When My Name Was Keoko (10 page)

They're almost always in the daytime. It's about Uncle, I know it. They've raided his shop and now they're searching for him.

Abuji looks at us. His face is calm but serious as well. He's telling us to be calm, too.

Sun-hee leaves quickly to fetch Mrs. Ahn. We go outside and line up in the street. So many soldiers—lots more than usual. People are looking around, wondering.

We save a place for Mrs. Ahn. It's taking Sun-hee a while to bring her out. Omoni turns to me. "You had better go see—" she starts to say. But just then Sun-hee and Mrs. Ahn hurry up to us.

I look at Sun-hee as she slips into line next to me. "I couldn't find her at first," she whispers. "She didn't answer
the door, and then I finally found her in the garden." Sure enough, on the other side of me Mrs. Ahn is fussing about dirt on her hands, using a corner of her apron to wipe them.

We number off. Then the block leader starts talking. The usual spiel about His Majesty's Imperial forces. I'm dreading what he'll say next—about Uncle. He'll probably call him a traitor. I wish he'd get it over with.

"Metal!" the block leader says. "By order of the Emperor, the army is commandeering all household objects made of metal. It is needed for supplies, so His Majesty's Imperial forces can continue to spread his divine message to all people. Return to your homes and collect all your metal. You may keep a few things. Basic cooking tools. A shovel, an ax. Scissors and needles. Everything else, you must bring to your front gate."

Next to me, Sun-hee makes a choking noise, turns toward me, and grabs my arm. She looks so pale I'm afraid she might faint.

They want metal? What about Uncle?

Is he in danger?

Or has he gone into hiding for no reason?

No time to think about it now. Abuji sends me to the work area to gather up all the metal things there. Omoni goes into her bedroom to fetch the jewelry.

Outside, the soldiers are shouting up and down the street, yelling for us to bring all the metal things in bags.

Omoni comes out into the courtyard. She doesn't own much jewelry, but she needs both hands to carry it. Some silver bracelets and rings, a gold hair ornament, a necklace and a brooch. The last two were a wedding gift from
Abuji's parents—-a silver dragon on the necklace and another one on the brooch.

Sun-hee seems almost frozen—she hasn't moved since we all came inside. But now she looks at Omoni. "Not the dragon," she whispers. Her lips are white. I remember when she was little, she always used to beg Omoni to let her wear the brooch. It was her favorite because the dragon has a little pearl ball in its claw.

"Bring me the bag, Tae-yul," Omoni says. Calm, like Abuji. I've already put a bunch of metal stuff in an old rice sack. She drops the jewelry in, a piece at a time. Clink, clink.

But not the brooch.

All of us are watching her. She turns away a little, raises the hem of her skirt, and drops the brooch right into her underwear. Then she smoothes her skirt down again.

Abuji makes a sound, sucking in air. He looks at Omoni for a long moment. She holds her head high. Finally, he nods. "Take the bag to the gate, Tae-yul," he says.

So I do. A military truck drives slowly down the street. Soldiers are taking bags and throwing them into the truck. Crash, clink, clang.

I watch as the truck drives away. Our things—Omoni's jewelry, my tools. No,
our
tools, mine and Uncle's.

Uncle.
Uncle.

I take off, running as fast as I can toward town. Halfway there I remember that Abuji said I'm not supposed to leave the house, but it's too late now. I have to find out what's happening to Uncle.

When I reach the street where Uncle's shop is, I slow down a little. Nothing. No soldiers, no commotion. Uncle's shop is shuttered, looking like it always does when it's closed.

I go around to the back. No sign of any trouble.

What's going on?

I run all the way back home. Sun-hee is in the courtyard.

I don't mean to shout. But I can't stop the words from bursting out. "What happened? What have you done?"

What have you done?

Tae-yul ran in, yelling at me. How could I have been so stupid, how could I have made such a mistake? Did I realize what I'd done?

He grabbed my arm hard, shaking me. Suddenly, our parents were there. Abuji pulled Tae-yul away, while Omoni stepped between us.

