Chapter 4.5.6.:Boolim Heads for Shimonoseki

4
Mother

My mother is alive. Alive is not an apt word, not a very irreverent term, either. But the term sometimes has been effective in the discourse of the local people. When this writer had been a mere child (I am 68 years now) the country folks used to ask a young stranger or strangers they met in the local bazaar about the wellbeing of their parents, saying "Are your parents alive?" Such a question had also been thrown at young men who had been unusually rude to the elderlies who used to chide them as a result. The question took on a rising intonation at the end, of course. (Are your parents alive?)

My mother is an elderly woman of 94. She lives at a rustic village far down the south of South Korea. My filial brother Ilseo has been taking care of her since my father had passed away of stomach cancer at the age of 79 in the year 1993. My mother is relatively fine with her physique. She stands erect, not stooped. She hears relatively well. She is not helped with a hearing aid whereas her eldest son needs one. Shame on him. She answers phone calls from Seoul with coherent apprehension which is directed at her grandson who has not been married yet.

I am not designed to praise her but only to introduce her to my readers to steer this story along. I know such an attempt would be futile. I have been against such a snobbish trend of certain strata of people, who, when they have risen to the world, have gone to great lengths to make their dead parents and their ancestors loom large, beautifying and eulogizing by means of erecting tombstones and epitaphs with non-existent credentials and inflated appraisals etched on. Which would be a revelation of vainglorious lunacy.

My mother had gone to Japan in 1940 in the capacity of a Mitsubishi coal miner's dependent. Two brothers, her husband and his elder brother, had gone there earlier than her. The term, my mother, of course is a misnomer because I had been nowhere and had never been formed as a human being, so the term is a retroactive one. I think I would be excused for such nomenclature, however presumptuous it may be. I was born at a small coal mining town operated by Mitsubishi in the year 1942.

The following two chapters (Chapters 5 and 6) are about a composite episode of her exodus to the Imperial Japan and a new life in there from a ruined country of Chosun. This humble plot of short length is designed to help my dear readers with the information about this writer's pre-birth by materializing the major characters involved. In the episode, Boolim is my retroactive Mom and Don and Bin are her husband and brother-in-law. Let me be excused for this weird eccentricity one more time.


5
Mom Heads for Shimonoseki, 1940

Mouths of the clan's aunts and sisters at this small hamlet village of Danuishill got busy, who were milling gossips mostly at the village well under a huge elm tree. The roosters of the village crooned and the sky in the east dawned. The "aunts" of the village got to the village well and drew water from the never-drying spring. And the never-ending yarns, too.

The yarns were not coherent altogether. They couldn't be. Mrs. Punggsan, who was from Pungsan, Andong-gun, which was 50 kilometers away, usually talked about the wellbeing of her children (Chinchin had a fever last night!) Mrs. Munkyong whispered about her husband, giggling. Mrs Andong used to put her dreams on the mill board. She was wondering whether she had dreamt taemong, a dream indicating her pregnancy and omen about an unborn baby, or something. They then couldn't wait to offer gratuitous interpretations.

There were also moments when knowledge took precedence. A semblance of it, of course. They knew it from the grapevine, or from the wind. So some aunts had made endeavors to enlighten other ignorant hyongnims, that is, elder "sisters" tied in clan relationships, by claiming that there is a big country. far across the Pacific, called miguk, or a beautiful country, named the United States of America, which is "ten times" (several times multiplied) bigger and stronger than Japan, so that the miguk would intervene in the Pacific War and vanquish ilbon, or the Imperial Japan, sooner or later.

The notification at the wellside was also made of the marginal default or impoverishment when one aunt or the other's house was running out of the food grain. The aunts subsequently chipped in to fill in the empty ssaldok, that is, the urn of rice for emergency. More often than not episodes of over-the-fence camaraderie occurred in which a big bowl of steamed rice crossed over the other aunt's fence.

