by Julie Lee
“Stop!” one of them shouted, rushing toward me, his rifle cocked. He wasn’t really any older than Myung-gi, his frame tall and lanky. Under the strain of the loud command, his voice had cracked. “Are you traveling alone?”
“Yes, my brother and I are…orphans.” My mouth turned dry.
“What are you?” he barked. “North or South Korean?”
“South.”
Loud snickering. “Really? You’re South Korean? Is that why your North Korean accent is so thick?”
My heart started kicking.
“Just because we’re from the North doesn’t mean we’re communists,” I said, daring to look him straight in the eye.
The lanky soldier rammed his rifle under my chin. His finger rested on the trigger.
I gasped. “Please. My brother is sick. We need to find my uncle and aunt in Busan.”
The roar of approaching jets rumbled in the distance.
“Let them go, birdbrain,” the other young soldier said, his face pocked and pimply. “They’re just kids.”
“She’s not such a kid. Look, she’s even kind of pretty. How old are you?” the lanky soldier asked.
“None of your business!” I cried, covered in cold sweat.
Jets thundered overhead.
The soldiers looked up.
But I gazed past them, the long, dark valley calling me. Every muscle tensed. The slope of my back shifted. One foot inched forward, even with the rifle still under my chin. I could run for it. Knock the barrel off my neck before he could shoot. Cut between the mountains.
“Don’t do it, Noona,” Youngsoo whispered over my shoulder.
“Don’t do what?” the lanky soldier asked, the jets disappearing.
And just like that, the moment passed. “Nothing,” I said, a thick and tarry gloom settling over me.
“Let them go.” The pocked soldier stepped closer, adjusting his too-wide helmet. “You can get into serious trouble for mistreating civilians. You’d be breaking the international laws of war. It’s wrong.”
“So? Who would know?” the lanky one said, grinning.
The pimply soldier raised his own rifle, aiming at his friend. “Me.”
My neck ached, the hard-metal muzzle still pushing into the soft flesh under my chin. I held my breath, thanking God for the laws of war—and for this pimply soldier who followed the rules, even when no one was looking.
The lanky boy stared right at me, rocking slightly in his boots. “Fine. Just go,” he said, lowering his rifle.
Everything came loose inside me, and I rubbed my throat, wanting to burst into tears.
But I only nodded and started walking away, trying to remember to breathe. It wasn’t until I turned a corner around a hillside and could see a small forest that I broke into a sprint, threading through the trees, branches clawing at my face. Faster and faster. I ran until my lungs burned, until my legs lost their feeling, until all noises fell behind.
I never thanked Youngsoo for saving me that day. I hope he understood.
“You’ll thank me one day for my vigilance. Now hide this,” Omahni said, handing me the Bible.
It was small and brown, its woven cover fraying at the edges. I lifted the floorboard by the doorframe and dropped it down below. “Why do we have to hide it? No one comes to our house except the Kims.”
“If you’re reckless in private, then you’ll be reckless in public,” Omahni said, folding Abahji’s shirt and putting it in a drawer. “What if Youngsoo were to slip it into his schoolbag along with his other books by mistake? What if he brought it to school?” She stopped folding laundry as if she hadn’t thought of that until just then. Her face paled.
My hands turned cold. I tamped down on the floorboard with my foot, making sure I had closed it completely. “Omahni, does everyone have to hide things in holes? Even in South Korea? Even in America?”
“How should I know?” Omahni snapped, picking up Abahji’s pants and smoothing out the creases.
Eventually, we saw others heading in our same direction, raggedy and loaded down with bundles. I sighed in relief at the sight, knowing they were like us—refugees, not soldiers.
We followed them until we came to a deep valley ringed in mountains, hundreds of people funneling through it like sheep. It wasn’t long before the crowd slowed, as if the people in front were waiting their turn for something.
I climbed the side of a hill to see. Water shimmered in the distance. My heart dropped.
“Another river,” I whispered.
Youngsoo’s head turned to me. “How will we get across?”
