| A Girl's Life In Times of War (Part III)

The following day, while still accommodating to the cumbersome feeling of wearing a pad, the stomach ache and the general notion that the universe was working against her, Soo-Ah stumbled on the gisaeng she slapped. She pretended she did not recognize her, but the woman was having none of that.

"Good day to you, Young Master," she said, as Soo-Ah walked by her. Soo-Ah did not even nod. This woman had brought enough misery on her and she did the same. Better to keep ignoring each other.

But the woman was stubborn. She tagged along with her, skipping the mud piles in her colorful skirt, as Soo-Ah walked faster.

"Young Master, wait for a second, please."

Not stopping, Soo-Ah replied, "Didn't you have enough yesterday? Why are you still coming around here?"

"I am performing my duty, Young Master as one in my rank should. Please don't think so lowly of me. I wanted to thank you."

Soo-Ah turned, in shock. "Thank me? What is the gods' name for?"

"For being kind, what else?"

"I slapped you, How was I kind?"

"You asked for the truth, Young Master. Believe it or not, not many would and you showed that soldier a lesson. He is a weird one and he is for sure not going to make anyone do his antics. You saved a lot of girls some trouble. Actually, I was here, Uhm, seeing someone else. But I'm going back to our camp, at the mountain base. I want to give you something. Would you come with me? It's only a short walk down."

Soo-Ah looked up at the woman, standing one head taller than she was, especially with her elaborate hairdo, now a little in disarray. And her figure was plump and well-built. If she wanted to harm a child no more than 12 winters old, she could. Soo-Ah could have defended herself but why risk it?

Seeing her hesitation, the gisaeng continued, "I am Nabi, of Sabi city, now part of the Flowers of May gisaeng family. I could take another patron tomorrow so I could enter here if you can not come with me now. There is something I want you to have."

Soo-Ah looked at her one more time and the least she wanted was for the woman to submit herself to the rough touch of another man for her sake. Pushed by curiosity Soo-Ah agreed to follow her back to her camp. The way down the rocky steps was not so hard. The way up would be more difficult, but it would make for good exercise.

While climbing down, and to keep warm in front of the shrieking wind howling down the versant, Nabi began to talk, her breath vaporous. She told Soo-Ah her story, about how she grew up with two older sisters and how they were all sold to gisaeng houses at the age of five. To Soo-Ah's amazement, Nabi said she was 16 winters old, though she looked older, and she was in training until she was 14 when she took her first benefactor. Her blood had descended and her forms already suggested she looked more like a mature woman. Perfect fruit for its first reaping. Her virginity was sold for a hefty fee to an overseas merchant, a foreigner who gifted her some precious items.

Soo-Ah stopped midday and asked, "Do you like what you do?"

Nabi came to a halt as well. "It is not for a lowly person like myself to judge what I like and dislike. I am a cheonim, I am to serve."

"That is not what I meant. Do you enjoy it? You know, what men do to you."

Nabi's face turned dark. "I don't think about it. My mind goes blank at that moment." She suddenly began smiling, as if wanting to hide something. "It's over pretty quickly anyway. The military men have little time. That is a strange question for a young master like yourself to ask. Perhaps that means when you have a woman for yourself, you will be kind to her." And just like that, she began walking again.

Soo-Ah knew it. All those stories coming from men's tongues were lies. And they must have been telling such lies for so long that they ended up believing them. There was no pleasure in such violent acts for women. Only pain. Suddenly Soo-Ah no longer had the same sense of comfort in being around men.

The gisaeng camp was made part of nature, with its shabby tents scattered around and hugging trees or bushes. A pit fire and a cauldron boiling some soup stood in the middle with a couple of women watching over it.

"You got yourself a fresh one, Sister Nabi," one of the women called after them, but Nabi dismissed her, smirking at the joke.

Inside the tent another woman, clearly older, sat on a makeshift bed on the ground and smoked a pipe, infusing the air with thick herbal smoke. She got up and, staring at Soo-Ah while puffing her pipe, extended her hand at Nabi. Nabi took a couple of coins from under her sleeve and deposited them in the woman's palm. She made the metal pieces jungle then took her to leave and left them alone in the tent, undoubtedly thinking more coins were about to come her way.

