The Train's Newspaper
People had told me there were plenty of fine establishments around, but this was hardly the hour to be tipping back drinks, and besides, none of them would have opened yet. The noodles I'd shared with her for lunch had tasted bland. When I had first dropped into this world three years ago, I'd suffered no end of trouble just over food — the market fare of this era was quite different from what I'd known. I could cook rice well enough, but there was no instant ramen to boil.
Still, once I adapted, it wasn't so bad. A little later, at half past twelve, we arrived at Gyeongseong Station — once known as Namdaemun Station — and collected our train tickets. Three years living in 1940s Korea, and yet this was the first time I had ever come here with the actual purpose of boarding a train.
"Have you ever been to Busan, Unni?"
Hui-yeong asked. I shrugged. Busan in the twenty-first century? Sure, I'd been there. But Busan in the twentieth century was another matter entirely. For now, though, I ought to stick to my cover story.
"I had no choice but to pass through it when I took up my post in Korea."
"You could go straight to Incheon, though."
"With the Gyeongbu Line running, why would I take a ship all the way to Incheon? There aren't many ships from Japan to Incheon to begin with. Ships burn through fuel. Japan has never exactly been flush with oil…"
"There are ships that run on coal."
"That's not the point."
We agreed to drop the pointless chatter there. A limited express departing at one o'clock — the timing itself wasn't bad. They said it would take roughly five hours to Busan, so leaving now, right after lunch, we'd arrive at Busan Station right around dinnertime. But judging from the atmosphere at the government offices earlier, it seemed they couldn't say when the ship would arrive, and wanted us waiting in Busan a little ahead of time, just in case.
The Oriental Development Company — effectively an agent of the Japanese government, buying up and administering Korean infrastructure and land — had withdrawn to Taiwan for the time being. If the Korean government were even remotely functional, the natural thing would be for it to take over management of the Gyeongbu Line as well.
But our situation here appeared to be running just as shakily as the government's precarious legitimacy. With the Government-General gone, its railway authority ought to have passed to the People's Committee — yet the Japanese side, questioning the committee's competence in railway management, had apparently handed over the choicest lines, the Gyeongbu and Gyeongin among them, to the South Manchuria Railway on its own authority.
"Even so, can't they assign a single train when we ask? This isn't just anyone we're bringing in — it's Hong Sa-ik. The Japanese side should want safety on top of safety. Even if they're South Manchuria Railway people, I'd think a little explaining would get them to be accommodating."
"This is the limit of their accommodating. One passenger car attached to a freight train."
"Well, that suits me fine…"
As I stepped into the car, I genuinely thought it wasn't bad at all. For one thing, it was an express, so no new passengers would board mid-journey along the long route, and apart from our car, everything else was freight — meaning no assassins or terrorists disguised as travelers could jump aboard. It was such an advantage that on the way here, I'd half wanted to request a freight train myself.
And yet it left a vaguely uneasy feeling in me, to realize that this government's voice was so weak it couldn't even push hard over a single railway line.
"The Manchuria Railway's management has grievances with the Japanese government, you see."
"It's a state-owned enterprise with its shares a hundred percent nationalized. Grievances or no grievances, they're just government mouthpieces the Japanese government planted there."
"Precisely speaking, they have grievances with the current Japanese government. This is something I overheard, but the Manchuria Railway apparently wanted to push on across all of China. And beyond that, they seem to have been firmly interested in the partition of North China."
"So they're unhappy with the current government's policy — the one that signed a peace settlement with China and left the Korean concessions in limbo."
"Exactly. Maybe that's why, even when I invoked the Japanese government's position, the Manchuria Railway people kept sulking through every conversation. I could have leaned on them harder, but I didn't think this affair warranted that much."
"Is the rivalry between Japan's army and navy over, then?"
"You know the situation well enough to say that yourself, Unni. Those two will still be fighting the day the Japanese army marches into New York. Not that such a day will ever come."
The army-navy feud within Japan had, for the moment, been settled in the victory of Yamamoto Isoroku — a former Navy Minister whose overwhelming track record had won him the Emperor's trust — but the embers of the conflict had not gone cold. They'll fight until the day we enter New York. A fitting expression, truly.
While boarding, I spotted a newspaper rack stocked with Japanese-language papers. I fished out my coin purse and bought a copy of the Dong-A Ilbo. The Chosun Ilbo, shuttered five years ago, had apparently not yet returned, and the Keijo Ilbo, once run by the Government-General, lingered on as nothing but a single stale edition from months back.
"Do you read a lot of newspapers?"
