Brother's Keeper

by Julie Lee

  “Yeobo, we can’t just take one! We have to take both!”

  “No,” the man said. “This is where I draw the line. The girl can stay for a few days, if she likes. But it’s the boy we’ll keep. A son is worth more than a daughter.”

  I watched the man’s greasy lips move up and down. A son is worth more than a daughter. I’d heard it a million times before. And I refused to hear it again.

  “I’m so sorry, dear,” Ahjuma said, her head lowered toward me. “I promise to raise him well.”

  “It’s settled, then.” The man took another swig from his bottle. “The boy can be my farmhand. I was going to hire someone, but this will be cheaper, won’t it? And he can look after us once we’re old.”

  Youngsoo latched on to my arm; his hands squeezed with fear. Everything within me screeched to a halt.

  “You can’t have him,” I burst out.

  The man turned to look, as if he’d only now realized I was fully human. “Don’t be spiteful, little girl. In a few years, you’d be of marrying age, and then we’d have to pay a dowry and send you off to live at your in-laws’ house. That’s why we can’t adopt you. We don’t have the money for a worthless mouth.”

  My insides blazed, his words a lit match tossed down my gullet. “I never asked you to adopt me.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You outspoken, ungrateful little—”

  “And you’re taking my brother over my dead body!” I added, all in one breath.

  The man turned red, took another drink, and bellowed, “You dare deny my wife what she wants?”

  He staggered to his feet, and when he raised the back of his hand to me, I grabbed Youngsoo’s arm and our bundle and rushed out the door.

  We ran.

  The frigid night air burned my face, but I sucked it in. A cool calm filled me when I realized we weren’t being chased. Looking over my shoulder, I could see Yeobo’s and Ahjuma’s figures in their lit doorway—the man in profile, shouting obscenities at the woman—and knew more than ever that Youngsoo and I needed to get to Busan.

  twenty-eight

  December, 1950

  We walked for days along wide roads, beside noisy travelers and silent deer. We saw few houses, but we found enough scraps of food in them to keep going. Tiny towns in ruins were scattered throughout the mountains.

  Hundreds of people like us—weary and cold—shared our route, passing by us in a stream. Sometimes we walked with a group, other times we went our own way, not wanting to take even one more chance with strangers.

  A few kind travelers tried to warn us that we would come across more rivers as we headed south, that all the bridges had been destroyed, that the Reds were coming fast. They weren’t wrong. But the temperatures dropped and turned the waterways into ice bridges.

  I trudged through the snow for miles and miles, often carrying my brother. One day the sky dimmed perfectly, turning deep orange and pink, more beautiful than I would’ve thought possible during war.

  Sometimes, we were granted these small gifts, perhaps as reminders that the sun would still rise and set on this world—even if it had gone crazy.

  I was walking along the foothills, Youngsoo hoisted on my back, when I saw it—a patch of gray flashing between boulders on the hillside. I stopped.

  “Did you see that?” I asked over my shoulder.

  Youngsoo barely lifted his head. “No.” His voice was weak. “What did you see?”

  I saw it again, only fifty feet away. It stole my breath.

  “A wolf,” I said.

  Youngsoo’s legs clamped tighter around my waist.

  The animal had the high ground, which couldn’t be good. It pulled its lip back in a snarl, its yellow eyes glowing.

  I froze, but my heart pounded to be let out. I couldn’t remember any lessons that I’d been taught about this. Should I scream? Run? Grab a rock?

  The wolf stared intently, keeping a cool gaze on us. I couldn’t look away, my body paralyzed under its power. Its gray fur bristled against the stark white snow, like brushstrokes on a canvas. Was it a dream? I’d had nightmares like this, but I always woke up.

  “Noona, where is it?” Youngsoo asked.

  “There,” I hissed, pointing up the steep slope. How could he miss it? It was right in front of us.

  “Where?”

  “Shush.”

  “Noona, I don’t see it.”

  “Quiet,” I said. “Now, listen carefully. I see a house through those trees. Let’s make a run for it. Hold tight.”

