Brother's Keeper

by Julie Lee

  It was just like Omahni talking. Telling me my worth. Hot tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. I knew that everything she said was true.

  twenty-one

  Maybe December, 1950

  It took another day to reach Pyongyang on our own.

  The city was on fire.

  Two months ago, it had been bombed and captured during the Americans’ push north, but now the communists were pushing back—and the battlefront was close. We could hear shells bursting somewhere beyond the outskirts.

  Flakes of ash fell from the sky like black snow. Morning light filtered through burnt, wiry treetops. I stopped to catch my breath, but choked on the bitter taste of smoke; a haze had settled over everything.

  I’d never been in a city before. The roads were paved, but they were lined with rubble. The buildings left standing were two and three stories tall—some of them pagodas, others pitched-roofed—their windows all blown out and charred. Only the framework of the railway station was still standing, like a skeleton.

  Down the road, huge portraits of Kim Il-sung and Stalin hung on the brick façade of a school, their faces riddled with bullets. And past that, on the next block, wooden-fronted stores—a fruit and vegetable shop, a cold-noodle shop—were empty, their doors hanging at crooked angles.

  When I half closed my eyes to blur the ruined buildings, Pyongyang could’ve looked like an ordinary city—if it weren’t for the tanks and the overturned trucks on the sidewalk; a cow ambling in the middle of the road, its rope dragging behind; and the occasional body on the ground, bent at unnatural angles. I covered Youngsoo’s eyes and looked away.

  People were crisscrossing the city like sleepwalkers. Women carried bundles on their backs and heads, and most men wore baggy white pants and shirts with vests, as Abahji had—they were farmers, like us, finding their way south. But there were city folk too, some of them even wearing simple, Western-style button-downs tucked into zippered pants—nothing too fancy, because not even the rich of Pyongyang wanted to show their wealth. The government might arrest them as bourgeois and anti-communist.

  Youngsoo and I followed the crowd until we reached the Taedong River. It cut through the middle of the city like a sword. South Korean guards stood along the bank, checking for North Korean soldiers trying to infiltrate the South, opening bags, shoving back men. Along the muddy shore were hills of sandbags, and behind them stood abandoned houses, crumbling from neglect like so many broken shells washed up on shore.

  I looked up and saw a destroyed steel bridge, its girders mangled and jagged like the ribs of a carcass. It swarmed with black dots.

  I rubbed my eyes and realized that the dots were people scaling broken girders a hundred feet high. They had strapped their belongings onto their backs and now crawled across the ruins of the bridge in a careful procession, desperate to reach the south bank.

  On the ground, thousands of people waited in line to do the same. An eerie silence hung over the crowd; everyone seemed to hold their breath, afraid that the slightest sound would break a climber’s concentration.

  A young mother stood in line with a baby on her back. She closed her eyes, murmuring to herself. “‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me…’”

  “What happened to the bridge?” I asked, tugging on her arm.

  She opened her eyes and looked at me. “Blown up. It was bombed to keep the Reds from crossing over. But now we’re trapped on this side of the river with them.”

  Trapped.

  The word batted with frenzied wings inside my chest. We’d fallen slightly behind the Allied retreat; they’d already bombed the bridges and left us all for dead. And now the communist soldiers were coming to reclaim this shattered city.

  We weren’t just running. We were being chased.

  I stared at that tangle of broken metal. A black dot plunged into the icy water.

  “Noona, should we cross the bridge?” Youngsoo broke into a coughing fit, his shoulders jerking uncontrollably.

  I looked at him, at the way he couldn’t keep his cough under control or his body still. Then I gazed upstream. The river seemed to go on for miles with no end in sight. There had to be another bridge. A safer bridge.

  “No,” I said. “There must be another way across. Come, let’s go.”

  I grabbed his hand and hurried upstream. Up close, the Taedong gleamed deeper and darker than the river back home. A large chunk of ice floated by, rotating slowly as if it were alive.

  “Noona, we can build a raft. I saw some firewood back there!” Youngsoo pointed to a cluster of houses.

