“Their food ran out and still it snowed. Americans and villagers both grew sick and died. They were buried in snowdrifts, preserved for later burial. The ground was frozen too hard to dig into. And then the commander died. We’re not sure how. Some say he was murdered by his own men. While the GIs weren’t watching, our people began to leave-those who were strong enough to walk through the twelve-foot-high snow drifts. The weak ones stayed behind and grew weaker. All the food was gone, including the grain and the canned goods the Americans had brought. Then one of the GIs pulled a body out of the snowdrift. He chopped it with an axe and charred its flesh over an open fire. Some told him to stop, some threatened to kill him, but in the end they all ate. And still the snows fell. There was no more power now, the last of the diesel had been used, and all communication with other military units had been lost. One by one we all escaped except for two old people who would bring the GIs victims. They would tell their fellow Koreans in distant villages about how rich the Americans were and about how they had medicine and food and heating oil, and then those people would follow them to the American encampment. But instead of being allowed to beg for penicillin to save the life of a loved one or to plead for a can of beans to stave off starvation, they were turned over to the GIs and slaughtered like swine and devoured.”
Madama Hoh paused.
“And those two,” I said, coughing as my ravaged throat became accustomed, once again, to speaking, “they were the couple hacked to death by Miss Sim.” My voice was a croak.
“Her name is Ahn,” she said. “And yes, she was a good girl. She stayed with her parents until the end and even accompanied them to the American encampment. When her mother realized they had been betrayed, she fought while her daughter escaped.”
“So she hid in the woods,” I said, “and heard her parents plead for their lives.”
“And heard their final screams before their throats were cut and smelled the smoke from the sizzling of their flesh.”
No wonder she’d gone mad. “What about this?” I said, nodding toward my bound feet and arms. “Why this? Why are you treating me like this?”
“We are treating you the same way my older brother was treated when he was caught stealing a can of beans by the GIs. Back when there was still food. They stripped him naked, strung him up by his feet, and poured hot sauce down his nose. You, we cut down after less than an hour. Him, they kept hanging all night.”
I’d heard of similar punishments in wartime. Veterans sometimes bragged about it.
“But why do it to me?”
“To show you.”
“Show me what?”
“What you need to know.”
“For your claim?”
Madame Hoh puffed on her cigarette. “We’re beyond that now.”
“But you did put in a claim, for yourselves and for the other victims of this atrocity.”
“Yes. One of the young men who carried the A-frame, who was older than us, found a lawyer after the war and filed the claim. But what good did it do us? Miss Sim, as you call her, had already been locked away in the mental hospital. The lawyer who filed the claim was threatened, a pistol put to his head. The A-frame man ran away and was never seen again. My friend here, my older brother who cared for me and tried to protect us all, was convicted of treason against the state.”
I didn’t believe he was her literal brother. Koreans often refer to someone as their “brother” or their “sister” if they’re close friends or have been through a tribulation together.
“They put your ‘brother’ in jail?” I coughed, spitting up dried remnants of the hot sauce.
“For twenty years. They said he was a Communist.”
“Why?”
“Because he was party to the claim.”
“And you?”
“The KNP officer in charge of our case sold me to a brothel.”
“How old were you?”
“At that time, fourteen.”
“And your brother?”
“Sixteen.”
“They gave him twenty years when he was sixteen years old?”
“They claimed he was the one who led that North Korean commando to the American encampment.”
“Was he?”
“No way. He was just trying to survive, like the rest of us.”
“What happened to his family?”
“Both his mother and his father were suffering from starvation and too weak to move. That’s why he tried to steal the beans. When he failed, they died.”
“And your family?”
She looked away. Finally, tears streaming from her eyes, her pudgy face contorted in rage, she said, “What do you think happened?” Angrily, she threw her cigarette to the ground, stomped on it, and walked away. The man with the iron sickle walked forward and stared down at me.
And then I heard his voice for the first time. It was rough and gravelly and devoid of emotion-no fear, no hatred, no resentment-except for an overwhelming plaintive quality. In a matter of fact way, as if to clarify the record, he wanted to justify himself. In my experience in law enforcement, that desire to confess and explain it all to someone is a strong one. With this man, the words came out in an overpowering rush. Maybe it was because he’d never before encountered an American who could understand him, who could speak Korean. I nodded and listened, saying a brief word occasionally, in order to encourage him to continue.
He told me that the man in the claims office had been killed to show how wronged Korea had been by Eighth Army. He hadn’t enjoyed it but it had to be done. The MP was murdered simply to show people that American law enforcement was not invincible. Despite being part of the greatest military power in the world, they were just men. The GIs in the signal truck were similarly slaughtered as stand-ins for the Lost Echo who had engendered all this misery. And then he told me what he planned to do next. He didn’t name a specific target, but he said everyone would be shown soon. What he meant by that I wasn’t sure, but I knew better than to ask questions. Then he walked away, leaving me alive. I studied the dark corners of the cavern, my ankles aching. As far as I could tell, there were no more bottles of Little Demon hot sauce.
— 15-
The flames in the fire pit had subsided, and the cave was even colder than before. Everything was perfectly quiet, not even a mouse scurried through the dust. The only light was a dim glow off in the distance. Somewhere out there it was daylight.
My hands were still tied behind my back, but at least I was no longer dangling by my ankles. There was no pain in my legs, and I knew that was a bad sign. All feeling was gone-maybe all life. The thought of losing my legs and living the rest of my life in a wheelchair was more than I could bear.
I listened again, hearing nothing, convinced now that Madame Hoh and the man with the iron sickle were gone. Why hadn’t they killed me? Maybe it was because death would be slower and more painful this way. And maybe they wanted to leave a message to whoever might happen upon my body in future years. What exactly the message would be, I was too hysterical right now to understand.
Or maybe the reason they left me alive had to do with the continuing drama that Madame Hoh and the man with the iron sickle were constructing. In recent years the ROK government had started inviting Korean War vets back to the country, both to thank them for protecting their nation from the northern Communists and to show off the economic progress the Republic of Korea had made. Additionally, it was a smart public relations move designed to continue the flow of US military and economic aid. The government picked up the airfare, hotel bills, and other expenses of the foreign veterans who were thus honored. They were greeted by high-ranking ROK government officials and feted with tours of industrial parks and museums and the peace village at Panmunjom and even an evening of entertainment at the big nightclub at Walker Hill. In other words, the veterans and their wives were treated like royalty. Before each of these confabs the ROK government published a list of the names of the vets and which country they were from and which unit they had been assigned to during the war.