Good tidings arrived via sea mail to my Mom's and her clan's delight that the two advance departures, my Dad and my elder uncle, had been admitted to the miners' apartments at Sakitoma-chi, Nishisonoki-kun, Nagasaki-ken. In the letter my Dad was honored to have been recruited, through rigorous fitness tests, as one of the Industrial Warriors of the Emperor, and elated at the prospect that the esteemed company Mitsubishi had permitted the Chosun miners to have their dependents at the residence.

"Honored? The Industrial Warriors of the Emperor your asshole!" some of the listeners thought aloud as the most knowledgeable middle-school graduate in the village read the missive aloud. As if to detect the cerebration, some of the audience chimed in to defend my Dad, saying, "Mail censorship must be harsh!" The rest of the audience began to argue about the toils and hardships the brothers were doing now.

The great uncles and the great fathers or, the elderlies of the village were sitting on the hottest part of a spacious ondol room floor, one of whom coughed discomforts over the proceedings of the conversations. Great Uncle Hui coughed a solemn remark, saying, "Don't be sarcastic. Why make a mockery of Nippon and things Nipponese?" The eyes of the audience in the room were rivetted on "the Uncle of the West", which had been named after the location of the residence of the patriarch.

The monarch and the ruling class were responsible for the colonial nation. The ordinary people were not. The subjects of the humiliated country had to survive. Whatever hard elements they were in, they had to carry on. So they were not excused to idle away, merely lamenting the sorry state of the country.

She prayed...And prayed. She just prayed before the altar in the small hours before dawn. Taking a bath and offering a bowl of the fresh well water she had drawn at the earliest hour before all the others in the new day, Boolim prayed that her husband Don might keep safe and sound in the deep pits of a Japanese coal mine.

“The altar" was not particularly built. Any elated place, on which a doenjangdok, or a big jar containing soybean paste was placed, would do. No psalms, nor mantras, nor prayer books were available to her. She used to just kneel in the direction of the Big Dipper and prayed to the sky for her husband's good luck.

Prior to the nightly routine, she took a wash of her face and a bath, not a serious one, got her teeth brushed, and hair combed. Before she exited her room for the altar at the backyard, she faced the north wall and offered three deep bows, two for the fallen Chosun monarch and one for her husband.

Don had said in the letter his elder brother would send for Boolim (I need you here!), with Don's elder brother Bin coming back home to pick her up. He said she would have to keep her brother-in-law company all through the journey to Nippon. Boolim's mother-in-law grudgingly let go of her daughter-in-law. That left three out of a six-member family: Don's mother, his younger brother and youngest sister.

People and things were new to country woman Boolim of 23 with no issue, who had never gone out of Danuishill, her husband's local residence. Cars were rare; old classic General Motors trucks, which had been ignited by hand-held starters, were spotted one in a mile fashion. Long and huge hulks of trains were also new to her. The howling of locomotive trains was a happy surprise; Even the scent of smokes from burning coals was not a nuisance.

Boolim and Bin hit the road early in the morning. The distance from Danuishill to Euiseong-up railroad station was some 16 kilo meters. Bin's paces were so brisk Boolim had a hard time catching up gasping for air, so he stopped from time to time and waited for her to join him.

It was the day set for the local bazaar which had been scheduled to open in the interval of five days starting the second of the month like 2.7.12.17.22.27. The visitors to the bazaar lined the roads to Euiseong-up (the capital of Euiseong), carrying the farming produce on carts driven by cows. Or, carrying the merchandise on chigae, or the wooden A-frame. Or, taking the load up on top of the woman's head.

Boolim's feet were sore. She tripped on the way over a rock and almost fell, not limping, however. She was not a stout build nor a frail type. She was rather strong inside. Although she got left behind a few paces almost all the time, she did not turn out a burden to his brother-in-law.

