Happy Wedding
"Commander, would you please officiate the wedding? I beg this of you."
Major General Martin put the request to Commander Taylor with careful respect.
"Hmm..."
Taylor, who only a moment before had been busy declining, seemed to weigh it. In truth there was little to weigh. An invitation alone to a Stillman wedding was honor enough, and he was itching to seize it.
General Kim Hong-il, gathering that this was the wedding of a son of a distinguished house, gave Commander Taylor a nudge.
"In Korea, it is held an honor when the groom's superior officiates. Of the groom's commanding officers now in this country, surely you stand highest, Commander?"
"Well... that much is true."
"It would be the finest of gifts to the bride's family as well. And once the bride and groom return to America, they will hold the ceremony a second time, will they not?"
"I expect they will."
Martin was quick to catch the thread Kim Hong-il had spun.
"And would they fail to invite you again — the commander who stood for them here in Korea — when they marry back home?"
That settled Commander Taylor.
"I'll do it."
"Thank you, Commander."
Taylor was the one who ought to have been grateful, and yet it was Martin who offered the thanks. Watching him, Kim Hong-il judged him a soldier who knew how to attend his superior.
"Martin, will you show me the way?"
Taylor made to rise, but Martin checked him and held out three sheets of paper.
"Read these before you go, Commander."
"What are they?"
"An officiant's address. I took the liberty of preparing one."
"Come now... a man simply speaks. What's the need for all this..."
Even as he said it, Commander Taylor read the address through with care.
Martin — that one is going to rise.
Kim Hong-il regarded the meticulously prepared Martin with quiet satisfaction.
Only after he had gone over the address two or three times did Commander Taylor speak.
"Let's go."
Taylor stood, and Martin stood with him. General Kim Hong-il decided he would attend the wedding in their company.
Long before Commander Taylor ever arrived, Kijo and Ma-ryang had been busy past the point of drawing breath. Reporters had to be given something worth printing, and the two of them had prepared several pieces to that end.
The first belonged to Shim Hansu.
Early that morning he opened a class in traditional Korean archery on the parade ground. He and his students gathered there for the lesson, and the officers who trained under him had taken to calling him bow master. They bent at the waist in the Korean manner and then, following their teacher's demonstration, loosed arrows at a target a hundred paces off.
Dongducheon was famous for the thickness of its winter fogs, and an archery demonstration shot through that mist called a watercolor to mind. The foreign correspondent capturing it stuck up a thumb in admiration.
"Beautiful... beautiful..."
Shim Hansu's arrow bored through the fog and planted itself dead in the center of the target. It looked like a scene from a film.
The second story belonged to the people of Eundae-ri.
To furnish an article they might call A Korean Christian Village in Bloom After the War, the villagers gathered in the tent chapel for morning worship. Auntie Young-hee led it. She was the only Christian in Eundae-ri, and a devout one besides, and together with her daughter Young-hee she lifted a beautiful hymn. Mother and daughter's sweet voices, ringing out inside an American tent church, were moving enough to still a listener. The villagers pressed their hands together and prayed as Auntie Young-hee had taught them, calling out "Amen" again and again.
Kijo and Ma-ryang attended as well. Americans and Koreans did not sit apart; they sat mingled together, by Major General Martin's order, the better to show the closeness between them. Most conspicuous of all were the day's true principals, Park Hee-ja and Roberts Stillman, seated side by side in worship. The photographer trained his lens on the two of them and little else.
Before he turned his camera on the chapel, Melvin of Time had already heard from the division commander that Roberts was the youngest son of the Stillman family.
"Is that true, General?"
"Would I dare lie to a reporter from Time? A son of a great house, marrying a Korean woman, in Korea. That's a scoop, isn't it?"
"A scoop... yes. Thank you, General!"
"Make it a handsome piece, Mr. Melvin."
"Of course."
