When My Name Was Keoko (22 page)

I take a sip of tea. "It wasn't that I lost my nerve—" I stop again, my face growing warm. "Well, maybe a little." I can still feel it. Sitting in that plane, shaking with fear. Trying to pretend it was only the engine shaking me.

I speak quickly to get past that part. "The main thing was, if they knew for sure I was a traitor, they might make things really hard for the family. So I flew back with my squad. All that planning for nothing. And when we got back to the base we were thrown into jail for failing to accomplish our mission!" I shake my head again, still hardly believing it. Like the weather was our fault.

"Anyway, we were kept there for several weeks. No trial, nothing. It was like everyone had forgotten about us."

I pause for a moment. Then I stand, drop to my knees, and make a formal bow. "I apologize to my family," I say, my face still at the floor. "I realized you'd have gotten that last letter—that you all thought I was dead. It drove me crazy that I had no way of letting you know I was still alive. I apologize for the pain I caused you."

A moment's silence. Then, "There is no need for—for apology," Abuji says, his voice cracking in midsentence. I sit up again and see his face. His eyes are wet.

I clear my throat. "One day we were released, with no explanation. Eventually, we learned about the bombs, and that the Emperor was preparing to surrender. Then we were all demobilized and sent home."

Omoni lets out a long sigh. Like she's been holding her breath for years. Everyone is quiet for a few moments. No questions, not even from Sun-hee.

But it turns out she's only waiting, making sure that our parents aren't going to talk. Then, "Opah, what was it like to fly?"

I can't keep myself from grinning. "Sun-hee, you can hardly imagine it. The first time I went as a student; someone else flew the plane. I was supposed to pay attention to what he was doing, but it wasn't easy—all I wanted to do was look out the window. The houses were so tiny! And you could see the shadows made by the clouds on the ground—imagine, being higher than a cloud!

"The next few times I flew I was so busy paying attention
to the controls that I couldn't look out the window at all. There are so many things to think about—your altitude and speed, the effect of the wind, your direction, keeping the plane steady. But after a few flights I could handle the plane pretty well. So I could look out over the countryside from time to time.

"It's an odd feeling—the plane is so small inside, you're all cramped up, as if you're in a box made of metal. And the engine is very noisy. But in spite of that, you feel so free—like there's nothing but air and space around you. It's truly a miracle-—you feel almost like a god."

Suddenly, I feel really tired. Abuji seems to sense it. He clears his throat. "Enough talk for tonight, my son. We should all sleep now."

He smiles broadly at all of us, longest at me. "We have plenty of time to talk in the days to come."

That hellhole of a prison ... I haven't told them anything about that, and I won't either. There's not much to tell. It was filthy, with bad food, sometimes no food. But other than shoving a dirty dish of scraps at us once a day, the guards left us alone. Sometimes I wondered if anyone but the guards knew we were there.

I can remember lying in that cell, not sleeping much—you had to keep kicking the rats off your legs. I thought about home a lot and played games, like trying to remember every single thing in every room. Or meals—remembering all my favorite foods. Home seemed so far away. Almost like it wasn't real, like a dream.

But here I am now. Home.

Omoni's cooking. Pace again, the American stuff. It's different—it doesn't stick together the way Korean rice does, which makes it harder to eat with chopsticks. But still, it's rice.

Sun-hee's questions. Every time I see her she's asking me something—about flying or training or Japan. And I don't even mind.

But after the first few days I start to feel restless, almost like I don't belong here. How can that be? This is my home.

The trouble is, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm busy enough for now. Abuji asked me to help at his school. Cleaning up the classrooms, repairs, stuff like that. He hopes to open it again very soon. I'm glad to help, glad to have something to do.

When the school is ready, then what? Go back to school myself? I don't feel like a student anymore. I can't see myself back in a classroom.

A job, then. But what kind of job? I'm a pilot now, and proud of it. But what good is that in a town where there aren't any planes? Not a single plane has ever landed on that airstrip.

