Year of Impossible Goodbyes (2 page)

Mother saw me listening intently, and shot a disapproving glance at Aunt Tiger. "The war will be over soon," Mother said firmly. "I hear the Japanese are not doing well. All will be fine, you'll see."

Then Okja arrived and silently took her place at the table. Okja, almost twenty, was very tall, and next to Haiwon, she looked like a telephone pole. Unlike Haiwon, she ate nothing and spoke very little. Soon the test of the girls rushed in, grabbed the cookies and tea, and chattered like magpies.

At precisely eight o'clock, the loud clanging filled the ait. How sad I was when Kisa rang that fateful bell. The girls instantly fell silent and ran to their assigned seats in the factory. Lined up on two long benches, the girls sat as though glued to their machines like puppets for the rest of the day. The yard was suddenly quiet and empty. There was nobody for me to talk to. Inchun preferred to play with his top, making it spin and jump, or to draw beautiful pictures, using the dirt yard as his canvas and a broken twig as his paintbrush. He played quietly and would only occasionally nod or shrug his shoulders in response to me. But every once in a while, he would smile broadly, flashing his dimples.

I often envied my little brother, for he spent a good part of the day with Grandfather, whittling, tying knots of all shapes, and making netted bags for Mother to carry things in. Because I was four years older, I had to help Mother and Aunt Tiger in the sock factory. Because I was a girl, I was supposed to stay with the women. I wasn't supposed to disturb Grandfather after my morning lesson. How I wished I could be with them.

1 looked at the quiet, deserted yard and began cleaning up the breakfast table. Then, I helped Mother and Aunt Tiger inspect the socks, fold them, and pack them. I asked how long Mother had been running the sock factory. "If it wasn't socks, it was something else," she said. "For over thirty years I've been working for the Japanese. Lately they don't even pay us the little money they used to. For the last three weeks we have all worked without any pay. If they don't pay us soon with money or rice, we will all go hungry."

"They're very clever," Aunt Tiger said bitterly. "They keep us so hungry that we can't do anything but worry about where our next meal is coming from. They keep us hungry for so long that we are grateful for whatever little food we get."

I got up and went to the factory. I wanted to see Kisa and the girls even though I knew they would have no time for me. I didn't want to hear what Mother and Aunt Tiger talked about, and I was sorry I had asked any questions.

The rhythm of the machines whirring and clanking in the sock factory made me forget everything. I gazed at the two rows of girls. Their heads were bent and their shoulders hunched as they reached out to grab the threads with one hand and hold the wheel of the machines with the other. The spools of thread spun frenetically as the needles of the machines bobbed up and down. These girls were entangled in machines that would never set them free.

I remembered how fascinated I was when I was first allowed to come and watch the girls amidst the whirring machines and the long knit tubes. It amazed me to see the skeins of thread hanging in midair, suspended by wires strung across the ceiling. The girls constantly pedaled in a desperate attempt to complete their work, as the snake-like knit tubes emerged from the machines and fell at their ankles. I pretended the spools of threads were flying puppets in the sky, the girls magicians, and Kisa, standing on the platform high above them, the master of this grand act.

Kisa, the only male in the factory, watched the spools and machines from his viewing stand to make sure all ran smoothly. The girls raced against time to meet their quotas. If the lights went out or the leather belts fell out of the grooves of the wheels, the girls panicked, for that meant they would have to stay until all hours to complete their work.

I sat in the factory and looked forward to the evening, when I might be able to talk to my favorite sock girls. By that time, their eyes would be half closed and their whole bodies covered with a layer of gray cotton residue, their lips parched from cutting small threads with their teeth to save time. There was no time to look for the one pair of scissors that all fifteen of them had to share.

I walked around the factory and peered at the girls. I could see only their profiles as they bent over their work. No one looked up. Some I knew very well and some I barely knew at all. Because there was so little time, it was hard to get to know them, unless they were very talkative. Most girls did not stay with us for very long anyway; Captain Narita made sure of that. But for some reason Haiwon and Okja must have escaped his notice, for they had been with us for quite a while.