Hui-yeong asked as she took the seat beside me. I shook my head.
"I generally avoid them. I prefer news I pick up through the grapevine. Though with the world turned somewhat upside down, I suppose it's worth a glance to see how the Dong-A Ilbo has changed…"
"For a while there, it had sunk into a paper no different from the Keijo Ilbo."
I nodded in agreement.
"That's true. But that's what happens to any paper that survives under Government-General rule, isn't it? Even now, if it's just serving as the Ministry of Education's mouthpiece, well, that's about what you'd expect — although…"
"Director Kim Seong-su isn't the president of the Dong-A Ilbo anymore, you know. When he agreed to take the Ministry of Education, he resigned from the newspaper."
"Ah, so he's the one running the Ministry of Education. I know he's no left-wing figure."
Kim Seong-su. Since 1942, he had written pieces that suited the Government-General's palate in the Dong-A Ilbo — a little… no, quite a lot of them. A man with an admirable career, but I couldn't help the lingering unease. In a Korea where every single person was precious, his simply taking the post was something to be grateful for. With that thought, I unfolded the newspaper.
Come to think of it, it had taken me a while to adapt not just to the food, but to the era's characteristic mixed script of Chinese characters and hangul. After leaping into this world in Ajisai Mizuko's body, Japanese had read effortlessly, naturally. Korean, however, I'd had to labor to adapt to, building on the knowledge I'd carried over from my old world. I skimmed past the political and social pages and turned to the section on international affairs. That was what I was curious about, after all.
"Soviet Forces Enter Warsaw. Pushing Toward the German Homeland."
I read the headline of the largest, most eye-catching article. Warsaw? By my knowledge, that was late. In the history I knew, things around Berlin would already have been wrapped up sometime in the spring or summer of 1945. It was October 1945 now. Korean independence had come in August, but with one thing and another, the weather had long since turned chill. If the Soviet Union had only just entered Poland, time had slipped far too far.
There was no word of the Allies landing at Calais or Normandy either. Even the Allied forces that had landed in Italy seemed unable to punch through cleanly. In one way or another, the end of the war looked distant. Well — with the world's history so thoroughly upended, there was nothing to be done about it.
The train lurched and pulled out of Gyeongseong Station. I skimmed the gist of the articles, then folded the paper back with a snap.
"Germany seems to be losing."
Hui-yeong stretched out a hand, as if asking to see the paper herself. She studied the page I handed over, then let out a long sigh.
"Germany's condition is on the good side, actually. Frankly, I've never been to Europe either, so I don't know the situation firsthand. But I doubt the Dong-A Ilbo has a correspondent on the European front — in the end, they're just faithfully writing down whatever news drifts in from Asia."
"Probably. If this paper says Warsaw has fallen, odds are it happened quite a while ago."
"But we haven't heard that the Soviets advanced into Königsberg either."
"East Prussia? If they can push into Warsaw, you'd think they could manage there too."
I was playing knowledgeable. Hui-yeong gazed out the window at the scenery sliding past, nodding slowly.
"You're right. Who knows how the world will turn out… Working in the government, you do hear some interesting things. There's talk that Hitler and Stalin are preparing armistice negotiations."
"A compromise? That's absurd."
"Why do you think that, Unni?"
I simply felt it couldn't happen. I couldn't explain why — it just felt wrong. Was it because it was unthinkable in the history of the era I'd lived in? But this world shouldn't be any different. The Germans had harbored a burning hatred for the Slavs. Even if it hadn't matched the cruelty they'd visited upon the Jews, they would surely have committed atrocities far past the point where compromise was possible.
According to the newspaper articles and the various reports drifting in, the German army seemed to have already lost the initiative on the Eastern Front. There was no reason for Joseph Stalin to come to the negotiating table with Hitler…
"Because Ukraine will never be part of any compromise."
"Sharper than I expected. I thought you'd give some simpler answer — like how Germany has betrayed people so many times that Hitler can't be trusted."
"Doesn't that get to the heart of it, though? Who would believe a promise made by Hitler?"
"Your country believes him, Unni."
I had nothing to say. The Tripartite Pact was still in effect, however awkwardly the pieces fit together.
"Fair enough. Germany won't want to give up the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, and the Soviet Union obviously won't want to give up the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. But I almost hope I'm the one who's wrong — because it might just stop being the important question at all…"
With nothing to say, I fell silent. The train rattled steadily onward. Five hours. I considered shutting my eyes for a nap — but who knew what she might do the moment I drifted off. Just as Stalin could not trust Hitler, I could not trust the woman named Choi Hui-yeong…