Beasts of a Little Land(97)

JungHo pulled out his hand from his jacket and walked sideways out of the tree’s shadow.

“No sudden movements. Don’t try anything stupid,” the voice said, coming closer to him from the back.

JungHo wasn’t carrying a gun with him. If he’d had one, he would have jumped back toward the tree and shot his interlocutor, then fled through the network of narrow alleyways untouched even by the moonlight. But all he had now was a knife hidden on the inside of his waistband, and that would be useless against a man behind him with a gun. He could hear two pairs of feet approaching him; one of them finally reached him and roughly whipped his arms behind his back before cuffing his wrists. When that was done, an officer wearing a thin, slanted mustache came into his view.

“What is this for?” JungHo asked and then immediately regretted his weakness. He’d intended to maintain a stony silence.

“Running away in the middle of the night . . . Avoiding conscription, are we?” the first officer said in Japanese, but based on his features JungHo surmised that the man was in fact Korean. The other officer, who had actually handcuffed JungHo, looked no older than sixteen and almost afraid of his own captive. JungHo kept his mouth shut this time.

The three of them walked in near darkness to Jongno Police Station. They arrived at eleven, and JungHo was uncuffed and thrown into a cell filled with men, sleeping on their sides. No one said a word to JungHo except to grumble at the lack of space. He sidled up to the only spot of empty floor remaining, next to an overflowing chamber pot. The only posture he could maintain was sitting upright and hugging his knees in front of his chest, and in this position he spent the night and most of the following morning.

By noon, some of his cellmates started getting taken out, one by one, until JungHo could sit with his legs stretched out in front of him. His head was pounding and his throat was burning as if he’d swallowed a fistful of sand. JungHo tried to remember all those other times in his life when he’d gone even longer without water or food or lying down, but he’d been younger then. In the past, he’d also had the conviction he needed to live longer, see something through. Now, however, he felt as though he’d already seen it through—whatever it was. To end his own suffering did not seem like such a bad choice.

Just as his thoughts were turning to the knife still hidden in his waistband, an officer came around and picked him up for questioning. But instead of a solitary room as JungHo had imagined, he was taken to a large courtyard where three army officers were seated at a long table. The prisoners were filing in front of them in one long line, and then being taken across the courtyard. When JungHo reached the table, the decorated general in the center looked at him with an almost bored expression.

“Name and date of birth,” the general said, pointing at a piece of paper with a hand that was missing the last two fingers. JungHo wrote down his name and birthdate, stamped his thumb with red ink, and went to join the others standing in the courtyard.

The sun made its arc across the sky and the shadows in the courtyard moved with it. The men burned in its spear-like rays without daring to follow the shade. JungHo’s throat tasted of ashes, but he closed his eyes and kept himself empty of any thoughts, especially those of water. By the time the light had turned bloodred, there were hundreds of men in the courtyard, standing in silence.

The three officers got up from the table and walked over to the men. The general, with the grim look of someone doing something purely out of formalities, stepped forward and spoke in sharp, clipped Japanese.

“You have each been blessed with the opportunity to defend our empire from the grasp of Western Imperialism. Some of you will fight in the Pacific against the arrogant America, and some of you will fight in Manchuria against the hateful Russia. No matter what, dying for His Majesty the Emperor is the highest glory that can be attained by his humble subjects, an honor for which you must all be grateful.”

The general stepped back and let his adjuncts take over; they barked orders to strip down into undergarments. All around JungHo, men hurriedly took off their clothes and folded them into a bundle at their feet. Most of them, who didn’t understand Japanese, merely followed what the others were doing with a dazed and questioning look. They didn’t fully grasp that they were being shipped off to the jungles or the steppes to fight with nothing but bamboo spears, and their eyes absurdly reflected equal parts fear and hope. JungHo alone stood still in his sweat-soaked jacket and pants. He actually felt a lightness of heart, realizing that this would all be over soon, and that he may even be able to kill a few high-ranking officers before slashing his own throat.

“There, you son of a bitch!” One of the officers noticed JungHo in his clothes and shouted at him. “Step forward!”

JungHo stood in his spot, but the men around him stepped away from him, creating a pocket of empty space. The officer pulled out his gun and aimed it at JungHo’s head.

“Take off all your clothes immediately, or I will blow off your head like a melon,” the officer said.

JungHo decided to take off his jacket and lure the officer in. When he shrugged it off of his shoulders, something small and shiny tumbled out from the inside pocket—his silver cigarette case. Reflexively, JungHo bent over to pick it up, and the officer strode toward him, the gun still leveled at his head.

“You dumb son of a bitch! Leave that there!” the officer cried out in a rage. JungHo still reached for the cigarette case, as if he didn’t understand or care. The moment his hand closed in on the case, the officer stepped on his wrist and dug into the ground.