the young men stand together in a circle to pray together. All throughout Chaeryŏng, the slaughter continues until daybreak.
The U.S. Army has yet to arrive in Haeju. They’ve just passed Munsan and they’re about to cross the Imjin River. The international dispute over the issue on the advance attacks just beyond the thirty-eighth parallel has come to an end, and now the Anticommunist Youth are the only ones infiltrating the seacoast.
The real front is located much farther down, but in order to prepare for the defense of Pyongyang a part of the People’s Army stationed along the western front are beginning to retreat along the railways. They are about the size of a battalion. They run into a number of police officers and young members of the Democratic Youth League, unarmed and out of uniform. Hearing the news that Chaeryŏng has been seized by reactionaries, they stop their march north and begin to move southwest. The men are all from the regular army troops. They are hardened soldiers with a great deal of combat experience, not to mention superior firepower.
The People’s Army divides their troops, sending an advance party on ahead to make a detour around the town of Chaeryŏng. They wait in ambush along the hillside by the road that leads to Sinch’ŏn. They intend to cut off the enemy’s retreat. The plan of attack is to go in from all sides, besiege the town, and send in a heavily armed special unit with mortars to make a frontal assault. Those who escaped the Chaeryŏng County slaughter of the previous night take the lead, acting as guides. Unlike the day before, the Democratic Youth League and men from the police stations are now armed. The sentry post of young rebels who have barricaded the road quickly retreat back into town after firing some shots. The rebels posted in front of the county hall and the other buildings hold their ground for quite a while, shooting from behind piles of sandbags. Twenty minutes after first exchanging shots, as the siege begins to close in on all sides, the rebel line breaks. They flee, running for their lives through the smaller side streets. The rebels have been easily suppressed.
The People’s Army takes care of business resolutely and ruthlessly. Wounded reactionary rebels are shot on the spot. Prisoners, after being sorted out by local Party members, are simply ordered to line up against a wall. They are executed all at once. The police officers and members of the Democratic Youth League who have come back into Chaeryŏng are able to calculate the approximate number of remaining rebels by questioning the prisoners and survivors in town. They muster military forces to ferret out the enemy. They go not only to the homes of known reactionaries but descend upon any and all Christian households. Just like before, entire families are executed in their homes. The troops secure command of the town for two days, waiting for a second party to join them. When the rear guard arrives, they continue their retreat in the direction of Hwangju. These three days and nights in Chaeryŏng plant the seeds for the further bloodshed that is to follow in the Mount Kuwŏl area.
The uprising in Sinch’ŏn does not progress as quickly as the one in Chaeryŏng. It is only on the thirteenth that all the Christian Youth who had gone into hiding are finally contacted. Hundreds of people, however, are reached; the presbytery organizations of the church are still active. Resolving to delay the rebellion until the following day, those in charge of contacting the network of townships agree to meet in Hwasan on the night of the fourteenth.
In the Ch’ansaem funeral house Yohan meets the young men who have come out of hiding, including Cho Sangho, who has come down from Mount Kuwŏl. He accompanies them to the Hwasan ravin
e. Some of the young men from Mount Kuwŏl are armed with long-barreled rifles, standard issue for North Korean soldiers. Sangho has somehow managed to obtain a Japanese-style magazine rifle—he is wearing it. Yohan sticks a worn-out six-shot revolver into the waist of his trousers. It came into his possession while he was in hiding after the Unification Corps incident.
It is close to midnight when they finally reach the meeting place. The path is blocked by a large rock. Yohan picks up two stones and strikes them against each other several times. He waits for a moment and then someone responds, making the same sound from behind the rock. The person looks out at them, his head jutting out over the boulder. The area is surrounded by rocks, and the forest around them seems thicker because of the darkness. The head whispers, Who’s there?
It’s me. Ryu Yohan.
They walk around the rock and enter. There is a puddle on the other side and a large, open space. In spite of themselves, they are surprised. Judging from the voices chattering under their breath in the dark, there seems to be at least a few dozen men. The youth from the local church who was standing guard at the rock comes forward.
Yohan, we’re in big trouble. We hear Chaeryŏng is in absolute pandemonium.
So. It really happened.
Someone calls out to Yohan from the back of the crowd.
Chairman Ryu—we’re here, too.
It is the youth group leader and the young deacon Yohan had met in Chaeryŏng. They all have rifles slung over their shoulders and cartridge belts at their waists. Some are even equipped with hand grenades. A young man from Mount Kuwŏl who was at Chaeryŏng from Mount Kuwŏl and a man from the Youth Corps call Sangho aside to discuss something. All the young men from Sŏbu Church in Chaeryŏng start speaking to Yohan at the same time.
The People’s Army took over the whole town! My entire
family was murdered!
The Guest Page 20
