‘A beautiful war? Someone like you doesn’t know anything about war! You can’t even imagine how a man gets destroyed on the battlefield, how he dies. Have you ever slept in a bloody puddle, covered by flies? Have you ever been caught by the enemy and, not knowing whether you were dreaming or awake, told them where your fellow soldiers were hiding? That’s war. Filthy.’ His voice broke and dropped. Sugiyama had always known he was damaged. But perhaps things could be different. Maybe he still had a soul somewhere, small and desiccated.
Hiranuma gave him a sympathetic look. ‘You’re right. I don’t know much about war. But I’m the same as you. I hate it.’
Sugiyama grimaced. ‘So if swear words from an illiterate man can be poetry, everything I write must be a poem.’
He looked up at the mass of white clouds surrounding the poplar trees.
‘Of course. You’ve already written them.’
‘I’m no poet.’
‘A poet doesn’t make poems. The writing of poetry makes the poet.’
Sugiyama looked down at his worn boots as birds flew up from the trees. They had tramped through bloody battlefields and prison-yard dust; they had kicked and stomped on others. They were old and scratched, just like his life.
Sugiyama murmured penitently, ‘I’m not a pure man, like you,’ then froze. The words locked inside his body tore at his face. He wasn’t a pure man, he wasn’t even a man. He was a monster that had destroyed the innocent.
‘Life is poetry,’ Hiranuma said. ‘You write poems the way you live your life.’
Sugiyama wished the young poet’s words were true. If speaking the truth was calling beautiful something beautiful and throwing curses at dirty things, he might already be a poet. At least his curses were true in their rage. Sugiyama suddenly regretted learning how to read and write, as it had made him read Hiranuma’s poems. He could sense his former self falling away; he was no longer a cold guard or a strict censor. He was now an excitable boy who couldn’t wait to become a poet.
A few weeks later, Hiranuma stood leaning on a poplar tree, whistling a tune.
‘Yun Dong-ju!’
As three unfamiliar clunky consonants — the name that had been taken away, destroyed and covered in dust, the name that didn’t exist any more — hit his ears, Dong-ju stopped whistling. The answer, ‘Yes’, was stuck in his throat like a fish bone; his throat ached.
After a long time he spat out, ‘Yes!’ in a voice that wasn’t Hiranuma Tochu’s. It was Yun Dong-ju’s.
‘Don’t you know any other song?’ Sugiyama asked.
Dong-ju stared at the guard.
‘Even I know that song now, since all you do is whistle that same tune. I don’t even know what it’s called.’
‘It’s a Negro spiritual called “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”,’ Dong-ju finally replied. ‘The American Negro slaves sang it, longing for home.’ He smiled bitterly. The world was unkind and time was cruel; they each betrayed hopes and dashed dreams.
Sugiyama looked over at the prisoners who were mumbling among themselves and changed the subject. ‘Why are Koreans so talkative, anyway? All they do is sit around and yak.’
‘Everyone has stories,’ Dong-ju murmured. ‘From where does the wind come and where does it go—’
Without realizing what he was doing, Sugiyama uttered the rest of Dong-ju’s poem. ‘The wind blows / and my suffering has no reason. // Why does my suffering have no reason? // Never loved a woman. / Never sad about the times. // The wind keeps blowing / and my feet are planted on a flat rock // The river keeps flowing / and my feet are planted on a hill.’ Dismayed that he’d recited the poem, Sugiyama snapped, ‘Only a scientist would know where the wind comes from and where it goes. How would a stupid poet like you know that?’
Dong-ju bowed his head at this irrefutable truth. Poetry couldn’t shed light on the origins of the universe or about life and death. A poem bound by logic became meaningless.
He said drily, ‘You might not know how, but you can feel it. The sensation of the wind tickling your skin, the small grains of sand floating along with the breeze, and the scent of the seasons.’
‘And what’s the point of feeling all that?’ Sugiyama asked, swallowing the rest of his sentence: when the world is engulfed in flames and young men are dying like ants.
Dong-ju wasn’t sure. He had an inkling that language was the only tool with which to reveal the barbarism of war. Only the purest language could testify about the most brutal era. Dong-ju looked beyond the walls. Multicoloured kites were flying in the sky near the harbour far away. They glistened like a school of grey mullet swimming against the current. At that moment a blue kite soared up from the other side of the wall, bobbing in large, bold movements, like a shark chasing all the other kites. Dong-ju shaded his eyes to watch.
‘What are you staring at?’ Sugiyama huffed. ‘They’re just kids playing with kites.’
‘Well, every detail is revealing. You can tell what kind of person is controlling any given kite. What their personality is, how old they are.’ He pointed upwards. ‘This one’s a girl, about thirteen or fourteen. When you look at the speed of the kite when she runs, it’s not an adult’s gait. But she’s not very young, either. When you consider the intricate movement of the kite, it’s clear she’s not a boy. She’s fearless and curious and competitive. She’s also lonely.’
‘How can you tell all that?’
‘The other kites fly up around the shore, so far away that we can barely see them. Everyone goes there because the sea breeze can carry the kites higher. This blue kite was over there a week ago, too. But then over the last week it kept drifting closer to us. When you consider that the girl’s flying a kite where the other kids don’t play, it’s clear she doesn’t get along with them. But she’s really good at flying the kite.’
‘Not bad,’ Sugiyama said, smirking. ‘All that from the position and movement of the kite, huh?’
Dong-ju’s eyes sparkled. ‘There are so many things you can understand, even if you don’t see it yet. You could see the wind if you wanted to.’
‘Nonsense! I’d believe you if you said you could show me a ghost. Some guards have seen dead prisoners haunting this hill. But the wind?’
Dong-ju smiled.
The next day a loud siren blared through the work area. Sugiyama stopped in the middle of the yard; he noticed that everyone was still. Nobody was cursing or fighting; the prisoners looked peaceful. Their eyes were glued to a dot in the sky, wriggling in the afternoon sunlight. A red, diamond-shaped kite wagged its long tail. The prisoners let out a shout. Sugiyama’s blood froze. He reflexively turned to look up at the poplar hill — Dong-ju was standing there, busily handling the spool. Sugiyama whipped around to look up at the watchtower. The barrel of the machine gun, which should have been placed parallel to the wall, was arcing towards the hill. Sugiyama sprinted across the yard, panting, his blood now boiling. The wind was whipping the hill and Dong-ju’s eyes were fixed on the kite, his hands busy with the lines. His expression was peaceful. Sugiyama’s club rammed into the young man’s shoulder. The resulting thud reverberated through Dong-ju’s body as it crumpled like a poorly hammered nail. Dong-ju heard his bones snap.
‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’ Sugiyama shouted. ‘Are you trying to get shot?’
The kite, taut with the wind, snatched the spool out of Dong-ju’s hands. The spool rolled along the barren ground. The kite wagged its tail dispiritedly before sinking.
‘Did you see the wind?’ Dong-ju moaned. ‘Did you see how the wind lifted the kite?’ He grinned, his white teeth stark against the blood trickling down his forehead.