The Spirit of the Dragon

by William Andrews

  “About Hisashi?” I asked.

  “Let’s go outside,” Mr. Saito said. “I will tell you everything you need to know.”

  I quickly put on my shoes and followed Mr. Saito outside. A huge silver car with a chrome hood ornament was parked on the street. A driver with a black hat like Byong-woo used to wear in Sinuiju polished the car with a cloth. A large man dressed in a black suit waited next to the car. As we started to walk, the large man fell in line several steps behind us.

  It was, as Mr. Saito said, a lovely day. The sun was shining and the temperature was just right for a walk. Mr. Saito walked with his hands behind his back as if he was inspecting everything he saw. With the bodyguard not far behind us, we walked to a boulevard. Workers were beginning to construct new buildings where old ones had stood before the war. They lugged bricks and glass panels on their backs and climbed on bamboo scaffolding. Trucks carrying lumber rumbled along the street.

  “I’m sorry about the bodyguard,” Mr. Saito said after we’d walked for a while. “But I am a wealthy Japanese businessman, and Koreans do not like the Japanese.”

  He continued. “Korea is beginning to recover after your civil war and Japan is helping. I am the head of a bank that is providing loans to your companies. It will take time, but I believe Korea will rebuild.”

  “That is good, sir,” I said.

  He looked sideways at me. “It took some effort to find you. And a little money, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. “I never expected to see you again.”

  “No, I suppose you did not. It has been many years. Many apologies for the surprise. I should have written first. But I was in Seoul and I recently learned where you lived. I have to go back to Tokyo in a few days, so I came straightaway.”

  “Why, sir? Why do you want to see me?” I was anxious to ask him about Hisashi.

  Mr. Saito took off his hat and held it at his side as we walked. He kept his eyes forward. “Suk-bo, I have always tried to live my life honorably. My father was a wise man. He told me that the only road to honor is justice. For years, I believed we were doing the honorable thing in Asia and here in Korea. We built roads, constructed dams, laid rail lines. We brought electricity to your country. I truly believed that your people were better off being part of Japan. That is why I wanted you to marry Hisashi.”

  He shook his head. “I was naïve. Eventually, my eyes were opened. I saw the injustice of our policy. I saw what it did to you and to others. I saw what it did to my son. I remembered what my father had told me about honor. If honor is justice, then there was no honor in what we were doing.”

  I couldn’t wait any longer. “What has happened to Hisashi?” I asked. “Is he alive? Is he well?”

  “He is alive, but he is not well,” Mr. Saito answered, sadness crossing his face. “What happened to Hisashi is what opened my eyes the most. I was concerned about him before he left for Manchuria. It wasn’t hard to see he was troubled. So I used my position as director-general to find out what Doctor Ishii was doing. I was horrified by what I discovered. I thought Doctor Ishii was teaching Hisashi medicine. Instead, he was destroying my son. I no longer believed in the inviolability of the emperor. I finally saw that the state was using Shintoism to justify their crimes. I protested and fell out of favor with the government. I did not care. What we were doing was deplorable and I had to speak out to save my honor.”

  “What happened to Hisashi after the war?” I asked.

  “He was never tried for war crimes. It might have been better for him if he paid for his crimes. He is sick with guilt and I’m afraid he will never get well. I will never forgive myself for what my blindness did to him.”

  I remembered how sick Hisashi had been when I last saw him before he went to Manchuria. Mr. Saito was saying that Hisashi was still sick all these years later. I wanted to reach out to my husband. I wanted to help him get well. I wanted to make him the man I’d made love to on my wedding night.

  “I want to go to him,” I said. “I want to help him.”

  “I am sure you do,” Mr. Saito replied. “First, tell me about my grandson. I have dedicated the rest of my life to correcting my mistakes so that I might die with honor. My first son was killed in the war. Yoshiko is not able to have children—that is why she never married. Masaru is my only grandson.”

  “Masaru,” I said. “His Korean name is Young-chul.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Mr. Saito said. “I shall call him Young-chul. We should not have taken your names from you.”