Knowing what he now knew, Melvin did everything he could to see that Hee-ja's face came out beautifully. She was pretty enough that it hardly mattered where he stood to shoot. Fair and innocent-looking, she even seemed holy.
Kijo, seated in the very last row, was talking quietly with Seo-gwang.
"Village Head... the water-carrier. The truth is, he was a great landlord in Pyongan Province..."
Seo-gwang's voice was barely a whisper.
"Is that true?"
Kijo's eyes went round.
"Yes. I heard it from Hee-ja's father himself. When they drew the 38th parallel up north, he ran with nothing but the body he stood up in. Afraid the Communists would kill him..."
"Oh, come now. How could anyone know a thing like that?"
After the war, anyone might say as much. The poorer a man was, the more readily he boasted that he had once lived well, if only so he would not be looked down on.
"But I saw it, I tell you..."
"Saw what?"
"The water-carrier's family photograph. He showed it to me himself. The whole clan lined up in fine Western suits before a tiled-roof house like a palace — and every man among them dressed like a gentleman."
"Ah..."
Kijo nodded.
"And another thing, Village Head..."
Seo-gwang dropped his voice again.
"Hee-ja. You know, Hee-ja..."
"Yes. Hee-ja."
"They say she was a real scholar. Finished high school in Pyongyang..."
"Ah... so that's why her English is so..."
"Yes, yes. Exactly. Hee-ja's English is very good."
It startled Kijo that the shabby-looking water-carrier should have a history like that. The man did nothing but work, and Kijo had simply taken him for someone who had always carried a water yoke on his shoulders. He studied the water-carrier and his wife where they sat ahead of him. In new clothes ordered from a tailor and a silk shop with the money Roberts had given them, the couple looked every bit the wealthy pair from Pyongan. Even from behind, prosperity seemed to spill off them.
So it was true what they said — clothes make the man...
Kijo could only marvel.
When the service ended, people set about preparing the wedding of Hee-ja and Roberts. The chapel was to serve as the wedding hall just as it stood. While the villagers and the American soldiers dressed the place together, Kijo slipped over to the water-carrier.
"Congratulations. I'm sorry I've never once addressed you properly by your name."
Kijo bowed, and the water-carrier answered with an easy smile.
"My name is Park Chang-hyun. Light and dark share it, and perhaps that is why my life has been so full of turns."
"I never treated you as an elder ought to be treated. I've been discourteous more times than I can count."
"Discourteous? Not in the least. In days when a man could barely keep food on his lips, the village head who let his people eat and live is the one who deserves an elder's due."
Park Chang-hyun's praise left Kijo embarrassed and ill at ease. To smooth the awkwardness over, he asked a question.
"I hear you're going to America with your son-in-law?"
"Yes. That's how it has fallen out. It pained me to think of sending my daughter alone to a country at the far end of the world, but fortunately my son-in-law asked us to come to America with them."
"A wise decision, sir."
"Ha ha... I still hardly know what I ought to do once I'm there. My eldest had a business in Pyongyang before Liberation, and now he says he'll start one in America as well."
Kijo took particular note of that — the news that the water-carrier's eldest son, Hee-jun, meant to try his hand at business in America. Hee-jun, seated among the bride's family, looked at a glance both presentable and keen.
"When you arrive in America, please be sure to send word."
"I will, without fail. We have not forgotten the kindness you and Mr. Ma-ryang showed in saving my daughter and my son-in-law. I am truly grateful."
Kijo was ashamed. He himself had done nothing, and yet whenever something good came to pass, people said it was thanks to him. If he had done anything at all, it was only this: when the water-carrier came to the house and begged him to find the daughter who had become a so-called Western princess for the GIs, Kijo had said that he would.
One word, they say, can settle a debt of a thousand nyang...
He felt once more the weight of what a man said.
After he had spoken with Hee-ja's father, Kijo stepped outside the chapel. Melvin of Time, whom Major General Martin had summoned, caught his eye at once. The reporter was changing the film in his camera and scribbling something in a notebook, a smile on his face.