  “Don’t be stupid! We can’t build a raft.” I wove through the crowds, quickening my pace. I knew I must have hurt him. Sometimes my tongue really was as sharp as Omahni’s. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine,” I added.

  “But how will we get across?” he asked, frowning.

  I didn’t know, and I didn’t trust myself. Yet every decision was up to me—our lives depended on it.

  The farther upstream we ran, the more the crowds deteriorated into desperation and chaos. The grave silence by the bridge soon gave way to crying, shouting, and fighting. A mother ran with her baby slipping from the sling on her back. An ox straddled with luggage lumbered beside me, its hooves sinking deep into the muddy ground, its labored breath hot against my face. A man waded into the freezing water, kicking twenty feet off shore before turning blue and sinking.

  I needed someone wiser and older. But I continued running upstream, pretending that I knew what to do, even though I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop my heart from pounding.

  Eventually, we reached a stretch of river where even the mud had frozen. I’d started retreating inside my head, too tired to talk, too tired to run; Youngsoo shuffled alongside me, just as quiet and withdrawn. I didn’t want to look at that dark water anymore, even when the crowd stopped moving and started clustering along the shore.

  But then, a collective gasp. I turned and pushed my way in to see, dragging Youngsoo.

  Halfway across the river, a canoe nosed through small chunks of ice. But it was weighed down with too many people—mothers, grandmothers, infants. Water spilled in over the sides. The crowd screamed, and my mouth hung open. I watched the women and babies sink, the murky water devouring them whole.

  A man wearing a straw rice-paddy hat pulled two other canoes ashore onto the north bank. “Only women and children on the boats!” he hollered. “And not too many!”

  A din of protest rose from the mob. But I was glad, because I was desperate enough to take this way across.

  “Youngsoo, that’s us! We’re children! Let’s go!”

  I pushed and shoved, and grown men pushed back—men old enough to be my father, but without any concern for me at all. Here, I was no one’s daughter, and my eyes stung with hurt. Then someone knocked Youngsoo off his feet, and he burst into tears.

  “Stop crying! Stop crying!” I said, my face turning tight and red.

  But we had missed the boats. I pulled Youngsoo to his feet, and we continued running upstream.

  A heavy blast echoed just beyond the city, and I imagined the Reds appearing right at our heels. Afraid, I yanked Youngsoo’s arm harder, and when he tripped, I scolded, “Watch where you’re going! They’re coming!”

  Were there more boats? I couldn’t find any. Instead, I kept thinking of that mangled bridge: Was it our only way across? The thought nagged at me. What if we were wasting time running away from it?

  We ran until our frantic sprint dwindled again into a weary shuffle. A bit of bloody sock stuck out of a hole in my shoe.

  I gazed upriver. Even though it was bitterly cold, the midday sun hung brightly overhead and I had to shield my eyes. Maybe there was no way across—such truth had been lurking for a while. I had been running like a skittish squirrel and didn’t know which way to go anymore. In fact, I never had.

  I squinted in the sun, thinking I had such poor judgment, when a
glint of light shimmering against ice caught my eye.

  And then I understood what stretched before me.

  “There!” I said, pointing half a mile up the river. “The water froze, and people are walking across!”

  I laughed, then grabbed Youngsoo’s hand and ran, the rocky ground hurting my feet through the thin soles of my rubber shoes. But I didn’t care, for now I could see it clearly: plates of ice stretching across the river. Hundreds of people on the bank. Tenuous figures walking on water.

  “Yah!” an old woman said near the icy edge, when we arrived at the frozen bank. “You can’t have too many people on the ice at once. It’s not that thick. It’ll break. Get back!”

  I pushed through the mob, ignoring her—we had to cross. But someone shoved back, and I fell to the ground.

  “We were here first!” a woman said, clearing a path for her twin boys. They looked around Youngsoo’s age; their heads were shaven and their faces round as if they hadn’t suffered a hungry day in their lives. She was the one who had pushed me down. She had no right—there was no line!