  “I worry about him. He is cursed by his blood. Half Japanese, half Korean. He does not know where he belongs. He cannot find peace in who he is.”

  “Does he have a job? How do you have money for your apartment?”

  I wasn’t sure what I should tell my father-in-law about his grandson. I could make up a story that Young-chul had a respectable job and worked hard. But I doubted if I could deceive Mr. Saito. He was a man of wealth and could verify my story. And he’d made the effort to find me and wanted to know about his grandson. He was acting honorably and deserved to know the truth.

  “He sells opium,” I answered.

  Mr. Saito went quiet. I was afraid he was going to scold me for being a bad mother. I was afraid he would take Young-chul away from me.

  Finally, Mr. Saito said, “I see. I want to believe that he tried to find some other way to earn money.”

  “There is not much work here,” I said. “But no one would hire him anyway. They can tell he is Japanese.”

  We came to a construction site that blocked the way, and Mr. Saito pointed us to head back. The bodyguard let us by and continued several paces behind us. “I will help you,” he said. “My grandson should know that from this point forward, he does not need to sell drugs. I will set up an account for you at my bank. You will have what you need to live a respectable life.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. “But perhaps we could move to Japan. I could be with Hisashi again and help him get well. And Young-chul can start a new life there.”

  “Hisashi does not live in Japan,” Mr. Saito said unhappily. “He hates Japan because of what it did to him—what it made him do. He moved to America. Los Angeles in the state of California. Before he left, he made me promise not to try to find him. Many times, I have been tempted to break that promise. I am a wealthy man and could force him to come home. But I will not break my promise to my son. Still, I am his father and I am concerned about him.”

  “I am willing to go to America, sir,” I said. “I will take Young-chul.”

  “I am sure he would not want to see you. He is a broken man.”

  “What can I do?” I pleaded. “I still love Hisashi.”

  Mr. Saito nodded. “You can take care of his son,” he answered. “That is what you can do for your husband.”

  He was right, of course. If I couldn’t help Hisashi directly, then I should help his son. I had to convince Young-chul to stop selling opium. If he was using the drug, I had to get him to stop.

  We’d come to my apartment building. The driver stood at the door of the silver car, ready to open it. The bodyguard stood off to the side. Mr. Saito reached inside his suit coat and gave me a business card. On it was the name of a bank and an address in Seoul. “Go to this address and show them this card. Tell them who you are. Someone there will take care of you. I will stay in contact with you. The next time I am in Seoul, I would like to meet my grandson.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, taking the card. Then I said, “Wait! I have something for you.”

  As Mr. Saito waited outside, I ran into my apartment and from inside my rucksack I took Les Misérables and Romeo and Juliet. I ran back to Mr. Saito.

  “I took these from your study in Sinuiju,” I said, offering the books to him.

  Mr. Saito took them and gave me a smile. “Ah,” he said, “two of my favorites.” He gazed at them admiringly. Then he gave Romeo and Juliet back to me. “I will keep Les Mis
érables,” he said, “but you should have Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  Mr. Saito shook his head. “There is no need to thank me, Suk-bo,” he replied. “I am doing this for my own honor, and maybe, in a small way, for the honor of Japan.”

  Mr. Saito put on his hat and turned to the car. The driver opened the door and Mr. Saito climbed in, followed by his bodyguard. The driver hurried to get behind the wheel, and the big silver car drove off.

  The next day I went to the bank, where they treated me like a queen and showed me that Mr. Saito had opened an account for me with a large sum of money. I withdrew some money—more than I’d ever had in my life—and took it to the apartment. I showed it to Young-chul and told him where it came from. I expected him to be thrilled that his grandfather wanted to reconnect with him. I thought he’d be relieved that he didn’t need to sell opium anymore.

  Young-chul was unmoved. “I do not want his money,” he sneered. “Does he think we are beggars, a charity case? He has been gone from me for as long as I can remember. I do not know him. Why should I care?”

  “Son,” I said, “do not judge him that way. Everything was so confused back then. It was impossible to know what was right. I believe he tried to do the honorable thing. I believe he is doing it now.”