I had no answer. All I could think about were those boys with the shaven heads—a boat filling up with water—the black Taedong River devouring women and children whole. The sun hit the edge of a mammoth peak and cut a shadow over us.
We headed toward the water. There was no other way forward.
The Imjin River—that was what the others were calling it. It wound back and forth on itself like a snake, and I knew we might have to cross it more than once. The sun shone, round and steady, thawing the winter’s day as if it were spring. Youngsoo relaxed over my shoulder, but the sudden warmth made me uneasy. How could an ice bridge form if the temperature wasn’t freezing?
Finally, we reached the river’s edge. There were so many of us: men and women carrying bundles on their backs and heads; old couples and their farm animals plunking through the water; and toddlers, their lips so pink, following in a line behind their mothers.
But no one looked like our family.
Everyone walked along the bank or in the shallows, not crossing yet. I took off my socks and shoes and followed them, hoisting Youngsoo higher so his feet wouldn’t get wet. We needed to get to the border and make sure that we crossed at night in the dark.
“Excuse me,” I said to a woman walking alongside me. “How can I get to the border?”
She grinned until her gums showed. “You’ll be crossing soon. Part of the thirty-eighth parallel cuts right through this river!”
“Will anyone try to stop us?” With Youngsoo on my back, I sank deep into the muddy ground.
The woman patted my arm. “The Reds won’t. They’re not here yet.”
I pointed my face toward the sun, finally taking in the spring-like day. Across the river, fluffy clouds floated over South Korea, and I wanted to reach up and touch them. Abahji would’ve swung us in the air at this news.
“Did you hear that, Youngsoo? We’re crossing the border right now, and there’s no one to stop us.” He coughed, then squeezed my shoulder.
Families walked hand in hand, pants rolled high as if traipsing through a stream looking for clams. One woman reunited with her sister, splashing across the water to hug her. They cried and held each other’s faces, their hair pulled back in buns. Youngsoo poked me in the shoulder, pointing and smiling, and the hope in me grew stronger. I dared to believe our parents were alive again.
We walked for hours. I searched every passing stranger, and though it was never them, I told myself that if they weren’t here, they were in Busan. Others on the journey said as much, talking about their own plans to meet up with lost relatives who had fled there too. A load lifted from me, and I let my mind wander to luxuries like books and Tootsie Rolls and school.
“Sora-ya, is that you?”
I whipped around. A familiar face! It was Mrs. Lee, the ruddy-cheeked laundry woman from back home who’d poked me in the ribs. Except, her hair had grayed. She carried her three-year-old daughter on her back. I never thought I’d be so happy to see her. “Yes, it’s me! I’m Sora!”
“I thought it was you!” She pounded me hard on the shoulder, using her scrubbing arm. “Where are your parents?”
“We lost them, but we’re going to meet up with them in Busan,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”
Mrs. Lee nodded, her wide smile half closing. “And what about your brother here? Is he trying to look like a wet noodle?” She stuck her finger in Youngsoo’s side, and he s
tarted cackling and coughing. It felt good to hear him laugh again.
“He’s caught a bad cold. But I think he’ll be fine once we get to Busan. Are you heading there, too?”
“Oh, no. I’m going to Daejeon. My sister, her husband, and their children are there. But we can travel part of the way together.”
Part of the way was better than nothing. I wanted to wrap my arms around her hefty middle.
It was time to cross the water. She waded in first, her belongings floating behind like a tugboat. The little girl on her back clapped and shook her head, her two braids swinging back and forth like a rattle drum.
I followed, the water reaching past my waist. The air had warmed, but the river was still freezing. Youngsoo’s legs and stomach dipped below the surface. “Cold!” he cried.
“Just pretend you’re fishing back home and fell in. You’ve done this before.” It was the only thing I could think to say to keep his mind off the water creeping up our sides.
“I’ll t-try,” he said, his chin jittering against my shoulder.
My fingers and toes tingled and could hardly move. I focused on my armpits, the one spot that was still warm. Oh, and I couldn’t forget the back of my neck. I put my hand there.