  Without thinking, I got back on my feet and tried to reach the ice. Her firm hand shoved me aside again.

  “Uh-muh! The nerve of this girl. I said we were here first. Let my sons through!” The woman glared at me.

  Fighting back tears, I stood aside and let them pass. One of the boys lowered his stubbly head in apology.

  Finally, another small break opened in the crowd by the water’s edge. I squeezed through it with Youngsoo. The sun shone off the frozen water, the ice gleaming like a heavenly road that had miraculously appeared for our crossing. But up close I could see it had broken into separate pieces, like stepping-stones across the frigid water.

  I took a step, and the ice rocked under my feet. Youngsoo let go of my hand, extending his arms to steady himself as he followed me onto the floes. We slipped and slid across the river like new fawns trying to find our legs.

  We were more than halfway across when there was a splash and scream directly ahead—and then an ear-piercing cry. The mother of the two boys crouched over the edge of an ice block.

  “No, no, no!” she cried, peering into the murky water. A shaven head bobbed near the surface. And another. Short, fat fingers gripped the edge of the icy slab.

  I felt lightheaded.

  “Help!” the woman pleaded. Every time she leaned to lift her sons out of the water, her chunk of ice tilted.

  We were the closest. I hurried forward and offered my hand to help steady her, and she yanked hard as she reached for her children with her other arm. My feet slipped, and I fell, the firm ice smacking against my chin. The block tilted forward, and I started sliding headfirst toward the dark, icy waters.

  “Noona!”

  Someone stomped hard on the back end of our block. The ice righted itself. I gripped the edge.

  “Help! My boys!” the woman screamed, her hands grasping at me.

  “I can’t. I can’t! I’m sorry!” I shouted back.

  “Noona! Get up! Keep walking!” Youngsoo shouted.

  Yes, keep walking. I rose slowly. The ice swayed. I was a mouse, light and quick on my feet. Youngsoo followed close behind.

  We passed the woman. She moaned and pressed her cheek to the little blue hands now frozen stuck to the ice’s edge.

  I turned my gaze forward, hardening my heart, biting down on my lip until it bled. The other side was only a few feet away. Almost there, I told myself.

  Step after step, we crept on, until the solid earth rose to meet us. We had made it to the southern side of the Taedong.

  I fell on my back on the frozen ground and stared at the sky. Those shaven heads. That screaming mother. Tiny blue fingers. I couldn’t stop shaking.

  The afternoon sun beat down on my face, and I wondered what would happen if the ice bridge melted, and everyone on the other side was trapped forever.

  “The Reds are here,” Abahji had muttered to himself. It was our turn to host a Party meeting.

  Omahni glared at him. “Don’t cause any trouble. Let’s just get the red stamps on our ID cards; we could use the extra rations.”

  Abahji got up to open the door, his jaw clenching.

  Feet stomped into the house. Wouldn’t they take off their shoes? Jisoo crawled under the table to hide. Men in button-down work shirts pushed heaping spoonfuls of rice and broth into their mouths. One woman sat squat on the floor like a mudslide that had landed in our home. Omahni chattered away behind a taut smile, her cheeks flushed and her back straight. She scurried in and out of the kitchen, serving bean sprout soup for dinner. The portrait of the Great Leader we had hung for the meeting stared down at us, all-seeing. It wasn’t long before Omahni and Abahji were too busy to mind us children.

  I washed dishes in the kitchen. Youngsoo stood beside me.

  “What is the Workers’ Party, anyway?” he asked. “And why do we have to be here?”

  “Shh, don’t talk too loudly,” I said. “The Workers’ Party is kind of like your Sonyondan Club, but for adults. And our whole family has to be here, especially me, since I don’t go to Sonyondan Club anymore.”

  “Oh.” Youngsoo scratched his head.

  I ladled soup into two bowls “Here, eat what you can before our guests eat everything.”

  “What about Jisoo?”

