"War Trash" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jin Ha)

13. AN UNUSUAL REQUEST

Since we had moved into the new compound, the GIs guarding it had treated us less harshly. This was mainly because we kept our tents clean and were not as belligerent as the Korean prisoners. A group of U.N. inspectors visited our barracks and was satisfied with its order and sanitary conditions. As the inmates got to know the American guards better, some of them often went to the front entrance to bum a cigarette off the GIs or watch them taking coffee ladled out of a large cauldron on a kerosene stove set behind a shack. A few men asked me what coffee tasted like. "Bitter. You can't drink it without sugar," I told them. By regulation the GIs were forbidden to talk with us, but many of them did anyway.

I often went to chat with them, because I had been assigned to do so. Although our headquarters had access to Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Army newspaper, we couldn't get it regularly enough to follow events outside the camp. A number of our men were in charge of cleaning and maintaining the GIs' quarters, so whenever possible, they'd secretly bring back the newspaper. My job was to read the news and translate the useful information for Commissar Pei and his staff. This was a good, rewarding job, which I enjoyed. My role as a translator enabled me to read a lot and made me feel important. From the newspaper we learned more about the Panmunjom peace talks, at which the issue of the POWs had been raised. An article reported that China had its own air force now, which often engaged American planes over North Korea, though not effectively, because our pilots were inexperienced. There were about a dozen air force divisions in our country, all equipped with MiG-15s. But we had no idea how many planes made up a division, so the prisoners often argued about the exact number – some said one hundred while others insisted on seventy-two. I also read that the American soldiers were eager to go home and that normally they stayed in Korea for no more than one winter, whose harshness intimidated them. One article implied that desertions among the U.S. troops had increased considerably in recent months, and that some GIs had even invalided themselves out of the front line by inflicting wounds on themselves.

There was some news that might have disheartened our comrades, so I didn't translate everything. For example, it was reported that North Korean and Chinese servicemen had occasionally shot prisoners who were too weak to keep up with the other captives in their march to prison camps. Another report said that a secret investigation was under way in the People's Volunteer Army, intended to "ferret out those disguised counterrevolutionaries," the primary targets of the scrutiny being the new recruits with unclear political backgrounds and the defectors from the former Nationalist army, like myself. I didn't mention this to anyone. But I told Commissar Pei that Chairman Mao's eldest son, Mao Anying, had been killed in an air raid. Pei was stunned and couldn't speak for a long while.

"This doesn't seem like a pure accident," I hazarded. "How could the American bombers be so accurate? He was in a shelter when they went to attack."

"Don't let anyone else know of this," Pei said.

"I won't."

"Our Chairman's other son is demented. This must've been a heavy blow to the old man, who must hate the American imperialists all the more. I'm afraid we won't see the end of this war soon."

My ability to control the flow of information in Compound 602 gave me a sense of power, which, to be honest, I relished. Yet what pleased me most was the opportunity to improve my English and the access to the kind of news regular Chinese publications wouldn't carry. Each issue of the newspaper consisted of more than twenty pages and many photographs, and I read every word of it.

Soon the GIs noticed that our men were pilfering their paper, so they stopped tossing it around. Our supply of Stars and Stripes became more erratic – sometimes we got five or six copies of the same issue, but then we wouldn't have any for an entire week.

So I was assigned to chat with the guards as often as possible to collect information from them. I found that most of the Americans were quite talkative. Almost without exception they enjoyed being listened to, especially by an enemy soldier who could understand their language. Sometimes after a bout of talk they would return to the sentry post; then a few minutes later they'd stroll back to me and start talking again. They too seemed lonesome and hated this place intensely. So I often listened to them talk, and from them I gathered useful bits of news.