The war was a terrible thing. But during the war I had something to do, something really important. And flying was the most exciting thing I've ever done.

Now the war is over. Everything's supposed to be better, but it isn't. Not for me.

I've been home a couple of weeks. One evening everyone is in the sitting room: Omoni and Sun-hee sewing, Abuji reading, me whittling. We get together like this almost every evening now. Funny how the war made ordinary things seem special again.

But something's wrong tonight—with me. That restless feeling. I just can't settle down. I'm whittling, but not making anything, just shaving off bits and pieces of wood.

Abuji is looking through one of Uncle's newspapers. He draws in his breath a little. "Look at this," he says. "An article openly critical of the Japanese economic policy, written at the height of the war. It actually accuses officials in the government by name." He shakes his head, admiring. "It took great courage to write and publish such an article."

Before I know it I'm on my feet. My knife and the piece of wood clatter to the floor. I'm shouting, without even thinking. "What right do you have to speak of courage?"

His face—not angry but stunned. "Tae-yul—" he begins.

I don't want to hear what he has to say. I turn my back on him and run. Out the door.

All evening I walk through town. Up and down street after street, thinking over and over:
My father is a coward.

The years of the occupation and then the war—all the terrible things the Japanese did to us ... and what had Abuji done? Nothing. He'd kept his head down, buried himself in his books, let the Japanese do whatever they wanted. Sure, there were times when that was the smartest thing to do, maybe the only thing to do. But there were ways to fight back, and Abuji hadn't even tried.

Not like Uncle. Uncle had done something—something big. That newspaper. I've imagined it hundreds of times. Him printing the paper in some dark basement somewhere. Fixing the press when it broke, getting the paper out when no one else could have done it.

That's what I wanted to do. Something big. I had it all
planned. It would have worked, too. Except for the weather. Damn clouds. Going back to the base in disgrace. A disgrace to the Japanese for failing in the attack. A disgrace to myself, for failing in my own plan.

Am I a complete failure? At least I didn't help them capture Uncle. That was something. But probably not, when I really think about it. Uncle is too smart. He'd never have let them catch him.

So in the end, I haven't done anything. Nothing at all.

Just like Abuji.

How can I live with a father I don't respect? And if I'm just like him, how can I live with myself?

Everyone is in bed when I get home. I tiptoe into the house. The door to my room squeaks when I slide it open. I hold my breath. No sound—no one getting up. Good. I still don't want to talk to anyone.

I don't bother to turn the light off—I know I won't be able to sleep. I lie down on my mat and stare up at the ceiling. For minutes? Hours? I don't know.

A rustle at the door: Sun-hee. She comes in without asking and stands with her arms crossed, glaring at me.

"Do you think this is what Uncle would want?" she says. Whispering fiercely, so our parents won't hear. "For you to show such disrespect to Abuji?"

I sit up abruptly. "Why does he deserve my respect?" I'm careful to whisper, too. But I can't keep the anger out of my voice. "Why should I respect a coward?"

There. I've said it out loud. My breath is coming hard now. "Do you know, sometimes I think he was worse than the
chin-il-pa!
At least they
did
something—at least they
took a stand! He was like a—a worm burrowing into the ground ... hoping all the bad things would go away! How can I respect such a man? It's hard to believe he and Uncle are from the same family!"

Sun-hee stares at me for a moment. Then she hands me a newspaper and points to something in the middle of the page. "That article there," she says. "The one about education."

I glance down at the headline. "What about it?" I'm angry at her now, too.

"
He
wrote that," she says. "Abuji."

For a moment I don't think I've heard her right. I look up at her, then down at the paper again. This time I
really
look at it.

"How do you know?" I ask.

"I just know," she says. "He said the exact same thing to me, in almost the same words. You don't have to believe me," she adds stubbornly, "but I know I'm right. I'm sure he didn't put his name on the articles because he wanted to protect us."

A long moment of silence. "He wrote this?" I whisper.

"Yes," she answers. "I've been through all the papers. Abuji started writing after Uncle left."

