So Flows the Han

Life after death.

First published by Adelaide Literary Magazine in its 2020 Adelaide Literary Award Anthology: Short Stories, Vol. II. Print only—available through Amazon.

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So flows the Han about and past the fallen spans. I squat a few hundred meters north, backed into an alley on a small Yongsan-gu street, east of the road that comes up from the bridge. The time is early spring, the year following the signing of the truce at Panmunjom, one day after my discharge from military service. The hour is mid-afternoon.

A woman approaches from the river road wearing wrap-around skirt and over her blouse a quilted blue jacket. She deposits a bundle in the kitchen across from me, and steps from her rubber shoes onto the adjacent veranda. She’s the right age, mid-forties, and right face, oval tending towards full with sticking-out lips, an assertive face, same as Ji-tae’s. I’m not given to assertiveness myself and hesitate as she reaches for the sliding door, almost losing the moment. But I force a decision and spring from my squat into the narrow byway separating us.

“Hello, excuse me.” I’m still wearing military fatigues and boots, and a field jacket, not ready to squander my few won on civilian clothes. “I’m looking for Pak Ji-tae.”

Her reaction surprises me, a half step backwards, like maybe she knows Ji-tae or maybe she doesn’t, or doesn’t want to. Have I screwed up the directions? Is this a neighbor who’s on the outs with Ji-tae’s family? But then she says, “My son.”

I breathe easier despite the woman’s initial retrograde motion. At least I’m on course and don’t have to search door to door, which I dread, or give up the quest. I wish I knew her name but Ji-tae never told me, only gave me directions, which he’d made me repeat, though not to memorize but in consequence of our circumstances. Nevertheless, a few repetitions and I had absorbed them.

As for the circumstances, I was lying on my back in a trench following the detonation of an artillery shell nearby, a 152, a big one. Ji-tae ran over as soon as the downpour of rocks and debris had settled. I thought at first the effects on my body were only concussive: buzzing, dizziness, a bloody nose; but following Ji-tae’s eyes along my left side, I saw shredded pants and blood. I couldn’t feel nor move that leg.

Ji-tae lit two cigarettes and passed one to me, smokes being the army’s universal curative. “Well,” he said, “you’ll be out of this shithole as soon as the medics shag their asses up here.” He laughed. “Wish it was me.”

Ji-tae’s banter didn’t fool me. It told me I’d taken a bad hit.

“I won’t make it to the rear,” I said.

Ji-tae patted my shoulder and said, “You’ll make it to the rear.”

“They’ll cut off my leg.”

“They won’t cut off your leg.”

We smoked our smokes but my hand shook and now my leg throbbed. I extended my non-cigarette hand and Ji-tae took it.

Looking back, I wish I’d been more cavalier, like a hero in American movies, but I didn’t have a script and couldn’t foresee my future recovery. I was scared and thought death was nearby. This was when Ji-tae brought up Yongsan-gu, his neighborhood in Seoul. “Look,” he said, “when the war’s over, we’ll meet up and I’ll show you around, how about that?” I nodded and he went on, “Do you know Seoul?” I shook my head.

“No? My home is easy to find. You know the bridge they blew?”

Cigarette smoke drifted from my mouth as I stared up. Other guys from the squad had crawled over and one of them must have thought I was looking his way. He nodded at my leg and said, “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Indeed it did, it sucked, the wound, the war, everything. The one landmark in Seoul I did know was that bridge, the Han River Bridge, the bridge they blew, having a personal connection. If my face told Ji-tae anything, he didn’t react. Between puffs from his cigarette, he told me to walk north from the bridge, turn right onto a certain street, walk in so many alleys.

Ji-tae stretched his neck for a quick look over the rear parapet of our trench. “Where are those guys? What are they waiting for, an end to hostilities?” He laughed at his joke and turned his face back to mine. “Now repeat the directions.” I couldn’t and he said, “Okay, listen again and this time pay attention.”

I’m sure you realize Ji-tae didn’t intend for me to learn the way up the Han River Road onto his street, much less pay him a visit; he was just passing time and diverting my thoughts. So, what am I doing here? Well, I didn’t die, my wounds healed, and I got a berth behind the front lines east of Seoul for the remainder of my conscription. Yesterday, when I received my final pay and discharge papers, I caught a truck going where all the trucks went, to Seoul, with no further plan in mind. In Seoul, my euphoria at being free of the army faded into the actuality that I no longer had rations, quarters, nor companions. My first night of freedom, I shivered against the side of a gutted stone building in Seongdong-gu.

#

Ji-tae’s mom says, “I guess you don’t know.”

