When My Name Was Keoko (20 page)

Omoni was standing in the doorway. She was holding her hands wide open in front of her, staring at the ground at her feet, and screaming.

"Omoni!" I said, trying to make myself heard. It was no use; it was as if some kind of evil spirit had possessed her.
She could only look up at me wild-eyed, then down at her feet again, still screaming. I looked down, too, and saw what was there on the ground.

A box, open where it had fallen.

A sword wrapped in cloth.

And an envelope.

I knew about these things. They'd been delivered before, to other households in the neighborhood. Delivered by the army to the family of a dead soldier.

A soldier who had died an honorable death, not one who'd been executed for treason.

Our plan had failed—mine and Abuji's. Either the authorities hadn't believed him, or the message hadn't gotten through.

Tae-yul had flown his mission.

My heart seemed to stop beating. My movements as I bent over to pick up the envelope were stiff and jerky. It had fallen facedown; I turned it over in slow motion.

The handwriting was Tae-yul's, so the words on the envelope—
To the family of the late Kaneyama Nobuo
—didn't make sense. In fact, I had to read them twice, and still they didn't make sense.

I managed to drag Omoni inside. When I gripped her arm firmly, she seemed to come to herself a little, and she stopped screaming. She let me lead her into the sitting room. I helped her sit down and hurried to make her some tea. As long as I kept busy, I wouldn't have to think about what the words on the envelope meant.

The news must have reached Abuji somehow, for he came home then, much earlier than usual. I had put the envelope
on a shelf in the kitchen. Hastily, I stepped into the courtyard and handed it to him.

He opened it and read the letter right there where he stood. Then he closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them again I couldn't look at him.

I followed him into the sitting room. He touched Omoni on the shoulder but said nothing; there was no need. She didn't respond at all, her face the color of ashes and her body still as a stone.

Then Abuji turned to me. He tried to speak but couldn't. Instead, he handed me the letter. My hands shook so hard that the paper rattled; I tightened my fingers on the edges to stop their trembling so I could read.

My dear family,

I am free to write whatever I wish in this letter, and I have been promised that it will not he censored. So I begin by telling you that tomorrow morning I will take part in a Special Attack Unit mission. I am a member of the kamikaze, the "divine wind" pilot corps.

I'd guessed right. But I felt no satisfaction—I felt nothing at all. I kept reading:

You may wonder how this came about. It will not be easy to explain, but you are owed my best effort. At training camp in Seoul the officers were debating whether or not to ask for Korean volunteers for a special assignment. It seemed there was a question about our bravery. Some officers did not believe that Korean men possessed enough courage to volunteer for this kind of mission.

I could not let such an insult go unchallenged. I told our commanding officer that I would volunteer for any mission, no matter how dangerous. It turned out, of course, that they were seeking volunteers for the kamikaze.

Perhaps it sounds foolish in the telling of it, hut I can assure you that my decision had the desired effect. The officers were impressed and began to treat not only me but all the Korean recruits with more respect.

To be honest, we are not as well prepared as I would wish; our training was limited because of a lack of fuel and suitable equipment. You have heard of the unit's spectacular successes, hut there have been many failures as well. However, I have flown a plane several times now and am confident that I will be able to do my best when the time comes. I wish for each of you the chance to ride in a plane someday; it is a thrilling and humbling experience to view the earth from above.

At a time like this it is not possible to write down everything that is in my mind. But there is one thing I wish my beloved parents to know: I am not in this position because of uncontrolled fate or misfortune. It was my choice to volunteer, and I realize that in so doing I will be leaving you without a son on this earth. I am ashamed of my decision only because of this knowledge and the pain it will cause you; were it not for that, I would go into tomorrow's mission with my heart free.

