The Iron Sickle

by Martin Limon

  I walked out into the meadow and turned around. Nothing but a calm, cold evening in the middle of the Taebaek Mountains.

  I sighed and started back. I stepped into the forest just where I’d left it. For the first few yards I walked forward confidently. And then I reached a large elm tree and tried to remember if I’d passed it to the right or to the left. No matter, such a minor deviation shouldn’t throw me off much. I stepped to the left. I didn’t recognize any of the trees farther in, but I wouldn’t have been looking at them from this angle, since I’d been coming from the opposite direction. I turned around to see if that would help me orientate myself. It didn’t.

  I returned to the large old elm tree. I touched its bark, enjoying the reassuring reality of its rough edges, and told myself that I should sit down for a moment and think this through.

  That’s when it dropped on me; from up above, something dark and heavy and as large as a man. Before I could look up to see what it was, I felt a jarring in my skull, as if my head had been suddenly crunched between the prongs of a giant nutcracker, and the world and everything in it went black.

  I was cold.

  So cold that I thought I’d never been cold before. Cold had supplanted every inch of my flesh from the top of my head through my face, down my neck, along my chest and my back, through my shriveled testicles and on down my legs to my feet. But that was just the start. Then it seeped inside. My bones were nothing more than carvings of ice, and my heart and my lungs and my liver were snow puffs clinging to glassy ribs.

  Something slapped the side of my face. It felt good. Warmth. Again, something slapped the opposite side and my eyes popped open.

  A woman. An upside down woman. Mentally, I tried to focus, turning her right side up, trying to think through the caverns of my frozen misery, noting the long black curly hair and the thick lips and the disappointed eyelids. Madame Hoh, the fancy woman from Mia-ri, the woman who’d owned the Inn of the Crying Rose, the woman who’d sicced a pack of local punks on me; the woman who, I believed, had been responsible for Mr. Ming’s losing his head.

  I also realized something else. She wasn’t upside down, I was.

  I realized this because of the screaming pain in my ankles. At least one part of my body had feeling in it; an excruciatingly painful feeling, but a feeling nevertheless. A rope, or maybe a thick wire, was biting into my ankles, keeping me from falling to the floor.

  Madame Hoh leaned toward me until our noses almost touched. Her breath reeked of stale tobacco. “Hello, baby,” she said. “How’s it hanging?”

  I couldn’t reply. I wasn’t sure if my throat would work. There seemed to be phlegm bulging through it, following the downward course of gravity. And when I tried to open my mouth I wasn’t sure if my jaw or my lips were moving. Everything was too cold for feeling.

  With her long red nails, Madame Hoh caressed the side of my face. I was grateful for the tenderness—and for the warmth.

  “Can’t talk? I understand. You just relax, baby.” She leaned back. “That’s it. Spit it up. Get it out. That’s a good boy.”

  I coughed and choked and spit out as much phlegm as possible. As I did so my stomach muscles knotted so I could raise my head just a little. I was in a cave. There was light coming from an oil lantern behind Madame Hoh, and I was suspended against something boxy and metal. When I stopped coughing I looked up along the length of my body. I was naked, I could see that, and I was right about my ankles. They were bound in what appeared to be a thick hemp rope. Beyond that was some sort of wire, metal rods, and an antenna-like contraption. I relaxed my stomach muscles and gazed at Madame Hoh. She was smiling. Then she said in Korean, “Arraso?”

  Do you understand?

  And suddenly I did. I started to buck, flailing my body against metal like a hooked fish fighting for life.

  It was the totem. That’s what it had been all along. The wood from an old ammo box had been used to replicate the boxy shape of a US Army signal truck, a truck that had once belonged to Echo Company of the 4038th Signal Battalion (Mobile). And the wire contraption above the totem represented the antenna which Echo used to so diligently relay signals. And me? I was the rat dangling from a string. The dead rat.

