I’ll go up the mountain tomorrow and give this to him.
As I put the letter away in my pocket, my throat began to tingle from trying to swallow the temptation to tell Sunho that Big Brother Yohan was not, in fact, up in the mountains. He was hiding at home under the wooden floor.
Your brother Yohan must be having a really hard time. My brother’s with a group of people — he says the time just flies by.
Suddenly, with a deafening roar, a formation of airplanes appeared over the mountain ridge. Back then, each day at dawn airplanes of every imaginable shape and color would streak across the sky. They would fly every which way. Silver, black, green and sky blue, some with propellers, others without but with fuel tanks on their wings, and then some B-29swith long white streams of smoke trailing behind. Just by looking at them we could tell what their targets would be. The ones with propellers came to destroy smaller stations or military bases nearby, but the jets and B-29s were on their way to bomb Pyongyang. The ones that had just come over the ridge were jets, so they were making their way towards a big city somewhere. A formation of four flew away like two pairs of birds, followed by another set of pairs, which were followed again by another set — again and again, pairs of planes kept flying by. Sunho was looking up, trying to keep count. Suddenly he exclaimed, Wow, today there are too many to even count!
Yesterday was like that, too.
They say this war’s gonna last a long, long time.
Sunho looked up at the sky again, a worried expression on his face.
Listen, I gotta go, he said. Be sure to deliver the letter.
When I got back home, I looked around to make sure no one was hanging out around the fence before I went into the kitchen. Once inside, I squatted down near the big hangari39 and quietly called out, Hey, Big Brother — come out for a second.
The hangari began to totter. Grabbing hold of it with both arms, I dragged it a short distance into the inner part of the kitchen. The hole it had been covering came into view, and then brother’s hand was visible, too. We’d broken down the bottom part of the wall and covered it with the hangari. The hole was connected to the hideout underneath the floor, a space that had taken Father several days to dig out before brother finally came down from the mountain. I’d crawled down there myself — it was spacious enough for a couple of people to sit down. We’d covered the earth with a double layer of straw mats and put in some bedclothes and blankets. It could get a little dark, but during the day there was enough light to lie down on the ground and read a book.
There’s no one outside, is there?
No. I have a letter for you.
What letter?
Don’t know. Sunho’s brother sent it.
Sangho? That idiot. He should be lying low.
Big Brother Yohan sat down on the edge of the kitchen stove. Taking the letter out of my pocket, I handed it to him. He untied it very calmly. It was knotted with a piece of string and had been folded extremely meticulously. The moment he finished reading it, Yohan hastily clasped his hands together and said a short prayer under his breath.
Thank you, Lord. Amen.
He was beaming as he finished his prayer.
What does it say? Did something good happen?
Huh? Ah. well, the hard times are over now. Our freedom crusaders have finally landed in Inch’ŏn.
I snatched the piece of paper from his hand as he waved it about.
I wanna see it, too!
Hey! Hey, we have to get rid of that! Hand it over right now!
The letter was short. I’m fairly certain that it was something along these lines:
Yohan. I hope this letter finds you safe and well. Thanks to the grace of our Lord, we are doing fine. We have received word that the U.S. Army landed in Inch’ŏn this past September. The time has finally come for us to raid the Reds. When the Crusaders make their triumphant entry into Hwanghae Province, we will be the first to rise. Let us all make ready to rise up together. Hallelujah!
As I tried to read through it one more time, Yohan grabbed it. Taking a box of matches out of his pocket, he lit the letter on fire. We sat together without saying a word, watching the flame eat away at the piece of paper until nothing was left but a pile of ashes. Cautiously, I broke the silence.
Brother, Sunho said that his brother came down from the mountain for a visit.
What? That imbecile! This is no time for him to be running around like some sort of squirrel.
He turned to me.
Where’s your sister-in-law run off to?
Don’t know. She probably went next door. It looks like no one’s home—
I wonder if they’re all out in the fields. Look here, you, I need you to do something for me. Go to Sunho and tell him to meet me at seven o’clock tonight at the funeral house.
You’re going to meet with Sangho?
Yeah. This little note isn’t enough for me to know what’s really going on. Make sure nobody knows what you’re doing, got it?
Brother Yohan crawled back into his hole.
Come on, cover it up.
I moved the hangari back over the hole and came out of the kitchen. Sunho’s house was located in the inner part of the village, way up on a hillside that was much higher than the main road. Surrounded by pines and oaks, his house commanded a clear view of all the roads that led into and through the village. The main wing of our house was the only one with a tiled roof, but Sunho’s house was huge and had tiled roofs for both the main quarters and the separate wing. Even their storehouse had a galvanized roof. Their front yard, too, was at least three or four times bigger than ours.
When I finally got to Sunho’s, the main gate was wide open, and a group of people were milling about the front yard. I sensed that something was up, but I wandered into the yard anyway. The first person I recognized was Ichiro. Ichiro and a bunch of men from the police station were up on the maru of the house with their shoes still on, busy checking every room — even the kitchen. Sunho’s father, the presbyter, was crouched in the front yard, smoking tobacco from his long wooden pipe. Sunho stood next to him. Sunho’s mother, his grandmother, and his aunt were all huddled together by the entryway; his younger brothers and nephews had apparently long since set themselves to the task of wailing up a storm. Seeing me enter the yard, Ichiro motioned for me to come over. Some time had passed since we young ones stopped using the low form of speech to him, all because he’d become the party chairman of the village.
You. Come over here.
Feeling like I’d been called on by a teacher at school, I quickened my pace and came to a stop directly in front of him.
What did you come here for?
Nothing, really, had changed except for the worker’s cap that now sat atop Comrade Pak Illang’s head, and yet, unlike before, a certain chill seemed to emanate from him these days.
I came to play with Sunho.
Your brother. where has he gone?
I felt my heart sink with a thud but tried to make my answer sound casual.
He said he was off to Haeju.
Where in Haeju?
I dunno, sir. He might have joined the army or gone to work in a factory. We haven’t heard from him.
If he comes home, you be sure to tell him to come by the office, you hear?
Yes, sir. I will.
While we were talking, there was some sort of huge uproar inside the house. The reason became clear as two men from the police station dragged Sunho’s brother out into the open living room.
You little bastard — thought we wouldn’t find you if you hid in the attic, did you?
One of the men held Sangho by the neck and one arm while the other had grabbed his other arm and handful of his hair to drag him out. A third man jumped out of one of the bedrooms and began tying him up with a rope. When they stepped down into the front yard, the women of the family, screaming and wailing, threw themselves at the men. Quietly, I backed out of the place. I ran wildly down the main road. It had suddenly dawned on me that Big Brother would have to find a better hiding place before Sangho owned up to sending the letter. As soon as I got home I let everyone know what had happened, but Father decided it was safer for Yohan to stay hidden at home. From then on Big Brother no longer came out to sit in the kitchen during the day when it was quiet outside or to go next door for dinner like he once had — we just passed down food for him to eat. After that, he never came out from under the floor at all.