May 1949
Min-hwan didn’t go north. He published a few articles, harshly criticizing the dogma of the US military government, and returned to his alma mater in Tokyo to compile an academic journal of English literature, which he had done when he was a student. Left behind in Seoul, I spent my days feeling anxious, not just because he wasn’t there but because I finally saw the state our society was in once I stepped back from our cocooned world. A man I’d studied with in Tokyo suggested I join the Korean Art Association, which had changed its name along with the establishment of the Korean government. Everyone in the South seemed to be joining associations and leagues. I smiled awkwardly at him, and he advised me that I couldn’t remain politically and ideologically uninterested in today’s world. I asked him a silly question as a joke: did people who love humanity go north and people who love art stay in the South? I wasn’t deeply committed to either and so couldn’t easily make a decision. He laughed at me, sneering at me not because of my lifestyle but because I wasn’t a great artist. It made sense; I myself looked down on him not because of his unsavory character but because he was simply a bad artist.
He wasn’t aware that I was secretly filled with strong artistic opinions and positions. I talked as if I wasn’t quite sure of my talents, but that was out of modesty, a gesture of self-protection. Once, another artist saw a poster I’d drawn and demanded to know why I didn’t make true art. Of course, those posters were primarily functional, so it was hard to spot my artistic viewpoint, but I did create them. I liked my work. I was that rare propaganda artist who was politically naïve. The slogans and symbols I worked hard at creating clearly and thoroughly served this or that ideology, but I didn’t subscribe to any of it. I was free. My work was the product of my artistic taste, one that valued a concise, economical line and a balanced composition. As an artist I hoped humanity could better itself. Earnestly I drew posters encouraging illiterate old folks living in the mountains to vote, worrying and experimenting and feeling delight. I waited anxiously for a version of myself that would someday become complete, as though I were an unknown, stuttering actress who hadn’t yet landed the perfect part.
When he was away, I discovered in myself someone freer. That made me scared and anxious. While I missed him desperately, a part of me realized that life without him was possible. I blocked that thought as I waited impatiently for him to return. The night before he was due back, I went to his place with fresh-cut flowers to liven up his room. I had my keys in my hand when I noticed the front door was open a crack. I flung open the door and ran in.
Two men were in the room. A leather suitcase lay on its side. Still in his travel clothes and with a brown jacket over his arm, Min-hwan was standing by the window, looking angry. He flinched in surprise when he spotted me. The other man, in a black suit, was seated in a chair, and he stood and turned to look at me, as embarrassed as if he had entered a funeral late. He quickly recovered his composure and smiled. Flustered, I studied this man’s face for a few minutes.
He was tall and handsome, with very pale skin as if blood was leaching slowly out of his body. His brown eyes stood out against his pale complexion and black hair. I could sense a prickly, wild nature hiding behind his gentle demeanor. He had straight teeth and his sharp eyes below his dark brows were observant. I walked forward hesitantly before stopping. He seemed neither Oriental nor white, but some new race God created for his own convenience.
Finally Min-hwan broke the silence. “This is Joseph,” he said stiffly, gesturing at the man awkwardly.
Joseph said hello in both English and Japanese.
“Do you not speak Korean?” I asked in Korean.
He answered in English. “I’d like to learn. Will you teach me?” His quick, bright smile was disarming and his tone was kind and witty.
“How do you two know each other?” I asked.
The two men glanced at each other, and Min-hwan primly turned his head away. Joseph grinned. “I think of him as a friend, but he must not think the same of me.”
Joseph went on to tell me more about himself. Whenever I didn’t understand his English, Min-hwan translated tersely. Who knew why he was so displeased, but his grumpiness felt bracing. Joseph Pines was his full name, he said, and explained that he was the happy ending to a Madame Butterfly-like romance, born to an American officer who had fallen in love with a Japanese woman. During his happy childhood he frolicked around the foreigners’ cemetery in Yokohama. His family left for America when he reached school age. He led the life of an average American boy, graduated from college, got a job, and, one day, felt compelled to return to Japan.
“Did you meet Mr. Yo in Japan?” I asked in Japanese.
“Mr. Yo went to college with a friend of mine, and he introduced us when I was looking for a Korean friend. We got along immediately.” Joseph gave Min-hwan a fond glance as Min-hwan waved him off, scowling.
I found myself feeling jealous. “What brings you to Korea?”
Joseph grew more serious, telling me about his role as a businessman and missionary—the first to land in any newly conquered land, I thought, along with disease. His words were warm and his eyes sparkled with intelligence.