"Tae-yul! Calm yourself," Abuji said sternly. "What is the matter?"

"You heard her! Uncle has gone into hiding—she told him he had to, so he did!" Tae-yul wrenched himself free of Abuji's grasp, still panting. "He's gone! But she was wrong—they weren't about to arrest him. They only wanted the metal! I went to his shop—there was nothing going on there. No raid, nothing! How could she have gotten so mixed up? Why didn't she tell someone first?"

I still couldn't move, but my mind had started working again. I closed my eyes and thought back to the conversation with Tomo. What had he said, exactly?
Your uncle
... a
shame ... not safe
... I couldn't remember anything clearly. The little things—he'd kept mentioning them. The little things made of wire—

Wire.

Metal wire.

That was what Tomo had been talking about. He'd been warning me that our metal things were about to be taken away. Maybe he thought that if we knew in advance, we could hide some things before it happened. But telling me straight out would have made him a traitor to the Japanese, his own people. He'd been telling me the only way he could—and I hadn't understood.

Behind my closed eyelids I could feel the heat of tears starting to rise.

When I opened my eyes, it felt like hours later, but Tae-yul's lips were still moving. I couldn't hear him; it was as if his voice were outside my hearing.

Abuji held up his hand. Tae-yul cut off his words abruptly. And I could hear again—a silence like iron, Tae-yul's heavy breathing the only sound.

Then Abuji said, "It does not matter how it happened. It is done now."

Tae-yul spoke between clenched teeth. "We have to get word to Uncle. We have to tell him it's all right, that he can come home. If we can send a message—if we tell the right people—"

Abuji shook his head. "I have already thought about this. It would be very dangerous to try to contact him. And it would take time—long enough so the authorities would hear of his untimely disappearance before he could return. If they were uncertain about his activities before now, they will surely know by then."

They
again. The Japanese. Always the Japanese. My eyes
were dry now, and I didn't feel I was about to cry. I hardly felt anything at all.

Abuji paused and spoke again, each word careful and deliberate. "To be honest, I do not even know whom to get in touch with. My brother was cautious that way. He thought it best for me to know as little as possible."

"You mean, we're not going to do
anything?
" Tae-yul blurted out. "We're just going to—to live without him from now on?"

Abuji cleared his throat. "Tae-yul, you need to understand this. What your uncle was doing was very dangerous. It was only a matter of time. Sooner or later he would have been arrested or else forced to escape." He paused. "If he had been arrested, who knows what they would have done to him."

Abuji moved toward me and put one hand on my shoulder. I could see it there, although I barely felt it. He turned his head and continued speaking to Tae-yul. "He is safe now. Safer than he would be if he were here."

He was trying to comfort me, I could tell, trying to tell me that the rash and terrible thing I'd done wasn't so terrible after all. I wanted to believe him, but in my head I could still hear the echoes—
stupid, stupid, stupid....

Tae-yul didn't believe him either. He shuffled his feet impatiently, then lifted his arms and let them drop by his sides again. "When will he be able to come home?" he asked.

There was no answer.

When Tae-yul was a baby, he'd slept with Omoni and Abuji. A few years later, when I was born, I slept in my parents' room and he moved into Uncle's bedroom. That was how we always slept now.

As I went to bed that night, I realized that Tae-yul would have the whole room to himself. If I hadn't been so numb, I might have laughed. What a thing to think at such a time.

I undressed and lay down. In the darkness I began to feel things again. First, a huge dry lump in my throat. I swallowed and swallowed, trying to get rid of it. Instead, it swelled until I nearly choked on it. At long last the tears began.

I cried and cried. Not sobbing or gasping for air, but silently. Tears poured out of my eyes without stopping. When I was on my back, they ran into my ears. So I turned onto my stomach and let my pillow catch them all.

I wasn't making any noise, but a long time after everyone was in bed Omoni rose and tiptoed to my side of the room. She knelt down beside me, but I couldn't make myself turn toward her.

"Sun-hee," she whispered, "a mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself."

