The Spirit of the Dragon

by William Andrews

  The next day, Yoshiko informed me that the chauffeur could take me to see my parents whenever I was ready. I was excited and I wanted to go at once, so I pulled on my leather shoes and my haori outer coat and went outside to the garage. I found Isamu sitting on the floor in the back of the garage smoking a cigarette. He wore a dark, loose-fitting shirt and a small black cap. Underneath his hat he had pulled his wavy hair into a short tail. He didn’t get up when he saw me.

  “Yoshiko said you will take me to see my parents,” I said. “I would like to go now.”

  Isamu took a puff from his cigarette and blew the smoke into the air. “And you, the Korean wife of the Japanese son, want me to jump up and take you at once.”

  “Yes,” I said, surprised at his tone. “Yoshiko said you would.”

  Isamu took another long pull on his cigarette and snuffed it out on a post. He tossed the butt in a tin can on the ground next to him. He sighed as if I was a great inconvenience. He pushed himself up and went to the front of the garage and stood next to Mr. Saito’s car. “Okay, let’s go.”

  He did not open the car door for me, so I opened it myself and climbed in the back. Isamu backed the car out of the garage, and we drove through the outskirts of the city and up the road toward my parents’ house.

  Isamu didn’t say anything while he drove. I thought about what he’d said when I asked him to take me. Korean wife of the Japanese son . . . I wanted to ask him why he’d said that, but I knew why. He despised me for marrying Hisashi. He thought I was a chinilpa. I wanted him to know that I truly loved Hisashi and that I was just as Korean as he was. I wanted to be friends with him.

  “Thank you for taking me, Isamu,” I said, trying to break the ice between us.

  “Byong-woo,” he replied.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “My name is Byong-woo,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “They call me Isamu, but my real name is Byong-woo.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Then I shall call you Byong-woo. My name is Suk-bo.” He didn’t reply and kept driving.

  “Where did you learn how to drive a car, Byong-woo?” I asked.

  “Look,” he said, “I was told I had to drive you to your village. I was not told I had to talk to you.”

  “That is a rude thing to say,” I said. “What if I told Yoshiko about your attitude?”

  “Then I would know for sure you are a chinilpa,” he replied.

  I decided not to say anything more. If he wanted to be rude, if he thought I was a traitor, there was nothing I could do or say to change his mind. So I sat in the back and looked out the window.

  I wondered what I would find when I saw my parents. I hoped that with me gone, they had rekindled the love they once had. I was sure that on the Pak farm Father had filled the biweekly quota of food for the administrator. In the few days I’d worked alongside him, it was obvious he had a knack for farming and relished the hard work. Mother only wanted me to be happy, and I wanted to tell her that I was. Of course, with Hisashi away, I was miserable and insecure, but Mother didn’t need to know that.

  We pulled into my village at midday. It was warm for winter, but even so, patches of ice dotted the road and snow clung to the hilltops. We drove past the farmers’ fields that lay fallow for the winter. Mr. Pak’s farm looked weedy and unkempt and I wondered why Father had left it that way. We drove to my parents’ house and Byong-woo turned off the car. He rolled down his window and took out a cigarette. He lit it and started smoking, all the while looking out the front window as if I wasn’t there.

  I got out of the car and looked at my parents’ house. Like the Pak farm, it was unkempt. I had never seen it like that before. Mother and Father had always insisted on keeping the house and garden orderly and clean so the administrator would not punish them. I went to the door and pushed it open. A cobweb grabbed at my face. There were no cooking pots at the basin and no wood next to the stove. The floor mats were gone. So was the table. I took a step in and called out, “Ummah? Appa?” There was no reply.

  I went to Father’s work shed. The box of tools Mr. Saito had given him was still sitting on the floor where Mother put it a year earlier. Father was not there and his old tools were gone. I went to the root garden. They hadn’t planted that year and the garden was full of weeds. I looked down the road to the Kwan house. Smoke drifted from the chimney—they were there. I took a step toward the house to ask them where my parents were. Then I remembered that Mr. Kwan’s daughter, Soo-sung, had called me a chinilpa. I went to the car and climbed into the back seat.