I stand rooted in the middle of the street like an ox in a yoke, blinking, oblivious. After going to the rear, I’d lost contact with my front-line comrades, eschewed contact you might say, content in my support role. But now I’m a fraudster, showing up like Ji-tae’s buddy not knowing what I should.

His mom gives me the date of his demise, over a year ago, a few months after the medics took me to the rear.

“He was my squad leader,” I say, thinking this information somehow ameliorates my not knowing. We stand in the brisk air, me in the street, hands at my side, a mendicant, Ji-tae’s mom on the veranda, her hand on the door. I add, “We were separated when I took a serious wound.” Doesn’t she see I need succor, a wounded veteran, former member of her son’s squad?

Her shoulders drop and she exhales a sigh. Her tone of voice reminds me of Ji-tae telling me no I wasn’t going to die or lose my leg. “Look,” she says, “why don’t you come in for a bit.” She slides the door a hand width then steps off the veranda into her rubber shoes. “I’ll be right back. Go ahead. Go in.”

I don’t need to be told thrice. I drop my rucksack on the veranda, sit, unlace my boots, and pull them off. Ji-tae’s mom has gone into the kitchen.

Inside I find a square room four meters by four with a small window set high on the back wall. Stacked blankets subsume the left rear corner and stacked clothes the right rear. I crab crawl to the left center of the room and sit with crossed legs. The floor gives off little heat and the air is cool. I wonder if this can be her only room, this and the kitchen. What about her husband, Ji-tai’s father? And Ji-tae had mentioned a sister.

The floor warms. Ji-tae’s mom must have put a briquette into the ondol system, or fired up the stove in the kitchen. The door opens and closes, and Ji-tae’s mom patters to my front on the balls of her feet, knees bent. She kneels and sits back on her calves and ankles.

“We’ll have tea in a moment,” she says.

It’s an awkward situation, the two of us alone, me sitting, her kneeling. I realize I should extend condolences, should have done so sooner in the street. “I wish now,” I say, “to tell you how sorry—”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she says, “we’ve adjusted.” She smiles and repeats, “We’ve adjusted.” I don’t know what else to say. Ji-tae’s mom picks up the conversation. “And you? You must have been surprised expecting a reunion only to find—” She lowers her face.

“I should have known,” I say. I fall back on my wound. “But after I was shipped to the rear with my damaged leg—”

“Yes, yes, I understand.”

Another moment of silence ensues.

Ji-tae’s mom says, “It’s unfortunate that Ji-tae’s father is not here, but he must find work. He went off to Jung-gu this morning.”

So there is work in Seoul. “What does he do?” I say.

“He looks first at construction sites. Not so easy now that he’s older.”

I’m young, I think, I can work on a construction site.

Ji-tae’s mom continues, “My husband says we’re rebuilding Seoul one brick at a time. I wish they’d pass more of those bricks his way. Then he looks around for people who need help, you know, in the better neighborhoods. Maybe they need someone to bring up water or run an errand.”

Not so good, I think.

“Be right back,” says Ji-tae’s mom.

Once again I contemplate the room. Four walls, one sliding door, one small square window high on the rear wall, a stack of blankets, a stack of clothes. A reddish linoleum finishes the floor; a yellowish wallpaper seals the walls and ceiling.

The door slides ajar and Ji-tae’s mom pushes in a tray with a kettle and cups. Also two bowls of rice, a side dish of winter kimchi, and what looks like fresh radishes.

Assuming her kneeling position across from me, Ji-tae’s mom points and says, “First radishes of the season.”

I take one with my chopsticks. “Very good,” I say. Ji-tae’s mom smiles. 

On lifting the bowl of rice, I see it’s mixed half with barley. That’s okay, I’m not going to complain about a free meal.

“You’re not from Seoul then?” says Ji-tae’s mom.

I point with my chopsticks toward the window, which faces north. “Paju,” I say.

“Oh.”

This is the usual reaction upon learning my home province lies between Seoul and North Korea.

“Are you on your way home?”

“I don’t know.” I pause, staring into my bowl, then look up and mention my second justification for sympathy. “You see, my immediate family is deceased.”

Perhaps I should play it more, the loss of family, but too many have died to make my case extraordinary. Plus, the facts around the disappearance of my father, my mother, and my two younger brothers remain ambiguous.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” says Ji-tae’s mom.

She shows no further interest, but since we’ve broached the topic, and since we’re in the vicinity of its alleged occurrence, I say, “They died right down here.” I nod toward the door, which faces south.

Ji-tae’s mom turns her head that way with widened eyes. “On the bridge that night?”

