The Spirit of the Dragon

by William Andrews

  Xu-han came as it started to grow dark. I’d slept a little more but was awake and lying on the mat when he arrived. Mr. Wu sat in the room cross-legged, repairing my shoes with a thick needle and thread.

  Xu-han was tall and had the lean features of someone who worked hard. He had his hair pulled into a topknot. He wore a dark coat and pants that stopped just over his knees. He took off his boots and walked through the house barefoot. He carried a straw basket that he dropped next to the stove.

  “She is awake, Zuzu,” he shouted to the old man. I was surprised he used the Chinese word for grandfather.

  Mr. Wu pushed his needle into the sole of one of my shoes. “She is looking for you,” he said. “She is Byong-woo’s wife.”

  “You are Byong-woo’s wife?” Xu-han asked.

  I sat up and faced him. “We were together,” I answered, “but we are not married. How do you know Byong-woo?”

  “Byong-woo is my cousin, my sachon on my mother’s side.”

  “Byong-woo is Korean,” I said, “but your name is both Korean and Chinese. Your grandfather is Chinese.”

  “Yes. My grandfather married a Korean woman. I am one-quarter Chinese. So is Byong-woo.”

  “He is?” I said, thinking it was ironic that he’d criticized me for marrying a Japanese man.

  “Are you a rebel?” Xu-han asked.

  “I lived with the rebels,” I said. “Byong-woo took me to them.”

  Mr. Wu looked up from his work. “I do not want trouble with the Japanese,” he said. “Or the rebels.”

  “You hate the Japanese,” Xu-han shouted at the old man, “and now you hate the rebels, too.”

  “All of this fighting,” Mr. Wu said. “It is foolish. People killing each other for no reason. When will it stop? When will there be peace? Yes, I hate people who make war in my country.” The old man started working on my shoe again.

  “I brought home fish, Zuzu,” Xu-han shouted. “You should clean them before they spoil.”

  Mr. Wu grunted and set down my shoe. He went to the stove and picked up the basket Xu-han had brought in. He got a knife from next to the stove and went to the back of the house.

  Xu-han came and sat in front of me. He nodded to where his grandfather had gone. “He cannot hear with his ears,” he said with a head shake, “but he hears just fine with his eyes. He worries about me. I am all he has left.”

  Xu-han stared at me. “Tell me, were you with the rebels that attacked the Japanese camp north of here?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Was Byong-woo with them?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “That is not good,” Xu-han said. “We have heard reports. The Japanese built up their army for a push to wipe out the rebels in Manchuria. Your group underestimated the size of the encampment they attacked. They were routed. Only a few managed to escape.”

  I looked at my hands. I thought of all those who I’d known over the past two and a half years. Jeon-suk, Ki-soo, Jin-mo, Byong-woo. If only a few escaped, they killed or captured the rest. I felt guilty for having deserted them. Then again, I never really was one of them. They’d used me and threatened to hurt Young-chul.

  “Byong-woo said you would help me,” I said. “I must go to Sinuiju as soon as possible.”

  Xu-han shook his head. “That is risky. It is a difficult time. The Japanese have become more aggressive. They have taken nearly all of China and they think they are invincible. There is talk they will attack America soon. If they defeat the Americans, no one will stop them and they will do whatever they want to us.”

  Xu-han let what he said sink in. Then, he asked, “Why do you want to go to Sinuiju?”

  “My son is there.”

  “Your son? I did not know that Byong-woo had a son.”

  “He is not Byong-woo’s son.”

  “You had a son with someone else?”

  I didn’t know what I should say about marrying a Japanese man. I thought Xu-han would throw me out of his house. But he was both Korean and Chinese. Surely, he would understand. “I was forced to marry a Japanese man. We had a son together. I had to leave him in Sinuiju.”

  “I see,” Xu-han said. “I will take you. We will have to go at night. Rest tomorrow. We will leave after dark. Your leg should be better by then.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Do not leave the house until we leave. No one should see you. We can trust no one.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said with a bow of my head.