I wasn't the only information collector. There were numerous other sources as well. The night soil team did a remarkable job in smuggling newspapers and magazines back into the compound; they stank so repulsively that few GIs would bother searching them. Most often, the guards, holding their breath, just waved the whole group past. Every morning over a dozen inmates cleaned the latrines here, carried buckets of night soil with shoulder poles to the beach, and dumped it all into the ocean. A mild-tempered GI, Jim Baker, a stout, light-skinned Negro, escorted them back and forth; they called him Sergeant, though he was just a private. He treated them kindly and had a soft spot for flattery, which they would lavish on him. They went so far as to say that he was the most handsome black man they had ever met, and that some Chinese girls would be swept off their feet by his big smile. Even when they called him "Turtle Egg" and some other names, he didn't take offense, always smiling with his bright white teeth. He knew the meanings of those swearwords, since he had been learning Chinese from a member in the night soil squad. Besides collecting information, these latrine men also passed messages on to other compounds, especially to the Korean prisoners, who had their night soil teams too.

There was a corporal, Richard, who had deep-set blue eyes and freckles on both sides of his prominent nose. His last name was Randell or Randal, if I remember it correctly. He was on guard duty in the morning on weekdays. He looked older than most of his fellow GIs, and had a girlfriend back home. Before coming to Korea he had been a technician in a farm-tool factory in Detroit. One day, he was telling me how he and his girlfriend had camped on a lake, building a fire and frying trout and whitefish in bacon grease. I somehow could no longer control my emotions and squatted down, covering my face with both hands. I wasn't crying, I just felt miserable, and didn't want him to see my woeful face.

"It's tough, man. I know it's tough," he kept saying with some feeling.

I didn't know how intimate he had been with his girlfriend. His talk reminded me of Julan, who was more than a fiancee to me. Two days before our division left Szechuan, she had asked me to make love to her, saying she wanted to have my baby. I guessed she was afraid I might never return from the war, so a baby could become something of mine for her to keep. For a whole night we made love again and again, almost desperately; it was as though I meant to pour all of myself into her so that a part of me would remain home. With furious hunger she received me, also with hot tears and silent spasms. The next morning she broke her white jade barrette in two and gave me a half, saying with her eyes lowered, "From this day on I'm your wife. Remember, even if I'm dead, my ghost shall be with you." I promised her that I would return to her as long as I was alive. Since that day I had carried the broken jade with me. Whenever I was about to be searched, I would hide it behind my belt or in my shoe. I didn't know if Julan was pregnant, though I had written to her once and alluded to it. I dared not ask her explicitly because I was sure that the mail was monitored. There was a mailbox by the front gate of every compound, into which we dropped our letters once in a while, but nobody among us had ever heard a word from home.

Little by little I began to become friendlier with Richard. He would give me cigarillos and lemon drops. If he had a newspaper on him, he'd slip it through the barbed wire to me. He seemed quite smart, often smiling cynically. One morning he asked me, "Can you do me a favor, Feng Yan?"

"Sure, if I can." I was surprised, wondering howl, a helpless prisoner, could be of use to him.

He said with a small grin, "If this damn war heats up again, I may see action at the front. Can you help me get a safety certificate?"

"What's that?"

"You don't know?"

"I really don't."

"I've never seen one either. But I'm told it has some Chinese or Korean words on it, saying, 'Don't kill this guy, he's our friend.' Something like that."

"What's it for?"

"You Chinese shoot prisoners, you know. I heard that an officer shot more than forty U.S. POWs because he'd lost his regiment on the front. If you get me this piece of paper, I can show it to them if they catch me, and they may not kill me."

I was surprised by his candid words, but I made no comment and just promised to help. To some extent, I admired him for speaking about his fear without any shame or embarrassment, so I pulled the bottom of my shirt out of my belt and showed him the tattoo – FUCK COMMUNISM. He laughed and said, "Man, you got that right!"

His request made me think that my tattoo might serve as a "safety certificate" if need be, depending on how I used it. But on second thought, I was already in the prison camp and my life didn't seem in danger. Then why did Commissar Pei say my tattoo might help me? How could it do that? I couldn't imagine.

