Abruptly, he turned to the other man and started beating him, too, shouting, And you! You were a fucking homeless piece of dirt and we took you in — we taught you, trained you to handle engines so you could make a living — and you have the nerve to tell us to give up our factory? The lowest mongrel is better than you! At least a dog knows to be grateful to its master!
Pongsu kept on thrashing them, his breath growing harsher with each passing moment. When one of the men, unable to take it anymore, made a run for it and tried to break through the human wall, the spectators kicked him back inside the circle.
Bring me some gasoline! It’s in the car! Pongsu shouted, panting.
When the gasoline arrived, he poured it all over the whitish shapes as they quivered on the ground. It looked like he was giving them a bath. Moving as one, the circle of men stepped back a few paces as Pongsu reached over to strike a match. Throwing the match, Pongsu, too, sprang backwards. A tower of flame shot straight up into the air. I jerked my eyes away from the crack in the wooden fence. That was the beginning — the beginning of the Judgment of Fire in the book of Revelation.
October 17. The U.S. Army arrives in the afternoon.
A regimental force of the First Armored Division moves into Chaeryŏng on its way north from Haeju. The main objective of their operation is to attack Pyongyang; they are not interested in mopping up the western regions. The temporary regimental headquarters stationed in Chaeryŏng dispatches search parties to Sinch’ŏn and Anak, which is located northwest of their route. A platoon led by Lieutenant Harrison of the U.S. Armed Forces advances to Sinch’ŏn. The regiment’s intelligence officer has informed them of the Rightist uprising in the area, so a separate squad is sent ahead, riding in a jeep, before they all march into town. Everyone is relieved to see the flag flying from the county hall flagpole, not to mention the banner with “Welcome” spelled out in English. Unaccompanied by any combat units, the main force rides into town along the new road. They are courteously shown into the meeting room in the county hall. In the yard, young men armed to the teeth and a crowd of what seems to be their families have gathered together to welcome them. The Americans stay in the town of Sinch’ŏn for two hours. They contact the regimental headquarters in Chaeryŏng and request that rations, some medicine, and, most importantly, munitions such as bullets and grenades be brought to Sinch’ŏn. Approximately fifteen hundred men have assembled so far, but only about a thousand of them are armed. The regular troops, American and South Korean, continue their march north. They do not return until they retreat again the following winter. After the welcoming rally is over, it is announced that the defeat of Communism and the unification of Korea has become a reality. In the county hall, the Taehan Youth Corps and the new Autonomous Police are established, and a ceremony is held the following morning in the front yard to celebrate. Once the festivities are complete, the men return their attention to the air-raid shelter and the trench. The executions begin.
For three days and nights, hundreds of us were crammed into that space. A solid iron door blocked the steep flight of stairs that led up to ground level. The air shaft near the ceiling measured about one span by three spans. There were two other rooms, one on each side, but the biggest was the room in the middle. The walls were concrete. The wind was soft, blowing in through the air holes in the ceiling.
From outside, all you could see was something like a chimney sticking straight out of a grass lawn. Young kids used to sit on it and let the goats graze while the grown-ups took care of their business at the county hall. They pierced my nose when they caught me in Ch’ansaem — the blood stopped after a while, but the next day my nose was so swollen — it was festering, I think. My throat still felt raw and split open. I know now that it felt so dry because all the blood from my nose had congealed in my inner palate. What I knew then was that I physically couldn’t drink a thing.
I fainted while Sangho was swinging his pickaxe. When I woke up I was already in the air-raid shelter. All I could see at first were some feet. Someone was standing on my thigh. My arm felt loose, hanging weirdly from my shoulder. It looked broken. Ah, I thought to myself, my whole life I’ve had nothing, no name, no nothing; I’ve worked my fingers to the bone without ever getting a chance to stretch my back — but at least I’ve had these past few years. They make it all worthwhile. So many people were squeezed into that cramped room, more than you ever saw, even on a village market day. People just barely had room to sit down, let alone stretch out. It was late fall, but down there it was steaming. You could feel the hot breath of the people around you. Little children fussing for water soon tired themselves out and fell asleep. Many of them died in that sleep. Men took turns standing so the women could have room to sit down.
You know, I never hated anyone, not once in my entire life. For a bowl of rice — maybe two bowls on a lucky day — I worked hard, and I kept working hard so that no one would have a reason to complain. And still, still I had to watch as my own family was killed right before my eyes. That was when I understood. If your heart isn’t in the right place, you’re no different from the beasts in the forest. Overcome, I just stood there, staring at a patch of blue autumn sky through the cracks in the air shaft. Out of nowhere, a stream of liquid began trickling down the sides of the shaft. Thinking some good-hearted passerby was pouring some water down to us again, we crowded up to the shaft, our mouths wide open. Almost immediately, one of the few who’d actually been able to get a mouthful stumbled back.
It’s gasoline!
The streaming stuff was faintly pink in color — it was the kind they used in cars. As the smell of gasoline filled up the small space, I noticed that little streams were flowing down through the air shaft of the room across from us, too. We all stood very still, looking up at nothing in particular, our eyes wide open and our mouths agape. We stayed that way, completely silent. Not a single cough. Suddenly a muffled, moaning sound, kind of like the “oooh” a crowd of people might make, rose up all around us like some sort of wind — and then, all at once, we were engulfed in flame.
That first day, the eighteenth, and then the following day, the nineteenth — all the way to the twenty-third — I think we all just went crazy. The dead, well, they may have nothing more to say, but those of us who survived can never go back to the way things were. You can’t stay crazy forever, you know. Time passes and before you know it you’re alone, old, all your friends have gone for good, and the world, too, has changed. Even then, though, even if nobody else remembers, it’s still there, deep down in your heart of hearts. It was this land, this land where our mothers buried our umbilical cords — this very same land that we dyed red with blood, transformed into a place we can never, ever go back to, not even in our dreams. And that was just the beginning — of the next fifty years.
Why the winter was in such a hurry that year has always been a mystery to me. The first snow came down in torrents, covering entire hills and fields. Of the defeated soldiers from the People’s Army, crushed in Haeju and Ongjin along the west coast, those who were quick and strong went up into Mount Kuwŏl, just as the Christian Youth had earlier in the game. They became guerrillas, continuing to wage family feuds amid freezing winds.
I returned to Some. People in the countryside were afraid to go any distance from their homes. You never knew when you might make a wrong impression and get yourself killed. You see, for forty-five days, the killing and the dying continued. It was all over the place. Over thirty-five thousand were killed, they say, and for all I know that may be true. Especially since a great many stragglers who’d been driven to the southwest and separated from their units were cornered and slaughtered when the snow blocked the north road out of Sinch’ŏn. And then there were the guerrillas. They’d come down from Mount Kuwŏl for provisions, killing anyone who got in their way. Then, in retribution, members of the Youth Corps would search out the families of the guerrillas and kill them. On top of all that, the massacre of 400 women and 102 children was simple fact — the dead bodies were there to prove it, as were a few surviving children. One fourth of the county’s entire population was killed — almost everyone in Man’gungni in Kunghŭng, more than half the population in Yongdangni in Onch’ŏn, and the entire male population in Yangjangni in Sinch’ŏn.