Near the edge of the crowd, there was an open space of roughly twenty yards in front of the entrance of a department store. As he was hesitating, JungHo felt a hand on his elbow. In a flash, he aimed his pistol at the man behind him. The green-eyed man said something in his plangent language, taking off his fur hat and pressing it to JungHo’s chest. A Russian. JungHo ducked under people’s heads and took off his fedora. He threw it on the ground, stashed his pistol in his inner pocket, and put on the fur hat. He resisted the urge to run and crossed over the empty street calmly. About fifty yards away, he could see a clutch of soldiers running into the crowd, screaming orders. When he pushed the rotating glass door into the department store, he knew he had made it. He exited out the back entrance onto a side street and crumpled down on the icy stone stairs. “I’m sorry, Cho, so sorry,” he said repeatedly to himself, choking from dry, hoarse cries as though even his tears had frozen.
*
IT WAS A BALMY, EARLY-SUMMER evening when JungHo came back to Seoul. He was more gaunt than ever before, and his old suit jacket was loose on his shoulders. The Great South Gate still stood in its place, but everywhere else had changed. More Japanese flags were hanging from every building and flagpole, yet the streets were eerily deserted and there were no cars or trucks in sight. JungHo knew that there was no more oil anywhere in the city. Japan was pouring all its resources into fighting the United States in the Pacific, and boiling pine roots and cones down to create fuel. This sappy liquid gummed up the engine like taffy after a few hours. As a gasoline-saving strategy, fighter pilots were ramming their planes into American warships instead of flying back to base. The rumor was that in black-green jungles and insidious islands the Japanese troops were fighting to the last man with sharpened bamboo spears. At night, animals of the forest feasted on their flesh.
He had an hour and a half of walking from the station to reach MyungBo’s villa. It was past eight thirty, and there was still a gauze of gray twilight left behind by the sun on the western horizon. JungHo hadn’t eaten anything all day and despite his ability to withstand great physical distress, felt the last remaining strength being drained from his body.
He decided to take a break and leaned against a ginkgo tree. It was calm rather than windy, but the air was cool and fresh. The nearly full moon was rising in the opalescent sky. It was particularly bright and beautiful over a lightless city. Out of habit, JungHo touched the silver cigarette case in his inside pocket. It gave him a sense of comfort, as always. But at that moment, he heard a voice call out from behind him.
“Raise your hands slowly and step away from the tree.”
JungHo pulled out his hand from his jacket and walked sideways out of the tree’s shadow.
“No sudden movements. Don’t try anything stupid,” the voice said, coming closer to him from the back.
JungHo wasn’t carrying a gun with him. If he’d had one, he would have jumped back toward the tree and shot his interlocutor, then fled through the network of narrow alleyways untouched even by the moonlight. But all he had now was a knife hidden on the inside of his waistband, and that would be useless against a man behind him with a gun. He could hear two pairs of feet approaching him; one of them finally reached him and roughly whipped his arms behind his back before cuffing his wrists. When that was done, an officer wearing a thin, slanted mustache came into his view.
“What is this for?” JungHo asked and then immediately regretted his weakness. He’d intended to maintain a stony silence.
“Running away in the middle of the night . . . Avoiding conscription, are we?” the first officer said in Japanese, but based on his features JungHo surmised that the man was in fact Korean. The other officer, who had actually handcuffed JungHo, looked no older than sixteen and almost afraid of his own captive. JungHo kept his mouth shut this time.
The three of them walked in near darkness to Jongno Police Station. They arrived at eleven, and JungHo was uncuffed and thrown into a cell filled with men, sleeping on their sides. No one said a word to JungHo except to grumble at the lack of space. He sidled up to the only spot of empty floor remaining, next to an overflowing chamber pot. The only posture he could maintain was sitting upright and hugging his knees in front of his chest, and in this position he spent the night and most of the following morning.
By noon, some of his cellmates started getting taken out, one by one, until JungHo could sit with his legs stretched out in front of him. His head was pounding and his throat was burning as if he’d swallowed a fistful of sand. JungHo tried to remember all those other times in his life when he’d gone even longer without water or food or lying down, but he’d been younger then. In the past, he’d also had the conviction he needed to live longer, see something through. Now, however, he felt as though he’d already seen it through—whatever it was. To end his own suffering did not seem like such a bad choice.