I will close this letter with a story for my sister, who so loves stories. The Japanese pilots wear special belts when they fly. These belts are made for them by the women in their families and have a special name. They are called
sennin-bari—"
a thousand stitches." When a Japanese woman makes such a belt, she stands in the street with it and asks passersby to put in a stitch and wish her son or brother well as they do so. After a
thousand people have each put in one stitch, the belt is complete. The Japanese pilots believe that these belts help protect them from misfortune because they carry the good wishes of a thousand people.

It is a nice story, but I have no need of such a belt. When I fly tomorrow, it will be with the assurance of my family's love, and this alone will give me the strength to do what is necessary. My last gift to you all is the knowledge that I have chosen the way of my death, which is something few of us are privileged to do.

Your son and brother,
Kim Tae-yul

The letter was dated the nineteenth of June. That meant Tae-yul had died on the twentieth, almost two weeks ago. What had I been doing then? I refolded the letter automatically and put it back in the envelope as I tried to recall that day. I'd have been at school—had it been sandbagging? or bayonet practice? As long as I concentrated on trying to remember, I wouldn't have to think about Tae-yul.

We had no proper clothes for mourning, but the next day Omoni was wearing a white mourning dress. I learned later that it belonged to Mrs. Ahn. She had worn it in secret at the time of her mother's passing, and then kept it hidden from the Japanese. Omoni did not have to worry about this because the Japanese grudgingly respected those families who had lost someone to the war effort. She drifted about the rooms like a pale ghost.

Our grief was too deep for tears. There wasn't even a body for us to grieve over—it was somewhere at the bottom of the sea.

After we received that letter, the hours, the light and dark of day and night, drifted by without any meaning. I went
about my chores, thinking only about what I was doing. This seemed the easiest way to get through the day—by talking to myself in my mind. "Let's see, we need bowls now. Five bowls—one for millet, one for beans, three eating bowls. Reach up to the shelf, get down the bowls—oops, that's only four, you need one more...."

I knew I was like a crazy person, talking to myself like that. I didn't care because most of the time it worked—it drowned out all thoughts of Tae-yul. But the knowledge of his death was like a terrible beast that lurked in odd corners of the house. In a cupboard, behind a door ... I'd be going along fine, and suddenly the fact would leap out at me, roaring, drowning out my own voice in my head:
Your brother is dead—dead—dead.
...
He will never come back—you will never talk to him or see him again, as long as you live....

And I'd stop moving and stand with my eyes squeezed shut, trembling, scarcely breathing. When the roaring stopped, I would open my eyes, dazed. Once Omoni found me in the garden, where I'd been hanging laundry. I'd frozen like that, a damp sheet in my hands, for so long that my fingers were wrinkled from the wetness.

But one afternoon in the middle of August I had to rouse myself from my dazed grief for a neighborhood accounting. I fetched Mrs. Ahn and stood in line with her. I alone was representing my family—Abuji was at work and Omoni was still in mourning dress, which meant that she shouldn't be seen in public.

I knew right away that something unusual was happening, because the block leader didn't ask us to count off. He simply waited until enough people had gathered, then made his announcement.

Not in Japanese.
In Korean.

The war was over. The Emperor had surrendered to the United States.

Korea was free.

There was a brief silence, then someone shouted. Suddenly, everyone around me was shouting, throwing their arms in the air, hugging one another, laughing, crying. A man grabbed the megaphone and began singing in Korean; most of the crowd joined in. People who had not been at the accounting came out of their houses to find out what was going on and quickly joined the raucous celebration.

In the midst of that joyful commotion, I stayed quiet and felt my body begin to shake. My stomach heaved—I put my fist to my mouth and pressed hard.

Less than two months. A war that had lasted for years ... and Tae-yul had died less than two months before it ended. I wanted to throw back my head and howl like an animal. Instead, my legs gave way and I sat down hard right there in the street.

It was old Mrs. Ahn who helped me to my feet and led me home.