The whole world turns upside down. Like going into a spin in a plane—everything inside out, backward, reversed, but you still have to make your brain work.

Abuji wrote articles. For Uncle's paper.

He must have used his position at the school to obtain information, and made regular contact with the resistance so his articles could be printed by Uncle.

Suddenly, I remember the nighttime raid. It must indeed
have been his work they were looking for. He'd been in danger that night. Every night.

But he'd never shown a single sign of it. He'd gone to work, come home, studied in his room—or so I thought. But he must have been writing those articles.

And I never knew.

"Why didn't he tell me?" I'm asking myself, as much as her.

She kneels on the floor beside me. "The same reason that Uncle didn't tell
him.
It was safer that way."

"But why not now? I mean, when I got home, when the war was over—why didn't he say anything then?"

She shakes her head and speaks gently. "That isn't his way, Opah. He did what he did but felt no need to talk about it."

I look at the paper again. My eyes start to feel hot, and the print slowly goes all blurry.

Tae-yul was up very early. I heard him rustling about and slipped out of bed to join him."Good," he said with a smile. "I didn't want to wake you, but I was hoping you'd get up."

He beckoned me to follow him and led the way outside to the workshop area. "We have a job to do," he said. I knew what he was thinking.

Together we dragged the rose of Sharon tree from under the eaves. It was still scrawny, but it had grown and was once again as tall as I was.

"By the front door," I said. "In a place of honor."

As we worked to transplant the tree, Tae-yul asked, "Are
there any flags? I think we should fly a flag on our gate. Uncle would like that—a flag to greet him."

Uncle ... I'd made up my mind, at last. He would hate it if I felt bad every time I thought of him. Omoni was right. I would never forget what had happened, but I
had
to forgive myself if I wanted to think of him with gladness.

"No, we don't have a flag," I said. "But I'll sew one for you to put up."

He nodded, then stopped digging and looked at me, his face serious. "I saw Uncle's shop in town. It's boarded up."

"Yes. It's been vacant all this time, but Abuji refused to sell it. He wanted to keep it for—for when Uncle comes back...." For the thousandth time I wondered when that would be.

The war had changed so many things. Uncle gone, Tomo gone. Jung-shin gone, too. Her family had left town immediately after the Japanese surrender, because anyone who had helped the Japanese was in as much danger as the Japanese themselves—more, maybe. I didn't know where they'd gone; I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to her. I hoped with all my heart that she would write to me one day and let me know she was safe somewhere.

We were quiet for a little while. Then Tae-yul said, "I was thinking of training to become a printer myself. I could run Uncle's shop for him—until he gets back."

"That's a very good idea, Opah. The press is still there, you know. They used it a lot, but then it broke and no one could fix it."

Tae-yul grinned. I knew what he was thinking: Only Uncle could fix that old press. "I helped him lots of times," he said. "Maybe I can figure it out."

I nodded and he went on, "The shop needs a new sign. You could paint one. 'Printing—Kim Young-chun,' that's what I think it should say." He moved one hand across an imaginary sign, indicating two lines of large lettering.

Kim Young-chun. Uncle's real name.

"Abuji might be disappointed that I don't want to become a scholar," Tae-yul continued. "I'll convince him by telling him that my being a printer will honor the work he and Uncle did during the war." He paused. "But there has always been a scholar in the family. If I am to be a printer, it'll be up to you to become the family scholar."

I frowned. Me, a scholar? Girls hardly ever became scholars. And there was so much work to be done everywhere, in our home, the neighborhood, the whole country. It was hard to imagine a time when books and studying would be important again.

Still, Tae-yul had come back from the dead. That made it seem as if anything was possible. I felt myself start to smile.

Tae-yul smiled back at me and picked up the shovel again. I took the trowel, and we continued our work side by side.

Soon we were finished putting the little tree in its place by the front door. Tae-yul fetched a bucket of water for it.

"Let's not tell Omoni about this," I said. "Let's just make it a surprise."