  “I want to go to my uncle’s house,” I said.

  Byong-woo gave me a look over his shoulder. “I was only told to take you here,” he replied.

  “Please, Byong-woo,” I said. “It is only a mile or two farther on.”

  “No, I will not,” he said.

  I was livid. There he sat in the driver’s seat of Mr. Saito’s car, pretending that he was better than me. “You!” I said. “You and the other servants, you all live under Mr. Saito’s roof and eat his food, no different than me. If you are so noble, why aren’t you fighting in Manchuria? Why do you accuse me of being a traitor when you are no better?”

  “I did not marry a Japanese,” he replied.

  “No, but you drive a Japanese man’s car because if you did not, they would punish you the same as they would have punished me if I hadn’t married Hisashi.”

  He paused for a moment to think about what I’d said. Then he tossed his cigarette butt out the window. “Your uncle’s house is on this road?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  Without a word, he started the car and we drove to my uncle’s house.

  THIRTEEN

  My young cousins, Soo-hee and Jae-hee, dressed in coarse wool winter coats, played in the front yard of my uncle’s house as we approached. When she saw us coming, Jae-hee ran into the house, and soon my aunt was at the front door. Bo-sun gathered the girls to her and held them against her chima skirt. She stared at the car. Byong-woo pulled it alongside a persimmon tree just outside their front yard and turned it off. I got out of the back and started for my aunt. I walked halfway, and then I ran the rest of the way and threw my arms around her.

  “Sookmo!” I cried. “Aunt! I am so happy to see you.”

  “Ummah, it is Cousin!” Jae-hee squealed. She hugged me as I hugged my aunt.

  My aunt put a hand on my shoulder. “Suk-bo,” she said, “you have returned after all this time.”

  I pushed back from her. “I went to see my parents. They are not at their house.”

  My aunt looked away. “Jae-hee,” she said, “show Suk-bo your new doll.”

  My young cousin pulled me into the house. She threw off her coat and then ran and got her dolls. One was the doll named Cor-ee she’d shown me on my visit before I married Hisashi. The new doll was a male dressed in a man’s hanbok. As my aunt brewed tea at the stove, Jae-hee told me about the dolls as Soo-hee looked on. “The boy is named Jung-soo,” Jae-hee said. “He and Cor-ee are married.” I glanced at my aunt, who stayed facing the stove. I suspected she encouraged the girls to name their new doll Jung-soo, the name of the farmer’s son who I liked before I met Hisashi.

  My aunt came to the table with the tea and told Soo-hee to take Jae-hee so she and I could talk. Soo-hee took her sister by the hand, and they took their dolls to the other room. My aunt poured tea into bowls and handed me one.

  It felt good to be with someone I’d known before I was married. It felt good to speak Korean again. I asked, “Where are my parents, Sookmo? Please tell me.”

  My aunt regarded me for a minute. “You have not visited in a long time,” she said. “Now you come and you have a nice haori coat and fine leather shoes. The last time you came, you walked instead of being driven in a car. You had Korean clothes and shoes with holes in them.”

  “Sookmo, please,” I said.

  My aunt sighed. Then she said, “A few months after your wedding, your parents went to Manchu
ria. They have been gone well over a year. Your mother had made a deal with your father. She said she would go with him to Manchuria once you were safe. We have not heard from them since they left.”

  “Manchuria,” I said.

  “What did you expect?” my aunt said. “Your father could no longer work for the Japanese. It was killing him. And your mother had nowhere to go if your father left without her. It was a reasonable decision. I am sorry to have to say this to you, Suk-bo, but it is not likely you will see them again.”

  My aunt’s words struck me like a slap. I couldn’t imagine never seeing my parents again or feeling their loving touch. Now that they were gone, I realized I’d taken them for granted—the joy of the talks I’d had with Mother when we worked side by side in our vegetable garden, watching Father in his shed turn a piece of raw wood into a chair. I would miss them terribly. And I felt guilty. I had fallen in love with a Japanese man and I was taking comfort in a Japanese house. I’d been so involved with Hisashi that I hadn’t visited my parents. And now, they were gone. No wonder Kiyo and Byong-woo and all the Koreans hated me. I was a chinilpa. “It is my fault,” I cried. “My parents ran away because I married Hisashi.”

