If You Leave Me

by Crystal Hana Kim

  Byungchul reenacted the argument, using Sungsoo and Jinho as stand-ins. I heard Kyunghwan’s and Haemi’s words again over the boys’ raised voices and clattering plates.

  “I loved her.” Do you remember him, Hyunki?

  Their presence annoyed me. My mind was already foggy, as Sungsoo had said, and the distraction made me feel less pure, less noble than the others. I sliced into my egg. The yolk had already congealed.

  Jinho drank the juice from the bottom of his fruit bowl and cleared his throat. “I heard the fourth-years talking this morning.” Jinho didn’t speak much. When he did, we always listened. “They think this demo will be serious. One of them saw military vehicles heading to City Hall.”

  “You don’t want to go?” Sungsoo glanced at him.

  “That’s not what I said.” He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and wiped them with a cleaning cloth. “We should make sure to stick together. Be vigilant.” He nodded at me and Byungchul. “No stupid fights.”

  Byungchul nudged me across the table. “We’ll be on our best, top student behavior. We won’t disappoint you, teacher!” From his pocket, he pulled a strange nubbin covered in brown-and-white fur. “My hyung gave me this. They’re good luck charms in America.”

  “What is it?” Sungsoo squinted. “It looks like a dead mouse.”

  “A rabbit’s foot, babo.” Byungchul rubbed the fur between his fingers.

  “Why would an American charm work on us?” Jinho asked. Sungsoo and I laughed.

  Byungchul shrugged, jeering sideways at us. “Lighten up, friends.”

  We met the rest of our classmates on the main square of campus, where they’d gathered on the wet, mown grass. We assembled naturally according to class, with the fourth-years guiding the front. Atop a stone statue, the student council leader shouted through his cupped hands, “March west and then north to Gwanghwamun!”

  We whooped and spread out along the road, blocking trams and pushing against one another in a half jog, more than two hundred of us buzzing with eager insistence. Jinho and I raised the Taegeukgi between us. Sungsoo and Byungchul clutched their signs to their chests to keep them dry. The rain made us unwieldy. We were too frenzied to notice.

  Byungchul prodded my back. “How’re you feeling now?”

  “This is better than any hangover soup,” I shouted.

  We marched past lingering cars, a grandmother hurrying south. Storeowners watched from windows with splayed fingers, like children ready for a parade. When we reached City Hall, the roads converged into a straight path north and the mass thickened into thousands. Students from universities across Seoul, men in smudgy work uniforms, others with raincoats over their suits, we all came together. Each group chanted its own slogans. We couldn’t hear our group’s leader over the throng.

  “Straight through to Gwanghwamun!” Sungsoo called, reining in the second- and first-years. He waved his sign to hold our attention. “Watch your surroundings!”

  We threaded along the eastern edge of the crowd, following Sungsoo’s sign. The din vibrated around us. Sungsoo shouted again, only a meter ahead, but his voice was buried too quickly.

  Jinho pointed to our right. Soldiers, gripping guns and cudgels, stood packed together. “I told you,” he yelled into my ear. I caught a guard’s eyes. His expression was blank, removed of all emotion. He had the fatty cheeks of youth, but he didn’t flinch when a protester yelled “Our country can’t be sold!” right into his face. Whether the soldiers waited from fear or faith in their numbers, I couldn’t tell.

  Byungchul squeezed into the space on my left. He rubbed his rabbit’s foot, his sign propped against his shoulder, the painted words now leaky and distorted with rain. His eyes darted around the crowd. I spoke before he could. “Let’s get to the front. That’s where the action is.” I looped my arm with his. “Stay close.”

  We tried to steer toward the middle, away from the soldiers, but couldn’t make headway. A man in a shiny zippered jacket climbed onto someone’s shoulders. “Death to Japanese imperialism!” He jerked his arms, almost spastic, as the others joined in. I felt their anger swell beneath our feet. I let the feeling propel me forward even as I sensed Byungchul’s hesitation, the catch in his breath. We watched a military truck spill helmeted policemen holding long black cudgels. A few of them marched with rifles.

  “This is bad. This is really bad.” Byungchul looked down, then across me to Jinho. “Damn it, Jinho, you broke my charm.”

