The endlessness of time until they met again! For the first time in his life he, the light of heart, felt his heart heavy in his breast. “Attachment,” Buddha had said, “is the cause of grief.” He pondered the saying, and that night in his room, he wrote it down. After a time he made a poem.
Buddha was both right and wrong.
Attachment with all its pain,
Is now my deepest gain,
My inward Song—
Life long!
He copied it carefully and without writing his name beneath it he put it in an envelope and addressed it to Mariko in New York. They had agreed it would be too dangerous for them to write. But what could a Japanese censor make of a poem?
The American President died suddenly one spring day. The news echoed around the world and into every city and village in Korea. Liang heard it in the hospital and hastened home to announce it to his grandfather and uncle.
Yul-chun drew him aside. “Do you know whether the letter was delivered?”
“I have heard nothing,” Liang replied.
“We cannot know in any case whether the one who takes his place will see the letter,” Yul-chun said, downcast.
“We cannot know anything,” Liang agreed. “We can only wait.”
… Spring passed and summer entered. Liang worked day and night at the hospital and saw little of Sasha until the school year ended. Silence filled the land, a tension of waiting. The end of the war was inevitably near, the world knew it, and yet the mechanism to force that end could not be found. In Seoul the police grew every day more oppressive and all controls were tightened throughout the country. Jails were filled and schools put under surveillance. Germany surrendered and the tension increased. Every Korean now knew that Japan must surrender and every heart was impatient because there was no surrender.
“A blind and stubborn people, the Japanese,” Yul-chun declared.
“The people know nothing of what goes on behind the military screen,” Liang replied.
It was midsummer and they were in the garden for respite from the heat. Sasha was teasing a puppy by dipping it into the goldfish pond, and Liang could not bear to see the small creature’s fright. He walked abruptly to the pool and took the shivering dog into his arms and Sasha threw pebbles into the water to scare the fish.
“I am going to Paris,” he announced.
They heard this in silence. Then Il-han spoke. “I was in Paris once, to see Woodrow Wilson. Many people were there from many countries. He was surprised to see us pressing around him, each begging for his help. I know now he was frightened.”
“Of you?” Sasha asked idly.
“Of himself,” Il-han said.
A roar of thunder rumbled from the mountains to the north, and a naked flash of lightning forked across the twilight sky.
“Come into the house!” Sunia cried at them from the door.
They went in slowly, reluctant to leave the coolness. Sasha lingered alone in the doorway. Suddenly he saw the puppy under a bush and dragging it forth he dropped it into the pool.
… The summer days wore on, hot and long. Liang still heard nothing from Mariko and there was no announced surrender, although the Japanese were losing on every front. People were weary with waiting. Yet they could only wait. One night a man with a gunshot through his leg was brought into the emergency ward and Liang’s duty was to tend the wound. When it was cleaned and bandaged, the man pressed a small square of folded paper into his hand. Accustomed to such messages, Liang said nothing. He turned his back and unfolded the paper. It was addressed to the Japanese people but signed by Americans and it gave the conditions of surrender, warning them also that if Japan did not surrender, eleven cities would be bombed.
He returned to the wounded man now lying on the bed and leaned over him, pretending to adjust his pillow.
“Were they bombed?”
“Six cities.”
“We have not heard of it here.”
“I am just back from Japan.”
“No surrender?”
“None. The Japanese government is split. The peace party has asked Russia to mediate. They ignore the American warning — with scorn.”
“The other cities?”
“They will be destroyed. Millions of leaflets have warned a second time.”
“The people?”
“Dazed, immobile, waiting.”
“What next?”
“The Americans have a new and terrible weapon. It is next — unless Russia acts.”
“Will Russia—”
“No.”
A nurse came near and Liang went away. He hastened to his room, took off his western garments and put on Korean robes. Thus disguised, he left the hospital and the city and returned to his grandfather’s house.
… In the house, meanwhile, there was already confusion. Yul-chun had received a secret message, carried by a fruit vendor from the north. Among his apples and peaches the man had hidden certain objects which could only be Russian, and Yul-chun in the garden recognized them as the man bargained. The man nodded mysteriously when Yul-chun inquired, then drew near to whisper.
“The Russians are pouring into the north!”
These fearful words fell upon Yul-chun’s ears and he hastened to tell them to his father. Il-han was lying in a long chair of woven rattan, smoking his long bamboo pipe as he listened. He knocked the ash from the small brass bowl at one end and filled it with the strong sweet tobacco he enjoyed in his old age.
“Father!” Yul-chun exclaimed. “Do you say nothing?”
“What is there to say?” Il-han replied. He lay back and drew hard on the pipe and two streams of smoke came from his nostrils.
“Then I must go into the city,” Yul-chun exclaimed, more than a little angry with his old father. “I must get in touch again with the underground—”
“Calm yourself,” Il-han told him. “You will only get yourself killed. Do you think the Japanese are not watching for you? They are waiting to see what you will do.”
“Why do you say this?”
“Because they know everything, and nothing you can do now will save us. Pretend you are ill. Go to bed. Declare that you have a fever. I will tell everyone you are not expected to live. We must wait. Then when the Japanese surrender we must all be ready to seize the power.”
“But if the Russian troops—”
“There will be a brief moment, a few hours between the surrender and the arrival. Let us hope there will be the brief moment — the few hours—”
They were interrupted by Sasha bursting through the gate. His eyes were wide, his whole face exploding with what he had to tell, too impetuous for greeting his elders.
“A new bomb, a new bomb has fallen! The whole sky lit in Japan — a city burst into flames. This morning — it was early morning, just as schools were opening and men going to business—”
It was at this moment that Liang reached home and, following upon Sasha, heard what was said. “The military will not surrender, even though the Emperor wishes it,” he exclaimed.
Sasha gave a loud laugh. “They will see another bomb! Another bomb will fall!”
They were startled by his laughter, they looked at him and at one another, and none spoke. No one, not even his father, knew Sasha well enough to reprove him for such laughter, yet all were frightened by it.