"Good day, Mr. Melvin."
"Ah — Village Head."
"Have you had your interview with the bride and groom?"
"Just finished. The bride's English is so good it went off cleanly. She's a beauty, and she speaks well. Americans are going to love her."
Kijo and Melvin laughed together.
"Then I needn't worry about the piece on the village?"
"Not at all. It'll come out beautifully. The line of the article will be this: the American army is protecting a beautiful love that bloomed after the war, and this happiness ought to last a long, long time. That's the direction I'll take."
A little sentimental, perhaps — but set against the wretched reality of Korea after the war, it did not seem a bad thing.
"Mr. Melvin, please stress as well that Eundae-ri is a Christian village."
"Of course. Don't you worry."
Melvin smiled. He knew Korea's hardships well, and he went on.
"America is full of Christian charities. The women's church societies and the like work very hard. I'll write it so it plucks at the ladies' heartstrings. I expect the donated goods will come pouring in."
"Thank you, sir."
Kijo bowed his head.
"There's the commander now."
The reporter snatched up the camera slung at his neck and took off toward the Eighth Army commander.
Coming along beside Major General Martin, Commander Taylor wore a bright face, and the sight of it set Kijo at ease. If both men looked bright, it meant the Eighth Army commander had brought a remedy for the trouble the 7th Division was in. That was how Kijo read it.
When their eyes met, Major General Martin came over and spoke quietly.
"Come to my office when the ceremony's done. The Eighth Army commander says he'd like to meet you."
"Understood."
And so Kijo could watch the wedding with an easy heart, his family beside him.
The wedding was the highlight of the day's events. If the article closed on an American soldier and a Korean woman marrying in happiness, the crisis bearing down on a village of simple, decent people would stand out all the sharper.
Kijo had worried a great deal when he went to Roberts to arrange this very scene. He had been afraid the man might not be thinking as far as marriage with Hee-ja. The fear was needless. Roberts understood well enough that the people of Eundae-ri had fallen into danger, and he truly loved Hee-ja. He had agreed to hold the wedding without hesitation.
"Hee-ja is so beautiful."
Sunrye, standing at his side, let the words out as she gazed at Hee-ja in the white wedding dress.
"I want to wear a dress like that, just once. Twice I've been married, and not once have I worn one."
Soon-young muttered it, and Ma-ryang cleared his throat.
With Yeongsu in his arms, Kijo looked over the reporters covering the wedding. A man from The Korea Times was there, and so was Chung Shin-yung of the Dong-A Ilbo, younger brother of Chung In-yung. By that measure, the domestic press had come in numbers enough.
Commander Taylor finished his duties as officiant, and the commemorative photographs began. Taylor and Major General Martin, posed with Roberts and his bride, both looked bright — Commander Taylor most of all.
When the time came for the group portrait with the bride and groom, Kijo's family and Ma-ryang's were received as the bride's own people and stood with the house of Park Chang-hyun. Soon-young, pressed close at Hee-ja's side, spoke to her.
"Sister, I'm sorry. You looked so young that all this time I just called you Hee-ja."
"It's all right, Soon-young. I didn't mind one bit."
Kind-hearted Hee-ja told her she would pass the wedding dress on, and that Soon-young ought to wear it and hold a wedding of her own with Ma-ryang. At that, Soon-young, moved to the heart, threaded her arm tight through Hee-ja's.
"Thank you. I won't forget your kindness, Sister."
"We're the ones in your debt, Soon-young."
Hee-ja's words brought a sudden sting of tears to Soon-young's eyes. For a woman who had set up house without ever holding a wedding, a wedding dress meant something all its own.
Then the photographer called out.
"All right — here we go! Cheese!"
The flash burst with a pop.
In that instant the division commander's words came back to Kijo.
Come to the office when the ceremony's done. The Eighth Army commander says he wants to see you.
He waited until the ghost of the flash, still wavering before his eyes, had faded, and then he started for the division commander's office.