  That night, I slept in the main room while Xu-han and his grandfather slept in the sleeping room. I awoke from a vision of Hisashi, troubled as he was when I last saw him. I was shaken and couldn’t go to sleep again. The snoring in the other room was impressive as I got up, wrapped myself in a blanket, and went to the door. My leg felt better as I stepped into the front garden and looked at the stars. They were like a sea of twinkling lights. I thought of a song Mother sang to me about stars when I was a little girl. I tried to remember the words. I hummed the melody and the story came back. It was about Cheonjiwang, the Celestial King, who came to earth and married a human woman, Bujiwang. They had twin sons named Sobyeolwang and Daebyeolwang, who were the Big Star King and the Small Star King. The brothers had a riddle contest to decide who would rule the human world. Sobyeolwang won, and an angry Daebyeolwang became the ruler of the underworld. Together, the brothers represented good and evil. I tried to find the stars Mother had said were Sobyeolwang and Daebyeolwang, but I didn’t remember which ones they were.

  I thought about the war against the Japanese. Were they evil like Daebyeolwang? It certainly seemed they were. But Hisashi wasn’t evil. Yet even he had followed the Japanese leaders. He was an officer in their army. He was complicit in their evil. For the first time since I met him, I was angry at him. He’d abandoned me and our son to fight for the Japanese. Perhaps it was true that all Japanese were evil.

  I went back to bed and awoke the next morning to Mr. Wu and Xu-han arguing. I lay on my mat, pretending to sleep, and listened.

  “It is unsafe,” Mr. Wu said.

  “You worry about me too much, Zuzu,” Xu-han countered.

  “They killed your mother and father.”

  “The Japanese didn’t kill them. They drowned.”

  “They drowned because they were trying to escape to China.”

  “I don’t want to argue about them again,” Xu-han said. “We need to decide what to do.”

  “I have mended her shoes,” Mr. Wu said. “We will get her some clothes. We can give her dried fish and a waterskin. She made it here on her own. She can make it to Sinuiju on her own, too.”

  “She would have to go by land. They are building the dam at Sup’ung so she can’t follow the river. If she goes by road, they will stop her and ask questions. I can take her where we will not get stopped.”

  “You are reckless, Xu-han. You cannot know they will not stop you. And if they catch you smuggling a rebel, they will arrest you.”

  There was silence for a while. Finally, Mr. Wu spoke up. “She can go through China to Dandong. I can take her. It is less risky in China and I have family and friends there. They are not as likely to stop an old man and a woman.”

  “Yes, that might work, Zuzu. I can take you across the river in my boat. Yes, that is what we will do.”

  “And if they catch me and shoot me,” Mr. Wu said, “well, I am an old man.”

  That night, the three of us left after dark. It was cold and perfectly still. I followed Xu-han and Mr. Wu to the river where we climbed into Xu-han’s fishing boat, a narrow Japanese amibune with a long square bow. Nets and buoys that smelled like fish lay in the bow. I sat on the nets, and Mr. Wu sat cross-legged in the middle as Xu-han worked a pole attached to the rudder. With a few expert strokes by Xu-han, we were in the current and soon reached the opposite shore in China. I jumped out of the boat onto the shore. Xu-han carried his grandfather on his back and set him down on shore. He handed us both rucksacks.

  “Four
days to Dandong and four days back,” Mr. Wu said. “Although, I will want to stop and visit friends on the way back. Then, who knows how long it will be?”

  “Do not take too long, Zuzu, or I will become a worrier like you,” Xu-han replied. “And the worst of winter is yet to come. You won’t be able to travel when the rivers freeze.”

  Xu-han faced me. “My grandfather can take you to Dandong. To get to Sinuiju, you will have to cross the bridge. I am sorry. That is all we can do. Please, if they catch you, do not tell them about us. Good luck, Suk-bo.”

  “I promise I will say nothing about you,” I replied. “Thank you.”

  Xu-han climbed into his boat, pushed off, and disappeared into the blackness of the river.

  “This way,” Mr. Wu said. We shouldered our rucksacks and climbed up the bank and onto a path. As we started walking, I felt almost normal again. My head no longer hurt where I’d bumped it, and the gash on my leg was healing. Xu-han had found clothes for me—a chima skirt and loose jeogori blouse both made from coarse wool. Mr. Wu had done a good job fixing my shoes. Before we’d left, I’d bathed in the washbasin behind Mr. Wu’s house and tied my hair into a braid.

  We walked on the path for an hour in the dark, and then Mr. Wu led me over a hill to a shack. He went inside and stuck his head out. “We will rest here for the night and start again in the morning. Come.”