“It suits you,” I agreed. “You’re not planning to be a minister, are you? You’re too young, and the girls won’t leave you alone!”
“How did you know? Being a man of faith draws young women to open their hearts to you even when you’re old.”
We laughed as if we were old friends. I could feel Min-hwan staring at me, surprised at my uncharacteristic vitality. I was thrilled; he was jealous. We continued to banter. Our conversation was a dizzy mix of English, Japanese, and Korean. By the end, as I grew tired from the volley of three languages, the three of us had become fast friends.
Our love triangle was one that sparkled with youth, a triangle that could let out a clear sound thanks to a small gap in the structure. Soon, though, that gap would be filled with misunderstanding, lust, and envy, the clear ringing sound turning sharp and plosive as they tormented us. Even now, I can feel the shock of Min-hwan’s cold, burning gaze as he took in my nude body, tangled in the sweat-soaked bed with Joseph, on the day he walked in on us. Of course, I should have run after him and hung onto him, conveying my futile remorse through tears. But I couldn’t. Joseph and I were joined together, in the position of betrayal. I don’t know how we ended up that way—no, that’s not true, I think we knew we would from the first day we met. All three of us had been very skilled actors as we laughed in three languages.
There hadn’t been a friendship. Not even for a moment.
In the weeks following Min-hwan’s return from Tokyo, Joseph was busy. He traveled around the country for his missionary work and also went to Japan from time to time to take care of his business there. When in Seoul he stayed with a middle-aged American missionary in Ahyon-dong, where there was a sizeable population of missionaries. She lived in a Japanese-built house, close to where I was staying at my uncle’s. I was the first person Joseph came to see when he was in town, and my family was kind to him, treating him with fondness and approving of his gentlemanly ways.
“Teach me Korean and I’ll teach you English,” Joseph suggested one day, and I accepted his request to officially become his Korean instructor. We would no longer use Japanese when we were together. I hoped I could land a better job opportunity if I brushed up on my English. Maybe I would even be able to go to America to continue my studies. Joseph introduced me to his friend Hammett, who worked at the American public information office, and asked him to look after me like his own sister. Hammett looked me up and down begrudgingly, but years later he kept his word. When I went to him after the war, bedraggled and unhinged, Hammett clucked sympathetically as he welcomed me with open arms.
Our lessons were interesting and free-flowing. I gave him a funny, Koreanized version of his name, Chu Cho-sop.
“Ae-sun … For you … I know! What about Alice? It sounds similar to Ae-sun and it suits you well.”
Those became our code names. We called each other by our new names when we were together. Joseph would sit in that low-ceilinged tatami room furnished with a low bed and table, earnestly reading children’s textbooks out loud. The room would fill with his hesitant voice and my awkward breathing. Joseph was still unfailingly kind and polite but now that I was getting to know him better I suspected that his geniality was a disguise masking coldness. I didn’t mind. A man who suppressed his nature was both dangerous and attractive. We would banter and joke, but when our eyes met he would quickly turn away. I began to have questions about him. Why was he learning Korean from me, anyway? He could have asked anyone else. He grew quieter and quieter as we spent more and more time together. It didn’t take long for me to take that silence as an invitation.
“You two are wasting your time,” Min-hwan said, displeased that I was growing closer to Joseph.
“Isn’t he your friend? Why do you have a problem with him?”
Min-hwan frowned each time I uttered the word “friend.” They had a strange relationship, growling at each other as if they had once been in love or they were going to fall in love. Their disagreements seemed more complex and layered than ideological differences between a Communist and an imperialist missionary. Joseph made overtures to Min-hwan expectantly but Min-hwan always retreated; they were both outsiders in this city. Their friendship was maintained by intelligent sarcasm and jokes about their different worldviews. I felt free and satisfied between the two. We packed lunches and picnicked at Toksugung Palace, Namsan, and the banks of Han River. If I ever stood on the right or the left of our trio, the two gentlemen chivalrously ushered me to the center. My elbows tickled and trembled as I walked, shivering like a rain-soaked kitten, flanked by the two.
Now I wonder if I really did want them both. It’s easier to be attracted to one man’s despair than it is to desire the love of two men. Ending up with my own loneliness is the easiest and quickest of all. In our triangle, each of us separately felt love and despair and loneliness. I fell for Joseph for the same reason Min-hwan fell for me; the relationship offered an escape from our suffocating reality. Joseph was a welcome respite from the real world, much like a lunchtime picnic that lets you forget about your problems for a few hours.