Kisa waved from his viewing stand and motioned that I could come up to see him. He rarely allowed me up there with him, so I was in heaven. Everything looked different from where he stood. The spools of thread looked like hats atop the girls' heads. But after a few minutes, Kisa smiled. I knew it was time to get down before Mother saw me. She thought it was too dangerous for me to be up on a small platform with no railing. Kisa whispered, "There is always tomorrow. You can talk to the girls tomorrow, and serve them tea." I went down somewhat consoled as I thought of what we might talk about.

How nice Kisa was. I always felt a little sorry for him. Something was wrong with one of his legs, causing him to limp awkwardly. He had also lost a couple of fingers on his right hand while working at a machine. But he had a very pleasant broad forehead, which Mother said was a sign of a generous heart, and he had a handsome nose, a sign of an even temperament, Mother said. His friendly twinkling eyes were unusual for a Korean man. The light in his eyes danced as he looked at you and you just had to smile back as you listened to his deep gentle voice. We all loved him, and were happy he had not been taken away to a labor camp, as my three brothers and most of the other men in our town had been. As Fathers nephew, he tried very hard to fill my fathers place. Although Mother told him he was doing the job of four men by being here to help all of us women, Kisa wished that he could be working with my father in Manchuria in the Korean independence movement.

I went back out to the yard to help Mother and Aunt Tiger. We spread out the long tubes that the girls had made, cut them, and sewed them on one end, turning them into tube socks. While I worked, I looked at my mother's fair oval face and her large almond-shaped eyes which glowed softly behind the fatigue and sorrow. I followed the tiny wrinkles around her eyes and neck. But her hands, which moved so quickly as she repaired the stitches the machines had missed, distracted me. Her long thin fingers were dry and chapped, and full of callused needle marks. I once heard from the girls in the factory that Mother was known as the beauty of her hometown, and I tried to picture how pretty Mother must have been.

In silence, I continued to work, now fixing my gaze on the shadows the tree cast around us. Although I loved this pine tree, I longed for some flowers like we used to have when I was very small. We were not allowed to spend time cultivating the garden anymore. Captain Narita said flowers did not help the soldiers at the front; we must spend every waking moment trying to help them in the battle against the White Devils. Once, when we did manage to have a tiny patch of flowers, Captain Narita's police stepped through them as they grinned broadly. There was nothing we could do but watch as the dainty flowers were crushed beneath their ugly boots.

After that, Mother put her packets of seeds away, carefully wrapped in rice paper. Sometimes I opened the packages to look at the seeds. Each time I opened the carefully wrapped packets, the paper in which they were wrapped seemed more yellow and brittle. I wondered if we would ever be able to plant those seeds.

I can still remember years ago when Mother picked the wilted clusters of bright crimson azalea petals from our little garden. In a bowl, she gently ground the petals with a pestle until they turned into a fragrant red paste. Then she made ten tiny balls of paste and put one on each of my fingernails. I sat very still with my fingers spread as far apart as I could to make it easier for Mother. She wrapped each fingernail with a large sesame leaf and tied each fingertip carefully with red yarn, trying not to let the red paste touch any of the skin of my fingers. I went around all day with my fingers spread apart so as not to disturb anything. I looked as if I was carrying ten precious little packages, one on the tip of each finger, and Mother smiled That night I went to sleep with my arms stretched out to the sides so that none of the sesame leaves would come off. The scent of faint azaleas and sesame leaves tilled the room, and I went to sleep swearing not to move an inch.

Of course, some of the sesame wrappers had come off by morning and some of the pink liquid had run down my fingers. Mother and I laughed. Not only my nails, but a few of my fingers were entirely red. But after washing them very carefully for several days, only my fingernails remained a deep pretty pink. I showed my elegantly decorated fingernails to everyone. Later, I watched with fascination as my nails grew out.

