Echoes of the White Giraffe (10 page)

“Come on, no time to linger about,” Mother said. “Let's hurry and hope we can get on this train.”

In the dark, with only the light of the pale moon, we slipped and slid down the dirt path for the last time. I looked over at the well, which seemed bare without the long queue of women and children. When we arrived at the bottom of the hill, I glanced over to the far right where Junho's brick house stood. It was dark and quiet, indifferent to my departure. I lingered for a second, wishing that Browny might start to bark and that Junho might peer out the window and see me leaving. Mother pulled my arm, and we rushed to the train station.

As we expected, the station was swarming with people, shouting and pushing. The long train had already arrived and was hissing loudly. The agitated conductor impatiently blew his shrill whistle, making me wince in pain. Luckily we were pushed along by the crowds toward a door of the train. We hurriedly jumped on, and even managed to get seats all together by a window.

It started to drizzle, casting a gray haze over Pusan. I stuck my head out the window to feel the gentle mist, and I looked out at the city of Pusan one last time. Would I ever see this place again? Would I ever see Junho again? What would we find when we got back to Seoul? I wondered if Father and my brothers would be there waiting for us. I wondered if there would be anything left of our house. Once again, I was headed for the unknown.

My hair was getting wet, and I wondered why I kept hanging out the window. Did I expect Junho to appear? I hadn't seen him for months, not even once since my mother's visit with his parents. There was no way he would know that I was leaving today. So many refugees had already left in the past few days, and many more would be leaving- in the weeks to follow.

Mother tugged at my skirt. “Sookan, sit down and close the window. The rain is coming in, and besides, it's not safe. ” I realized then that almost half my body was hanging out the window. But as I carefully pulled my shoulders back through the window, I saw in the distance, buried in the crowds, a young man in a tan raincoat, holding flowers over his head to keep them from being crushed. I leaned all the way out the window again. He was squinting in the rain, looking left and right in desperation. It was Junho!

“Junho, Junho, over here!” I shouted, waving my arms back and forth. “Here I am! Over here!”

He finally saw me and his face brightened. He pushed through the crowds and ran up to me. Holding the flowers up as high as he could, he said, “Here, take it, Sookan! It's for you. I've been coming here for the last couple of days, hoping to find you. I'm sorry for everything. I still have the picture here.” He tapped his chest pocket and added, “Read the poem. It's inside.”

The train whistled loudly, and a puff of thick white smoke rose into the air. The conductor shouted at Junho to stand clear of the platform. The train jerked forward, preparing to pull away. “I have our picture, too, here in my bag,” I yelled, and I lifted my bag to show him. He smiled, nodding his head.

“Take care of yourself!” he shouted, his voice quivering and his handsome face turning somber. He waved and I could see his mouth moving, but I could no longer hear what he was saying. The train let out a long, loud whistle and began picking up speed. I watched Junho desperately trying to run alongside the train. He started to push through the crowds, waving his arms wildly, but he quickly faded into the distance.

“Sit down,” Mother said, as she brusquely pulled me in and shut the window with a bang. Then, a second later, she said more calmly, “It's not safe to hang out the window like that and I cannot afford to lose you. Open your flowers. They smell so sweet.”

I gently tore open the paper, and saw a single, crushed white lily with an envelope tied to the stem. I quickly put the envelope in my skirt pocket as I wanted to read it later when Mother and Inchun dozed off. The sweet perfume of the lily soothed my racing heart. I caressed the velvety petals that had gotten crushed and smeared with yellow pollen. The trees, houses, and hills that passed before me seemed like nothing more than a blurry line through my tear-filled eyes. I wished that I had some magical power to make the train go back to the station, where I would find Junho standing with his head hung low. I would ask him to hop on the train for a trip to Seoul. What a fine trip that would be!

Leaning their heads back, Mother and Inchun closed their eyes. Carefully, I took the white envelope from my skirt pocket. In his fine handwriting, Junho had written:

 

My White Lily

Amidst the barren fields,
Dark and gray with endless gloom,
Stood alone, a white lily in bloom,
Fragile but resilient,
Swaying in the wind,
Exuding its sweet scent.
Pure and simple
You are my white lily,
My hope, my strength.