That was the last year I completely and joyfully experienced the four seasons. After 1949 I always greeted spring flowers, summer downpours, fall sunlight, and winter snow with suspicion and animosity. In September 1948, the People’s Republic was established in the northern part of the country. Skirmishes increased at the 38th Parallel and the threat of war hung heavily in the air. But few expected there would actually be a war. Syngman Rhee, the first president of the South Korean government and the first person I would beat up if I could, went around spouting nonsense: “If a war broke out, we would have lunch in Pyongyang and dinner in Sinuiju.” Even if you wanted to trust his confidence, the atmosphere was turning more and more savage, and it began to clog our noses and mouths. In 1949, Min-hwan was summoned by the newly established National Rehabilitation and Guidance League, which started an ideological purge that targeted the Communists who seemed antithetical to the South’s plans for the country’s unification.
He eventually returned grim, humiliated, and damaged. I began to regret not forcing him to go north. “Let’s go now,” I suggested. “Or to Tokyo. Or America.” I was that clueless—no matter where he went, Min-hwan would still have to choose between his wife and his mistress. He no longer needed a daughter figure to share his bed, as he now had an actual, beloved daughter who was endlessly fascinating to him. I shouldn’t have tormented him about choosing. If I had truly cared for him, I would have found him a small desk somewhere, where he could sit quietly and translate English poems. But that wasn’t a possibility in Korea at the time.
I turned to Joseph for comfort. “What do you think will happen? What will happen to us if the North wins? Min-hwan is acting strangely. He’s dark and sad and desperate.” Frustrated with my English abilities, I asked him all this in Japanese.
Joseph answered in surprisingly improved Korean. “God will look after this country. Min-hwan is a sensible man. Don’t worry.”
His banal answer reassured me, and I trusted that his prayers would work. In the meantime, my relationship with Min-hwan was becoming fraught. I couldn’t make his anguish and grief dissipate; he was an animal lost in a maze and I was just a younger animal following him and fretting. That was how we gradually took our places as the main characters on the stage of a tragedy. The world around us had already completed its own preparations. Death, killings, and insanity loomed ahead of us. This was three months before the war started.
I don’t know how to explain what happened next. Every affair is different, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was precocious but I didn’t understand the awe-inspiring forces of love. I thought I knew love, though it manifested in different ways for everyone. Joseph was a friend from a different, enchanted world, one I could never be a part of. He was both American and Japanese, as privileged as if he were armed with both a gun and a sword. I envied his freedom, his wealth, his generosity, and felt wronged that I didn’t have the things that had never been mine to begin with. I believed myself to be his equal, and to truly be equal to him I needed him to look at me with desire.
“What would possibly happen if you don’t pray today?” I asked him one drizzly day.
“Alice, why don’t you have any friends?” he asked without answering my question. His gaze was dangerously damp and slippery, like stairs drenched in rain. “You have no one but Min-hwan.”
“He’s my family, my friend, and my teacher,” I protested.
“Only one person in the world can fill that role,” Joseph said gently. “A father.”
“You don’t understand,” I said slowly in English. “You never will.” Cold air circled my waist; sadness I had suppressed was rising in me. I gazed up at him.
“Alice, I can’t betray my friend. That’s worse than betraying my faith.” His hands were trembling as though he were a priest who had dropped his cross. His palms were damp.
I went to him. We didn’t have the will to resist any longer. We held each other, licking and swallowing excuses with our burning tongues. Our desire melted into sticky fluid and seeped into each other. He bucked single-mindedly between my legs and with each thrust something crumbled and crashed within me.
“Alice … oh, Alice …”
That was the day we discovered a new language based on physicality, one that surmounted the communication obstacles between us despite each of our plentiful vocabularies. Our new language was conveyed through warm, tender flesh.
After that, we saw each other several more times, every time hoping it would be the last. And finally, that fateful day arrived. Min-hwan opened the door and stopped in his tracks; his friend and his mistress at the height of pleasure. Moans of climax and a moan of despair filled the room. Min-hwan looked at me icily, his eyes devoid of sympathy, or shared memories, or a future. He turned on his heel and left. Only when Joseph collapsed on top of me did I realize that I knew nothing about this man. I found myself suddenly suspicious: he had been too friendly, his prayers were too eager, and he had fallen too easily into bed with me.
It was too late. Everything warped and collapsed and shattered. I should have acted faster. War was waiting with its maw open, just beyond sight, and I had a sickening hunch I would never see Min-hwan again. I should have taken that feeling more seriously.
After the war, Min-hwan was purged by the North. I heard the news on the day the armistice agreement was signed—July 27, 1953.