1 had once told Aunt Tiger about my pretty pink nails, hoping that she and I could venture out and plant a secret garden somewhere. She just looked at me and repeated what Captain Narita had said. "Korean women have no time for that nonsense." Then she sighed and said, "When the war is over you can plant the whole yard with flowers." She went to her room and brought me a bundle wrapped in a yellowed handkerchief. I opened it and saw packages of seeds with pictures of sunflowers, pansies, and many other flowers that I could not identify. I kept them together with Mother's packets to plant when the Japanese left. I knew Mother would find some azaleas somehow.

Mother looked at me and smiled. She didn't know what I was daydreaming about. Or maybe she did. "Doesn't this pine tree smell good?" she said. "It's like a different world sitting beneath this tree." I smiled and nodded. We didn't talk of the flowers and garden we could not have.

I looked at Aunt Tiger, who was unusually quiet. She was very different from Mother, who was tall, slender, and elegant. Aunt Tiger was stocky and round. She didn't go quietly about her duties, always trying to make the best of everything, as Mother did. She spoke her mind, and often complained bitterly. I thought it refreshing to hear her complain, for she so often said what I was feeling.

At night Aunt usually grew sad and pensive. She didn't get angry or complain about our lives or about the cruelty of the Japanese. Instead, she told the most wonderful stories about the animals that lived in the forests of Korea long ago. All the wild animals in her fables talked as if they were human. She was especially fond of telling stories of the majestic tigers that used to roam the Korean mountains until the Japanese hunted them down for their skins.

Aunt told us so many wonderful stories of these clever talking tigers that we began calling her Aunt Tiger. I could never forget the tears in her eyes as she told us about the mother tiger who roamed the mountains in search of her cubs, not knowing they had been killed by hunters. Her voice trembled as she spoke, and I felt as if she were talking about her own babies. As I looked into her mournful eyes, I wondered if she complained so bitterly to hide her sorrow from us. She didn't want to be weak, and I knew how strong she was. It was a different kind of strength from Mother's.

As we worked, the sun began to set and darkness fell. The whirring of the machines suddenly stopped and I heard the low murmuring of the girls as they emerged from the factory and stretched their stiff, aching muscles. Mother, Kisa, and Aunt wished them a safe trip home. The tired girls looked sad but relieved to have made it through another day. They bowed to Mother in silence, and Mother watched with concern as their weary gray figures disappeared into the liberation of darkness.

Mother, Aunt, and Kisa then went into the factory to put the socks in neat piles for the Japanese merchants and police. Inchun and I busied ourselves putting heavy blankets over the rice-paper paneled doors of our room. We lit a candle and in the small pool of dancing light, we looked at Grandfather's Chinese books and Mother's book of American fairy tales. Then I started to read aloud from one of our books written in Korean script,
Hangul.
Mother joined us later with a pile of socks that needed mending before the morning, and listened to me read to Inchun. She carefully checked all the work done that day, for she didn't want any of the girls to be in trouble with the police.

Soon, Inchun got tired of listening to me read and started dozing. His books fell from his little hands, his mouth fell open, and he began to snore softly.

I kept reading and tried hard to stay awake until Mother was finished with her work. I watched her at night as intently as I watched my Grandfather in the morning. She took off her gray outfit and put on her long white gown. Then she reached back to pull out the tarnished pin that held her braided hair in a large twisted knot at the nape of her neck. When Mother pulled out the little silver pin, her long braided hair came tumbling down like a big heavy rope. It almost touched the floor as she sat on her knees. When she finished unbraiding her hair, she slowly combed the wavy mass. In her white night gown, with her long wavy hair framing her face, she looked like an entirely different person. It was easy to see how Mother had once been the town beauty as the sock girls had said.

While she quietly combed the mass of wavy hair, I played with her tarnished silver pin. Though it looked like a cheap piece of metal, it was actually a beautifully crafted silver hairpin. When I looked closely, I could see a multitude of embossed little roses and small birds flying. I touched the pin with my finger tips and felt the grooves of the tiny rose petals and the little bumps of the birds' wings. I held it in my palm, and reveled in its cool smoothness. I tossed it into the air and caught it again.

"Mother," I asked, "why not shine it so that all these birds and rose petals can sparkle in the sunlight? It's so pretty."