From the Fatherland, with Love, page 47
“Let’s take a five-minute break,” said Ogawa. Asked whether he would like to go back to the performers’ lounge, Jo replied that he was fine where he was. The make-up people came in and with soft tissues lightly dabbed away the sweat on the face first of Jo, then of Hosoda. As they sat drinking some cold water that a staff member had brought them, Jo said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t do that very well.” She reached over to tap him lightly on the thigh and said, “Don’t be silly. It was fine.” Her nails were short and unpainted, and she had lovely fingers, long and thin. Someone adjusted the microphone attached to her collar.
“No,” Jo continued. “I know that speaking isn’t my forte. When I remind myself of how many people are listening to what I’m saying, I begin to feel I’m not speaking completely from the heart.” Hosoda was about to make a further comment but held back. When her microphone had been adjusted, it was Jo’s turn, while she was given another touch of lipstick. The microphone was clipped to his jacket collar, and when the crew member—a thin young man with long hair—moved it, he must have realized that the bulge he felt was a pistol. He apologized sheepishly, and when he’d finished he said, “If you don’t mind my saying so, you have a wonderful voice.” Jo thanked him.
As the taping recommenced, he began responding to questions posed by viewers. Hosoda would first read out each of them. What kind of music do you like? “I listen mostly to classical music, but I also enjoy traditional Korean folk songs.” When will the latest comics be available? “That’s something for the Japanese government, not the KEF, to decide.” How come you speak Japanese so well? “When I was a university student, I got by on four hours of sleep a night. I studied a lot.” Aren’t you worried that Fukuoka will become a battleground? “I understand that you may be thinking of the sad incident in Ohori Park, but I can promise you that the KEF will never instigate an attack.” Is the KEF really a rebel army? “We, the Koryo Expeditionary Force, have never called ourselves such, but it is true that we have risen up against corrupt elements within our Republic’s bureaucracy that are the cause of many problems, including inequalities under which the people languish. We have risen up to rectify the matter.” Will Hakata Harbor be reopened for exports? “The KEF has received word that the Chinese government may call for the reopening of foreign consulates. If that should occur, the Japanese government will be obliged to lift its blockade.”
Hosoda read the last question: What is your ideal kind of woman? “First, she should be well educated, with a good heart, enthusiasm, and a smiling face as gentle as the sea is wide.” Looking at Hosoda, he added: “I also like large eyes.” She gave him a happy smile: “Thank you for a most enjoyable talk.”
With the taping completed, they returned to the performers’ lounge, where Jo removed his make-up with a hot towel and put in a call to Ri Hui Cheol, the deputy commander, on his mobile phone. In order to get Hosoda’s frank opinion about the burial question, he needed time to talk to her when Ogawa was not around, and rather than arrange this with Ogawa directly, he thought it better simply to have Ri tell him that this was what they wanted to happen. He started to explain this on the phone but was promptly interrupted by Ri telling him to speak louder. There was cheering in the background. Jo held the phone away from his ear and muttered, “What’s going on over there?” Ri Seong Su, standing next to him, pointed to his left wrist.
Ah, the watches! This was the day the troops were going to have waterproof digital watches distributed to them. While trying to procure some vitamin supplements, Kim Hyang Mok had stumbled on a huge supply of timepieces gathering dust in a company warehouse. These large watches, their faces enclosed in hard rubber, had apparently been popular a few years before but fell out of fashion and wound up in storage. Kim purchased some three thousand five hundred of them for less than three million yen, including new batteries. They were to be given first to members of the advance party as a reward for distinguished service, with officers in the main force also getting their share, and finally to those of the rank and file thought deserving of them.
Jo shouted his request into the cellphone again. Ri assured him, in an unnecessarily loud voice, that he’d take care of it. “I’ll call Ogawa and tell him and say you need her for about an hour to go over some important new material. But, tell me,” he said, “where will you take her? Where will First Lieutenant Jo Su Ryeon, the TV heart-throb, have his private talk with that beautiful announcer, that Ryu Hwa Mi lookalike? You can’t very well use the NHK offices, with Ogawa there.” Ryu Hwa Mi was the most popular people’s actress in the Republic, appearing mostly in historical dramas, and there was indeed a strong resemblance. Jo said he’d talk to Hosoda in the car. To take her to headquarters was out of the question, as was, say, going for a stroll in the park. He would simply have the car circle the campground. The deputy commander granted permission, but told him to be sure to finish within an hour and get right back to camp.