The river floor began sloping upward, and the water dropped to my knees. People at the front of the line had already walked out onto snowy grass. Up ahead, I could see nothing but dry land and mountains.
Had we crossed over into the South? Not even one border guard to stop us? No impassable spots on the river?
I shivered through my wet clothes and told Youngsoo we’d stop and make a fire to dry ourselves soon. He coughed and nodded. I imagined a crackling fire hot against the back of my knees, the soaked fabric drying to a crepey texture, warm air enveloping me in fluffy clouds like the ones I’d seen floating over the South.
This was what I was thinking right before I heard the first shots.
Behind us. On the far bank. Foreign men in uniforms shooting at us. People screaming, splashing through water, falling facedown. A stampede swept us up like a wave of water buffaloes. I ran, Youngsoo clinging to my back.
Shots. And more shots. Mrs. Lee falling facedown. Two little braids sinking into water.
The Imjin River turning red.
Cries echoing up and down the valley.
I kept running. Didn’t look back. Prayed Youngsoo hadn’t been hit over my shoulder.
twenty-seven
December, 1950
No matter how hard I scrubbed with snow, I couldn’t get the blood off my pants.
Blood stained pink—the color of a woman’s gums, a toddler’s lips, a laundry woman’s ruddy cheeks. Scenes kept running through my head: Something brushing against my leg. Bodies floating past like driftwood. A bare back—its shirt lifting up in the water—rotating like a tortoise. But neither of us had been hurt.
We were in Kaesong—a small city not far from Seoul, according to my map. It had taken us four days to get here after crossing the Imjin River; the land was hilly, with mountains connecting in the distance. Electrical poles lined the town’s narrow dirt roads, shorter than the ones in Pyongyang, glowing in the dusk. Tile-roofed houses stood so close to one another that their eaves overlapped, lights shining in all their windows. None were abandoned.
Youngsoo had picked one, and I had knocked on the door, my hand shaky and tinged red. A middle-aged woman had answered, and when her eyes moistened at the sight of us, I knew we had chosen the right house to spend the night.
“Just call me Ahjuma,” she had said.
Now she sat on her floor at a low table, cutting egg pancakes into diamond shapes. I was still rubbing the hem of my pants. “Don’t fret over the stain, child. Would you like a pair of my pants?”
“No, thank you.” Omahni had cut and sewn these herself. “I’ll wear mine.” I sat beside Youngsoo, clutching our bundle of belongings.
“Well, at least let me take your things and set them over here.”
“We have nothing of value!” I blurted.
Ahjuma’s eyes grew wide, and she stared at us. Youngsoo crumpled under her gaze the way he had when his teacher scolded him for forgetting his homework.
“I only want to help. And in case you’ve forgotten, you were the one who knocked on our door, so mind your manners,” Ahjuma said, pushing bowls of rice and dumpling soup toward us. “Now, go ahead and eat.”
I looked around her house. The ondol floor was warm and clean. Clothes lay neatly folded in the corner. An electric iron sat plugged into the wall. My face burned in embarrassment. Why would this lady want anything from two dirty country bumpkins like us?
I set down our bundle, then grabbed a spoon and took a bite of rice, making sure to lower my face so she couldn’t see the red spreading across my cheeks. Neat cutouts of egg floated in the broth as a garnish, perfectly trimmed. I glanced at Youngsoo. He slurped from the edge of his bowl, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and burped. It was the most appetite I’d seen him have since we left home.
Ahjuma clapped and squealed. “Yeobo!” she called. “Come see how well these children are eating!”
A paper door slid open, and a man limped into the room, a scowl clinging to his face. “Where did these children come from? Why are they here? Whose are they?” he demanded.
“Yeobo, they said they just came from the Imjin River. Poor things. Look at them.” Ahjuma shook her head. “They’re all alone.”
“Imjin River?” the man said. He looked directly at me, his bushy brows rearing up like two black bears. Had we done something wrong? Why was he staring? I started squirming.
