Once the Shore

by Paul Yoon

  Before they parted that day, Linden went to the shed and brought out a new bar of soap. “For you,” he said. She bowed and hurried inside the house, where she spent the rest of the afternoon in her room, the soap tucked under her pillow.

  Her father returned in the late evening. He entered carrying two sacks. One contained the food for the family, including the kelp. He had not forgotten, as Haemi knew he wouldn’t. The other was filled with what he could not sell. Over half of what they packed, the vegetables and the soy paste warm from the heat of the hours. She smelled liquor on his breath. Her father said nothing. He went to the well to wash his face and dump water over his head and then went to bed, his skin still dripping. He had brought a newspaper, which he always did, for the illustrations. She listened to him turn the pages.

  Her mother, after storing the food, sat in the corner of the room and began to knit a quilt by candlelight. Haemi crept into the kitchen where her father’s rucksack lay. She opened the flap. She counted the wooden animals. There were several missing. In their place were unopened bottles of wine.

  Through the window she looked out toward the shadowed hills and the fields, luminous and silver under the stars. The pony stretched his neck. The door of the shed stood ajar. Linden liked the winds to come through, he once said, while he slept.

  It was there that her father used to carve his animals. In the dry evenings of winter he brought his wine and for hours she could see the door outlined by the light of a candle, the glow spilling out the back window and onto the grass. Once, she went to him, no older than four, and she opened the door to find him shaving the bark off a thick branch he had found by the river. When he saw her, he leaned the branch beside her and with his knife he marked where it reached her hip, his eyes blurry and raw. He had cut himself, along his thumb, and the thin blood ran down the scars on his forearms, dripping onto the floor. He ignored the wound and she grew afraid and left him.

  The next morning he woke her. In his hands, his thumb bandaged, lay the first cane he would make for her, to match her height, its handle carved in the shape of a pig’s head. He presented it to her and wept, kneeling beside where she lay, repeating the words, “It is for you.”

  She grew taller and the canes lengthened. And every year her father used what was left of each branch to make the small sticks he would take up to the cave and leave there, one beside the other, realigning them if they had, throughout the course of the months, shifted.

  It would be years before she went into the shed one night without her father knowing. She stood among the baskets, pots, and tools that were now stored there, a blanket draped across her shoulder, the window holding moonlight. The woodcarvings her father had by then discarded lay on a shelf: albatross, seagulls, and sandpipers, each the size of a stone. There was also a flute he had made for her mother, one Haemi attempted to play once, unable to produce the notes.

  Her father’s knife lay in the far corner of the shelf, the wooden handle darkened by the dirt of his palms. She opened it; the blade was rusted and dull. She ran her thumb across the knife’s edge. Then she folded it shut and slipped it into her pocket. She carried it with her always.

  Once a week, as was tradition, each of the families of the village prepared a meal and, after sunset, brought it out to the clearing where they gathered beside a bonfire and shared it. Haemi sat between her mother and Linden. Ohri raced around them. The children of the village approached Linden and offered him a sample of their dinner. He stood and bowed for every child who approached and Haemi teased him. “Stop it and eat,” she said, pulling on his shirt.

  Her father, who had been wandering through the crowd, now offered Linden wine and sat beside him, slapping his shoulder. “Good, good,” he repeated. Ohri, with caution, went over to his father. “My son,” he announced. He passed the bottle to Linden and lifted the child and together they danced through the crowd, their bodies dark against the light of the fire. Haemi took the bottle from Linden and walked to the grass where she poured out its contents. The liquid pooled, reflecting stars, then vanished. She gave the bottle to her mother. “He won’t remember,” Haemi said. She spotted her father and her brother by the well and went over to them. “They’re starting,” she told her father. He looked at her, as if about to speak, his face bright and shadowed, but she took the boy and walked back to her mother and Linden.

  Now that the performers no longer visited it was custom as well that at the end of the meal the villagers would tell stories themselves. They stood in front of the crowd, beside the fire, and spoke of legends that everyone was familiar with but listened to nonetheless.

  These were stories of distant places on the island: the Bay of the Dead, called such because the caves on the shore were once the eyes of an ancient creature, the cliffs above them its skull; the waterfall where the kings were said to be buried, and the passage across the forest canopy, used by gods, to travel quickly from one village to the next.