Yes, on the bridge that night, or rather that morning. On 28 June 1950 at 0230 hours, the South Korean army blew two spans out of the Han River Bridge to stop the invading North Korean army. A futile effort as the nearby railroad bridge remained intact. And a tragic effort as the army failed to clear the bridge of civilian traffic before detonating the charges.

“Were you here?” I say. “Did you see the bridge go up?”

Ji-tae’s mom shakes her head. “We had already fled. We crossed the bridge the day before. It was a horrible thing what happened.”

In a step toward fuller disclosure, I say, “Their bodies were never found.”

Ji-tae’s mom raises four fingers to the front of her mouth. It’s strange how not being interred is worse than dying, but then, living is temporary while interment is forever.

I say, “Someday I hope to construct empty graves for my parents and brothers.”

“You can speak to the authorities.” She raises a finger like Ji-tae when he expounded on some matter. “They can search the river for the bodies. Even bones—”

“I’ve thought of that,” I say, “but right now I have more urgent issues.” A not-so-subtle allusion to my current, reduced circumstances.

“Yes, of course,” she says, but I don’t hear action in her voice. I hear sympathy, but as for a beggar on the side of the road, to toss him a coin then pass by.

I’d like a smoke. I have cigarettes in my possession because soldiers, even if they lack food and shelter, never lack smokes. I have an American Zippo lighter. But I don’t dare ask and I don’t want to step outside, not to smoke, not to piss. Her husband must smoke, but I throttle my urge.

Here’s the ambiguity I alluded to before. When the bridge went up, a lot of people from Paju were in the vicinity including people from my village. But nobody remembers seeing my family that night, not on the bridge nor along the way. Understandable with everyone running for their lives surrounded by mobs of strangers. Then, the North Korean army took control of Seoul with South Korean bodies claimed by the Han or thrown in common graves. So no proof positive exists as to their fate that night.

To add to the drama, last fall, about the time the first serious cold was settling in, the lieutenant in charge of my section directed me to a staff tent in our battalion area. Inside sat two men in police uniforms rubbing their hands; not ordinary law enforcement but Korean National Police. The blood left my face and my legs wobbled; I couldn’t think of anything I’d done or said of a political nature. One of the KNP stood and told me to take his chair.

In a matter-of-fact voice, the sitting KNP said, “When was the last you heard from your father?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Sometime before he died.”

The standing KNP slapped the side of my head and said, “Don’t get smart with us.” The blow hurt, as did his voice, loud and shrill, and I wasn’t trying to be smart, it just came out that way.

The sitting KNP said, “We know your father isn’t dead.”

“It’s so,” I said, “my whole family, they died on the Han—”

The standing KNP delivered another blow to the side of my head.

“They didn’t die on the Han River Bridge,” said the sitting KNP. “They defected to the north.”

To say this possibility hadn’t occurred to me would be dishonest. You can see from the aforementioned ambiguity it’s possible my family didn’t die on the bridge. But neither did anyone see them fall in with the invading army. Only that when the dust settled, my parents and two siblings were gone.

The standing KNP smacked my head a third time. “Let’s shoot him and get it over with.”

The sitting KNP leaned forward. In a low voice, he said, “Look, all we want is to know what you know. Names, places. If you’re not directly involved, no harm will come to you.”

Afterwards my lieutenant said, “They were just trying to scare you.”

“They did a good job,” I said.

It wasn’t a joke but the lieutenant laughed.

“My father and mother, my two brothers,” I said. “They died on the Han River Bridge. They weren’t collaborators.”

“We don’t know,” said the lieutenant. “They could have been forced north or gone on their own, or been killed in Paju. There are mass graves all over the place.”

I was still shaking from the interrogation.

“Anyhow,” said the lieutenant, “you weren’t with them. The KNP, they’re just trying to scare you into some rash statement.”

“Why?”

The lieutenant shrugged. “That’s what they do.”

So now you understand another reason for my reluctance to return home. I don’t want to hear insinuations, don’t want to be accused, don’t want another run-in with the KNP.

#

I see myself living in Seoul, this very set of rooms in fact. Here’s my reasoning: Ji-tae’s parents lack a son while I need a mother and father, at least for a while, until I get settled and find employment. Until I can afford a room of my own. Now it’s true I don’t look like Ji-tae or his mother. I’m thin in the cheeks and lips, and my ribs jut out, but would Ji-tae’s mom hold that against me? Would she say, sorry, you don’t measure up to our birth son? Because I could measure up, I could put on weight with proper nourishment. With a room and proper nourishment, I’d fit right in. I can see Ji-tae’s father taking me around the city, showing me the ropes. I’d get jobs at construction sites rebuilding Seoul a brick at a time. I’d contribute to the family finances.