  Young-chul slumped at the table. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Why do you say that, Young-chul?” I pleaded. “Why?”

  “Because I do not care,” he answered.

  His eyes were dilated and swam inside his head. His shoulders sagged more than usual and his face was flaccid. He hadn’t eaten well in weeks and his cheekbones stuck out. His once shiny hair was tangled and dull.

  “Young-chul,” I said, “with your grandfather’s money, we can get help for you.”

  “Help,” he said, his eyes unfocused. “I have the help I need, and I don’t want his charity.”

  “Perhaps we can use the money to move to America and start over,” I said.

  “America,” he said, lazily shaking his head. “The home of the brave, they call it. I doubt if I will be any more at home there than I am here. No, I do not want to go to America to start over.”

  He was gone all night. When he came home late the next morning, he had another bruise on his face and a cut lip. He said nothing as I cleaned the cut and applied a cold cloth to his bruise. I didn’t ask how he got his injuries. I already knew. He was half Japanese living in Korea, where they hated the people who’d oppressed them for a half century. When I was done, he went to sleep on his mat without eating. He slept all day as I sat at the table overcome with worry for my son.

  Young-chul died on a Wednesday in July. I knew why the police were at my apartment when they knocked on the door. Young-chul hadn’t come home for three days. I’d roamed the street where he sold his drugs, searching for him. I’d asked people if they’d seen him. No one knew where he was.

  Over the previous months, he’d grown more taciturn and withdrawn as if he’d given up on life. I couldn’t say or do anything to help him. I’d told him we should move to an apartment in a nicer part of the city where he could escape. He refused. I thought about calling Mr. Saito to have him intervene. But I knew it would only make Young-chul withdraw further.

  Standing at my apartment door, the policemen said someone had murdered Young-chul. “Stabbed in the heart,” they said. “We think it was a robbery. He was selling drugs.” I didn’t cry or ask questions, and they didn’t ask questions of me, as if they didn’t really care about finding the killer. They told me Young-chul’s body was at the morgue and that I had to go with them to sign some papers.

  I went to the morgue in a police car. There, a man dressed in white showed me Young-chul, but it was like I was floating above the scene and nothing below was real. I signed their papers, and the man in white asked me if I wanted to take the body home for a traditional kobok funeral ceremony. I didn’t understand why I should have a funeral for this person I didn’t know, so I said no. Then he asked me what I wanted to do with Young-chul’s body. I said I didn’t care. He offered to have the body buried in the community grave for a fee. I agreed. I couldn’t understand why he was asking me all these questions. This wasn’t my little prince. My Young-chul laughed at my jokes and played hide-and-seek with me in the house in Sinuiju. He wouldn’t sell opium. No one would stab him in the heart.

  When the man was done with his questions and I had signed his papers, the police took me back to my apartment. I switched off the light and sat in the dark, trying to understand what had just happened. Eventually, all the pieces came together in my mind and I realized Young-chul would never come home again. My son, my little prince, was gone from me forever. Then I cried as only a mother who has lost a child can cry. And there with me, framed by the window, was the two-headed dragon. I didn’t mind that it was there. It didn’t scare me. I had nothing more it could take from me. It seemed to know that I wasn’t afraid of it. It just stayed there watching me, waiting for me.

  And when I had cried so hard I could cry no more, the two-headed dragon was no longer with me. In its place was the spirit of a broken man. It was the spirit of my husband, my beloved Hisashi.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I didn’t leave my apartment for two weeks. I slept very little and didn’t eat or make tea. Everything reminded me of Young-chul—his clothes, his tea bowl, his sleeping mat. I was so crippled with grief, I did nothing with them. I sat in the dark. Now and then I looked out the window at the people on the street. I couldn’t understand how they were able to go on with their lives, what they had to do that was so important. I couldn’t see how I would ever be one of them again.

  The entire time, Hisashi’s ghost was with me. It often stood at the window. Sometimes it was at the table. I never heard it talk. It never touched me. It was like someone you can’t see in a dark room yet you know they are there. I didn’t know what it wanted from me, and I didn’t have the energy to try to understand it.