  “No,” my aunt said. “Honestly, they did the right thing by going to Manchuria. It is time we fight the Japanese. I would have gone with them if not for the girls. But”—her face softened—“do not blame yourself. I know that your mother pushed you into the marriage. I would not have done the same.”

  “Hisashi is in Tokyo studying to be a medical doctor,” I sobbed. “I write to him every day, but he does not write to me. I love him and cannot bear to be without him. His mother said that he will take a Japanese wife someday, and then I fear they will kick me to the street.”

  “I warned you your way would be difficult,” she said.

  “I do not care,” I said. “I love him and he loves me.”

  “But he does not live with you and you are afraid he will take a Japanese wife.”

  I didn’t want to argue with my aunt about my decision to marry Hisashi. It would be impossible to tell her how much I loved him and how happy we’d been together.

  “What about my brother?” I asked, changing the subject. “Did Kwan-so go with them?”

  My aunt’s eyes went cold. “No,” she said. “He is still in Pyongyang studying the Japanese way. He is smart, your brother, but he forgets who he is. He thinks he will prosper by being Japanese. I do not expect him to ever come back to us.”

  I remembered how my brother had taught me to ride his bicycle in the road in front of our house. I remembered how he teased me for being skinny. I remembered how he made me feel safe when Father was away. “If he does not come back, then my family is gone,” I whispered.

  “I told you that you would pay a price for taking the path you chose,” my aunt said. “I am sorry the price has been so steep.”

  After a while, I said, “I have been haunted by the dragon from your comb.”

  “Yes,” my aunt said with a faraway look, “it haunts me, too. The spirits of our ancestors are angry. They are afraid that we are forgetting them. I’m sorry, Suk-bo, that I showed you the comb with the two-headed dragon. But it is important that you know about the curse.”

  We sat together for a long time without saying anything. My aunt stared at her tea as if her mind was far away. After a while her eyes focused and she finished drinking, then told me I should do the same. “It is bori cha,” she said. “Korean tea.” She gave me a sly smile.

  My uncle came home a short while later. The three of us sat at the low table with the girls, and we talked about how well the crops did that year and how winter had come early. They asked me about life in Sinuiju, and I told them about Mr. and Mrs. Saito, how Haru was strict and Yoshiko was kind. I told them about the strange ways of a Shinto household. While we talked, Jae-hee pestered me to play with her and Soo-hee, and finally, I did. I’d forgotten how it felt to be with family. I’d forgotten what it was like to be home.

  From outside the door, Byong-woo said, “Miyoko, we must go back.”

  My aunt went to the door and invited Byong-woo to come in and have tea with us. He declined and repeated that he and I had to get back. “We have been gone too long,” he said from the door.

  I hugged Soo-hee and Jae-hee. I bowed to my aunt and uncle. “Stay strong,” my aunt said. I went to the car, and Byong-woo and I headed back to Sinuiju.

  The weak winter sun was already dropping when we drove down the icy road. It was turning cold again, and the mud on the road was freezing, making the car bump along uncomfortably. Byong-woo looked at me in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t wearing his chauffeur’s hat, and his black wavy hair fell around his shoulders. He’d rolled down the window a crack to blow out his smoke. Even so, the car smelled like cigarettes. “What did you learn about your parents?” he asked. “Where did they go?”

  I wasn’t sure what I should tell him. I didn’t know him well. He might be a spy for the Japanese or, more likely, for the rebels. Or maybe he was just a chauffeur. But when I thought about it, it didn’t matter if I told him. My parents were in Manchuria far away. If Byong-woo was a Japanese spy, there would be nothing he could do to my parents. If he was a rebel, he’d be pleased that they had joined his cause and perhaps he’d regard me more favorably.

  “They went to Manchuria,” I said. “My father did not want to work for the Japanese anymore.”