“Did they shoot at you? The foreign soldiers?” he asked.
I nodded.
“They’re on the South’s side. Did you know that?”
My head snapped up. The South! “Then why were they shooting at us?”
“Because,” he said, his scowl deepening, “the Reds have been infiltrating the South. Dressing in plain clothes, traveling among the refugees…Pah! Evil times, everywhere!”
I couldn’t believe it. The whole war was stupid.
Youngsoo sidled closer to me, but I nudged him away. He started coughing.
“Oh, you must have caught a bad cold,” Ahjuma said, pouring a cup of herbal tea for Youngsoo.
He sipped it and stopped hacking; Ahjuma patted him on the back. His cheeks seemed a little rosier.
The man took a seat on the floor by the low table. “Give me my dinner. Now. I’m hungry.”
Ahjuma served him a big bowl of dumpling soup and rice, and small side dishes of kimchi and marinated vegetables. Her husband drank a whole bottle of soju before picking up thin metal chopsticks with thick fingers and snapping at the food like a crocodile.
Ahjuma went into the kitchen and returned with a towel and a water basin. She told us to wash our faces, but then she cleaned Youngsoo herself, tenderly wiping spots of blood and grime from his cheeks. “Children, you should stay with us for more than one night. It’s very dangerous out there,” she said gently.
I bowed respectfully. “Thank you, but we need to hurry to Busan. Our parents are waiting for us there.”
Ahjuma looked down. She fiddled with a piece of tissue, folding and unfolding it like origami. “Children, your parents may not be there,” she said, avoiding our eyes. “I know this is hard, but you must be realistic. If you’ve been separated, who can say what’s become of them? You’re already in the South. You don’t need to go all the way to Busan.”
I wanted to throw down my bowl and cover my ears. Why was she talking like that? She didn’t know anything about our family—about Omahni’s plan to keep us all together, about Abahji’s way of always knowing what to do.
Not anything.
“You can’t fool me! I know what you want, woman!” the man bellowed. He slammed his fist on the table, spilling the soup. “We’re not keeping them. I won’t have it!”
“Yeobo,” the woman pleaded, “how can we send them back in
to the cold with all that fighting?”
“Ahjuma,” I said, my heart beating faster, “we’ll be fine. We’ve made it this far.”
“You heard the girl! Let them go and find their parents.” The man opened another bottle of soju, then wiped his nose with a knotty finger.
“Yeobo, please. I think the boy is sick. Look at him. He’s so thin.”
Youngsoo grabbed my arm, his eyes round and watery. “Noona,” he whispered, “what’s going on?”
“She wants us to live here,” I hissed, while Ahjuma and her husband argued. “But we’re not going to. We have to get to Busan as soon as we can, remember? That’s where Abahji and Omahni would be. It’s where we want to go.”
“Where do you want to go after you’ve completed your schooling? What do you want to be?” Miss Chun asked.
We were in the classroom, and all of the students had just left for home. Light streamed in from the window.
“I’m not sure. A writer, maybe? A teacher, like you?” I blushed.
“In all my years, I’ve never seen a student as exceptional as you,” Miss Chun said, sitting back in her chair. She pointed her chin down, then looked at me as if asking whether I understood. Which I didn’t. “You know, your mother was here today.”
My eyes opened wide. “She was?” Omahni never visited the school.
“Sora.” Miss Chun leaned forward. “No matter what you want to be when you grow up, you should get a university education. Don’t stop with your schooling. Go as far as you can. Make that your goal. Don’t let anyone stop you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, thank you.” I bowed, then packed my book bag and headed home.
University! That’s where Myung-gi wanted to go. I didn’t know anyone smarter than him.
A soft thud made my head turn.
Ahjuma had thrown herself to the floor, weeping, as if the prospect of our leaving had drained her of all her strength. Her skirt crinkled like a withered flower. She covered her face with both hands.
Her husband touched her back. “Fine! Just one.” His speech was slurred. “We can only afford to keep one.”
I stared at him.