"That's my gisaeng Big Sister. We share everything. Well, I mostly have to share with her. Anyway, since we are here," Nabi took something out from under what was probably her mattress. It was a small package rolled out and kept safe in cloth, tied with a yellow ribbon. Unwrapping the package it turned out to be a ceremonial stash, made of blue silk with lotus flower motifs. "This is meant for a man. It is a gift for you, to remember to always look for justice when you will grow to be an important official under the king. I hope you will wear it."

Soo-Ah accepted the gift with both hands and was at a loss for words. "Thank you for this souvenir," was all she could add in a hushed voice. She kept Nabi's gaze into hers for a couple of moments and wished she could speak to her freely as girls would. Ask her about her experience with the changes she was facing, and offer an ear to hear the gisaeng's worries and struggles in turn. Simply bond.

"If we see each other again, you don't have to talk to me. I'll understand," Nabi added.

How ironic, Soo-Ah thought. She could not get closer to her fellow soldiers and neither to women all because of her damned secret. "I would like to keep talking to you. But my friends would begin to gossip and that might be troublesome. I hope you have an easy life."

Taking the little bundle with her, Soo-Ah headed back to the fortress on the mountain. But walking by the gisaeng's tents she could not help but hear the grunts of a man seeking his pleasure and the whining moans of a woman having to suffer through it. It made her skin crawl and terror fill her thoughts. She hastened her steps and wrapped tightly her tunic around her, glad her body shape could attract no interest from men for now. Soon she will need to face more terrifying changes. And after some time she could no longer see Nabi's face around to at least keep a little hope that there was someone who might understand the changes she was facing.

*

Time rushed on the front line. The future turned into the present, soon becoming the past, and Soo-Ah grew into the shape of a young woman, that shoved her form under large clothes or protective armour.

Her breasts took a longer time to make an appearance, first turning into little shy bumps and remaining like this for a long time. Until one spring when all of a sudden they moulded out of her chest. By this time she had been dealing with her monthly flow for a couple of years and at this time no such delicate topics arose in the discussions she had with her grandfather. Panicked and ashamed she talked to him when she could no longer pass them for muscle or stranger boyish development.

Calm and accommodating, General Min-Jun suggested she should hide them under layers of bandages taken from the field surgeons. But under his collected appearance, he counted one more thing the girl should suffer through until the war ended. He saw no peace treaty in sight. Only more battles.

Every day it pained him to see her struggling, so he made sure to commend Soo-Ah for her efforts to keep her gender hidden at every chance he got. "If anyone can do this, it is you," he would say to her as encouragement, kissing her forehead.

He made sure to also remind her every time he saw her determination quiver: the army had men from every walk of life, amassed together. As her body came into its natural shape he had to teach Soo-Ah a new word: rape. If any lowlife would find out she was a girl, he might take advantage of her and do unspeakable things. Things that could leave her with a burden for life. Things he could not bring himself to depict in detail, despite the girl's questioning expression. All he could do was enunciate that new word with gravity and horror.

But Soo-Ah thought she had a good idea of what he was referring to. She now knew what Ho-Orabeoni had done to that woman from the village. She was certain it was rape. All those living around her in the camp were capable of it, judging by the way her grandfather was pronouncing that word and by how she began to observe the manner in which the soldiers behaved.

She remembered vividly the event her young eyes witnessed and she placed every single man she encountered in Ho-Orabeoni's place. Even Duri. They had that hot blood that stirred their harmless worm into a snake that turned them into brutes, all the necessary makings to become fruits of evil.

As a precocious girl, she outgrew the childish view of men as dangerous demons set to lure and prey but she remained just as scared. Rape must have been such a terrible act that not even a general could protect her. The thought sapped any sense of security she might have had up to this point so she struggled to abide by her disguise.

But flattening her feminine forms was a process that needed practice to be mastered, as do all new skills. And the learning curve is dotted with trials, errors and frustration. Despite her changes and fears, her days had to continue as usual, with Soo-Ah trying to make the best out of an unusual situation.

She found herself with little patience lately and was easy to irate. Something strange was happening with her blood as it felt it rush through her veins straight to her head, as soon as things were not going her way.

Her fighting skills had come a long way and brought her a tinge of confidence and a sense of accomplishment, but there was still more to go and it was not easy. When coming for her practice session, she would find Duri practising with his spear. He was swinging it around his body and twisting it in the air, making the talismans he kept tied at its tip with a blue ribbon, jingle. The spear was too long and heavy for Soo-Ah. And thus, the blade, even the blunt wood ones, became more than a weapon of choice for their training.