Once in the precinct of the town capital on the day of the bazaar, they found it rather subdued. Gloom was in the air. The uniformed Nipponese policemen in twos were patrolling the street, carrying the bayonet rifle on the shoulder. They were on the prowl; They threw suspicious glances toward the crowd whenever it was formed and got near to them and whistled furiously, propping them to disperse.

Excitement heightened when the train blew ear-splitting horns as it pulled into the station. Boolim was so nervous she almost tripped as she stepped on the train. Bin was behind her, warning her to watch her steps. People with their loads high on their shoulders shoved their way onto the stairs.

Hardly had they gotten onto the landing to the compartment third class they found the crowd stampeding for passenger seats of the deck, which were up for grabs. The unlucky folks, finding no place to sit down, were milling about in the aisles. Bin managed to take a seat for his sister-in-law, who uttered thanks and regrets for him time and time again.

How could the shift of emotional cataclysm happen? And that just in an instant. All that the train and its whistle had evoked in Boolim was so sweet she might have painted the compartments and the passengers in them in fairy tale colors. But expectations turned into disappointment as time wore on. Nostalgic anticipations, which she had harbored whenever she had heard faraway whistles of trains when skies had been overcast with clouds and when the hamlet had been shrouded with fogs, turned into irritating boredom. Overwhelming stench of urine and odor emanating from unwashed men around got her sick.

A man in his seeming thirties across Boolim's seat showed curiosity about Boolim's destination, giggling and reeking of cheap liquor. Boolim was silent for a while, not knowing how to respond. Bin interrupted, saying it was none of "your goddamn business." The man, piqued by Bin's blunt remarks, spitted obscenities. Then Bin collared him by the neck and push pressed him to the back of the seat, staring at him sternly.

The man quieted down. Bin did not slap him or something. Fist fights did not erupt. In spite of a small stir of the place, the passengers around Boolim and her company were nodding off as if nothing had happened. Some passengers across the aisles were engaged in small talks. Some others ate steamed eggs or other edibles. The other passengers seemed to try to keep wits for the long and slow journey.

A staff of the station was hawking by with a cart rolling full of steamed eggs, peanuts, cookies and non-alcoholic beverages. Liquors and beers were not allowed on the train. Ilbon Gongahn, or Nipponese security officers, kept a tight rein on some lousy people on the booze.

Tunnels meant darkness. Hails of coal grain struck the faces of almost all the people in the train as the iron horse went through the subterranean passageways. The clickety clack of the mighty wheels rolling sounded "haebang! haebang!""(Emancipation! Emancipation!) to the muted riders. Horns shouted "Dohngnip! Dohngnipo!" (Independence! Independence!)

New arrivals took the seats which had been emptied by those who had disembarked the train. The conductor came and punctured the tickets. Security officers came and checked the travel passes of the Bin party. Finding that the couple were bound for a Mitsubishi Company in Nagasaki, Japan, they saluted, saying "Gokouuno inorimasu." (Good luck to your journey!)

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The seas didn't sit quiet. They rocked and rolled. They roared. The amazement she had had when Boolim first saw the great waters bordered on shock, which couldn't be compared to the excitement she had had when he took a first sight of the locomotive train. "What an irony that a misfortune of the nation has given me a welcome chance of a poet!" a minstrel had lamented.

Although she was not a poetess, her heart was full of emotions at the sight of the high seas, especially at the time of the ruined nation. Tears welled up in her eyes, with her throats choked with emotion. She imagined the seas in the know how to beat the hell out of the proud swordsmen. They would only await a proper time when they would be able to quake and tilt the bizarre hunk of land to the far brink of the perdition, she thought.

Her momentary thoughts were riotous, or seditious. All the sights and sounds were lively and encouraging, nevertheless. The sea waves striking the Busan-Shimonoseki ferry boat made a primordial hue and cry. Although the dialogues, which were being conducted by the Japanese themselves and between the people who were bound for the country, were not getting across to her, they sounded melodious. What a beautiful language, she thought aloud. She hated the very thought that the foreign language enlivened her. She shot a guilty glance at her brother-in-law who shot back in a nonchalant and mischievous way.