  He nodded.

  “One,” I whispered. “Two. Three.”

  At the count of three, I ran, roaring like a savage beast, riding on all my fears. I hurtled toward the house, raced inside, and slammed the door.

  We pressed our backs against the wall. I slid down and listened for howling.

  What if there was an open window? A hole? A broken latch? Youngsoo sat beside me quivering.

  Something breathed deeply through the gap under the door, inhaling our scent, scratching to get close. I gripped Youngsoo’s hand, pulled him closer to me. We huddled together and listened to a low growl in the dark.

  We must have fallen asleep that way, exhausted, because in the morning I found us slumped together in the same spot.

  It was quiet outside. I knew the wolf had gone.

  Stiffly, I got up and searched the freezing house for food. We had to eat.

  In the kitchen, empty jars lay on their sides. Burnt pots sat on the stove. Tables and shelves were overturned. Others had already been here, and there was nothing left. The realization struck me like an arrow in the heart.

  A few kimchi leaves clung to the insides of the jars. I tasted one; it had gone bad, but I collected every piece. I checked the pots and scraped out the crunchy bits of scalded rice stuck inside.

  “Noona, where are you?” Youngsoo called from the main room.

  “In the kitchen. Coming!” I rushed back with a small bowl of rotten kimchi and blackened rice. Maybe it was the way I bounded in, but he startled upon seeing me.

  “Eat!” I barked.

  He picked at the food, wheezing. “Noona,” he said, not looking at me. “Are you all right? You seem…different.”

  “Different? What do you mean?” The hard globs of rice were like pebbles, but I crunched on them anyway.

  “I don’t know. Like you could kill a wild animal with your bare hands.”

  That stopped me mid-chew. I looked at him, a piece of rotten cabbage leaf hanging from my mouth. He looked back, and we burst out laughing.

  “Look, I’m a wolf,” I said, tearing another slice of kimchi with my teeth. “Of course I can kill wild animals! Arooo!” At that, Youngsoo doubled over and could hardly catch his breath.

  But maybe he was right: I was different now. All I cared about these days was food and shelter—no better than an animal, no better than a wolf. School and home were things I had hung in the back of my mind for safekeeping. They felt far away.

  Had I really seen a wolf last night? Or was it just my imagination—shadows playing tricks on my mind? I shook my head, no longer laughing. “I might be going crazy. The stress is finally getting to me.”

  Wind whistled sharply under the door and kicked up a cloud of ash and dust. I couldn’t think of what else to say. Out of nowhere, tears dripped onto my shirt.

  Youngsoo’s face turned serious. He held a ball of burnt rice between his hands like a small woodland animal. “Noona, you’re the least crazy person I know.”

  I chuckled and wiped my eyes, then sat there like a tree stump and let him hug me.

  Sunlight streamed into the barren room. We heard the distant growl of bombing blasts, getting louder. It was time to move on.

  I sniffled and wiped my eyes. Had I hallucinated that wolf? Did it even matter? Like any nightmare, real or imagined, I knew it would be back at dark. We needed to get to Seoul before then.

  I packed our belongings in the quilt, strapped Youngsoo to my back, and headed out the door.<
br />
  twenty-nine

  December, 1950

  The Red army was closer than I thought. They were almost at the gates of Seoul itself.

  When we reached the outskirts of the city, Youngsoo limp on my back, I realized we were just barely ahead of them. The city police blocked hundreds of us from going any farther on the main road, the dull thunder of artillery in the distance; they blew whistles until they were red in the face, trying to divert all refugees to crowded ferryboats on the Han River.

  “Why?” a woman demanded in a thick Northern accent, one of her front teeth missing. “Let us past!”

  “No, take the ferry! The boats’ll take us to the south side! The north side of the city is too dangerous!” a man in the crowd called out. When we all turned to look and saw him wearing a wool coat and suit, everyone listened. “The Reds’ll shell the north side first!”

