From the Fatherland, with Love, page 34
The campground was filled with the smell of kimchi, red peppers, and dried fish, as numerous columns of smoke rose into the air. The KEF troops had apparently just finished lunch. Scattered here and there, half buried in stone-lined holes, were stoves made from lidless oilcans, punctured for ventilation, on which perched canteens, cooking pots, or wire mesh for roasting meat and fish. Now, on the third day since the camp was established, the puffs of smoke and steam attested to the growing stability of life here. The young soldiers were in a jaunty mood. “Hey,” someone called out to Choi, a broad smile on his face, “how about letting me help you nab those criminals?” This was Captain Heo Jip, commander of Squadron 4 of the 907th Battalion, an army doctor and chemical-warfare expert. It wasn’t known whether Heo’s special squadron was equipped with chemical weapons brought from the Peninsula. “You want to put me out of a job?” Choi called back, and the men around him laughed.
He crossed the campground, heading toward the Special Police tent halfway between Checkpoints A and B. The tents were flapping loudly in the sea wind gusting through the open space between the hotel and the Dome. Behind the tents was the hospital, a huge building that resembled the Pyongyang Children’s Palace. In both scale and equipment, it laid claim to being the best appointed in Kyushu. Blank-faced patients were staring out of the windows, leaning on crutches, sitting in wheelchairs, or clinging to mobile IV stands. They seemed to be dressed in thick, padded robes that resembled the Russian telogreika jackets in the Republic. By contrast, the soldiers in the field down below were in T-shirts, and those washing their uniforms at the laundry site were bare to the waist. To these men, who back in their homeland had broken ice on wintry streams and lakes to wash their clothes, Fukuoka in April was like a southern health resort. The soldiers had all received new T-shirts this morning, along with two pairs of underwear and socks, from Kim Hyang Mok, the female lieutenant assigned to the logistics and supplies section. It had apparently been no easy task to acquire one thousand plain white cotton T-shirts, but with the assistance of City Hall, she had placed an order with a proprietor in the shopping area adjacent to the Dome. Each of the American-made Gap products was wrapped in plastic, the shape of the T-shirt and pants indicated by means of a simple picture. In the Republic, only Olympic athletes wore such things, as the men must surely have known.
And yet they made no move to break open the wrapping to extract the contents. They merely stared at the pictures and letters, their expressions suggesting they had no idea what to do with it all. It took some time for them to grasp that this was now their own personal property. When Kim Hyang Mok had repeatedly informed them that they were to keep what she had distributed, one soldier at last poked open the plastic, took out his T-shirt, stripped to the waist, and gingerly pulled the garment over his head. Surprised at how comfortable it felt, he kept fingering the texture with both hands, a childlike grin spreading on his face. The man next to him did the same, and gradually the circle grew, like milk spreading through tea. From out of this T-shirted ring came the voice of someone saying that the soft, snug fit was like a mother’s embrace.
At the regularly scheduled meeting, the question was raised whether, after the surprisingly inexpensive T-shirts, underpants, and socks had been acquired, there were any other clothing items that could be made available, such as “American trousers,” long-and short-sleeved shirts, training wear, jackets, and sneakers. Kim Hak Su, however, was strongly opposed. Yes, the KEF uniforms were crude in both feel and design, and they neither absorbed sweat well nor provided adequate protection against the cold. Yes, there were uniforms that were more than twenty years old, constantly resewn and patched on the outside, while falling apart on the inside. And though the lace-up boots were solidly put together, their hard and heavy leather made them unsuitable for everyday use. But he insisted that more than a matter of comfort was involved; uniforms embodied the discipline those wearing them were subject to.
Kim went on to describe the unprecedented situation in which the People’s Army had found itself over the past decade. Perhaps some of those present, he said, as privileged members of the Special Forces, were unaware that discipline throughout the 1990s had fallen remarkably. The cause was the extreme shortage of food, the changes in the rank and promotion system, and the substantial increase in the time soldiers were expected to spend in agricultural tasks. The Comrade General had decreed that the armed forces should be self-sufficient in non-staple food, and so every infantry company had its own farm and was raising livestock. From generals to NCOs, all were obliged to spend most of their off-duty hours tending to fields and fodder. And as they carried out this work, they dispensed with their uniforms, thereby blurring rank distinctions. When the corporals passed by generals, they failed to salute, and this became habitual. Uniforms were essential to discipline; the wearing of jeans and jackets by KEF troops would undermine and destroy order. Colonel Han Seung Jin had no alternative but to concede this point. It was decided that for the time being only T-shirts, socks, and underpants would be acquired, but it was also agreed that with the arrival of the Eighth Corps troops a local company would be asked to produce new uniforms and boots.
An incoming garbage truck was at Checkpoint A. In the morning there had been another round of negotiations between the City Hall representatives and the disposal company, and perhaps they had come to an agreement on the collection fee. The five hundred troops were producing a huge amount of waste, which was being buried in unused land between the hotel and the Hii River. Already the smell of rotting vegetables and fish had been leaking out, and if nothing was done, a breeding ground for contagious disease would result. The guard demanded identification and looked over the body of the vehicle, but none too closely: what potential attackers would risk coming disguised as sanitation workers to take on the entire camp? The men slept in four six-hour shifts, so that at any time of the day there were more than three hundred and fifty of them ready to repel a surprise attack. Nearby was the hospital, and to the south was a residential area, making the use of missiles, trench mortars, or aerial bombardment impossible. Assault helicopters were also out of the question, as the KEF had a dozen shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles.