Ri Seong Su, the guard, was now looking this way. Jo told him that they would question the woman in the car, on their way back to camp, and he responded with a click of his heels and a salute.
Orange sunlight streamed in from the car window, reflected off the lake in Ohori Park as the day waned. It seemed that a courteous call to Ogawa had inspired him immediately to agree to send Hosoda off, telling her with a smile that this sounded important and that her help was needed. The NHK car was a black Toyota. Flying on the front-left side was a red pennant with the NHK insignia. Whenever Jo saw it, he envisioned the KEF banners that would soon be fluttering from squadrons of vehicles in the streets of Fukuoka. Hosoda Sakiko sat next to the driver, behind whom was Ri Seong Su. The car’s interior was spacious, and in the middle of the back seat was a lace-covered retractable armrest, inside which was a telephone. To make a call, you put the little coiled receiver over your ear and pushed the buttons on the box.
Ri, still gripping his sub-machine gun, was keeping a watchful eye on the world outside the lace-curtained window, but occasionally his gaze would shift to the small liquid-crystal screen to the left of the driver. This electronic device utilized radio waves that bounced off a communications satellite to determine the vehicle’s position, and it responded to the driver’s verbal commands and questions. “How is traffic on the Kokutai Road?” he asked now, and a pleasant female voice answered: “Traffic is heavy, but moving.” The device would also give spontaneous updates and suggest alternate routes. The first time Jo saw one of these, he recognized it as something that was going to alter special operations completely—allowing agents to disperse and still know one another’s location, for example. On the roof was a twelve-inch liquid-crystal television, and next to the armrest was a remote control, no larger than a pack of cigarettes, for the CD and DVD player, the air conditioning, and the television.
Just after passing Ohori Park, Jo told Hosoda he wanted her opinion on a certain matter. “Sure!” she said, turning around in her seat to look at him. “I’d like you to see Nakasu. Shall we talk there?” And without pausing she told the driver to take them to Haruyoshi Bridge in Nakasu 1-Chome. Jo was taken aback. His idea had been to drive along the road that circled the Sea Hawk Hotel. “No, not Nakasu. Jigyohama,” he said, sitting up and leaning forward. Hosoda half turned again, stared into his eyes, and said with a laugh: “No way!” For an instant he was unsure what she’d said, as though Japanese had suddenly become an unknown language to him. He ran it through his mind again. Yes, she had clearly refused his suggestion.
The car did not make a left turn toward Jigyohama but followed the Kokutai Road toward Tenjin and Nakasu. On their left the remnants of Fukuoka Castle could be seen. Together with Pak Myeong, Jo had spent several days studying the geography of Fukuoka as part of the preparations for administering the city. They would soon be crossing the Tenjin administrative and business area and come to a Nishitetsu–Fukuoka Station. On both sides of the wide three-lane road were high-rise apartments and commercial buildings, along with hotels and gasoline stations. They were steadily moving away from the campground. Jo could feel his pulse beating. They stopped at a traffic light; the drivers adjacent to them glanced in their direction and then looked away. All around them it was growing darker. It was unlikely that anyone would realize that KEF members were in the car. Ri Seong Su was in uniform, but the lace curtain on his window partially blocked him from view. He was still looking straight ahead as the light turned green, but now his face had a puzzled expression—the car hadn’t turned at the usual corner.
Jo himself was in a state of confusion. He wasn’t used to being defied by anyone, and wondered whether this was a trap. A felon had apparently colluded with the Japanese police to have the scene of arrest changed to Ohori Park. Was Hosoda now trying to waylay them, too? Surely not. The decision to consult her and not Ogawa had been made only minutes before, and she’d been with Jo the whole time since, with no opportunity to contact anyone else. Only Ogawa and a few people other people knew that she was with him in this official NHK car. It was inconceivable that the SDF or the Japanese police would be waiting for them in Nakasu. “Hosoda-san, please listen to me,” he said. “Yes?” she replied, turning around once more. But words failed him. Something in his brain was not functioning. He wanted to explain that he couldn’t go anywhere outside the encampment and the television station, but nothing in Japanese emerged. What was wrong? Why was he suddenly unable to put sentences together in her language? “We’re almost there,” she said and began to speak to the driver.