  On this night they listened to a villager speak of a farmer who, unable to sleep, hiked up a mountain. After he had been walking for an hour, he came upon a glacier lake where he saw a group of maidens descending from the heavens. With every full moon the gates in the sky opened and they came to bathe until dawn when they would have to return. Before their flight, however, the farmer stole the clothes of one of them and hid behind a bush. When it was time for them to return, one of the girls couldn’t find her blue dress and so was unable to ascend to her home.

  The farmer, appearing out of the bush, consoled her and took her back to his cottage. In time they were married. She bore him children. As the years went on, the farmer, in his happiness, soon forgot about her dress, which he had hidden in a chest. But she never did.

  And so one day she asked if she could try on the blue dress and he, unconcerned, consented. Feeling the fabric against her skin she remembered all that she had abandoned and, taking the children, she returned to the heavens.

  With every full moon the farmer visited the lake. But no one appeared. Instead, a bucket descended from the sky, tied by string. When the bucket was filled, it was pulled up to the clouds. It was how the maidens bathed from then on, high above the sky. The farmer never saw them again.

  And this was why all the villagers used wells. To remind them of the man who took a god’s child.

  At the story’s conclusion a single voice broke the silence. The sound was not unlike laughter, though it seemed forced, determined. Haemi watched as the silhouette of her father stumbled toward the storyteller, clapping. “Good, good,” he mumbled, and jumped onto the well, teetering on its edge. The storyteller held out his hands but her father kicked him away, and while the village looked on in silence he circled the rim of the well. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking up at the stars. He said, “Where is the rope, where is the bucket?” He then grew quiet and stopped. He lowered himself and sat against the well and faced the audience. The glow of the fire touched upon his slumped shoulders. Behind him, the trees were thin as arrows.

  Some of the villagers made jokes, others sighed and stood to leave. Haemi’s mother bowed to those departing, not once meeting their eyes. Linden remained seated, Ohri asleep in his arms. He was rocking back and forth, humming, his gaze fixed across the crowd at a point somewhere above her father’s head. He had been covering the boy’s ears.

  For the first time the American patrolmen exited their trucks upon entering the village. Linden had been with them for a month now. The engines groaned, sputtered, and were silenced. Doors opened. The men wore helmets and clean uniforms and as they approached the villagers their boots glistened, reflecting the sunlight. One of the soldiers, his fingers tobacco-stained, was holding a photograph. An interpreter was with them and he spoke on their behalf. He said, “Have you seen this man?”

  Everyone shook their heads, returning to their work. “Please,” the interpreter said. “Try to remember.”

  Haemi was shown the photo. Linden appeared younger and she did not immediately rec
ognize him. Or perhaps it was due to the fact that she had never seen a photograph before. She looked at it, astonished, rubbing her thumbs against Linden’s image carefully lest it fade. But there it remained, contained within her hand. He was in a clean uniform. His face was shaven, his blond hair cut short. In his eyes there was pride. The background was nondescript, a bare wall.

  “Do you recognize him?” the interpreter said, who stood beside the soldier. The sun came through the trees and she placed a hand above her eyes. She shook her head. The interpreter asked if she were certain. “He was last seen in this area,” he said.

  “Positive,” she said.

  The soldier began to speak but she did not understand his words and the interpreter remained silent. They left her and walked around the grounds, continuing to show the photo. The children had been ordered by their parents to remain indoors. They now stood behind the windows of their homes, following the movements of the soldiers. From inside Haemi’s house, Ohri, on tiptoes, gripped the window ledge and peered through the shutters. The soldier who held the photo waved, amused, and her brother returned it, lifting his short fingers.

  The interpreter, who now stood in the clearing, began to speak to the crowd. He said, “If you are willfully participating in this man’s escape, then it is a crime. If you are harboring him unwillingly, then please do not be afraid.”

  He went on. The soldier, standing beside the window, showed Ohri the photograph. The boy pointed at it. After a moment, Ohri formed a circle with his thumb and index finger. “A-Okay,” he said, in English, and pressed his lips together to blow a bubble with the gum he had been chewing. Haemi hurried to them but their mother appeared from behind the window and took the child, disappearing farther into the house. The soldier sought the interpreter and words were exchanged but that was all.