No matter what sort of attack it might be, rooftop spotters would detect it, instantly warning the troops to prepare to respond, with some then moving to the hospital grounds and others farther south. The content of official talks between the US Armed Forces Command Headquarters in Japan and the US Secretary of Defense had been released the previous night, noting that there had been no hostile action in Fukuoka, no civilian casualties, no looting or rape, and no reports of a breakdown of order. The Japanese government had expressed displeasure at the assessment that conditions were not such as to require or justify American military intervention, but no one there was advocating that the Japanese Self-Defense Force engage with the KEF; nor was that at the present time the opinion even of right-wing pundits in the media.
Choi was now next to the camp’s command station, approaching a group of seven engineers who sat in a circle on the ground. When they noticed him, they all leapt to their feet and stood stiffly at attention, the blood draining from their faces. On the ground three magazines lay fluttering in the breeze. They were Japanese magazines with photographs of girls, some in swimsuits, some naked. Choi picked up the magazines and asked the men where they had obtained them. It seemed they’d come from the drivers of the buses and taxis that had been commandeered to transport the troops after their arrival at Gannosu. Knowing Choi’s reputation in the battalion, the men stood there cringing, biting their lips.
Soldiers from other sections gathered around. Choi leafed through the magazines. All three had photographs, articles, and cartoon drawings, and two featured nudity. On a page entitled “Big-Boobed College Girls Series 5,” a smiling young woman was shown standing on the street with her sweater pulled up and her breasts exposed. The caption read: “Ms. W.T., a second-year student at the same university that produced Prof. S., last year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, has bravely bared herself for us… Sorry about that, Professor S.!” In the Republic, not even a prostitute would expose herself like this. One of the other magazines showed a girl with a caption reading: “Bomb-Boob Idol.” She was on the sandy beach of what appeared to be a South Sea island, splashing about in the waves as naked as the day she was born. What could the caption mean? The combination of the two Chinese characters made no sense to him: how could “bomb” and “breast” go together? Choi pondered the question but found no answer, though he supposed that the implied comparison was to hand grenades. He looked up and saw dozens of soldiers standing around him.
What punishment should be meted out? Choi was at a loss. Back at home, the men would be sent to a kwanliso simply for being in possession of such things. He wanted to ask Jo Su Ryeon for advice, but it wouldn’t look right. If he just laid into the men, he’d put them out of action for at least a week, and every able-bodied soldier was needed at a time like this. On the other hand, if he overlooked the offense, it would weaken discipline and might have political consequences. He spotted Choi Rak Gi of the logistics and supplies section in the crowd, and called out to him. The warrant officer approached, came to rigid attention, and saluted.
“Tear out seven of these obscene photographs and have these idiots hold them up in front of their eyes!” The NCO did as he was told, with a look of incomprehension on his face. The culprits, who had quickly formed a line in front of him, took the torn photos and, in obedience to a bellowed command, held them up with outstretched hands, as though in an ideological session. Curious to know what was happening, more soldiers came to watch. The seven engineers looked as if they might be reading poetry extolling the Comrade General. “For the next two hours,” Choi ordered, “they are to stand there without budging, eyes glued to those photographs.”
He then turned to the troops that had gathered and threw what was left of the magazines at them, one at a time, shouting: “Look!” The men recoiled and turned away. “Pick them up and look!” Choi shouted again in a voice that seemed to shake every tent in the camp. He seized one of men by the neck and pulled him to the ground. “Pick it up!” The terrified soldier obeyed. Two of his companions scooped up the other pair of magazines and gazed at the pictures.
“This is a cesspool you’ve stepped into,” Choi said softly, looking at the men with their eyes on the magazines. “Filth like this will always be lying in wait for you, ready to trap and corrupt you. You’ve had a glance. If you want more, you can do as these fools are doing. You understand? Don’t forget! It’s as addictive as any drug. Lots of you were given truth drugs as part of your training in ways to endure interrogation. Well, what you see here is just like scopolamine! If you’re weak, it’ll seep into the cracks in your brain no matter how hard you resist. Take one step outside the campground and you’ll find yourselves up to your necks in smut. You can’t escape it. It’s there to test your strength. But we are here as part of a grand endeavor to create a new country, and there is no room for weakness! When you find photographs like these, or other such examples of soul-corrupting sludge, don’t keep them hidden, and don’t turn away. I want you to fix your eyes on them and know: this is Japan. It’s the evil that runs in this nation’s veins. We are soldiers of the proud 907th. We don’t run from evil. We stand up to it.” So saying, Choi glared at the engineers once again, then left them to the warrant officer.