  Madame Hoh started to laugh—more than laugh. She shrieked with glee. And then someone was beside her, someone shoving her out of the way. Someone I recognized. I’d seen him in the alley in Itaewon, taunting me, daring me to come after him. And of course I couldn’t have mistaken him because of what he held in his left hand. It was the man with the iron sickle.

  In his other hand he held a narrow bottle. It was red, or filled with a red liquid. His hand twisted and I saw the label. The bottle and its contents were familiar to me. I saw them on every table in every mess hall since I’d been in the army. They were one of those manufacturers who’d landed a government contract decades ago and had been tenacious enough—and influential enough with Congress—to never let it go: Little Demon Hot Sauce, with a grinning red devil wielding a pitchfork on the label, fumes rising from the coals of hell.

  The man with the iron sickle screwed the cap off the bottle, tossed it aside and, as Madame Hoh grabbed the back of my head and held on, he tilted the snout of the bottle into my right nostril and poured. Liquid pepper ignited the tender linings of my sinuses. I screamed and yelled and bucked, trying to snort and wheeze the burning flame upwards, out of my nose, but gravity kept it roiling inexorably into my skull, searing all the tender linings behind my eyeballs. Madame Hoh held on with surprising strength, and the man with the iron sickle continued to pour until the contents of the bottle had plunged deep into my nasal cavities. I coughed and retched and water poured from my eyes.

  Despite the pain—or maybe in an attempt to avoid experiencing it fully—my mind was still evaluating evidence. I thought of the old couple at the PX snack stand, about how they’d said the man with the iron sickle sniffled as if he had a bad cold. Now I knew why. Somewhere in his distant past his sinuses had been violated by just such a treatment as I was receiving, leaving permanent damage. And I thought of how Mrs. Lee, the owner of the pochang macha, had told me about how he walked as if he were traipsing on egg shells, as if every step was painful to him. My livid ankles knew the genesis of that additional peculiarity.

  If I felt any satisfaction in this analysis, it was soon swallowed up by another blast from the surging pepper. I coughed and screamed and cursed a company that would use a little demon as their logo.

  Then I saw the iron sickle, held in his hand. He stepped toward me, raised it, and as he swung, I flinched. The rope gave way. I crashed head first to the ground. Dazed, I rolled on my side, raising my knees toward my chest, spitting and coughing and using gravity to cleanse my nose of the viciously burning fluid.

  They were using candles now. Madame Hoh sat on a stool beside me, smoking blissfully, as if enjoying her cigarette after a fine meal. The man with the iron sickle sat opposite her, hands on his knees, the sickle dangling from relaxed fingers. Gently, with a soothing voice, Madame Hoh began to talk.

  “They came in the fall,” she said. “We watched them march in their sturdy combat boots, crushing dried leaves beneath the thick soles, and we watched as they set up their equipment and laughed at us and pointed and tossed bits of chewing gum and candy to us children. We all squealed in delight.”

  Hot sauce still drained from my nose, and I fought to breathe.

  “And then they set up their equipment,” she said, “and yanked a long cord, and their generator rumbled to life, and the little metal cabin lit up with light. And some of the GIs set up guard positions with sandbags and others—I believe their commander—marched down into the village, one of them holding a rifle trained on us gawking country folk. We were simple then. We knew nothing of electricity and none of us had ever spoken into a phone and the idea of refrigeration was not something we’d even imagined.

  “The officer dictated the terms. None of us would be allowed inside the perimeter of the campground the
y were setting up, and we were under no circumstances to leave the area of our little village without checking with him first. The elders complained about this because some of the men and women had to carry their produce down into the valley to sell. And the officer replied that until they moved on, there would be no more trips to the lowlands.

  “And so we acquiesced because we’d seen other soldiers, South Korean soldiers, in the area, and when they gave orders the punishment for not obeying those orders was death. But we also knew the snows were coming, and the punishment for not bartering in the valley and bringing back grain to store for the winter was also death. So at night, with the approval of the elders, some of the young men sneaked out with A-frames strapped to their backs and made their way clandestinely into the valley.