Your everlasting friend,
Junho. Summer 1953

 

I read it over and over. He had signed it “Your everlasting friend, ” and I clung to those words. I wondered if I would ever see him again. Drawing the sweet perfume of the white lily deep into my lungs, I thought of the choir picnic when Haerin asked him to pick the yellow lilies.

Overwhelmed with memories, I looked out the window and watched the rice paddies and small farmhouses draw closer only to fade quickly into the distance. The sun was shining through the rain-streaked window. How strange life was! Everything that had happened during the last two and a half years had seemed like a distant dream, but with this letter, it all suddenly welled up before me: the shouting poet, Junho, the long climbs up and down the mountain, the Ewha School by the seashore. The lily and the poem made it all real for me; now I knew my memories would stay with me forever. I held the lily and the poem to my heart, and concluded that my life was not a series of sand castles. There was meaning to life, and precious memories even amidst the sadness.

A bright spot of sunlight leaped from Mother's clasped hands to Inchun's dark hair. How kind of them to give me these moments of peace with no questions asked. Mother was now pensively looking out the window with her eyebrows tightly knit and her upper teeth gnawing on her lower Up. I could tell how worried and frightened she was. Inchun stared at me as I studied Mother's expression. He began to whistle, then stopped and smiled. I knew he had come up with an idea to distract Mother.

“
Nuna,
what are you going to do with that disgusting, wilted flower? Do you want me to take care of it?” Then he motioned to the window with his chin.

I gave him an angry stare, placed the flower on Mother's lap, and pleaded for help. She put her hands over the lily and said with a sudden smile, “Oh, you two are keeping me going. Maybe we
will
find the rest of the family in Seoul.”

Relieved to see Mother smile and talk, Inchun kept taunting me. “Nuna, can I see that mushy stuff you read for hours? Junho probably copied something from a dead French poet and you think he's talking about you. Can I see it?” Mother ruffled Inchun's hair and he grinned.

The Seoul train station was up ahead and the platform was jammed with people hoping to find their loved ones on the train. Their anxious faces searched every window. As the train came to a stop, we gathered our belongings and battled the crowds. We were pushed off the train and propelled through the streets of Seoul. No one called after us.

Everything around the station had been bombed, and nothing looked familiar. Bricks, wood, and cement blocks were stacked everywhere. The city looked like one giant construction site. We headed down what we thought was the road to our house. Trucks carrying lumber wove through the streets and honked loudly at us. Many small tents and temporary dwellings had been set up to shelter small children and old folks. Women and children were cooking in front of some of these meager homes, watchful of trucks and passers-by that might disturb their preparations.

After a long walk, we made it through the busy streets and turned down the familiar little dead-end road that led to our house at the foot of Namsan Mountain. I looked up and saw a part of our gray tiled roof from behind our big cherry tree. What a relief to see our house still standing! We walked as fast as we could, but the street was covered with broken bricks, fallen branches, chunks of concrete, and broken glass.

Memories of running from the house during the last bombing came rushing back. Mother had kept screaming for me to hurry. The sounds of sirens, airplanes, and exploding bombs had rung in my head, and whenever I looked back, I could see buildings collapsing behind me. I shuddered as I remembered the awful smell of smoke. To rid myself of these memories, I gazed up at the clear blue sky. How thankful I was for the peaceful sky above me.

We finally reached the big stone steps leading up to our house. The thick, cherry-wood doors, scorched and marred by gaping holes, still hung stubbornly from their hinges and retained some of their former elegance. The brass door knockers shaped like dragons were blackened and hung askew, but tenaciously claimed their place. Overwhelmed with relief and excitement, I ran up the stairs, all twelve of them, and stepped over the broken branches and pieces of stone strewn about on the steps.

“Sookan, no!” Mother shouted as I was about to open the door. “Wait. It could cave in. Wait.”

