Beasts of a Little Land(95)

The security, therefore, was seemingly impenetrable. In the weeks leading up to the governor’s arrival, there were Japanese soldiers stationed at every place of note, from squares, banks, and post offices, to even large shops and popular restaurants. JungHo was to shoot the governor while he was making a speech in front of thousands of spectators and hundreds of officers. There was no question of whether JungHo would survive; the only question was whether he would succeed in his mission before getting killed. In case he missed, JungHo would be accompanied by a backup sniper who had just recently joined his group. He was twenty-six years old and spoke slowly with a bad stutter. JungHo had never seen him hit the bull’s-eye during target practice.

The night before the mission, JungHo took his backup out for a walk.

“It’s fre-fre-freezing outside,” the younger man said quietly.

“It will clear our minds, Comrade Cho. Better than sitting in that tiny, stuffy room,” JungHo said, clasping Cho on the back encouragingly. They crossed the town center and made their way to the little clearing by the Songhua River, a popular spot for lovers seeking to hide from prying eyes. There was no one there now, however. Cho’s teeth were rattling as he tried to retract his neck into his coat collar like a turtle. JungHo was also shivering, but the formidable cold in Harbin reminded him of his childhood in PyongAhn. It invigorated him and soothed the restlessness from being cooped inside the overheated room. Even all these years later, he didn’t like being indoors for very long.

“Now I can breathe. I was getting antsy about tomorrow,” JungHo said. Cho made no reply and just stood there, creating white puffs in the darkness. “Remember, you don’t have to do anything if all goes according to plan. And if I succeed—and they take me—you don’t try to help or anything. You understand me?” JungHo looked sharply at Cho, and he nodded.

“You’re a quiet fellow,” JungHo said wistfully. He missed the warm, muscular, familiar closeness he’d had with his underlings who used to call him Chief. He didn’t feel that with anyone in Shanghai or Harbin, not the way he once did with his blood brothers YoungGu and Loach. “Do you have family to go back to?” he asked.

“N-n-n-no.”

“What about a sweetheart? You don’t have a girl back home?”

Cho shook his head. He did look a little too simple or too quiet to have anyone care for him, and JungHo sighed.

When JungHo was a child and his father was still living, there was a strange wedding in his village. It was like a normal wedding except that it was held at night by the torchlight. As usual, all the villagers were invited, and he too joined with the other children in following the groom’s horse to the bride’s house . . . But there was no groom wearing a blue robe and a horsehair hat on the saddle. He had died a bachelor five years previously from smallpox. To calm his spirit, the bachelor’s parents had reached out to a family of a recently deceased virgin with a wedding proposal. At the bride’s house, her relatives and neighbors were murmuring around the table laden with food and wine. Everyone acted as though they could see the ghost bride and the ghost groom, praising her beauty and teasing his eagerness. Hearing their whispers made JungHo feel as though he could see the girl blushing with pleasure and the young man trying not to laugh at his mates’ heckling. Once the ceremony was finished, the couple was led to their marriage bed; and the villagers swore that as soon as the chamber’s door was closed, torchlights in the courtyard all went out. This was taken to mean that the ghosts truly liked each other and that they could finally rest, for a soul that’s never been married couldn’t move on to the next world.

No one would hold a ghost wedding for JungHo’s bachelor soul, however. He began wondering how Jade was doing and then stopped himself abruptly. So much had happened in China that he’d had little chance to brood, and this had been good for his recovery. He told himself in no uncertain terms that he hated her and that he looked forward to never seeing her again, in this life or next. The wind roared into his ear in agreement.

“Come, let’s go back now,” JungHo said, but Cho shook his head obstinately, rooted to the frozen ground.

“My family was bu-bu-burned after the March. Th-th-that’s why I’m he-here,” Cho said in a burst of speech that he’d been composing in his head for some time.

JungHo looked at him, and felt sorry for thinking that Cho was simple. Or perhaps he was simple, but calling him so wasn’t entirely honorable. MyungBo would say so.

“Tomorrow, you’ll get your revenge. Then you’ll go back home, marry a pretty girl, and have lots of children. Now let’s go eat the best meal of our lives,” JungHo said, patting his young comrade in the back. Off in the distance the clock tower struck ten times, and JungHo held on to the misty halo of sound after each stroke.

*

THE SUN ROSE WITHOUT INSISTENCE; it was a visitor in the North, and as such always hurried away to its true home in the South. Under the monochrome sky, hundreds of white flags flashing their red dots were crisscrossed between the buildings. JungHo was standing among thousands of spectators filling up the length of Central Street like frosted trees in a birch forest. It was silent save for a military band playing a march on the stage, next to the podium where the governor would later speak. JungHo found Cho’s pale face some thirty yards to his right and gave the slightest nod.

The band wrapped up the song and the crowd’s energy shifted to the right side of the stage. JungHo could feel his hair standing on edge underneath his fedora, and his heart was pounding so much that he was sure it was rattling the pistol in his inner pocket. But his colleagues had already completed their missions and shown him what to do. He too would kill himself cleanly before they got to him. He only worried that he would miss and that his death would mean nothing.