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By Root 1087 0

gives me the courage to try contacting you. They said you were a spy for the Americans. I do not know if you can come back any time soon, but at least you can know we are all well and in Seoul. I cannot remember when I stopped writing to you, but remember clearly your last two letters. The story of your twice-over survival is one that I cherished through the many years separating us. It gave me hope that God does indeed have a plan that will vindicate the inhumanity of war, the suffering of its victims. The second letter I remember because you said you would be ordained and go to New York. This is why I write to you in care of N.Y. Presbytery, a suggestion made by G.I. Forbes. Another reason to bless this kind soldier. Dongsaeng’s wife, Min Unsook (did you know he married?) died of T.B. on May 27, 1940. At the end, we were able to save her baby, a wonderful girl named Sunok. Your niece has brought us much joy in hard times. Dongsaeng’s second wife is Chae Meeja. No babies yet, but we pray when things get better, then maybe. There is no post here and I have not heard from your family for many years. When everything turned Shinto, I worried that your father suffered persecution because of his high church position. Please let me know what you have heard. I pray for them daily and beg your forgiveness for not fulfilling my duty to your parents. Hundreds of refugees fill the streets. My father has lost hope of finding his brother in Manchuria, and my mother prays she can contact her family once the mail is working. When things improve, we hope to return to Gaeseong. Dongsaeng says many homes and buildings there that were used by the J. are now housing Russians. He thinks town records will help us prove ownership. We heard about the bombs. The world is changed. More soon. Write back c/o Forbes’s A.P.O. Blssngs in C, yr wife.

A Korean Dressed Like a G.I.

OCTOBER 1945

THE DAMP AUTUMN WIND PREDICTED RAIN. IT SEEPED STIFFNESS INTO my hips and knees, hinting at loss of youth and making me worry about my mother’s painful joints. I wrapped an old blanket around my shoulders and slid my feet into Dongsaeng’s torn and battered leather shoes, glad that he sported a decent pair, courtesy of G.I. Forbes, who had visited us several times since that day by the roadside. Everyone in my family adored him, and not just because of his generosity; he was comical and made us all laugh with his antics trying to communicate with horrible Korean, gangly gestures and animated features.

Dongsaeng had gone downtown to meet someone about designing a logo. He’d gained notoriety when he redesigned into Hangeul the masthead of Dongah Ilbo, and was featured in its first Korean-language issue: “Seoul Artist Restores Traditional Korean Calligraphy.” Soon, he was called upon by editors feeding the explosion of new newspapers and magazines in the city, people who fervently expressed their politics and opinions in a wondrously free and open press. Dongsaeng’s earnings went first to rice, then art supplies and a little treat for Sunok, and with outrageously inflated prices, the money evaporated like hot breath on a cold day. Luckily, our diet was supplemented by the generosity of Pfc. Forbes, who brought gifts of military kit rations.

I went to reap the last vegetables from the garden, an empty crock in hand, fretting over the impossibility of repaying Neil Forbes’s kindness. A vehicle passed the house and honked. I thought it odd that a car would drive through this remote neighborhood, but my main concern was if the cabbages had yielded a few more leaves. I slid the door open, the broken soles of Dongsaeng’s ruined shoes flapping on the threshold.

A man said, “Yuhbo.”

The sound of his voice alone made me scream. My hands flew to my face and the crock smashed on the step. It was an apparition, I was sure, grown out of hunger from the depths of my memory. He touched my elbow. I turned and met eyes as serious and calming as I remembered. But how strange! Here was the face of a ghost, a thought, a glimpse in a mirror, and yet here he was—my husband, real,