  Byong-woo looked away from the mirror. Then he looked back. “Manchuria?” he said.

  “Yes, that is what my aunt told me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said, starting to feel a little uneasy. “Why do you ask that way?”

  Byong-woo turned his eyes to the road. “Miyoko . . . Suk-bo,” he began, “what you said earlier was right. I do have a comfortable life driving Mr. Saito’s car. But like you, that does not mean that I have abandoned our people. So I will tell you something that could put me in trouble with Mr. Saito. The Japanese have made great advances against the Chinese army. They now control all of northern China.”

  I took a minute to absorb what Byong-woo had said. I thought he was mistaken, or perhaps he was playing a cruel joke on me. “It’s not true,” I said. “My aunt did not say anything about that. How do you know?”

  Byong-woo pulled the car to the side of the road and let it idle. He put his elbow on the seat and faced me. “I know because I am the chauffeur for the director-general of this province. I know things that others, like your aunt, are not supposed to know. I’m telling you the truth. The Japanese occupy all of Manchuria, and they are at war with China for control of the rest of the country.”

  In my mind I saw my parents fleeing the Japanese. I saw soldiers with rifles surrounding them. I remembered what my mother had said about how the Japanese had shot my father’s brother. I shook my head. “They will be okay,” I said, trying to shake away the images. “It will be no different for them than if they had stayed here.”

  Byong-woo looked away. “I do not think so,” he said. “They are arresting any Koreans they find in China. They say they are all rebels.”

  This struck me like a shot. My parents were rebels; that’s why Father wanted to go to Manchuria. I tried not to think of what the Japanese would do to my father and mother if they captured them.

  Byong-woo pulled the car onto the road and we bumped toward Sinuiju again. Byong-woo said, “Tell me, Suk-bo, how do you feel now about marrying a Japanese man?”

  I didn’t answer him. The soldiers who were arresting Koreans in Manchuria were different from Hisashi. My husband was kind and gentle. Sensitive, his mother had said. Surely my husband wouldn’t take part in murdering.

  We drove for a while longer in silence. Then Byong-woo decided to press his questions. “Suk-bo, do you love Hisashi?” he asked.

  “Of course I do,” I replied, surprised at his question. “He is a good man, not like what you think.”

  “Oh, I agree he is. He is not like most
Japanese. Neither is his father. Mr. Saito does not always agree with the government, although he is careful to hide his feelings. Japan wants to rule all of Asia and the Pacific, too. They are building a great army, navy, and air force. There is no stopping them now that they have defeated the Chinese. But Mr. Saito is a patriot. He would never disagree with the emperor. He does his job and says nothing.”

  “Why do you ask if I love my husband?” I asked.

  “Because you never write to him,” Byong-woo replied. “He sends you letters every week, but you do not send any to him. That is rather strange, I think.”

  “It’s not true!” I exclaimed, pushing myself to the edge of my seat. “I write a letter every day!”

  “You do? Well, that is strange indeed. I am the one who takes the mail to the post office. I have never seen a letter from you.”

  “I give them to Haru.”

  “Haru gives the mail to me. And he would not take your letters if he was not instructed to do so by either Mr. or Mrs. Saito.”

  “Hisashi has written to me?” I asked, grabbing the back of Byong-woo’s seat. “Where are the letters? Who did you give them to?”

  “I give them to Haru,” he replied. “Again, he would deliver them to you unless he was instructed not to.”

  I clutched Byong-woo’s seat. “I have to get them! Please, Byong-woo, you must help me.”

  Byong-woo shook his head. “I am sure if they don’t want you to have them, the letters have been burned. Although I would not trust Haru, I think I would blame Mrs. Saito.”

  “Why?” I cried. “Why would she do such a thing?” But I didn’t need Byong-woo to answer my question. I pushed myself into my seat. Hisashi, my dear Hisashi, had written to me after all. I desperately wanted to know what he’d written in those letters. Did he say he still loved me? Did he miss me? Did he ask why I didn’t write to him? I ached that he thought I didn’t write. I had promised to write every day, and he must wonder why he wasn’t getting letters from me.