A Brief Encounter (II)

3

As it turned out, the very next day, it was Jane herself who unexpectedly had the most dreadful experience in her young life. Her aunt and uncle had gone to work in their rice paddy, leaving Jane alone in the house that was relatively isolated from the rest of the village. Nestled against the foot of a mountain, the house was more than two hundred yards from the nearest neighbors. Without warning, a man, wearing farmer’s clothes but carrying a rifle walked into the yard.

Jane could easily see that he was in his early 20s and that he was a fleeing North Korean soldier. He was frail and short, so short that the rifle he slung on his right shoulder almost touched the ground. And perhaps because he had been forced to skip meals in recent days, he looked pale and haggard. And yet, he was extremely alert with his black eyes darting from one place to another as he looked around nervously.

Making sure that Jane was alone in the house, he demanded something to eat. Actually, when he showed up, Jane had been in the midst of preparing some food to take up to the cave in the afternoon. She hurriedly went into the kitchen and while going through the motion of preparing the food, she thought about how she could escape. She had heard from some villagers that the fleeing North Korean soldiers had attacked some women in a nearby village. They had also taken several farmers hostage and forced them to accompany them, carrying loads of food and their equipment.

But there seemed to be no way Jane could sneak out of the house and run away, leaving the man alone. He would simply stay there until somebody—her unsuspecting aunt or uncle—came walking in.

“What’s taking you so long, girl?” the man hollered at Jane from outside. “All I want is a bowl of rice and kimchi!”

The man was sitting on a wooden bench near the well in the middle of the yard. He began gulfing down the food as soon as Jane handed it to him.
After the initial attack on the food, he slowed down a little, eyeing Jane narrowly. “Are you from a city?” he asked, “You don’t look like a farmer’s daughter.”

“No, I was born and raised here,” Jane lied.

”Then, you must know the way around this part of the country,” he said, making her nervous. She knew what would come next. He could very well force her to lead him to a deserted mountain pass or escape route to the North. A sudden and acute sense of fear gripped her, and she began trembling in spite of herself. She swallowed hard and said:

“I’ve never been to the mountains beyond the one behind this house,” she could barely talk. “I really don’t think I could be of much help to you.”

As she mumbled, she noticed that his rifle was left propped up against a nearby tree a few steps behind the man. He must have used up all the bullets and that was probably why he had fixed his bayonet on the end of the rifle. It appeared terribly menacing with a sharp, gleaming blade.

While the man continued eating, paying little attention to his surroundings, Jane went quietly around behind him and picked up the rifle as though she wanted to take a look at it only to satisfy her curiosity. It was surprisingly heavy but she held it tightly and leveled it horizontally, aiming the tip of the bayonet at the man’s back. And before realizing what she was doing, she thrust it into his body downward from a few inches below his neck, with all her might.

The 12-inch bayonet pierced through the upper left part of the man’s chest from behind almost to the hilt with a considerable length of it coming out of his chest. It went into the man’s body so easily that Jane felt as though his soft body was absorbing all her strength. Death came instantly. While still clutching the rim of the rice bowl in his left hand and the spoon on his right, he simply fell over on his face.

In a state of stupor, she sat down next to the body, unable to think about anything for a long time, until the enormity of what she had done started sinking in. With shaking hands and knees, she went around the house, found a large sack woven with straw and, squeezing out the last ounce of strength she had, she put the body into it. She rolled it onto a three-wheeled rickshaw and pushed it through the weed-covered passage up the mountain behind the house. She dumped the body in a shallow crevice, and, working fast like a mad woman, she covered the body with small rocks and stones, topping it with layers of leaves.

Seeing that the grave was so well covered that no one could spot it unless they knew there was a grave there, she fell to the ground nearby, totally exhausted. She felt as though she had just had an awful nightmare, but she shuddered to think what had actually happened only a few hours before.

Suddenly she realized that she had to hurry home before her aunt and uncle come home from the field. She knew she had to erase all traces of what had happened at home. To her horror, she remembered that she had left the rifle in the yard. But more than anything, there would still be a pool of blood near the well. She had to wash the spot clean before anyone came into the house.
She had already decided that she would never ever tell anyone what she had done—not even her aunt and uncle.

4

It took two days for Jane to recover from the shock of having killed a man. She felt like lying in bed forever. Had it not been for the nagging anxiety over Erwin Walker who had been waiting, no doubt, anxiously for her to come, she wouldn’t have gotten up at all. She wanted to tell him what she had heard from her uncle who had said that he heard from other villagers that they had seen “many trucks” carrying American troops and heading north on a national road leading toward the capital. It was odd, they said, that the American convoys seem to be hardly worried about the possibility of meeting any resistance from the Communist forces.

When Jane relayed the information to Walker, the American jumped up in elation. His premonition was confirmed. He didn’t know exactly how it had happened, but the U.S. and allied forces must have cut across the peninsula north of where he was, cutting off the supply lines to the Red Army in the south and forcing them to flee.

Walker decided that he would leave his hideout and descend the mountain. He wanted to tell Jane about his decision right there, but checked himself. He didn’t have the heart to do so as he wasn’t sure how Jane would react to their imminent parting.

After Jane left, Walker looked around the cave as though he was inspecting a house or condo. He knew there probably wouldn’t be anyone else who would visit the cave, much less stay here as long as he had. For more than two weeks, the cave had been his home. He somehow felt a bit of sentimental attachment to the place that had provided him safe haven. He began cleaning it up.
As he left the cave the next morning, he folded the blanket neatly and left a brief note on a small piece of paper on top of it. It read:

Dearest Jane:
I’m sorry to leave you like this. I know I should at least wait for you and bid you goodbye in person. But I thought it would be very hard for both of us to part like that. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me. You saved my life! I don’t know where I’m going or what will happen to me. I also don’t know if or when I will be able to get in touch with you. Whatever happens, though, I will never forget you for the rest of my life. I hope all goes well with you. Be happy. Love, Erwin.
(END)