  Throngs of people pushed and shouted: Please, we’ve come a hundred miles from the North! Let us through, we’re Seoul residents! I have a silver watch and two gold brooches! I pushed my way toward the front, and one of the officers grabbed Youngsoo and me and set us on a boat. We sat on the ice-cold seats, grateful that we didn’t have to get into the water to cross.

  “You know,” said the young woman sitting next to me, her eyes glazed, “the last time the city fell, I survived by hiding in the bathhouse under a bench. The Reds rounded up all the ‘anti-communists’ for execution—all kinds of people. Whoever they wanted. Their shiny black boots marched right past my nose.…Right past.” She paused, staring at the city. “I don’t think I’ll be as lucky this time.”

  Youngsoo and I shivered and said nothing.

  “Seoul is like a dream,” Yoomee’s father had said to Abahji over a late-night bottle of soju. “A thriving city full of churches and businesses, all doing well.” I had lain in bed listening to their wistful sighs, their low conversation, the soft clinking of glasses in the front courtyard, and imagined a city with streets paved in gold.

  But when we stepped off the ferry, Seoul was burnt and in shambles.

  The roads were covered in ash. The wires between the streetlights were cut. It was afternoon, but the city was eerily quiet—the only sound, besides the shuffling of refugees, was a loudspeaker crackling instructions to go to the main train station. There were bombed-out buildings—four and five stories tall—with nothing but their facades and back walls still standing. Abandoned cars sat on the sides of the road, their windows shattered and bloodied.

  “Noona, I don’t like it here,” Youngsoo whimpered softly on my back.

  I blew out a white cloud of breath. “That doesn’t matter. We’re going to the train station as soon as we find food.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You have to eat.”

  “I can’t. Everything hurts.”

  My temper flared. “Don’t you know that if you don’t eat, you will die? You will eat and that’s final.” The sound of my voice—still as short as our mother’s—took me by surprise. I had wanted to be gentler.

  I felt Youngsoo’s shuddering breath, then wet tears, on the back of my neck.

  A gang of boys around Youngsoo’s age ran down the middle of the street, black army caps on their heads, their faces smudged in filth. They disappeared like rodents behind a crumbling wall.

  I continued walking, not knowing which way to go. I saw only strange sights. A chimney stack still standing while its building lay in a heap on the ground; a single arch untouched amidst a sea of rubble; a mess of dirt, burlap, and sheetwood inside a blown-out shop. We were in Seoul, but we were lucky and unlucky at the same time, and I couldn’t help feeling as if every step of our journey was nothing but a game of chance.

  And then I noticed it.

  A thin cross on top of a steeple.

  It was just over a hill, past piles of ruins. I blinked a few times to make sure it was there. I hadn’t seen a church in so long.

  “Look, Youngsoo!” I cried, climbing a sandbag hill. “Do you remember how Pastor Joh used to hand out food to the poor and crippled? I bet that church over there would help us, too!” We needed to eat before getting on any train. Who knew how long the ride would last? I rushed us forward.

  Dozens of people littered the churchyard, living in the shadow of the spire. An old halmoni walked out of a house made of cardboard as if it were nothing at all to be living in a cardboard house. And maybe it wasn’t: countless other box shelters covered the grounds, leaning toward one another as if for support. I rubbed my arms for warmth. Could those thin boxes do anything to block the bitter cold?

  A woman hunched over a boiling pot slurped stew with a metal spoon, delicious steam spiraling up into the air. My mouth watered. A gnawing feeling had permanently settled in the pit of my stomach, and I found relief only when I slept at night and saw myself eating sweet, sticky dduk or salty short ribs. On those nights, my belly was full of dreams.

  The woman peered at me through the steam. “You’re wondering how I made this stew? Go back down the street, about a fifteen-minute walk,” she said, pointing. “There are a few women selling things like dduk and bread. If you’re lucky like I was, there might be a lady selling American C rations.”

  I stared at her, blank-faced. C rations? I’d never heard of such things.