Before they knew, a panic took place where the passengers on the deck were doing the leisurely talks. A rabbit appeared from nowhere, startled and shaking all over. He was sitting still on a patio, not knowing what to do, and where to go. Murmurs of surprise arose. Some people shouted and clapped their hands, laughing loudly. Then the rabbit was running all over the place. A guy, dressed in a cook uniform, making an appearance from the cabin, appeared to look for the prey. He ran to the pitiful animal and picked it up and turned down stairs, with the onlookers on the deck looking away.

Horizons in almost every direction, especially the horizon in the west, drummed up clouds, threatening to pour in any minute. The sea winds were getting shorter and stronger. Boolim, getting seasick and advised by Bin, got down to the third class cabin, of which the floor was public. The moniker of "the third class" did not irk her at all. Amenities were mutual and even, which got her to think that the Japanese were fair and generous.

The cabin was full, of which the passengers were mostly laborers from the late Chosun kingdom volunteering to work in the Archipelago proper and a small number of the Chosun young men garbed in the university students' uniforms studying in the Imperial Japan. The students were partly from Tokyo Imperial and mostly from Waseda or something. They put on imperial airs, forming peer groups and talking with each other in loudly fluent Japanese. A while later, a group of students came over from the second class cabin and took the peers in the lowest class pathetically as if their presence were an insult to themselves.

Boolim thought that her sickness would calm down as she got downstairs to take a rest. Since an afflicting nuisance of nausea had not been a common occurrence in the past, she did not care a bit about it. But all of a sudden she found herself vulnerable; She had her stomach so messy she rushed to the bathroom and threw up and up what little food she had taken for the day. Bin showed up with looks of apprehension behind the toilet door. In minutes, Boolim had gone to the ship's infirmary, staying for the rest of her journey, tended by a doctor and two ship nurses.

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"We got here at long last," Bin said in a low voice. After eight more hours' interminable cruise, including some intermediate procrastinations for technical reasons or other, Ship Bukuanmaru docked at Shimonoseki Harbor. There was a little quiver in a ship body. Boolim heard like in a dream that they had reached the terminal port. (If it had been the present, the itinerary of the Busan-Shimonoseki ferry might have far more shortened.)

The terminal was bright like a sunny day. Bin was near at her side. She found her feet so weak and her head so dizzy that she was standing still for quite a while, stunned, not knowing what to do next. Bin asked worriedly whether she was all right. As if drugged or hit hard on the head, she felt herself in a daze. After a slow take she realized that she had been thrown into the wild, into the dark stillness of the imperial country proper, in which her husband had been "voluntarily" commandeered to dig the coal. Out of the nadir of despair, stateless and penniless. a ray of indescribable hope erupted onto her spine that her husband was waiting for her somewhere nearby.

Melodious and merry Japanese dialects were all around. There were no inactivities. Everyone was on the move. But no Mitsubishi people presented themselves. It was a welcome thing, though, that there were no people out there to try and take advantage of unwary and innocent new arrivals.

The midnight train from Shimonoseki to some place else was not crowded. It was cleaner, quieter, more comfortable, and less smelly. The atmosphere in the passenger compartment seemed tense just like both edges of swords. The passengers shared few conversations, if any, dozing off or pretending to sleep.

Even for the moment, her impression was that the native Nipponese (Japanese) didn't shake each other's hands. They didn't shake their legs, and they didn't shake their eyes, either. They didn't shake their heads. Their voices were full of confidence and optimism, casting off self-doubt or skepticism. Their footsteps were brisk and stable. Their gazes were fixed, not shivering. Their shoulders were firm. They didn't shrug their shoulders. They didn't shake their bodies; All the parts of their bodies were in place, in well-organized fashion. The reason might have been that their land had been shaking them all along the way, off and on.