Between Checkpoints A and B was a narrow pedestrian bridge, at the foot of which was a guard post—a one-man, sandbagged bunker covered with camouflage. Ten meters beyond was the Special Police tent. Choi paused here for a moment and looked back at the scene he’d left. The crowd of onlookers had shrunk, and no one was jeering or laughing. The engineers still stood in a row, with the warrant officer, staff in hand, slowly circling them. Choi couldn’t shake off a sense of gloom. Incidents like this were bound to reoccur, and it wasn’t just a question of dirty pictures. The T-shirts under the men’s uniforms had a different feel from anything they’d worn in the Republic. The water didn’t taste the same; neither did the rice. The world beyond the control zone was awash in everything the photographs symbolized, a world that the men of the KEF, including himself, had never encountered. What effect it would have on them was something he couldn’t predict.
In front of the tent, Choi’s aide for the day, Warrant Officer Tak Cheol Hwan, had already lined up his men prior to setting out on their round of arrests. Tak was from Kapsan, Ryanggang Province, and had just turned twenty-four. He and four others would be accompanying Choi. Twenty-two-year-old Warrant Officer Ra Yong Hak, a crack shot, was from Kanggye, Jagang Province. The other three were first sergeants. Song Pa Ui, reared in a village at the foot of Mount Myohyang and trained in the chemical-warfare corps, and Kim Kyeong Gu, a Pyongyang native who had been slated to compete as a boxer in the Olympics, were both twenty-one; while Kim Han Yeol from Kaesong, North Hwanghae Province, who’d been transferred to the 907th Battalion from the Air Force, was twenty-two. These men were embarking on their eighth raid, but Choi never allowed his people to let down their guard. Whatever their previous experience, the operation involved serious risks.
Two MAVs next to Checkpoint A had already started their engines and were waiting to move. On first seeing one of these, Choi had been struck by the tires, with their rows of little rubber spikes and deep grooves. The People’s Army too had armored personnel carriers, but all their treads were well worn. Of the eight MAVs that the prefectural police had provided, four were being used by the Special Police; the rest had been redesigned by the KEF to replace loudspeakers and searchlights with double-barreled 14.5-mm machine guns, 30-mm autocannon, AGS-17 infantry-support automatic grenade launchers, and AT-4 anti-tank launchers. Diesel fuel for the MAVs was secured at a gasoline station to the south of Checkpoint C. The station, with its seashell logo, was located near the puppet regime’s consulate. Its proximity to the control zone having effectively cut off sales, the managers had been on the verge of abandoning the area when City Hall workers prevailed on them to provide fuel for the KEF.
Tak Cheol Hwan was informing his people and the prefectural police officers that there had been a change in the arrest site. The Japanese cops reacted to the announcement with little more than puzzled looks. With each sortie there were new faces among them, and on their first encounter with the KEF they were invariably on edge. Tak added that the procedures and points to note remained the same, then confirmed who the MAV drivers were and checked the map of the Ohori Park area. In his off-duty time he’d been boning up on his Japanese, mostly in the dim lamplight at the camp command station, and he hadn’t slept more than three hours during the last three days. The prefectural police boarded the vehicles. Their faces all looked the same. None of them had any distinguishing features or facial expressions, and they didn’t talk or do anything. An accompanying Asahi Shinbun reporter stood next to one of the MAVs, bowing in greeting to Choi Hyo Il. This reporter had arrived late for yesterday morning’s mission and as a result had been denied permission to cover the story. Acknowledging a request filed the evening before, however, the propaganda and guidance section had reinstated him, taking into consideration the fact that he represented one of Japan’s biggest newspapers.
The MAVs left Checkpoint A and slowly rolled through the control zone, with Fukuoka Dome to their left. Guards stationed on the campground’s perimeter waved as they passed. Seeing the Special Police springing into action lifted the morale of their fellow soldiers. To the right of the MAVs lay the already full outpatient parking lot for the five-story, steel-frame hospital. Jo Su Ryeon had twice visited the hospital, with a municipal worker as his go-between, and met with its representatives to offer assurances: the KEF would not be a hindrance to their usual routine and would provide all possible cooperation and assistance. The issue of ID checks on ambulances was resolved when the hospital spokesmen declared convincingly that they would never condone any undercover plot involving emergency vehicles. “Our duty,” he explained, “is to cure illness and save lives, not to carry out acts of aggression against you.”
Across from the hospital was a major shopping center. Choi had never been there, but he’d been told by the logistics and supply section that it consisted of endless rows of shops in multiple, interconnected halls. In the middle, there was supposedly a toy store as spacious as a gymnasium. Kim Hyang Mok of the logistics and supplies section had said that the sheer number of items in it made her head spin. “You could gather all the toys in the Republic and still not match it,” she’d added with a wry smile. Until the day before yesterday the shutters had been down, but now, except for restaurants and pubs, all the shops had been open since noon. Since hearing of the big purchase of T-shirts, other traders and shopkeepers were eager to establish contact with the KEF. On the right, beyond the shopping complex, was Checkpoint C. There the MAVs made a brief stop for verification of their orders. Around the checkpoint were piles of sandbags with machine guns poking through. The guardhouse of the southern puppet regime’s consulate had simply been commandeered, as had that of China’s consulate at Checkpoint B.
