Free Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story by William Andrews Page B

don’t know why he wants a Korean whore like you when he could have a good Japanese geisha like me. He must like the way you use your stone face on him.” The other Japanese women laughed without covering their mouths.
    I blushed at Seiko’s taunting. The Colonel had only forced me to do that once. He had just returned from visiting his family in Japan and was upset about something. I never found out what it was. After I undressed him like I always did, he pushed my face into him. I fought back but he was so strong, and I was afraid he would break my neck. So I did it. I had to.
    Afterward, the Colonel had turned quiet almost as if he was ashamed. When I rose to leave, he asked me to stay. That was the first time I stayed the entire night with the Colonel. Since then, we spent more time talking than having sex. He gave me Japanese books to read during the long breaks when the soldiers were away. I think the other ianfu and the geisha s were jealous of me.
    As I walked back to my room, Private Ishida was resting in the shade. He nodded to me and I returned a small bow. I liked the private. He only used the geisha s for himself and warned the Korean girls when the kempei was coming. He always carried his rifle, but I was sure he had never used it.
    When I got to the latrine, I emptied my chamber pot and rinsed it out. I washed my hands. In the room next to the latrine, I left my bedding on the pile of dirty laundry and took a clean set. I headed back to the barracks. Seiko and the other Japanese women glared at me. I made sure to keep my eyes low. When I got to my room, I set the chamber pot at the foot of my mat and spread the clean bedding so it would be ready for the next day. I retrieved the comb from under my mat and dropped it inside my chamber pot.
     
    *
     
    I went to the latrine to wash before dinner. The latrine was an open outhouse fifty feet behind the barracks. There was a wooden deck with three holes for the girls to squat over. To the side, on wooden frames, were three chipped and stained ceramic washbasins. Soo-hee, dressed in her yellow yukata , was washing laundry at a basin. I went to the basin next to her.
    “I think Kaori will kill me someday,” I said, staring into the washbasin.
    “I will talk to the kempei about him again,” Soo-hee said.
    “No don’t,” I said quickly remembering the times Soo-hee had been punched for asking the kempei for something. “It is not so bad.” I began to wash in the gray water.
    “I hear the war is going badly for the Japanese,” Soo-hee said. “The Americans are winning in the east. Maybe it will all end soon.”
    “Then what will we do?” I asked.
    “We will go home.” Soo-hee said.
    “I do not want to go home after what we’ve done here,” I said, “What will Mother and Father think? We have dishonored them.”
    Soo-hee put a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry about what Mother and Father will think. You just need to stay strong a little while longer.”
    Stay strong? What for? So I could be raped another day? Growing up on the farm, I thought I was strong. I could work all day in the fields alongside Father and Mother and Soo-hee and go days without a full meal when the rice was low. But for the past two years, the effort to make it through each day took everything out of me. I was nothing more than a toilet to the Japanese, and that’s exactly how I saw myself. I was doing my best to stay strong, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could.
    Soo-hee returned to her basin and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “This dirty water reminds me of the day that pig got away from Father and Mr. Lee from up the road. They were butchering it for the New Year’s feast. Do you remember?”
    “Yes, I think so,” I answered.
    Soo-hee continued. “It was raining that day and the pig slipped out of their arms. Mr. Lee said they should put out cabbage for it and catch him that way. But Appa was impatient and chased after it.”
    Soo-hee began to