Gloom was falling like drizzle in whatsisname fields. You might call it Fukuoka, Sasebo, or Nagasaki Plains or something, which was shrouded in the dark. Boolim looked out the window at the pitch-dark expanse, death-like stillness of which enveloped like a huge bed spread. Glimmers of light, which were seen in the faraway places presumed to be the people's villages, through the one- hundred deep wall of darkness, looked to beckon the nocturnal passengers to their place of peace and rest. The wayward imagination of a colonial country woman was running wild. She was wondering aloud whether the dear sons of the villagers were chasing the preys in uniform in rain forests in the Pacific, or being gunned down by the warring predators, or desecrating the captive women, or beheading the prisoners' heads.



6
The Boolims' Days at Sakitoma-chi, 1940~1945

There was no empire and no colony, either. There were only people there, greeting with handshakes and friendly talks. There were smiling human faces, melodious human voices and brisk human steps. The transmarine travel pair, who could have turned scandalous if their true relationship had been bared to the cruise passengers, arrived safely at last after one night and two days, with the travel shifts of foot to train to ship and lastly to train, in one late spring afternoon of 1940 at a Mitsubishi Mining Company at Sakitoma-chi, Nishisonoki-kun, Nagasaki-ken, Japan.

"Anatawa ri san deska?" (Are you Mrs. Lee?) a woman in her thirties in kimono dress asked Boolim, looking up and down at her as if to size her up. "Hai," Bin came forward and responded on behalf of her. He had already familiarized himself in the community because he had been made a clerk at a Mitsubishi mining town of Sakitoma-chi. Michiko-san led Boolim to her "house" in the miners' quarters.

"Mr. Park has gone to the coal pit," the woman said to Boolim at the threshold of her room, handing her a room key, with a female dependent of a miner's family acting as an interpreter. The room was small, with a low ceiling and two glass windows, one to the corridor and the other to the outside, or land side. Though unfurnished, it had room enough for two.

Left alone, with the door closed, she put the hand-held pack, which she had carried all the way from Danuishill to Nagasaki using both hands and shoulders, down on the room floor and unpacked it. She picked out tuck (rice cakes) first of all the wrappings and smelled them to see whether they were all right. To her expected disappointment, they were going bad but she minded dumping them right away. She then sorted out her husband's sweatshirts and underwears, which she had cleaned and starched, folded them and put them in the closet.

The room was neither hot nor cold. It was adequately warm, floored with tatami mats and warmed with air-tight windows. She took a slow glance around the room, with her eyes focused on a pants on a clothes hanger on the wall. She got to it, touched it and got her nose to it. Although cleaned, it sort of smelled of coal. She got it off the hanger and sat down with it, putting it on her knee. She closed her eyes and pictured her husband far down the pit, crawling on his legs.

Bin's wife Kwon called on Boolim and invited her to a lunch treat. But there were no familiar flavors scented of kimchi and toenjang (fermented soybean paste). There were no bowls of rice, either. Kwon instead got bowls of hato mugi, or pressed barley steamed with a small amount of beans to be set out on a small dining table along with lukewarm vegetable soup. There also were plates of steamed sweet potatoes. Kwon roasted the bad rice cakes which Boolim had handed her into the edible ones, which turned out a real treat.

The flamboyant words such as the allegiance to the High Emperor or the subjects' obligation did not pass their lips. The situation was that almost all the available resources human and material had been sent into the barracks at war. So, rice for the civilian use was in short supply. Other staples had been being rationed, of which pressed barley was one of them.


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Nocturnal lives posed a problem. They had not been "smart" from the start. But after a lot of trials and errors, they had adjusted themselves to "a smart mode." An old Oriental wisdom had it that the wife of a man should deserve the designation of a "smart" wife in so far as she did not "extract", or drain energy from her spouse. The very woman, who was destined or trained to deplete male stamina from amorous relationships with her counterpart, for the sake of satiating her own sexual impulses, should deserve the moniker of "a bad woman."