  “What are you talking about?” I increased our pace, tightening my hold on him.

  He wriggled free. “You all questioned the rabbit’s foot! You didn’t believe in it!” He shoved his sign at me. I threw it right back.

  “Don’t be a little shit,” I said. “We’re almost there.”

  “I can’t do this.” Byungchul twisted the charm in his hands. “I can’t.”

  “Park’s going to step down today,” Jinho said, as if that would convince him. His glasses were flecked with rain. He didn’t move to wipe them. “We’re taking him down.”

  Byungchul shook his head. “Do you see what they’re carrying? And what do we have? Nothing!” He raised his stupid charm again. “I don’t want to be turned into dog meat. I’m leaving.”

  “Byungchul!” I yelled.

  “I’m not an idiot,” he said. We watched him turn south, his sign muddy, dragging on the ground.

  “Fuck him,” I said, when we could no longer see him. “Let’s catch up with Sungsoo.”

  Jinho craned his neck. “He’s too far away. Let’s dig into the crowd.”

  We used the Taegeukgi as a leash to hold us together. Jinho followed as I wove through the protesters. Sloshing in our wet shoes, our shoulders hunched, we sidestepped the scared until we reached the center. A call-and-response swept past us and we joined in, shouting “Demand Japanese atonement!” and “Fuck the regime!” in rhythm with the thrashing bodies. Our collective, magnified voice thrilled us all. Jinho and I waved our flag, the red-and-blue taegeuk gleaming darker and rounder as the whiteness around it drenched sheer with rain.

  We thronged toward the gate, pushed by the force of the others more than our own feet. For a moment, I remembered the start of the war, when we had fled in hordes. How I had clung to Haemi, reassured by her grip on my shoulder. How she had given me scraps of food, feigning indigestion. Fifteen and forced to be brave, putting my life before her own. I had listened to the swish of hemp cloth and pretended she was sister and father and mother combined.

  “There are a lot of soldiers,” Jinho called. He jumped to see above the other heads. I did, too. Military jeeps and giant shields guarded the Gwanghwamun entrance. A gap of space, maybe ten meters long, opened between the military and us. A few of the braver protesters stepped forward, long signs unfurled.

  “Let’s get in there,” I said.

  As we wedged closer, the sound of shattering glass cartwheeled through the air. A high, sharp crackle. “Someone’s throwing rocks at the soldiers,” Jinho yelled.

  Around us, students turned to run, twisting around those stilled with shock. People pushed in all directions, some forward to join the fight, others fleeing.

  “They’re using their clubs!” A young man in a yellow shirt, jarring in its brightness, gripped his sign like a bat. “I’m going to get those dogs!”

  Someone jostled my shoulder and the flag ripped from my hands, severing me from Jinho. I ducked and snaked between the bodies, trying to catch up, to find him, but I couldn’t see through the sea of dark colors, the frenzy of shouts.

  My mouth filled with thick, acrid saliva as the day splintered too quickly for me to comprehend. Someone hit my back, and I realized I’d come to a stop, that others were elbowing me around like a top. I wiped the rain from my eyes. I had finally reached the front—protesters swinging signs, and soldiers in domed green helmets, slashing clubs through the air.

  I spotted Jinho caught against one of the shields. A soldier held his arm. Sweat or rain or tears streaked his face,
and the square panes of his glasses were clouded. He looked strange, almost blind. He threw himself at the shield like a rag doll and tried to yank his arm free. His glasses flew off, disappeared.

  “Jinho!”

  I ran, too late.

  The soldier brought his club down on Jinho’s wrist—once, twice, three times. Even with all the noise, I heard the crack of bone. A simple, almost familiar sound, like a branch breaking underfoot.

  Jinho raised his arm, the slump of his broken wrist, and screamed. I slid to him, caught his shirt. “I’ll get you out of here.” But the soldier grabbed his shoulder and pulled until Jinho crumpled backward.

  “Let go of him!” I caught Jinho’s ankle, pulled against the man’s strength. I lunged forward, almost gaining a hold of Jinho’s waist, until his voice reached out.

  “Left! Your left!”

  Wood, long, hard, and unforgiving, slammed into my stomach, then a whip of sound, the air gone, and a new scream in my ears.

