Brother's Keeper

by Julie Lee

  Omahni laughed as if that was the stupidest thing she had ever heard. “What are you talking about? Two years old is still a baby!”

  Jisoo stopped crying and curled onto Abahji’s lap. Omahni tore a piece of kimchi and fed it to him. His plump thigh slipped off Abahji’s knee, sprawling out as audaciously as some boy-emperor luxuriating across his throne, and I had the urge to pinch that tender flesh hard.

  After we’d eaten, Omahni straightened her back and turned to me. “Sora, come help me in the kitchen. Fry the bean pancakes and wash the rice. The Kim family is coming for dinner.”

  It was the command I dreaded every day, the one calling me into the kitchen. My face must have soured, because Abahji frowned at me.

  Ruefully, I followed Omahni from the sitting room and stepped down into the small, stifling space. Buckets of water from the courtyard well sat in a row from largest to smallest on the dirt floor. Omahni was already at the stone counter with her back to the door, her right shoulder rising and falling as she massaged meat in a bowl. Her long hair was coiled in a bun as smooth and shiny as obsidian. I reached out to touch her, but hesitated and dropped my hand instead.

  I wanted to ask about the war, but I didn’t dare.

  “Here, wash the rice,” she said, leaning over the wood-burning stove and lifting the gourd off its hook.

  I took it from her and poured in two cups of rice, then rinsed the pearly grains, my long hair swaying in front of my face.

  Omahni looked at me as if she smelled something foul. “Tsk, tsk. Tie your hair back before strands fall into the rice.”

  “Yes, Omahni.” I created a braid.

  Her gaze lingered on me. Then, as if there were nothing she could do to change her unlucky fate, she said, “How is it that my daughter got the tan skin while my sons inherited my fair complexion?”

  I looked at my olive-brown hands. Fair as nobility. Dark as a peasant. That was what I’d always been told.

  Omahni handed me the ground mung beans. A pan of hot oil sat on the stove. “Go ahead. Finish the batter and fry the pancakes. You should know how to do this at your age.”

  I wiped the sweat from my upper lip. I had to mix the mung beans, water, and vegetables, and maybe add soy sauce. And didn’t salt and pepper go into bean pancakes too? I stirred the batter and poured small circles onto the pan, then grabbed a palmful of salt from the ceramic jar in the pine cabinet.

  “Yah! How much salt did you grab? Only a pinch. Only a pinch!” Omahni scolded.

  But it was too late. My empty hand froze over the pan. I stopped breathing. The salt melted into the sizzling batter.

  “Aigoo! When will you ever learn to cook? How will I get you married off when you’re older?” Omahni sighed and frowned. “Good thing I pulled you out of school. You’ve had your head in the books too long. You don’t know how to do anything else.” She pushed me aside and took over.

  My head snapped up. “Married?”

  “Why do you sound so shocked? Your auntie in Busan got married at sixteen! Don’t worry, you won’t get married for a few more years. Now cut some fruit for me. Watch how I do it.” In one fluid motion, she peeled an apple into a smooth ball, then cored and sliced it evenly.

  I grabbed an apple and a paring knife, my head clouded with worry. In four years, I would turn sixteen. A wedding was so much closer than I thought.

  First no school. And now this.

  The room shrank to half its size. My hands felt tingly and numb, and I could hardly hold the knife. Something sharp stabbed at me.

  “Yah! What are you doing?” Omahni said.

  I looked down. Blood trickled from my finger. Chunky bits of apple skins lay scattered on the counter, so different from Omahni’s peel cut into one continuous spiral, as pretty as the inside of a shell. Her pared apple sat perfectly round on a serving dish, and I set mine beside it—uneven and trimmed to the size of an apricot, its flesh wasted.

  three

  The Kim family arrived early that evening.

  “Ah, please come in!” Abahji welcomed them with a bow.

  “Is that all you do when you greet your closest friend?” Mr. Kim asked. He wrapped his arms around Abahji tightly; Abahji laughed and thumped him hard on the back. Omahni scurried out of the kitchen and embraced Mrs. Kim. They murmured greetings quietly, as if they did not want to be heard.