I reported Richard's request to Commissar Pei that afternoon. In the evening an emergency meeting was held at the headquarters, which I attended. The leaders decided to come up with something like the certificate Richard had described, though nobody had ever seen such a thing. They assigned Ming to take care of it. That night Ming set about designing one. He cut a square of white paper, the size of his palm, and with a pencil stub he drew a star at its top, then wrote these words in the official script:

SAFETY CERTIFICATE

Dear Comrades-in-Arms – the Chinese People's Volunteers and the North Korean People's Army:

This U.S. soldier surrenders of his own will and is our friend. Please treat him well.

Revolutionary Salute,

Comrades on Koje Island April 24, 1952

When I handed the scrap of paper to Richard the next day, he, without looking at it, put it into his shirt pocket beneath his jacket, then raised his hand, his thumb and index finger forming a circle. I guessed it must mean good or excellent. I was surprised that he didn't even ask me what the words meant. What if the certificate fell into his superiors' hands? Wouldn't he be court-martialed? I was sure that if a Chinese soldier was found in possession of such a thing, he would be jailed, if not executed.

Then one morning Richard wore a long face, as though he had just been crying. I asked him why he looked unhappy. He said, "I got a Dear John from home."

"What's that, a gift?"

He grimaced. "It's a good-bye letter from my girlfriend."

"I'm sorry."

"It came out of the blue."

"Is there another man involved?"

"I have no idea."

I sighed. "A serviceman's life is unpredictable, and a woman usually wants a stable life."

"It's all because of this damned war!" He shook his head, his nostrils flaring.

"That's true."

"I don't see why I'm here. Fighting for what?"

I wanted to tell him that I knew why I was standing on Korean soil – to defend my country – but I refrained. He was so upset that we couldn't chat more that day.

There was another black private, Frank Holeman, a tall angular fellow with a mop of wiry hair, who was from Louisiana, shy and good-natured. He often chuckled with a snorting noise. Like many GIs, he had glassy eyes as a result of smoking marijuana, which grew wild in

Korea, also in Manchuria. Neither Chinese nor Koreans liked the weed; we mainly used it to make rope and we preferred tobacco. I chatted with Frank several times and he would answer my questions as though I were not a prisoner. Once I mentioned Uncle Tom's Cabin; he shook his head and said, "Never heard of it. I don't read no books."

I was surprised. I had wanted to ask him whether the slaves really could eat chicken, turkey, ham, and biscuits, so I said, "The author wrote that the black slaves ate chicken wings and drumsticks and salt pork. Did they eat such good food in the South?"

"Sure."

"Can you eat chicken every day if you want?"

"Chicken's cheap back home, you know. Most folks can afford it."

"What's expensive food then?"

"Steak. Rich folks go to restaurants for a steak. Seafood is pricey too."

"You mean shrimp?"

"Yeah, also salmon, crawfish, oyster, and lobster. Man, my mouth is watering."

I had no idea what a lobster looked like, though I knew the Chinese meaning of the word – dragon prawn. To my mind it must have been a kind of giant shrimp. But I was a little surprised by his mention of oysters as an expensive food, because I had seen street peddlers selling shucked oysters for five cents a pound in a coastal city back in China. I disliked oysters and wouldn't touch them even for free. I told Frank that to the Chinese, chicken was the best meat and that in the southern provinces like Canton and Fujian even chicken feet were served as a kind of delicacy in restaurants. He whistled and said, "Man, if it ain't for this war, I'd be in the chicken business making tons of dough out of you Chinamen."

"To be the first black millionaire, eh?"

"Why not?"

We both laughed.

I also mentioned to him the antislavery movie entitled A Shipload of Slaves that I had seen in China, but he hadn't heard of the film either. His ignorance of books and movies didn't prevent us from having something to talk about. He often gave me chewing gum, for which I wished I could have given him something in return. Once he offered me a joint, which I inhaled but didn't like. Later he asked me to help him get a certificate like the one Richard had. Within two days I handed him a similar one, which pleased him a lot.

Because blank paper was in short supply, we couldn't produce this kind of certificate every time a request came up. If paper was unavailable, we would give the man a red star, our former cap insignia, which might help him some. During the rest of our imprisonment, including the year we stayed on Cheju Island, altogether we issued over one hundred safety certificates to GIs. No South Korean ever asked us for such a thing.