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Communal was the exact term which could categorize the life patterns of Sakitoma-chi coal miners. Three major modes of life at the coal mining town had been done communally: the distribution of food grains, laundry and bathing. Pressed barley and something were rationed; The washing of miners' work wear was done at communal laundry houses; And the miners and their dependents took baths at the town bath houses. The miners changed into their work clothes which had been cleaned and starched at communal laundry houses at men's locker rooms before going down the pits.

The scarcity of the farmland foods could be supplemented and made whole by foods from the waters. Boolim and her sister-in-law Kwon frequented the shallow beaches off Sakitoma Island to collect various sea foods including brown seaweeds, seaweed laver, abalones and all assortments of shellfish.

The sea was really generous in offering and asked for nothing in return. She did not discriminate against the women from a ruined country, nor deride them. The sea winds were aptly fresh and the sea water was crystal blue. Boolim had a guilt feeling from time to time about having the luxury of peace and tranquility as a subject of a ruined kingdom while her husband was crawling on his hands and knees in the dark pits in the imperial country proper.

Boolim's guilty feeling about the bizarre or reverse euphoria, which she had had while gathering shellfish and strolling on the insular beaches of the Japanese mining town, was juxtaposed with her husband Don's elation and the subsequent guilt feeling he had experienced during routine commutes to and from the office, commanding the fine view. He took one and half miles' walk everyday to the office from which he descended to the pits by cable car.

Whereas they had been privately ashamed of the unexpected joy of life, which Boolim had found out from the tranquil seascapes and which Don had done from idyllic commutes, a quiet inner protest had erupted, which had dared to justify the jubilation by a supposition that they would have otherwise been working the harsh fields at a rough village and sawing far into the night.

The excuses for the irony might have also stemmed from the history that the most recent ruined monarch and most of the monarchs before him had been incompetent and unsympathetic toward their subjects; That the elites of the ruling class had fought among themselves; That the lower officials had domineered over the common people, extorting them; And that the land owners had squeezed rents from the peasants.

It's not certain that the Mitsubishi Mining Company had aptly reimbursed for the labors of the miners. In fact, Boolim had not ever received envelopes of her husband Don's salaries because Don had gotten his paychecks mailed to his mother at home. The Don couple lived off rations and the hospitality of the neighborhood people.

The kindnesses of the Sakitoma-chi neighborhood seemed and sounded real; There had not occurred even once that the Boolim couple had suspected the towners might have been indoctrinated on the behavior modification toward the miners and their dependents from the colonial country. Their behaviors had been so sincere: Their attitudes and words had been so genuine.

The communal congeniality, or companionship had not come from wealth. A specific neighbor had not been rich enough to offer philanthropy, let alone throw a gorgeous town party. The folks of the small town had been prepared to share, or to divide among themselves, which had been the root of the communal camaraderie. There had been mutual concerns, considerations and worries about every gamut of human incidents ranging from kid ailments to births to scarcity of foods. Michiko-san, Saori-san, Hatori-san, Akiko-san, and somebody else had stopped by from time to time, popping their heads into the room to know whether everything was all right.

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Virtually every other hour did not get passed without getting noticed by his or her concerned neighbors. It was not into two years until Boolim ran into a shower of Japanese hospitalities. In the second year of Boolim's entry into the mining town, she had come to bear an offspring. Hardly had she entered labor when Saori-san stopped by to see what was going on in there. Seeing that Boolim started labor just alone, she jump startled at the pitiful scene. She intoned the impossibility of the condition. She turned into a town crier, rallied the neighborhood to help Boolim, called for a mid-wife, turning the town into a stampede.

The rescue party began to set in. Individual contributions were briskly "commandeered" to help ease off her labor; Blankets were collected to help warm the room floor; A portable fireplace was installed to heat the room; A middle-aged mid-wife got prepared for the emergency; The women of the neighborhood took every possible measure for after-birth treatment and nutritions. Whispers of surprise erupted when someone brought rice, though meager in quantity. Meat was rare like rice at the time: The sea fish would do.