He didn’t know how to respond to being contradicted, because it was something that simply never happened. In the Republic, whether in the military, in the workplace, at school, or at home, no subordinate—and Hosoda fitted that description—would oppose one’s requests. This was not a tendency; it was an absolute. Subordinates, children, or younger siblings would never directly contradict their superiors or elders. Only infants were permitted to be cantankerous. A willful woman like this would be purged from the military and the party and sent off with her family members to a remote work camp, and that would be the end of it. From the instant such defiance was expressed, all interaction would cease. “Hosoda-san,” Jo said, leaning forward again, “we need to go to Jigyohama, not Nakasu.” But his voice barely rose above a whisper. “I’m sorry,” she said, turning toward him, “what did you say?”
Should he deal with the matter by shouting that they were going back? Call her a fool and hit her? That wouldn’t solve anything. How would she react if he resorted to violence? Would she shrivel up? Angrily protest? In any case, he’d never be able to extract her candid opinion regarding the burial issue after any such outburst, and time was running out. But he knew there was another factor here as well: his attraction to her and the sense of guilt that this aroused. He didn’t want to hit her or yell at her. Again he told her they must return to Jigyohama, but his voice was feeble—it reminded him of when he would beg for the hazing to stop when he first joined the Corps. Hosoda had never lived in a country in which the communication between superiors and subordinates consisted exclusively of commands, submission, and supplication. “Are you still on about that?” she asked peevishly, then made a more surprising statement: “Well, in that case, I’m getting out.”
This woman has real character, thought Jo. She wasn’t just playing some coy kind of game with him. If he refused to go to Nakasu, she’d undoubtedly ask to be let out of the car, just as she’d told Ogawa to go find someone else for the job if he didn’t like how she did it. Already they were passing Nishitetsu–Fukuoka Station, dark and deserted now, the entrances cordoned off with chains and ropes. As the reality of the blockade had sunk in and become a fact of day-to-day life, traffic to the area had dwindled, and the riot police had withdrawn. Even with rush-hour congestion, they would be in Nakasu 1-Chome within five minutes. It occurred to Jo that though strictly speaking he required permission to go there, he had only said that he would be talking with Hosoda in the car. Ri Hui Cheol had given his authorization without their destination being specified. Looking outside through the lace curtain, the other Ri asked where they were going. To Nakasu, Jo answered quietly. The man still looked puzzled, presumably not knowing the place, but he nodded and continued to stare straight ahead.
Traffic had been slowing and finally ground to a halt at the Haruyoshi Bridge signal, where dozens of cars were backed up. The western sky was still faintly blue, and the buildings along the water appeared as black overlapping shadowgraphs. From the foot of the bridge they could see the reflections of colorful neon lights on the surface of the Naka River, and willow trees swaying in the breeze. To the left was a restaurant with a sign consisting of a huge crab, its claws slowly moving back and forth. Jo found himself staring at it. The river itself did not compare in scale with the Taedong, but the dense crowds of people and the buildings were amazing. The streets seemed to quiver with light and sound. It was like looking at a swarm of luminous insects. Motorbikes carrying takeaway noodles and pizza weaved their way between the car-choked streets and sidewalks overflowing with pedestrians. Steam rose from the street stalls on the riverbank, the lights of a pachinko parlor flashed, and women walked up and down the street in glittering dresses.
Nakasu, Jo had been told, had nearly twenty bridges. City Hall workers assigned to KEF headquarters had told him that on the small, dolphin-shaped island, less than a kilometer long and two hundred meters wide, there were hundreds of eateries and more than two thousand bars and pubs, not to mention amusement centers, cinemas, and stores. As an entertainment district, it was the largest in Japan, in both sales and overall size. Whenever the subject of Nakasu came up, the municipal workers would suggest to KEF personnel that they all go there for a drink sometime. “They must mistake us for officials from Tokyo, here on a junket,” Colonel Han Seung Jin had said with a sour grin. Interestingly enough, the area had reportedly become even livelier since the arrival of the KEF. More people, it seemed, were in an eat-drink-and-be-merry mood, as they faced an uncertain future and sought to forget about the blockade and the occupation.