  I went inside where it was dark and musty. The floor was dirt. I’d expected that we would travel all night, but Mr. Wu curled up in the corner and soon, he was snoring loudly. I lay down too, but I didn’t sleep.

  Mr. Wu slept until well after the sun was up. I thought about waking him but decided against it. He awoke with a lazy yawn and sat up. His long white hair fell over his shoulders. “We need tea,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t we be going?” I shouted into his good ear.

  “Yes, we should. First, tea.” He went outside and gathered some dried grass and sticks and brought them to the side of the shack. From his rucksack, he took a tin cup and a pinch of tea. He poured water into the cup from his waterskin, tossed in the tea, and set it on the sticks and grass, then started a fire with a match.

  “Aren’t you going to have tea, too?” he asked, warming his hands over the fire.

  I sighed. I wanted to get going, but apparently we were going to have tea first. “Okay,” I said with a shrug. I took my cup and made tea alongside Mr. Wu.

  After the tea brewed, we sat against the shack and drank. Mr. Wu sipped his tea and looked like he might take all day to finish it. He looked out over the hill and nodded as if he was pleased to be in China again.

  Finally, I asked, “Why did you agree to take me to Dandong? You said you didn’t want trouble with the Japanese or the rebels.”

  “Xu-han tells me you want to get to Sinuiju because your son is there,” he answered. “He said you married a Japanese man.”

  “I was forced to marry him,” I said. “His mother did not like me and tried to have me arrested. That is why I escaped with Byong-woo. I had to leave my son there. I have to get back to him.”

  “Why didn’t your mother-in-law like you?”

  “Because I am Korean.”

  “Ah, yes,” Mr. Wu said. “I married a Korean woman, too. Of course, it was not the same as marrying a Japanese. Still, I understand what it is like to wed someone outside of your people.”

  “Did you love your wife?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mr. Wu said, looking into his cup. “Very much. Her name was Jun-li. We were happy, although my mother did not like her very much.”

  “What about your wife’s mother?” I asked. “Did she like you?”

  “Ha!” Mr. Wu laughed. “Not at all. She thought I was smug, wanting to marry a Korean woman. It was only because my family had money that they agreed to the marriage. However, it would not have mattered if they had said no. Jun-li and I loved each other, and that is all that mattered. People are prejudiced because they do not know we are all small parts of the same spirit. The spirit is in everyone and in all things—the mountains, the sea, the birds, and the fish. It does not matter where someone was born or what they look like or what language they speak. They are us and we are them.”

  I sensed that what Mr. Wu was saying was true. It did not matter that Hisashi was Japanese and I was Korean. We had shared something. We had connected. Perhaps we’d touched through the spirit Mr. Wu was speaking of.

  I looked at Mr. Wu and smiled to myself. Here was someone who understood my situation with Hisashi. And if there was one person like Mr. Wu, there must be others: married women and men from different races and clans like Mr. Wu and his wife, Korean women who fell in love with Japanese men. For the first time since I’d fallen in love with Hisashi and faced the scorn of both Koreans and Japanese, I didn’t feel so alone.

  Mr. Wu pointed his chin at me. “What about you? Do you love your husband, the man they forced you to marry?”

  I nodded. “I do. His name is Hisashi. But I am angry at him for leaving me.”

  Mr. Wu nodded with me. “Yes, love is difficult. And that is why I agreed to take you to Dandong.”

  We’d finished our tea and Mr. Wu declared it was time to go. We shouldered our rucksacks and found the road again. And then we set off for Dandong.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  It took us four days to get to Dandong, just as Mr. Wu said it would. At the Hun River, a large tributary to the Yalu, we had to use a ferry. Mr. Wu did his best to talk the oarsman out of charging us his fee by making up a story about how I, his granddaughter, was taking him to the hospital in Dandong because he had only a few days to live without medicine. But the oarsman was unmoved and Mr. Wu grudgingly paid him. All the way across the river, Mr. Wu berated the poor oarsman for being unsympathetic to a dying old man.

  We saw Japanese soldiers only once—a troop truck going north that forced us to jump into the ditch. I was afraid they were going to stop and ask questions. But they seemed to be in a hurry and just kept going.