  “And then the sapper came. A North Korean, alone, separated from his unit. But he had a canvas belt filled with explosives. He sneaked close to the American lines, set up his lethal devices, and somehow ignited them, destroying the truck that stored their diesel and burning to death six GIs. Then he disappeared into the night.

  “The Americans erupted in a frenzy, shooting into the black sky, screaming for help, and their commanding officer took charge. He led the men as the flames were doused and supervised the salvage operation. All night long, the burned soldiers screamed. Even down in the village we could hear their cries of agony. Finally, only one was left. Even though his voice was hoarse and singed by the fire, his hideous screams continued. None of us slept that night. Neither, I’m sure, did any of the GIs. Just before dawn, we heard a single gunshot and the screaming stopped. A squad of soldiers led by their commander left their encampment and within minutes they were in our village. Everyone was ripped out of their homes: men, women, and children.”

  Behind the man with the iron sickle, flames licked out of a pit. They’d started a fire. I squirmed toward it, hoping for some warmth that would stop the chattering of my teeth. With her left foot, Madame Hoh kicked dust toward my face. I stopped.

  “Unfortunately,” she continued, “at exactly that moment, two young men with grain sacks hanging heavily from their A-frames trudged up the last incline of the trail. The GIs arrested them immediately, and the interrogations started. The elders denied that any of us had anything to do with the explosion and told the commander about the North Korean commando, but he didn’t believe any of it. From that moment on, we were kept under constant surveillance, allowed to do nothing without the permission of an American soldier. The snow came, thicker than we’d seen in years. The GIs were grumbling about trouble they’d heard about over their radio, trouble to the north. Apparently, the United Nations advance into North Korea, all the way to the border with China, had been stalled and now they were in retreat.

  “ ‘Joe Chink,’ the GIs told us. ‘Joe Chink.’ That’s all they could think about. Massive legions of Chinese Communist soldiers were on their way south, but the men of Echo Company had to stay put and relay communications. But soon they ran out of fuel for their generators, and all transmission stopped. The commander saved just enough diesel to power their truck so the company would be able to drive out of the Taebaek Range. But it was too late. The roads were impassable, clogged with snow and ice. So the Americans waited, holding us as their hostages. Their slaves. The GIs grew bored. Soon they were bothering the unmarried girls. When that wasn’t enough, they had their way with the married women. When husbands protested, they were beaten. And then they started turning their eyes on the younger girls, the ones who hadn’t become women yet.

  “Their food ran out and still it snowed. Americans and villagers both grew sick and died. They were buried in snowdrifts, preserved for later burial. The ground was frozen too hard to dig into. And then the commander died. We’re not sure how. Some say he was murdered by his own men. While the GIs weren’t watching, our people began to leave—those who were strong enough to walk through the twelve-foot-high snow drifts. The weak ones stayed behind and grew weaker. All the food was gone, including the grain and the canned goods the Americans had brought. Then one of the GIs pulled a body out of the snowdrift. He chopped it with an axe and charred its flesh over an open fire. Some told him to stop, some threatened to kill him, but in the end they all ate. And still the snows fell. There was no more power now, the last of the diesel had been used, and all communication with other military units had been lost. One by one we all escaped except for two old people who would bring the GIs victims. They would tell their fellow Koreans in distant villages about how rich the Americans were and about how they had medicine and food and heating oil, and then those people would follow them to the American encampment. But instead of being allowed to beg for penicillin to save the life of a loved one or to plead for a can of beans to stave off starvation, they were turned over to the GIs and slaughtered like swine and devoured.”

  Madama Hoh paused.

  “And those two,” I said, coughing as my ravaged throat became accustomed, once again, to speaking, “they were the couple hacked to death by Miss Sim.” My voice was a croak.