  “Don’t you know, C rations? Canned rations?” the woman said a decibel louder, as if I were deaf. “They’re cans of food for the American soldiers. They stay fresh until you open the lid. Inside are meats and vegetables. Oh, it’s the best.” She looked off dreamily, then pushed another spoonful of stew into her mouth.

  “But I don’t have any money.”

  The woman laughed, and a piece of chewed-up meat fell from her mouth. She snatched it from the ground and stuffed it back into her hungry face. “Well then, little miss, you’re going to have to steal. I hope you’re quick on your feet.”

  “What about the church? Aren’t they handing out any food?”

  “Who’s ‘they,’ exactly?” the woman said, squinting at me. “There’s nobody working in the church—they were all shot by Reds or run off. It’s partially collapsed. We’re just using it for shelter.”

  That flicker of hope inside me blew out so fast, I was speechless.

  I bowed and thanked her, but wished she had offered me stew instead of advice. How could I steal food? I’d never stolen anything before. And what about Youngsoo? How could I be quick on my feet with him on my back?

  Loud booms resounded in the darkening sky.

  I turned to him over my shoulder. At first, the words wouldn’t come out, but I knew I had to say them. “Maybe…maybe you should stay in the churchyard with all these people while I go get food. You’ll be safe here.”

  “What? You’re leaving me?” His mouth was agape.

  “No—well, only for a little while,” I said, blinking fast. “Don’t worry.”

  But the words rang hollow in my head. What if I got lost on these unfamiliar streets and couldn’t find my way back? What if a bomb landed on him or on me or somewhere in between? I untied the blanket around my waist, and when he cleaved away from me, I felt split in half.

  But I settled him with blankets under the overhang of the church building. He sat there, frowning. I wanted to tell him that my heart was pounding through my ears, that I didn’t think I could steal food, that going alone scared me more than anything, but he was little, and I knew it would do no good. A cold wind seeped through my coat, and I felt thin and vulnerable without him on my back.

  I knelt beside him. “There are lots of people here. Look at all the campfires just a few feet away from you. You’ll be warm and safe.” But when I said it, my voice sounded too loud, too cheery.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Okay, well, I have to leave before it gets dark.” I waited for a response, and when there was none, I stood up on leaden feet. Out of habit, I reached for his arms around my neck.

  I didn’t say goodbye, and I didn’t look back at my little bro
ther—sitting alone, painfully thin, biting down on a sob. Even still, I could feel his eyes watching me go.

  thirty

  I crossed the churchyard and headed toward the street. Past the smoking city, mountains towered in the distance. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  The smell of the woman’s stew still lingered, even if only in my mind, and for a moment I closed my eyes. When was the last time I had galbi? My mouth watered with the memory.

  Plates of galbi, scallion pancakes, and rice cakes had lined the table. The families were very generous for this year’s church picnic—the last one we would have for years to come, although I didn’t know it then. I lowered my face over the galbi and breathed in the rich smell of barbecued beef.

  Youngsoo poked his finger between the strips of meat, then licked off the sweet, savory sauce. Omahni and Abahji didn’t notice. They were talking with other parents across the grassy churchyard.

  “Stop it, Youngsoo,” I said, wishing I were five like him—too little to know any better.

  “That’s right, don’t touch the galbi, Youngsoo,” Yoomee said. “My family brought that meat, so it’s ours, not yours.” Galbi was expensive, but since Mr. Kim was principal of the high school, he had more money than most families in the village.

  “Your parents brought the galbi to share with the entire church. So it’s not just yours,” I said, wishing that we could’ve afforded to buy all that meat.

  “Well, it’s not just Youngsoo’s either, so he shouldn’t stick his finger in it.”

  I couldn’t argue; she was right.

  “Uh-muh. She’s such a showoff. Just because her dad has money,” a teenage girl said, glaring from the far end of the table.

  “That’s what you call a spoiled brat,” another girl said.

  I glanced at Yoomee. Her arms were crossed. She looked off to the side until I saw a tear roll down her cheek. Then she wiped it and walked away.

  The girls laughed, each taking a piece of galbi, and I wondered how they could swallow past the shame.