Ha Jin - War Trash

It's a pity I cannot go back and marry you, but my death is not meaningless. I have served the cause of our country and sacrificed my life for the peace of the world. Please forget me and go on with your life. May you have a happy family.

Love, Yuan

PS: Please visit my mother once in a while. I am her only child. She may feel lonely. Thank you.

I put addresses on the backs of both notes and handed them to Shanmin. I said, "If you hear I'm dead, mail these letters for me when you're back in China."

I also gave him all my belongings – a stack of kraft paper, two pencil stubs, a pair of woolen gloves, an overcoat, two blankets, everything except for the jade barrette half tied around my neck. He said to me, "I'll keep all these things for you so that you can use them again when you come back."

"Don't be silly. I won't need them when we meet again."

I slept well that night, whereas Shanmin spent several hours listening to me snoring. In this regard I was truly blessed – however hard I was hit emotionally, I could always get a good night's sleep. I snored loudly too, and often woke up my shed mates. This habit of mine made them regard me more as a soldier than as a college graduate. They even remarked that I slept like a general.

The next morning the four of us officers were taken onto a steamboat. We were put into the cabin below the deck, so that we couldn't see the outside except when we went up to the toilet, to which we could go only one at a time. Eleven GIs escorted us, led by a freckle-faced officer I had never met before. Their number unnerved me because it seemed to reflect our importance, but soon I discovered, through their chattering, that most of them were headed for Pusan to visit friends and to see a show given by a popular singer from the United States. During the trip they wouldn't allow us to talk. Chaolin was sitting opposite me on a maroon leather seat. He was thinner than before, his face hairless and his teeth coated with tobacco tar. But his eyes were bright and intelligent, manifesting some ease and defiance. Whenever he grinned at me, I'd smile back. He seemed more sociable now, and I felt less jittery with him around, since he was a seasoned officer and could advise me if I ran into difficulties. On the other hand, I had to be on my guard when rubbing elbows with this small man who could be the Party's eyes and ears among us. I thought of dropping into the ocean Ming's ID tag, which had his fingerprints on it and could be used against me at Pusan. Without the fingerprints, the Americans might not easily detect my false identity. But I dared not get rid of the tag, for fear that Chaolin might notice its disappearance and report my misconduct to Commissar Pei.

I knew the other two men only by sight. One had been a deputy battalion commander in the Thirty-ninth Army, and the other a staff officer in the Eighth Artillery Division. They both looked downcast. One of them was seasick and vomited continually, muttering that he might spew out his viscera, whereas the other man dozed away almost the whole time.

The four of us were put in a small tent at the Pusan POW Collection Center. Now we could talk among ourselves. I was worried about the reregistration, but Chaolin said this might not be anything unusual, otherwise the enemy would have separated us and posted more guards at the entrance to the tent. Indeed, only one South Korean was standing there. The other two officers agreed with Chaolin, saying if the Americans had meant to kill us, they would have done it by themselves without involving the Koreans. So for the whole afternoon, they relaxed, chatting and wisecracking, though I was still nervous, unsure what to do if my false identity was discovered.

Our tent wasn't far away from the Operating Section of the hospital, which I couldn't help but gaze at when it was still light. I wondered if Dr. Greene still worked there. A few female medical personnel passed the door of the white building, but none of them resembled her. If she could see the way I walked now, she'd be pleased, proud of the miraculous job she had done. After watching for about an hour without recognizing anyone, I went up to the Korean guard and asked him about Dr. Greene, but he couldn't understand English and kept shaking his long face.

The next morning we were taken to the administration center one by one. Chaolin went first, while the rest of us lay on straw sacks, smoking, chatting, and waiting for our turns. We talked about Korean women, most of whom we believed were not as good-looking as women in Manchuria, because they didn't wear makeup. "So many of them have sun-bitten faces," the staff officer said, crinkling his flat nose as though sniffing at something. On his neck was a large purple mark left by a cupping jar.

"Their faces are fine for me, some are pretty," said the deputy battalion commander, who was about forty. "But they have bowlegs, that bothers me."

"How come you know what their legs look like? Don't they always wear long dresses or slacks?"

"We stayed near a village two years ago and I often saw them in the river."

"Bathing?"

"Yes." The older officer laughed with a bubbling sound in his throat and waggled his half-grizzled mustache. "Actually you can imagine what their legs are like by looking at Korean men, who mostly have bowlegs."

"Maybe they sit too much," I put in. "They don't have furniture in their homes and sit on the floors all the time. That may have deformed their legs."

"Probably true," agreed the staff officer.

I went on, "Also, Korean women carry manure baskets and water jars on their heads, so their spines must be compressed."

"Right," said the older officer.

But we all felt that by and large Korean women were good-natured and would make better wives than most Chinese women. We guessed that the majority of them were short because they worked too hard, which had stunted their growth. Few Korean men seemed involved in farming. You often saw old men drive oxcarts, watch over orchards, burn charcoal, cure tobacco, grow ginseng in the mountains, but rarely could you find them planting rice shoots or weeding vegetable gardens. Besides, most young men had been conscripted, so the fields had been left to the care of women, who started to do farmwork in their early teens. But with few exceptions Koreans had strong white teeth, which I had noticed because I was often bothered by my inflamed gums. A Korean doctor had once assured me that kimchee was accountable for their healthy teeth,

Chaolin returned an hour later. He was in good spirits, saying that he was allowed to go back to Cheju and that the reregistration was indeed just a routine thing. He believed the Americans must have lost some files and wanted to reestablish the records. Besides us, there were dozens of POWs who had come from other camps for the reregistration too. I didn't have time to ask him more about the process before the guard took me away.

I stuffed Ming's ID tag into my pants pocket and set off. Passing the central latrine on the way, I told the guard I needed to pee, and he let me enter the roofless privy, where I ripped the ID tag to pieces and dropped it into one of the four hundred pits.

Before I went into the registration office, a clerk, a black man whose neck was as thick as his face, asked me to show him my ID tag. I said, "I don't have one."

"How come?" He looked puzzled.

"I lost it in the camp on Cheju Island. I was ill for some time and couldn't take care of my stuff."

"All right, let me get your fingerprints."

I held out my left hand, and one by one he pressed my fingertips into an ink container and printed them on a card that had five marked squares, one for each digit. He did the same with my right hand. After giving me a piece of straw paper to wipe my hand with, he led me into an office, an inner room in a large tent. Here sat an American lieutenant and a Chinese interpreter, who was apparently an officer from Taiwan, though he wore civvies and tortoiseshell glasses. I was told to sit on a padded chair in front of them. This office looked cozy; a white bookcase stood in a corner, loaded with dozens of books, which I observed for a good while. Among the volumes were novels, manuals, and some brand-new copies of the Bible. The lieutenant must have been involved with the prisoners' education program.