But this was no place for the present three passengers to be walking around. Hosoda was tall and conspicuous, and Jo’s face was one that a television audience would remember. Ri was armed, and dressed in a military uniform. If they were to get into a confrontation with drunks or find themselves surrounded by a crowd, there could be serious trouble. If Hosoda decided to leave them, Jo thought, he could ask the driver for his opinion regarding the burial issue. He had wanted a young and educated informant, but he might have no other choice. He’d been foolish to choose her. The car was moving again, at last. After crossing Haruyoshi Bridge, the driver signaled a right turn. In contrast to the dazzling neon signs and the multitude of people earlier, they were now in a dimly lit, one-way alley. The car slowed. There was a row of low buildings containing shops that in the darkness had an all the more dubious air, their signs, jutting out into the street, made it difficult for cars to pass. The entrances were half-illuminated in garish red and blue, with curtains preventing anyone from seeing inside.
Hosoda had been chatting with the driver, saying that at such-and-such a sushi shop the fish wasn’t very fresh, or that the mother of such-and-such an NHK person was ill, or that this area was always a squeeze to get through; and occasionally turning to tell Jo that they were almost there. But now she had fallen silent. Ri was frowning as he observed the heavily made-up women out on the street, dressed in what was little more than underwear. They passed a shop with a small sign advertising electrical insect traps; Jo spotted the slippered foot of a woman through a gap in the shop’s curtains. He wondered why Hosoda had brought them to such a place and again suspected a snare of some kind. And yet the shop entrances and the alley itself were extremely narrow, and the mostly wooden, two-storied buildings were too confining to allow troops to deploy. The twisting street likewise ruled out the possibility of a sniper attack. Most importantly, no large vehicle could get in. And armed policemen or SDF personnel couldn’t show up in a district like this without causing a commotion and probably scaring everyone away—customers and shopkeepers alike.
The car had made several turns and was now deep inside yet another alley. The din of the main thoroughfare had quite faded away. They hadn’t gone far, but already they were in a different world, as though they’d entered a cone of silence. They passed a rubble-strewn vacant lot and the remains of a parking lot, replete with abandoned cars. Middle-aged female touts were standing here and there, all dressed in woolen sweaters that reached to their hips. Several approached with folded arms and peered into the expensive car, obviously looking for men with money to spend. As the sun had only just gone down, there weren’t many fun-seekers out and about yet.
At one corner of the alley was a small children’s park, overgrown with weeds and surrounded by a plain ironwork fence. The park had one see-saw, a swing set with no swings, and a dilapidated bench, on which a boy wearing shorts and sneakers sat alongside an old woman wrapped in a blanket. The two were huddled in conversation while their red-haired dog circled the bench, sniffing the ground. From afar the blanket looked like a turumagi, the outer garment of traditional Korean dress. The fluorescent street light above the pair was dying, blinking out repeatedly only to flicker back to life, creating a sort of subdued strobe effect. The woman reached into a bag and gave the dog a treat. Jo was taken by the scene: it reminded him of something.
On completing his three years of basic training in the SOF Eighth Corps, he had been assigned to a course in propaganda. Granted a three-day leave, he had taken a short trip, first going to Sariwon and then, hitching rides on army trucks and tradesmen’s vans, west to Cape Changsan. From there he could see the area the southern puppet state arbitrarily called the armistice line. Across the water lay Baeknyeong Island, where elite southern troops were stationed, with a watchful eye directed north. At the tip of the cape was a People’s Army camp, and he’d been grilled by guards as to what he was doing there. He presented his ID and furlough papers and said that he’d wanted to see for himself the reality of national division here on the coastline, to get a first-hand sense of the tense and volatile conditions the Fatherland confronted. He wasn’t pretending: he genuinely wanted to confirm for himself that the Republic that had killed his father was indeed in a state of crisis. His personal belongings were inspected, and he was asked to show his return ticket, but after three years of military training he could scarcely have been mistaken for anything but a special-forces officer. The soldiers respectfully sent him on his way, pointing him in the direction of the only inn in the area and wishing him a safe journey.