Suddenly a thin man appeared in one of the side windows. “Finally! You're back!” a voice exclaimed. It was Jaechun! “Mother, don't worry, we already secured the doors,” he shouted. I could hear him running to let us in.

It was like a dream come true. Inchun and Mother rushed up, and Hanchun, Hyunchun, and Jaechun came running to greet us. I stared at them in awe. They looked so different from the last time I had seen them. They were so much older, taller, and thinner, and their skin was dark and leathery. Their T-shirts were covered with sawdust and ash, and they all had pencils stuck behind their ears, and tools in hand.

Mother's mouth hung open as she stared wide-eyed at her three older sons. “Can this be possible?” she gasped. “All three of you safe and sound and waiting for us here at the house!”

All I could do was stand and watch as she hugged all three of them and cried with joy. Jaechun lifted Inchun way up in the air and spun him around. Hanchun patted me on the head and pinched my cheeks as if I were still a little girl. “Oh, how big you got!” he said.

“And your father?” Mother asked, expecting him to appear any minute.

“We thought he was with you,” Hanchun blurted out.

Dead silence fell over us all. Hyunchun cleared his throat and said, “It's still too early. It'll take a while for everyone to make it back home.”

Mother's face grew somber. She looked down at her hands and didn't seem to have heard a word he said. “We must check all the hospitals. He must be sick somewhere. That's the only thing that would keep him from us,” she said emphatically.

“Mother, there you go worrying again,” Jaechun said. “I bet you thought
we
were all lost, but here we are safe and sound. Father will come. Let's wait a few days.”

Mother smiled sheepishly at her sons.

“The three of us just met up here at the house over the past four days,” Hanchun said. He told us that when we had all run from the house, he, Hyunchun, and Jaechun had been following right behind us. But all too quickly, they had lost sight of us. Retreating army trucks were jamming the streets, and several officers were calling for men to join the army and help fight the enemy. Each of them had ended up jumping on a separate truck, and from that moment on, had been separated. Hanchun and Hyunchun spent most of their time near the battle fields. Jaechun, because of his poor health, worked as a translator for a war correspondent near the battle zone.

Hanchun went on to say that over the past few days, they had been busy clearing the road, the steps, and the yard. When they first arrived, they could barely make their way up to the house. Now they had begun repairing the inside of the house.

Hanchun carefully opened the front door. We stepped inside, and found ourselves standing in a large, empty space. All of the walls had crumbled, and there were mounds of debris gathered in the comers. In the piles of rubble, I saw pieces of our furniture, broken records, and clothes; everything was an ashen gray and was barely identifiable. The wide glass doors that led out to Mother's garden had shattered, and the metal door frames were rusted and twisted like an odd sculpture. One whole corner of the house was missing, and I could see straight out to the backyard. Mother's pretty greenhouse in the far corner of the garden was now just a pile of broken glass. The grapevine trellis, under which I had loved to read while eating the deep purple grapes, was now a heap of charred wood. The front doors had been terribly deceiving. After seeing all this destruction, I was amazed that the doors still stood.

“It's going to take a long time,” Hanchun said, “but we can make this place livable again. For now, we should all sleep in the basement."

For the next few weeks, while we were hard at work repairing our house, my brothers secretly took turns checking all the hospitals and information centers for any news of Father. They didn't say anything to Mother, and she never asked. She just kept hoping for good news.

Father Lee finally discovered the sad truth. Father's name was on a list of men who had died during the bombing. Mother did not cry when she heard the news. She somberly stared down at her hands, just as she had when we first returned to the house and learned that Father was not there. I think she knew then.

I ran out and stood staring at the duck pond that Father had made for Mother. Out of smooth, gray pebbles, he had built it in the shape of the Korean peninsula. It had been a surprise for her birthday. I furiously began cleaning the pond, and Mother eventually came out and joined me. Thinking of Father, we worked in silence for several days to restore the little pond. Jaechun brought three ducklings home one day, and Mother often sat by the pond and fed them. Whenever she got up, the ducks would waddle after her into the garden.