  Myung-gi and Yoomee entered behind their parents. Yoomee bowed and said hello to everyone, but pretended not to notice me. When she walked past, I stared. Something seemed different about her. Ah! It was her bangs; they had been trimmed too short! I swallowed a giggle.

  She glared at me, then smirked. “Were you hiding under the willow tree the other day, eavesdropping on my class?”

  I choked.

  I didn’t think anyone could see me under the branches. Had the entire class been watching? I tried to speak, but nothing came out.

  “Hmm,” Yoomee said, smiling. “I’m sure it was you. I’d recognize your wiry hair anywhere.”

  My fingernails dug into my palms. I shot her a look that almost burned the silky hair right off her head. God forgive me—I wished her dead, that Yoomee. How could she be so different from her older brother?

  Myung-gi strode lithely across the room and set his bag on the floor. He never went anywhere without his books. Omahni said Myung-gi was turning into a handsome boy, and I couldn’t argue. But I wasn’t sure whether it was his smooth, tan complexion or his bag of books that made me look for him wherever I went.

  When we were little, we used to catch dragonflies together, but now that he was fourteen and in high school, he rarely spoke to me. The space between us had widened into an abyss.

  “What books were you reading today, Myung-gi oppah?” I asked, addressing him respectfully as an older boy.

  He dumped his bag upside down, and books tumbled out. My mouth hung open. There were so many—big and small, thick and thin, enough to occupy me for days. I couldn’t stop my huge grin from spreading, and I covered my teeth politely, the way I’d always been taught. I picked up a small red book and flipped through its pages, breathing in its comforting scent of ink and musty paper.

  Myung-gi snatched the book out of my hands. Had I been rude in picking it up without permission? How strange I must have appeared, inhaling it like a bouquet of flowers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  Myung-gi pointed the book at me. “This is a book about communism. And so are all of these. Don’t you remember? The new principal changed the curriculum and confiscated almost everything else.” He sighed, then tossed them all into his bag as carelessly as chucking dead clams back into the river. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m just tired of reading the same mind-numbing rubbish. Marxist dialectics. Revolutionary principles. Everything for the collective. It’s all repetitive garbage.”

  I’d forgotten. For a second, that red textbook was just another book with that wonderful wood-pulp smell. My face burned in shame. Myung-gi and his family were the only ones we could trust, the only ones in the village who shared our aversion to the regime. I should’ve known better.

  Bowls of rice, bean-sprout soup, kimchi, and pancakes lined the table. Abahji sat on the floor with Mr. and Mrs. Kim on his right and Omahni on his left; the rest of us squeezed in wherever we could. I sat beside Youngsoo and braced myself not to squirm once Yoomee sat on my other side, but Myung-gi dropped down next to me instead. His knee brushed against my leg. I’d never sat this close to him before. I studied his hands—thoughtful and smooth, resting on his lap—and when he glanced at me, I realized that perhaps I’d been staring and felt prickly heat spread across my cheeks.

  Omahni jumped up to close the shutters, and then Abahji bowed and said a prayer for the meal. Everyone rolled up their sleeves. No one spoke. Mr. Kim slurped scalding broth from the edge of his bowl, keeping his mouth ajar to let the steam rise. Abahji bellowed a satisfying “Aah!” with each sip. All around the table, I heard a symphony of gulping, sniffling, and burping. I scraped out the
last bit of broth and meat in my bowl, leaving it dry.

  “Wah, look at how much my son ate. The food must be delicious,” Mr. Kim said. He patted Myung-gi on the shoulder as if he’d performed a great feat by simply eating his dinner.

  Omahni scrunched her face, unable to accept such a compliment. “Oh, you and Mrs. Kim are blessed to have such a son. He will serve you well in this life and the next.”

  Mrs. Kim smiled and waved her hands in front of her mouth as she hurried to finish chewing. “You are the one blessed with two sons. You have double the good fortune, and your husband’s family line will extend forever.”

  They laughed, basking in the security of their many blessings. But their tittering pricked at me like tiny icy picks, and I turned my eyes away to dull the sting.

  Mr. Kim sucked the stringy tail end of a bean sprout into his mouth and smacked his lips. “Sora-ya, did you help make this meal?”

  I nodded.