  One morning when I thought I couldn’t bear the pain another day, Yoshiko came. She wore a Western-style dress instead of her kimono. Her hair was up as it always was. She told me Mr. Saito had learned Young-chul had died and that she insisted on coming to Seoul to see me. I burst into tears and begged for her forgiveness for not saving Young-chul. She cried, too, and said I shouldn’t feel guilty. We hugged. Then, she cleared a space under the window for an altar. We lit a candle so Young-chul’s spirit would have light to find its way to the other world. Yoshiko had brought Young-chul’s toy boat with her, and she placed it on the altar so his spirit would have something to make it happy. We placed one of his shirts at the altar so his spirit could stay warm. Yoshiko made tea and filled Young-chul’s tea bowl. She placed it at the altar so his spirit would have something to drink. We bowed and prayed that Young-chul’s spirit would have a safe journey.

  Then we talked for hours about the boy we loved. We reminisced about our times with Young-chul in the Saito house. I told Yoshiko about Young-chul after she’d left for Tokyo. We talked about how he died, why he died, and we cried again. We were two mothers—a Korean mother and a Japanese mother—grieving over our child. We shared our pain, and by sharing, it eased a little.

  When at last we had nothing more to say about Young-chul, Yoshiko asked, “When did you last eat?”

  “I do not know,” I answered.

  “Take a bath,” she said. “You look a mess and we cannot have that. Put on clean clothes. You should get some fresh air.”

  I didn’t want to take a bath, but since it was Yoshiko telling me to do it, I went to the shared bathroom and I bathed. I put on clean clothes. I went back to my apartment where Yoshiko brushed and braided my hair.

  I felt better, but I didn’t feel like going out and I said so. “You need something to eat,” Yoshiko insisted. She took my hand and led me outside. It was a pleasant evening. We walked down the street and then to the boulevard. Yoshiko bought some japchae noodles from a street vendor. W
e took the food to a small park not far from my apartment. We sat on a bench and ate as people strolled by, some holding hands, others with children in tow.

  Yoshiko was right, as she always was. The bath, clean clothes, fresh air, and food lifted my spirits a little. I finally saw that though it would take everything I had, it was possible to go on without my prince. Even so, I didn’t know what I should do with my life now that Young-chul was gone. I said, “It seems like I have nothing to live for.”

  Yoshiko looked out at the park. “Yes, you do,” she said. “You have two things to live for.”

  “Two?”

  “Your son, our sweet Young-chul, turned to crime and drugs because of bigotry. The Japanese in Sinuiju hated him because he was Korean. The Koreans here in Seoul hated him because he was Japanese. It is heartbreaking—a fine young man killed by hate.”

  She continued to look out at the park. “To honor him, to give his life meaning, we need to fight against the bigotry that killed him. We need to fight for human rights. My father is dedicated to the cause. He says that to have honor, we must stand up for justice and the welfare of all people. That is why his bank is helping your businesses. I am committed to helping him. You should fight, too.”

  “How?” I asked. “I do not know what I can do.”

  “If you are committed to the cause of human rights,” Yoshiko said, “you will find a way.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are right,” I replied. “I will try. You said there are two things I should do. What is the other?”

  “You know what it is,” Yoshiko said, looking at me.

  “Hisashi,” I said. “I must find him and help him. Your father told me he promised to leave Hisashi alone.”

  “That is true and we have.”

  I nodded. “When he left for Manchuria, he told me I had to stop loving him. I refused and I still love him today. He needs to know. I will go to America and find him and show him I always loved him. I will tell him about our son.”

  Night was upon us and I was exhausted from weeks of grief. We walked back to my apartment without talking. Yoshiko stopped outside my building. She told me she had to go back to Tokyo in the morning. I embraced her and said thank you. She took my hand. She promised she would stay in touch with me and that she and her father would do anything for me. She gave me her address and telephone number in Tokyo. She told me to write or call anytime. I thanked her again and bowed to her. She nodded respectfully and walked to the boulevard to hail a taxi.