  We spent a night at the house of Mr. Wu’s cousin. The man was as deaf as Mr. Wu, and his wife was petite and shy. Mr. Wu’s cousin didn’t seem pleased to see Mr. Wu, although he agreed to feed us and put us up for the night. We left in the morning without saying goodbye.

  Despite his age and small size, Mr. Wu was a strong walker. I was still a little weak and had to push myself to keep pace. But I was determined to get to Dandong and find a way across the bridge to Sinuiju.

  We came to Dandong in the afternoon of the fourth day. The city teemed with people all going somewhere. Mr. Wu bragged about how much more beautiful the Chinese city of Dandong was than the unpleasant Korean city of Sinuiju. He pointed out the Great Wall in the hills above the city. “It begins here and goes all the way across China,” he said. “Imagine that! A wall two thousand miles long. The Chinese are extraordinary people indeed!”

  I’d heard of the wall the Chinese built to keep out invaders from the north. But though I’d grown up less than thirty miles away, I’d never seen it. Now, looking at it as it snaked through the mountains, with its gray brick walls and pagoda towers, I had to admit that it was impressive. And it was true that Dandong, with its brick buildings and wide boulevards, was a beautiful city.

  Mr. Wu said goodbye outside the city center. He gave me some Chinese yuan. “I do not have yen,” he said. “These yuan are only good here, in China. They will do you no good in Korea. There is enough for a few days.” He pointed to the river. “On the other side of the river is Sinuiju. They guard the bridge, so you must find a way to get across.”

  I bowed to him. “Thank you, Zuzu, for helping me,” I said. “I am most grateful.”

  Mr. Wu nodded to me. “Take care, Suk-bo. I hope you find your husband. True love is a rare treasure. Goodbye.”

  Mr. Wu walked away and I was alone in Dandong. I had no idea how I would get to Sinuiju. I walked through the city center and to the Yalu River. There before me was the bridge Hisashi had shown me years earlier. It seemed like a
lifetime ago. I looked across the river. I saw the train station and where Hisashi and I rode our bicycles. I saw the building where the brothel was.

  Kempei tai soldiers in wool coats guarded the entry to the bridge, inspecting each person as they went by. I watched as they pulled a man from the procession. The man kept his head low as the soldiers stood over him, asking questions. Suddenly, one of the soldiers grabbed the man by the arm and marched him toward a building that flew a Japanese flag. The people crossing the bridge pretended not to notice as the man pleaded with the soldier to let him go.

  I had an idea. I took the yuan Mr. Wu had given me and counted it. It wasn’t much, but perhaps it was enough. I went to the city center and walked along the main street full of people going here and there. I looked at the shops and businesses. I spotted an apothecary and went inside. Behind the counter, a Chinese man with a long beard and round glasses inspected me.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Excuse me, sir. Do you sell makeup here?”

  “Why do you want makeup? It is not for women like you.”

  “Please, sir,” I said. “I have money.”

  “If you want,” he said, giving me a look through his glasses. He pointed to a shelf against a wall. “Over there.”

  Jars and bottles of makeup and perfume sat on the shelf. I tried to remember what the women in the brothel wore in the pictures that the blacksmith’s daughter, Soo-sung, had shown me years earlier. White powdered face. Lips painted red. Highlighted eyes.

  I took a jar of powder and red lip paint to the man. “I want to buy these,” I said.

  “Twelve yuan,” he said.

  Mr. Wu had only given me eight yuan. I asked, “How much for just the lip paint?”

  “Five yuan,” he answered.

  “What can I buy for three more yuan?”

  “An eye pencil,” he said. “Prostitutes use it to highlight their eyes.”

  I picked up an eye pencil and took it to the counter. I gave him my money and left the store. I went to a side street away from the crowd. I looked at my reflection in a window. I hadn’t seen myself in years, and I was shocked at how old I looked. I was no longer a girl. I was thin, and my clothes were dirty from four days of walking. My shoes were muddy. I ducked into an alley and took off my jeogori blouse. I brushed the dirt off as best as I could and shook it out. I put it back on and did the same with my chima skirt. I wiped the mud from my shoes. I went to the window. I applied the paint to my lips and used the pencil to highlight my eyes. I dipped my finger in the red and rubbed it into my cheeks. I stepped back and looked at myself. I wasn’t nearly as made up as the women I’d seen in Soo-sung’s picture. But hopefully, it was good enough.