  Mrs. Kim winked at me across the table. “She’s an excellent cook just like her mother, much better than our Yoomee. And such a dutiful daughter, too.”

  “No, our daughter is terrible in the kitchen,” Omahni said, her face pink and shiny. “She’s a clumsy girl who hates housework. I’m sure we’ll never be able to get her married off when she’s older.”

  Clumsy girl—me.

  Mrs. Kim scolded Omahni in jest. “That’s nonsense. One day, I’m sure Sora will marry a handsome young man of noble blood.”

  Omahni chuckled lightly into her hand. The sound grated against my ears.

  I glanced around the table. Yoomee sat there beaming, and I could hardly stand to look at her. I tried to focus on my favorite daydream instead, the one where I finish at the top of my class.

  It’s graduation day, and the principal calls me to the podium for my certificate of achievement. Omahni and Abahji wipe away tears of joy. And my classmates, especially Yoomee, watch with envy.

  “—No, our daughter is a terrible cook,” I heard Abahji say. My head jerked up. “She sprinkled so much salt on this bean pancake that it tastes like the ocean.”

  Laughter erupted everywhere.

  I looked at Abahji. Usually, he complimented my food. I knew that humble parents always criticized their own children in front of others. It was the polite thing to do. But it still felt like a betrayal.

  Yoomee livened up at these tales of my shortcomings, her dark pupils sparkling like jewels. With one eye on me, she took a bite of bean pancake, then made a face and guzzled a cup of water, her hand fanning her collarbone. I felt my chin begin to quiver, and when Omahni reached over and smoothed Yoomee’s hair saying, “Oh, so pretty,” I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled.

  Myung-gi glanced at me, and our eyes met. “Shouldn’t we tell them now?” he asked his parents, interrupting the laughter.

  “Why are you rushing?” Mrs. Kim scolded. “I haven’t even finished my soup yet.”

  “I just thought we should tell them before it gets too late.”

  I flashed a grateful smile at Myung-gi, but he didn’t look back.

  “Yes, yes, the boy is right,” Mr. Kim said, checking the time on his watch and turning serious. His shirt dampened under his arms. He cleared his throat and turned to Omahni and Abahji. “We plan to escape, and we want all of you to come.”

  four

  Omahni and Abahji sat still without a word, their faces grave. Abahji turned his gaze away from Mr. Kim. Omahni straightened her chopsticks and bowl, even though they were perfectly aligned.

  Escape. The word hissed at me, and I shrank back. Everyone knew that military guards shot anyone trying to cross the border.

  But I wrung my hands. If we escaped to the South, we wouldn’t have to attend town Party meetings and listen to those never-ending speeches about living in a communist workers’ paradise. We wouldn’t fear that our neighbors would accuse us of being traitors. We could go to church without being arrested. We could read any books we wanted, instead of just the ones about Mother Russia and the evil Americans. We wouldn’t worry about the secret police abducting one of us children on our way home from school, to interrogate us about our parents.

  We would lose our fields if we went south. But maybe Abahji could work in a shop or start a business instead of tending crops with Omahni. She could watch my brothers again, and perhaps I would be allowed to go back to school—even against her wishes. I knew school had nothing to do with communism or war or the secret police, but I couldn’t stop my thoughts from tangling. What if one kind of freedom led to another?

  My heart started thumping. I felt a pull, as if I were standing on a cliff and staring down.

  Finally, Abahji broke the silence. “It’s too dangerous. There are soldiers standing guard all along the border. If we were caught, they would shoot us—all of us.”

  Mr. Kim sat straighter, his face animated. “Yes, but with the declaration of war, they’ll be too busy fighting to worry about us—or any other defectors. This could be our last chance. Who knows what will happen in the future?”

  My stomach churned.

  “Where will you settle?” asked Abahji.

  Omahni began touching the nape of her neck as if something were there.

  “In Busan,” Mr. Kim said. “Everyone is heading to the southern coast.”