Although her husband had gone to the pits and her sister-in-law Kwon had not been available because the Bins had been away from the island, the repeated assurances from the kind-hearted neighborhood sisters and mothers gave Boolim a sort of peace and consolation. Surges of pain were swept away in the melodious soothing words. As noon passed and neared two in the afternoon, Boolim got her first child and son born. There was a momentary hustle and bustle. "Musuko desne!" (It's a son!), the women in the room shouted in unison.

The rescue people went back to their places at dusk. Kwon returned to the town in the early evening and rushed to the scene in trouble, keeping vigilant all through the night. Don joined the scene late at night, excusing himself for the tardiness. He saw a cute little thing lying beside his wife and beamed a broad smile. “Meet your son," his wife said, still lying and smiling weakly. She did not say "our son." He did not get the reason that she said in such a mode of speaking.

"I am so sorry and thank you for the trouble," Don held her by the hand weak and wet with sweat, caressing her shoulders. "How do you like your son?" she asked, still lying and looking up with meek smiles. He threw a glance at his son but the little thing did not look him back, its eyes still closed. He did not know whether his son was sleeping or got his eyelids still shut.

Kwon got all prepared for the Boolim fare and told her brother-in-law to serve it every other hour as she went back to her house. "See to it that you keep the exact hour," she asked of him as she exited the door. She also wanted to know whether Don would be able to get a few days off from the company. He answered in the positive.

With their two and a newly-born son left alone, Boolim rattled off Aunts' extraordinary efforts. "Let's keep in mind we‘ve owed them a great debt!" they vowed to each other. Even to her own surprise, Boolim ate out every soup and grainy meal offered with a great gusto. "I eat too much, don't I?" she said ashamedly. "Yes, you became a big eater, of course, but don't be sorry for that. Rather, I thank you for that," Don said, grinning ear to ear at his wife's enormous consumption.

Don dozed in fits and starts. Tried to keep himself awake. And sat up with starts and rushed to prepare bowls of soup for her. She was sorry for his lack of sleep. The newly born had fits and starts, too. Then and there she started reaching for it to feed. It did not cry, in a true sense of the word. The little thing cried, of course, but gave little noise so much so that his parents did not get on nerves.

Her breast was really good. Her breast milk was always superfluous at a feeding. Her breast milk could feed her son to his full content and made a leftover. She pumped all that had been left and collected it on a big bowl and made his husband "eat" it. "Eat," she said. He hesitated at first, saying "How can I?" But she insisted, saying "It's very good for you, darling."

Months passed. Don didn't know what made him think so suddenly. He didn't know why anyway. If asked, he wouldn't know, either. He was tempted to have a conversation with his newly born nevertheless. A confession session, that is. So, using a comparatively long interval in which his wife had gone out to release, he briskly started having "heart-to-heart talks" with his fresh new son, baring his bosom.

The young confessoree, who would accept the session, appeared to be at ease. On the confessor's part, too, the initial shyness was replaced by chutzpah. He dared to raise his face, yet with lower voice. Look him straight in the eye.

Sure. He was sorry for the gloomy condition which his son would be put in anyway but he had to carry on a karma on which his parents had had to become his mom and dad. The people of a ruined country could not and didn't have to commit mass suicide.

There was a profound and calm stare which struck him as a sort of infantile insouciance. The confessoree appeared to be smiling albeit faintly. There was an inquisitive gaze, too. The little son seemed to be asking unfathomable questions. Seemed to say that the precious encounter of theirs couldn't have been a mere accident but an inevitable predestination.

He didn't have to be sorry. He didn't have any idea why his dad let himself down. He had had a long journey from a far-away land through whirlpool by whirlpool of what you don't know, cliffs and valleys. He appreciated the light his dad had enabled him to see. He didn't get distressed by what had happened. He would have to face the music. Thanks, Dad.