  Heavy breaths. The cold press of stone against my spine. In a tight passageway at the back of a store with tiled eaves, Sungsoo lifted my shirt. I watched as his fingers probed a red, swollen stomach that didn’t feel like my own.

  I grabbed a pipe protruding from the wall and remembered why we were alone. “I saw a soldier drag Jinho away.” My breath quickened. “We need to find him.”

  Sungsoo nodded. “They’re taking our people to the police station. I’ll bring you home and head straight there.”

  “They broke his wrist.” I strained to stand, but my legs gave out beneath me. “You have to go now.”

  Sungsoo hesitated. The sound of an engine revving made us turn—a paddy wagon, its fenced-in flatbed full of restrained students. “He was hurt. He was screaming,” I said. “I’ll make it home.”

  I clung to the pipe and watched as Sungsoo ran off. Bile slid between my teeth, filling my mouth. Slumped on the ground, I realized it was still raining. A fine, damp mist.

  As I tracked the slow, silvery clouds crossing the sky, an image of the boy they’d found floating in Masan Harbor came to me. The tear-gas canister that had sliced through his eye. Haemi had refused to let me leave for Seoul because of him, afraid of the protests. I remembered my anger at her power over me, her dramatic tendencies, and my relief when it was finally time to leave.

  It shamed me to recall my last night with her. My drunken, sixteen-year-old self, my blustering words. How I’d called her a bitch.

  What did she say to me, that night in the dark, hot kitchen? Dropping the corncob stick, her pregnant belly between us, “You don’t know anything. You, Hyunki—you weren’t worth this life.”

  It seemed I’d tugged at the wrong words all day. I had forgotten how she’d always put my life before her own.

  I’ve known him always, since before you were ever sick.

  Perhaps she’d been telling me all along.

  I blinked up at the sky, the blanket of blue tingeing my sight. Evening had come and I was alone, against a stone wall, unable to stand. Haemi had been right all along. I didn’t know anything.

  Haemi

  1965

  A selfish person—that’s what he’d called me. I opened my wardrobe and stuffed hanboks, sweaters, a scarf, socks into my largest rucksack. Jisoo didn’t understand why I had to be the one to collect the body.

  “Because he’s my brother and I’m alone now,” I said, walking the perimeter of our room. I grabbed random items—a broken pencil, the scissors I used to cut the girls’ hair. I threw them at his feet.

  Jieun and Mila sat by the door, pretending to look through my bag. Solee watched us with her exacting concentration. “Want us to pack for you?”

  Jisoo pointed to the girls, himself, the room. “You’re alone now?”

  I found what I needed on his desk—the addresses on a slip of paper, Jisoo’s money, the only photograph of Hyunki we had. I folded these items into my bag with care. “You know what I mean,” I said.

  “You won’t know where to go.”

  “Be good to the girls.” I looked at Solee, Jieun, Mila. “Mommy will be home soon.”

  “What are you doing?” Jisoo pointed to Eunhee. “You’re not going to take the baby?” She was curled around a pillow, asleep on top of our folded blankets despite the noise. Eunhee was the best sleeper of my four. Some nights I loved her most just for this.

  “You can manage for a few days, Jisoo.”

  Mila touched my passing ankle. “Where are you going, Mommy?”

  “To get Uncle,” Solee explained.

  They whispered together, my little trio. I heard Hyunki’s name and Mila’s response. “Who?”

  Jisoo followed me from the room. “Now I know why you want to go alone.” He carried Eunhee in a careless hold, her head swinging with each stride.

  She jolted awake, her lips opening into a cautious cry. “Ma?”

  “Watch her neck.” I adjusted Jisoo’s arm underneath her. “You’re going to drop her.”

  “You’re the mother.” He thrust her toward me and she rubbed her face against my shoulder, her cries etching higher. By the hallway window, Jisoo grabbed my wrist, his fingers pressing into me in his vicious way. “I know why,” he said again. Shadowed by the winter sun, his backlit face seemed unformed, as if I could mold his features anew. I wanted him to stand there forever.

  Eunhee cried louder in my arms. Tiny pearled teeth and pink throat. “Ma?”

  “He wouldn’t want you even if you could find him,” Jisoo said.