  Abahji nodded slowly. “My wife’s brother, Kang Hong-Chul, has a house there. I can give you his address. House number 8818—”

  “Mr. Kim, of course we cannot go with you. It’s too dangerous,” Omahni cut in, glaring at Abahji. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead. “And excuse my words if they seem rude, but you shouldn’t have said any of this out loud. It puts us all in a dangerous position. Once you escape, who do you think the police will interrogate? My husband and me. They will accuse us of being traitors, too, simply for being your close friends. If they discover that we knew of your plan and did nothing…they will send us away to a prison—or worse!” She jumped up to check outside the window.

  Mr. Kim frowned and lowered his head.

  A strange tension filled the room. I had known Mr. and Mrs. Kim since I was a baby—they were like family. I had never seen Omahni or Abahji argue with them before.

  For some reason, I felt like crying.

  Omahni, Mrs. Kim, Yoomee, and I began clearing the table while the men lowered their voices and talked in serious tones over cups of barley tea, Myung-gi sitting on the outskirts of their conversation, stone-faced. I overheard Abahji give Mr. Kim directions to Uncle Hong-Chul’s house. Just a few miles from the Busan station. South of the Gukje Market. He’s got a fish stand there, not far from his house. The radio was flicked on, and an announcer’s voice—high strung and staccato—filled the room with rapid-fire war talk.

  Anxiously, Youngsoo twirled his wooden spin top across the floor over and over and shouted for me to come see. Yoomee and Jisoo crowded around to watch, but I didn’t need to look. I knew it would eventually spin out of control and come to a dead stop.

  “Uncle! Uncle! Twirl me again!” I said, reaching up. He spun me like a wooden top, his arms solid as oak when I hung from them.

  “He’s not your uncle! He’s a relative so distant, we’re hardly related!” Omahni snapped. “Please, for God’s sake,” she pleaded to the man standing in the middle of our room, “leave our house. If you have any concern for the safety of my family, please go!”

  He deflated at Omahni’s words. “I’m so sorry, Yuri. I have no other place to stay. I’ll leave tomorrow. I promise. Here, I brought you a gift.” He reached inside his bag and pulled out a sack of fresh cucumbers.

  “Ai!” Omahni shrieked, snatching the bundle from him. She shook her head and pulled on her hair. “Tomorrow morning, then. You leave at dawn. Aigoo, you must be crazy, helping people escape across the border. If they find out what you’ve been up to, they’ll kill you! You know that, don’t you?” Then she stomped out of the house with her laundry basket.

  We were alone.

  “Sora-ya, you’r
e growing so fast. How old are you now? Six? Seven?”

  “Eight!” I said, my face beaming.

  Uncle chuckled. “Wah, you’re a big girl now. I brought you some peanuts. After you crack them open, you can pretend the shells are earrings. See?” He hung one on his ear lobe.

  I giggled and snatched the bag from him.

  While I ate, he stared into the small mirror hanging over the water basin and started shaving his face with a metal blade. In the afternoon light, I noticed dark circles under his eyes and neglected stubble on his chin. Even still, he was handsome, his hair combed back smoothly, thick with pomade. “Is this so interesting to watch?” he asked, smiling. “Go make peanut earrings.”

  I sat on the floor and cracked the shells. I was hooking one on my ear when I heard shuffling outside. Fists pounded on the door. I jumped.

  Two police officers barged into the house, pointing rifles at Uncle.

  “Do you know why we’re here?” one of them shouted, military-style insignia pointing at me from his padded shoulders.

  I looked at Uncle and clutched the bag of peanuts.

  “Yes, I know,” Uncle said, unflinching. He continued shaving, gritting his teeth, the white lather disappearing in neat strips.

  “Hurry!” The officer flipped the basin into the air. Foamy water splashed onto the walls.

  But Uncle finished pulling the blade across his clenched jaw in one careful sweep. He wiped his face meticulously with a towel, then walked out the door, a pointed rifle shoved into his back.

  I sat in a pool of urine, the peanut bag crumpled in my hand.

  That was the last time I ever saw him—the man who was not my uncle.

  Bowls clattered. I started at the sound.

  Omahni was glaring and tossing empty dishes on a tray as Abahji continued telling Mr. Kim about her brother in Busan. I knew what Omahni was thinking: the authorities who had taken the Man Who Was Not My Uncle had executed her aunts, uncles, and cousins too, just because they were related to an accused traitor. We were spared by one step in the family tree.