Is anyone hurt? she heard herself call out, but she was only answered by the haunting echo of her own voice. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but she laughed. How embarrassing if someone could see her laughing like this while their countrymen suffered and died.
He always said she was tactless.
You’re mean! she said back.
Go ahead, he teased her. Find someone more charming.
They were on the roof of her school, which had been evacuated. Tomorrow he would be sent to the B combat zone; they had only this night together before he left.
Sitting next to him there on the roof, she had the urge to lean against his body, but instead she moved away. That’s how girls are supposed to act.
How’s school? he asked. But this was a silly question. They’d both gotten caught up in the war effort; there was no sense talking about school now.
I want to kiss you, he said suddenly.
Normally she would have pretended not to like it, but this time she pressed her entire body into his. Still, she broke away first.
You want too much, she said. I feel suffocated.
An air-raid siren went off. Then another. Level three. It didn’t matter. They were only vaguely aware of things flying in the sky above them. The explosions generated circles of yellow light. He shielded her with his body.
Let’s go down, it’s dangerous up here, he said.
But she refused. Her lips hungrily found his again.
Are you scared?
No. But I’m worried about you.
I want to be with you forever, she said, and held him so tightly it was as if she was trying to give him everything she had.
Below them, it seemed like the entire city was ablaze. The roof around them had started to turn pink.
Suddenly she stopped herself.
No, no! We shouldn’t do this.
I love you.
But it’s a sacred thing. I don’t want to do it while there are bombs falling all around us.
Sweetheart, I’m leaving tomorrow. When do you think we’ll be able to do it?
After we win the war. You’ll come back and we’ll get married.
But when will we win the war? Ten years? A hundred years?
I don’t know.
Are we going to wait for each other forever?
Please don’t say that. You need to trust me, and my love for you.
After this she cried for a long time. He apologized.
No, she said. You didn’t do anything wrong.
Dawn had just begun to break across the sky. She felt that she truly loved him. The city in the early morning was unusually quiet. It seemed like everything that had happened the night before was unreal.
They were both calm as they climbed down from the roof. He kissed her passionately one last time before leaving. It was then that she realized the sorrow of separation had only just begun.
She stayed two months in the jungle hospital to recover from the fever. The sickness took a toll on her physically, but slowly she began to get better. During this time she often thought back to the incident at the creek the day she’d first fallen ill. She had the sense that overhearing the two young soldiers who were spying on her had affected her soul tremendously, though in what way exactly she still wasn’t sure.
She also thought back to the day she’d received the news of her boyfriend’s sacrificial death. She had sobbed without shedding any actual tears; tears don’t accompany the most intense agonies.
Darling, I am suffering.
It had only been three months since their last night together on the roof of her school. She couldn’t eat and started to become emaciated and weak. If her mother hadn’t been there, she would have deteriorated completely. Her mother, of course, had experienced her own sorrow caused by loss and seemed to have endless sympathy for her situation. With her mother’s permission, she placed her boyfriend’s picture on the household shrine honoring her father. And the next day she volunteered for the army. Soon the cruel war had taken over her life. She hoped that being a good, responsible soldier would somehow alleviate her agony.
But that cold morning at the creek had reopened old, unhealed wounds, causing them to bleed.
Darling, are you also suffering?
If his soul were actually wandering in the afterlife full of regret and longing, she would never be able to forgive herself. Why hadn’t she just offered herself to him that night on the roof? Why not? She felt tremendous regret that she hadn’t given this to him before he left.
These thoughts tormented her. They became a kind of obsession. The day she was released from the hospital and returned to her unit, she found herself walking alone on a path through the jungle. Suddenly she saw him everywhere. There he was standing behind an old sang-le tree. His voice carried to her on the wind: I love you. She saw him hanging from a tall tree, dense with leaves. His body was covered in blood. His voice sounded broken: When will we have peace?
In the wilderness of the jungle, the thoughts intensified. She was tormented by images of him—his bandaged limbs, his bloody face. His hands dropped pages of a manuscript. She didn’t want to read the pages, but the wind blew them toward her.
Please read this, he implored her. It’s my journal. I wrote about you.
She wasn’t afraid and didn’t feel lonely. The idea of loneliness had ceased to exist for her the day he died. She cried because she pitied herself. “What have I done wrong?” she asked, but no one answered her.
One day she returned to the creek and found that the water looked unusually clear. She stared at her reflection in the water and was surprised to find that she didn’t recognize the woman she saw. The fever seemed to have aged her by ten years. Then she saw his reflection next to hers on the surface of the creek. He looked pensive.
What? she asked. Are you bored with me now?
But his reflection