  We poked our heads into the main room. It pulsed with pumping fists and loud talk: Long live the Red Army! Persecute the bourgeoisie! Hail to the working class! Omahni went back and forth, serving food and gathering dirty bowls. Abahji sat listening, the tight lines around his mouth about to snap and splinter. And under the low table, trapped on every side by seated strangers, lay Jisoo.

  Someone pounded on the tabletop and shouted with a red face. Jisoo’s little body quivered, a dark wet spot forming on his pants. He followed Omahni with his eyes, waiting for her to notice him. A sharp pang hit me in the center of my chest.

  twenty-two

  December, 1950

  We left Pyongyang and never spoke of the river that ran through it, the one with a voracious appetite for women, infants, and boys with shaven heads.

  Youngsoo and I spent the next week trekking across frozen hills and lowlands, avoiding others as much as we could. The people we’d encountered so far had either abandoned or taken advantage of us—I no longer trusted strangers.

  There were deserted villages everywhere, so we never had trouble finding shelter for the night. In each house, I knew to get the stove burning, so heat ran through the piping and soothed our frozen feet on the ondol floor. I knew to check the clay jars buried outside, often full of fermenting kimchi. And I knew there was always a chance of finding rice, and became good at discovering its hiding places—under the floorboard, stuffed into socks, inside an old chest. Like scavengers, we relied on the food left behind by others.

  But the house we had chosen this night had no kimchi or rice.

  “Ai! I can’t believe this rotten house doesn’t have a single thing to eat!” I kicked a wooden table—hard—and my toe throbbed.

  “Don’t worry, Noona. I’m not even hungry.” Youngsoo lay on his side, coughing.

  How could he not be hungry? I studied him. He looked different—darker, leaner—like a boy in the wild. There were shadows under his eyes. His hair had grown, curling like snail shells. I knew I had changed too. My calves had hardened. The calluses on my feet were as tough as horses’ hooves. And I had become good at running—especially running away.

  I found a blanket and spread it on the floor. Youngsoo and I curled up on it, back-to-back, like bookends. There was nothing to do now but sleep.

  We listened to jets zooming overhead, one after the other. The fighting was heading our way fast.

  How far could we walk the next day without having eaten? How could we outrun tanks and planes and men?

  It was our bad luck that had brought us to this house with no food. If we had taken a different path, found a different house, we could have ended up with belli
es full of rice and kimchi. I blew out the kerosene lamp and dreamed I was being chased by wolves.

  When it came to chance, though, it turned out that luck could turn just as easily from bad to good.

  The next day, we walked for hours, our steps heavy and slow. An icy wind blasted our faces, and we sputtered to catch our breath as if we were drowning. But up ahead, in a forest of pine trees, a pearl of light shone through the branches and smoke curled above the treetops. I could even see a bit of a thatched roof.

  “Youngsoo, let’s head toward that house. We need to find a place to stay for the night.”

  “But it doesn’t look abandoned,” he said between shallow breaths.

  We stared at the light. After traveling alone for more than a week, we had grown accustomed to solitude. In some ways, it was easier like this—just the two of us—although I still worried whether I was taking us in the right direction.

  “It’s getting dark. We need to stop,” I said, finally. “We’re going in.” At least there would be a fire.

  In the growing dim, the trees were beginning to look like witches with spindly arms, and their bumpy roots tripped us the entire way. The cold bled in through our every buttonhole and seam. I felt a tremor of anxiety. What if we were walking right into the hands of another person who wanted to sell me to soldiers? I prayed that the people inside would be kind.

  By the time we reached the cottage, I felt faint with hunger. It was surrounded by a low cinder-block wall, and a tree grew inside its courtyard, the heavy branches hanging down outside the fence, creaking and groaning.

  Youngsoo stood with his mouth agape. “Noona, it’s a persimmon tree.”

  We looked at each other, hardly believing our eyes. I’d nearly forgotten that these fruits ripened in winter. I’d nearly forgotten persimmons existed at all.

  Most of them had been picked, but I could still grab one, two, three! A few squashed ones lay in the snow right by my feet. It was a miracle!