She reached out and smoothed my hair away from my hot, wet face. "Perhaps now you cannot. One day you will." She stroked my hair again, but after a long moment, when it was clear that I wasn't going to answer, she went back to her own bed.

I curled into a little ball, tight around the pain in my middle. Her words had only made me feel worse. Because the truth was, there hadn't been good in my heart.

There had been
some
good, of course. I was worried about Uncle; I didn't want anything bad to happen to him. But there were other things, too.
I
wanted to be the one to save him. J wanted to be the one with the important news, the
one who'd figured everything out. Not my parents. And especially not Tae-yul.

Instead of saving Uncle, I'd put him in terrible danger. When the Japanese found out he had left suddenly, they'd know for certain that he was a rebel, working for independence. If they found him, he'd be arrested, jailed for years ... tortured ... maybe even killed.

I wouldn't be able to forgive myself until Uncle came home safely.

But who knew when that would be?

The next night, another neighborhood accounting. "A traitor among us!" the block leader shouts. Uncle's disappearance has been discovered. How did they find out so fast? They've been to the school and questioned Abuji. I know what he said—that he doesn't know where Uncle is. What else could he say?

The military police have raided Uncle's shop and found evidence of an illegal Korean newspaper. Uncle is now a criminal, wanted for treason against the Empire.

A house-to-house search. The soldiers spend the longest time at our house. We stand outside for nearly two hours, still there when everyone else has gone back to their homes.

At last the soldiers come out. We start to go inside. But the officer in charge of the search speaks to Abuji. "You are wanted for more questioning at police headquarters," he says. Then he nods at two other soldiers, who step forward to take Abuji by the arms.

But Abuji holds up his hands to stop them. "There is no need," he says. Quiet, like always. "I will come with you willingly."

We watch helplessly as he's taken away.

I can't keep still. I stand up a dozen times, go to the door, look toward the gate. Finally, I say to Omoni, "It's been a long time. I think I should go to the headquarters and see—"

"
No.
" She doesn't even let me finish my sentence. Her voice is like cold steel. "You are not to leave this house. Now sit down."

She never talks to me like that. I sit down meekly. No arguing with that voice.

Sun-hee and Omoni are sewing. I try to study, but I keep seeing Abuji's face. Bruised and battered, like Uncle's that time. I have to go back in my book again and again, rereading sentences I've just read.

We sit like that—the three of us, together in the middle of the room—for half the night. Omoni doesn't say we should go to bed—she doesn't even seem to notice we're there.

At last: footsteps outside the gate. I rush to the door.

Abuji is fine! Not a single mark on him. He looks surprised to see us still awake.

"They questioned me," he says. "I could not tell them anything, so they let me go."

I know it's thanks to Uncle. He told us almost nothing about his underground work. To protect us—all of us. If the authorities thought Abuji knew anything, they'd have beaten it out of him.

Omoni rattles around in the kitchen making tea for Abuji. She tells us to go to bed right away.

A million questions in my mind. I lie down on my side,
facing toward where Uncle usually sleeps. Right away I turn over onto my other side, but that doesn't help—I can still feel the empty space at my back.

I think I'm going to be awake all night—the room feels so cold without Uncle there. But I fall asleep almost the second I close my eyes. As if my mind needs somewhere to hide.

Guards are posted at our house, watching and following everyone in the family all day long. After about a week, they aren't there around the clock anymore, but they still come by several times a day. It makes us all nervous—we're never sure when a soldier might suddenly show up.

It seems impossible that our lives can go on with Uncle gone. But except for the soldiers, everything is back to normal. Sun-hee and I go to school, Abuji to work, Omoni keeps house.

Normal ... but not normal. I think of Uncle all the time. We'd have heard if he'd been caught. So he must have escaped. But where is he? Is he alone? Is anyone helping him? Will he ever be able to come home?

It's so hard to get used to him not being around. I miss his stories, doing things with him in our workshop—most of all his little jokes, the way he always makes us laugh. Abuji never makes jokes. Our house feels so much quieter and sadder now.

At first I was angry at Sun-hee. But I couldn't stay that way, not for long. Not the way she looks now—pale, with circles under her eyes.