  I twisted from his grasp. “Hyunki’s dead and that’s what you’re thinking about?”

  I shouldered past him to our room. Solee, Jieun, and Mila huddled together along the far wall, around a pile of blankets, as if it were a shrine. My girls, looking more like me with each birth. I set Eunhee down in front of them.

  I told them to be good, to take care of the baby, and I left.

  As I boarded the train that would take me to Seoul, I imagined Hyunki’s lungs. The doctor had described their scarring with precise, scientific words. I had pictured rivers—thick white rivers of hard tissue slithering across pink insides.

  “It must have been hard for him to breathe for years. These scars were old,” the doctor, a floating voice, had said.

  Clutching the town’s public telephone, I’d wanted to kill him.

  “He coughed sometimes, but I thought we had cured the sickness,” I said. “Years ago. My husband brought us medicine and said it would work.”

  A sigh. “Tuberculosis can return if the immune system is weakened. His recent injuries must have exacerbated the illness.”

  “Injuries?” I wanted to yell at this man who knew so much about my brother. “I spoke to him two weeks ago.”

  The doctor paused. “Are you or your husband coming to Seoul? Perhaps we could talk in person.”

  My brother was dead. The disease that had rooted into him during the war had reared up again to speckle his lungs with fresh white dots. Lumps, curdled and full of holes, had slowly taken away his air. Hyunki. Only twenty-one years old. I couldn’t collect my thoughts. I couldn’t order them into a shape I understood.

  “He told me his studies were going well,” I said. “He didn’t tell me about any injuries.”

  “Mrs. Lee? When will you arrive in Seoul?”

  I hung up. I didn’t want to imagine anymore.

  “Excuse me, would you like to use this?” The woman seated next to me on the train held out a white handkerchief. Silky and laced at the edges, it looked too expensive to clean my face with. The woman wore matching gloves, the lace frilly across her wrists. A heavy, fur-lined coat lay on her lap. She raised the handkerchief as if to wipe my cheeks for me.

  I smeared the back of my hand under my eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “I don’t mind. You can keep it.”

  “Please, leave me alone. Stop staring at me like I’m some pitiful stranger.”

  She flinched. It gave me a brief sense of pleasure to see my harshness distort
her prim face. She folded her handkerchief into a neat triangle. “I’m sorry to intrude.”

  “You should be sorry.” I turned to the window. “You have no idea who I am.”

  I looked down at the photograph of Hyunki in his first term of high school in Seoul. He wore a stiff black uniform and looked too serious. Healthy, though, his cheeks full with a roundness he’d never possessed as a child.

  The last time I saw Hyunki, he’d climbed onto a bus with Seoul written on its glass windshield. I stood behind a tree and watched as he pressed his forehead against the window. A small, frightened face. His gaze swept over the people lined along the road, the women waving goodbye. He was looking for me, and I remained hidden. I hadn’t revealed myself until two years later, with my first letter. You need to forgive me, Hyunki. My only brother. I forgive you, too.

  Oxen, lone shacks, and distant mountains blurred past my window. I followed a bird’s flight through tall trees. It was my first time on a train. I had never taken a trip to a neighboring city or gone with Jisoo on his visits to Hyunki. I’d told myself I would go last year, and then Jisoo had refused. I was too pregnant. I was a new mother.

  Hyunki had asked again. Bring the baby. Come and I will take care of you. I’d laughed when I’d read his words. My little brother all grown up. I’d promised him this year, as soon as I stopped nursing Eunhee.

  Always too late or too early, never at the right time.

  I curved Hyunki’s image into my palm and tried to feel how the earth slid by underneath me, how the train’s wheels spun.

  A blare of noise overwhelmed me as soon as I stepped off the train. It was cold, mid-February. People and cars crowded the city. I swept a long look around. Even the streets seemed different, paved smoother and wider, crisscrossing everywhere. As if Seoul’s roads could prove to the world that we’d recovered.

  Buildings with glass windows towered skyward, music twisted out of radios. Boys wore cardboard boxes covered in advertisements, and a man sold American cigarettes from a handmade crate. High school girls released from Saturday-evening classes gathered around a sugar candy vendor woman. With their identical short haircuts and uniforms, they looked like one girl, multiplied.