  “Her name is Ahn,” she said. “And yes, she was a good girl. She stayed with her parents until the end and even accompanied them to the American encampment. When her mother realized they had been betrayed, she fought while her daughter escaped.”

  “So she hid in the woods,” I said, “and heard her parents plead for their lives.”

  “And heard their final screams before their throats were cut and smelled the smoke from the sizzling of their flesh.”

  No wonder she’d gone mad. “What about this?” I said, nodding toward my bound feet and arms. “Why this? Why are you treating me like this?”

  “We are treating you the same way my older brother was treated when he was caught stealing a can of beans by the GIs. Back when there was still food. They stripped him naked, strung him up by his feet, and poured hot sauce down his nose. You, we cut down after less than an hour. Him, they kept hanging all night.”

  I’d heard of similar punishments in wartime. Veterans sometimes bragged about it.

  “But why do it to me?”

  “To show you.”

  “Show me what?”

  “What you need to know.”

  “For your claim?”

  Madame Hoh puffed on her cigarette. “We’re beyond that now.”

  “But you did put in a claim, for yourselves and for the other victims of this atrocity.”

  “Yes. One of the young men who carried the A-frame, who was older than us, found a lawyer after the war and filed the claim. But what good did it do us? Miss Sim, as you call her, had already been locked away in the mental hospital. The lawyer who filed the claim was threatened, a pistol put to his head. The A-frame man ran away and was never seen again. My friend here, my older brother who cared for me and tried to protect us all, was convicted of treason against the state.”

  I didn’t believe he was her literal brother. Koreans often refer to someone as their “brother” or their “sister” if they’re close friends or have been through a tribulation together.

  “They put your ‘brother’ in jail?” I coughed, spitting up dried remnants of the hot sauce.

  “For twenty years. They said he was a Communist.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was party to the claim.”

  “And you?”

  “The KNP officer in charge of our case sold me to a brothel.”

  “How old were you?”

  “At that time, fourteen.”

  “And your brother?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “They gave him twenty years when he was sixteen years old?”

  “They claimed he was the one who led that North Korean commando to the American encampment.”

  “Was he?”

  “No way. He was just trying to survive, like the rest of us.”

  “What happened to his family?”

  “Both his mother and his father were suffering from starvation and too weak to move. That’s why he
tried to steal the beans. When he failed, they died.”

  “And your family?”

  She looked away. Finally, tears streaming from her eyes, her pudgy face contorted in rage, she said, “What do you think happened?” Angrily, she threw her cigarette to the ground, stomped on it, and walked away. The man with the iron sickle walked forward and stared down at me.

  And then I heard his voice for the first time. It was rough and gravelly and devoid of emotion—no fear, no hatred, no resentment—except for an overwhelming plaintive quality. In a matter of fact way, as if to clarify the record, he wanted to justify himself. In my experience in law enforcement, that desire to confess and explain it all to someone is a strong one. With this man, the words came out in an overpowering rush. Maybe it was because he’d never before encountered an American who could understand him, who could speak Korean. I nodded and listened, saying a brief word occasionally, in order to encourage him to continue.

  He told me that the man in the claims office had been killed to show how wronged Korea had been by Eighth Army. He hadn’t enjoyed it but it had to be done. The MP was murdered simply to show people that American law enforcement was not invincible. Despite being part of the greatest military power in the world, they were just men. The GIs in the signal truck were similarly slaughtered as stand-ins for the Lost Echo who had engendered all this misery. And then he told me what he planned to do next. He didn’t name a specific target, but he said everyone would be shown soon. What he meant by that I wasn’t sure, but I knew better than to ask questions. Then he walked away, leaving me alive. I studied the dark corners of the cavern, my ankles aching. As far as I could tell, there were no more bottles of Little Demon hot sauce.

  -15-

  The flames in the fire pit had subsided, and the cave was even colder than before. Everything was perfectly quiet, not even a mouse scurried through the dust. The only light was a dim glow off in the distance. Somewhere out there it was daylight.