A bit at a time we pieced together what had happened. The Americans had dropped two bombs on Japan. The bombs were said to have been powerful enough to destroy half a city. At first no one could believe this. Half a neighborhood, perhaps? Or half a major military base? But Abuji eventually confirmed that half of the city of Hiroshima had indeed been destroyed on August 6, and half of Nagasaki three days later. A week later the Emperor had surrendered to the United States and its allies.

The American forces had landed in Korea to help supervise the handover of the government. And the Japanese were fleeing.

During the war there had been no battles in Korea. But now that the war was over, the fighting began. Koreans were taking their revenge on the Japanese, the Japanese were fighting back, the Americans were trying to keep order. There was chaos everywhere.

Omoni wouldn't let me leave the house. I spent a lot of time standing at the gate and watching what was going on in the street. How strange the Americans looked! They were much taller than most Koreans, with long legs and huge feet. Their faces were either so white I felt I could almost see through their skins, or so red they looked as if they'd be hot to touch. And their noses were enormous. I wondered if they could smell everything better than we could.

Abuji went into town one day soon after the Emperor's surrender to collect something called a "ration package." When he brought it home, Omoni and I crowded around him. He set it down in the courtyard. It was a dark green box that came up to my knee in height and was about a meter long. The green color was the same as the Americans' uniforms and their rumbly cars, which they called "jeeps."

The box was made of cardboard coated with a shiny substance. Whatever this was, it sealed the box so well that at first we couldn't open it. Abuji scratched the surface and examined his fingernail. "Wax," he said. "To keep out the dampness."

Omoni fetched a knife from the kitchen. Abuji scraped away at the wax until he could tear open the box.

Smaller boxes and cans and packages were inside. Omoni took them out and examined them one by one. You couldn't
tell what was in the cans; there was writing on them, but it was in English. There was a sack of crackers. There was even a bag of rice! Omoni drew in her breath with a whistling sound, tore open the bag and poured some rice into her hand right then and there.

It was rice, to be sure, but like none we'd ever seen before—thin grains rather than the rounded stubby ones we were used to. I almost laughed when I saw this; even American rice was long and skinny.

Abuji let out a surprised sound when Omoni handed him a carton of cigarettes. He used to smoke before the war, but I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him with a cigarette.

There was also a small yellow package about the size of my two fingers. A sweet smell rose from it. Omoni sniffed it and handed it to me. Not smiling—she never smiled anymore—but with a kind look on her face. I opened the package to find five thin rectangles of foil.

I offered one to Abuji, but he was already smoking a cigarette. Omoni and I each took one of the rectangles. We opened the foil; there was a flat white stick inside. Omoni licked hers. "Candy," she said. "Go ahead—eat it!"

It was delicious, but there seemed to be something wrong with it. At first it grew softer, but then it became quite rubbery and though I chewed my piece for a long time, it never broke up into pieces small enough to swallow. I swallowed it anyway, and almost choked as the big rubbery lump went down my throat.

Omoni frowned and took hers out of her mouth, examining it closely. "Not for swallowing," she said. "It must be something for chewing. The way some people chew tobacco."

I learned later that the Americans called it "gum," and that
Omoni had been right—it wasn't for swallowing. For a few moments it had been a welcome distraction, but then I thought about how I wished Tae-yul were there, to share the gum with. The pleasure brought by the ration package dissolved in an instant.

How was it that even something strange and new reminded me of him?

During the next few weeks Abuji often brought home some kind of food. In town there were workers and soldiers who gave out more rations—not rice but bags of flour and beans. We were eating better than we had in years.

One day as we were finishing dinner Abuji said that the Americans were assisting with a large evacuation of Japanese civilians. I looked up from my bowl of peaches. They were from one of the ration cans—almost unbelievably luscious, cooked in some kind of sugary water.

I was sure he'd learned about this latest news from Tomo's father—that Tomo's family was among those to be evacuated.

The next day I slipped out of the house and made my way down the street to Tomo's house. He was outside loading a crate onto a cart. An American soldier was standing guard at the gate.