But in the next instant my mood swings low, like I’m looking at my injured leg or taking a slap to the side of the head. What a foolish daydream to think I could walk into a household and claim the rights of an only son because he was my squad leader before I was carried away. And never saw him again or even exchanged a letter. And never knew his fate nor shed a tear for him. I should join my parents and siblings at the bottom of the Han if that’s where they are.

My mood stays low another minute then swings up again for I remember the sister that Ji-tae had spoken of. Where is she? She must have a room of her own. I imagine she’s younger than Ji-tae, making her, what, eighteen or nineteen. I think, it’s not a replacement son that Ji-tae’s parents need—out of the question—but a son-in-law. I see myself engaged to Ji-tae’s sister. It’s true I don’t have a residence to take her to or a mother-in-law for her to look after, but neither do her parents have much of a dowry. So it’s a good trade-off, no dowry but I get a place to stay and a livelihood, not to mention certain sensual pleasures. I feel a stirring in my nether region and wonder about her appearance; but given Ji-tae’s good looks and his mother’s, I release that worry.

I hear a scraping and turn my head to where the door has opened and closed. As before, Ji-tae’s mom pads to my front on the balls of her feet, knees bent. As before, she kneels and sits back on her calves and ankles. I notice that the dishes are gone, the floor bare.

Embarrassment creeps over me. “Was I asleep?” I say.

Ji-tae’s mom lowers her face. “You had a very sound sleep sitting up. I hope you don’t mind that I removed the chopsticks from your fingers.”

I try for a joke. “In the army, we learned to sleep in any position, sitting, standing, squatting.”

“Yes, Ji-tae told me the same thing. He said he could sleep while marching.”

I laugh, relieved at a chance for chitchat. “That’s true,” I say. “And if someone walked out of ranks, we would guide him back in, still asleep.” Ji-tae’s mom joins me for another chuckle.

The laughter trails off and we sit in silence.

“Forgive me,” says Ji-tae’s mom, “but it’s late afternoon.”

“Of course,” I say, not catching the hint.

Ji-tae’s mom shifts her black pupils toward the door. “I must get on with the day.”

Now I catch the hint and can’t believe it, she’s throwing me out. Not to be outdone, I say, “Yes, me too, I must get on with my day.” Just like that, I’m ejected from the premises.

Outside, my boots laced, I stand and return her bow, she on the veranda, me in the narrow street. “I will tell Ji-tae’s father of your visit,” she says. “He’ll be very pleased.”

Very pleased, I think, but not to bother them again.

At the end of the street, I turn left toward the Han and catch a whiff of sweet rice, an old woman selling cakes from a cart on the side of the road. “What do you have for a wounded veteran?” I say.

“Whatever you want to spend.”

I look at her with what I hope she discerns as disgust. She says, “If I gave every wounded veteran a cake, I’d have no business. Besides, where’s your wound?”

A rage builds in me; I’d like to punch her. But as I’ve mentioned, action is not my forte, plus there would be retribution from the other vendors and the local police. As these thoughts conclude, I see she is holding out one of her cakes. “Take it,” she says.

The cake passes from her fingers to mine and I render a slight bow hoping the people around us catch its irony. I refrain from gobbling my acquisition in front of her and continue my amble toward the Han. I remember I’m dying for a smoke and locate a half-used cigarette in my jacket pocket. It absorbs the flame of my Zippo and gives me two long drags before I squeeze away its life with thumb and forefinger, and return the remnant to my pocket.

A barrier blocks the entrance to the Han River Bridge. On the other side of the barrier, workers scramble over replacement spans. I’ve heard that the bridge will reopen later this year.

Downstream a hundred meters, past the railroad bridge, I squat on the northern shore of the Han. Further west—a few kilometers—the river turns north. In Paju, the Han joins the Imjin and again flows west emptying into the Yellow Sea. I bite off a corner of the sweet rice cake.

Now I know why I didn’t see the daughter, Ji-tae’s sister. With Americans all over Seoul, with their central compound right here in Yongsan-gu, she’s working as a Yankee whore. That’s how they make ends meet and that’s why they don’t want any visitors. That’s their dirty secret. I’d rather starve than live off the proceeds of a Yankee whore.

I bite another corner off the rice cake and retract my unfounded thoughts. Sorry, Ji-tae’s sister, I have no right to impose my bitterness on you.

So where are you, dear parents? I hope you haven’t deserted me for the north; I refuse to believe that. Are you here at my feet in these nearby waters? Have men dragged you out and tossed you in a mass grave? Have currents swept you further downstream even unto the sea?

So flows the Han.