  They left soon after. The houses shook as the trucks returned down the road. When the noise faded Haemi carried Ohri against her hip and went to find Linden. This time he sat cradled against the arm of a tree near the river, several meters above the ground; his fatigues blended with the leaves.

  “They’ve gone,” she said.

  “They stopped,” he said, still up in the tree. “They got out of their trucks.”

  “Thirsty,” she told him. “They wanted to use the well.”

  “It took long.”

  “Long time to drink,” she said.

  Ohri lifted his arm and Linden brought his hand to touch the child’s fingertips. The child made as if to twist Linden’s fingers, as one would pick fruit.

  “Harvest,” Linden said, and descended.

  That night, unable to sleep, she heard the voices of her parents arguing.

  “It is time,” her mother said.

  “He works well,” her father said.

  “It’s unsafe.”

  “He’s been good to us.”

  “To her,” her mother said.

  In the darkness Haemi heard the unmistakable sound of skin hitting skin, sharp and sudden. Her body stiffened. She waited for Ohri’s voice but it did not come. He had slept through it and she was grateful. “Sleep,” she heard her father say. And then it was silent.

  Haemi didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until she was woken by the sun. She left her room to find her mother sitting on the floor, her head against the wall, the quilt spread across her knees, sleeping. For all the years that she could recall, her mother sat knitting every evening after the work was finished. For Ohri’s eventual wedding, Haemi had all these years assumed. It was two meters long and striped with the colors yellow, red, blue, and orange. Her mother woke to her footsteps and, rubbing her eyes, continued her knitting.

  “Mama, it’s long enough,” Haemi said. “You can stop.”

  Her mother shook her head. When Haemi attempted to take it away she resisted, pulling back, a sharp tug, and the quilt tore. They watched a silk thread release from the weave, falling.

  Haemi stood there stunned; the silence deepened. She looked at her mother’s toes, thick and calloused.

  When her mother spoke it was as if the words came from a great distance. “It was how I counted the days,” she said. “It wasn’t for anything other than that.”

  Her mother set the quilt aside and went into the kitchen and returned with a wet cloth with which she began to wipe the floors. Her arms moved in wide circles and the wood darkened in arcs. She worked slowly and with care and Haemi stepped away from wherever her mother’s hand swept.

  Ohri was born when she was nineteen. Her mother was thirty-nine. Whether he was intended or not, she did not know. She, along with the doctor, helped her mother give birth to the child, the doctor aware of her mother’s near-death nineteen years before. The infant’s body was as shriveled as a prune, his voice as loud as thunder.

  Because Haru’s brother was in the war he and his father, out of respect, were one of the first to see the child. Haru, nine then, held the boy with comfort, as if he had done so all his life, tapping the infant’s nose. Haemi remained by the door.

  That night she was unable to sleep from her brother’s crying. She noticed her parents’ door ajar. They had lit a candle. They sat beside each other on their mats and looked down at their new son. Quietly they shared a laughter. Her mother placed her head on her father’s shoulders. It was the only time she would ever see her do this. Her father leaned down to kiss the side of his wife’s face. In this gesture they appeared young, as though they had just been married.

  For six months they would be seen close beside each other, like this.

  If she ever thought of her parents as happy, she recalled this moment: how her mother leaned into him; how her father held the child’s ankles and moved his legs. Ohri’s cry, which they didn’t mind then.

  The trucks could now be heard all throughout the hours. They kept to this area and the surrounding villages. Though no one spoke publicly of their presence, the days altered. Caution pervaded the fields and the grove when Linden was present. The farmers no longer waved to him. They worked with efficiency and then hurried through their lunches.

  “They speak of me,” he said. “I should leave.”

  She called it nonsense and told him so. They were unused to so many Americans, she told him. “Stay,” she urged. “It has nothing to do with you.” They stood beside the shed and watched Ohri through the window of the house, following his mother. It was early evening, the citrus trees bright under the setting sun. “He is fond of you,” she said, and all at once felt the guilt of using those words.

  “You are most welcome here, Linden,” she said, and bowed and departed for the house.

  In the morning the patrol arrived in the village once again and everyone was told to gather in the clearing. The children were separated from the adults. The soldier who had seen Ohri approached the children. He held pieces of chewing gum. The interpreter followed him, translating his words. “Do you recognize these?” Two soldiers who appeared no older than twenty years of age stood at the center holding their rifles. The rest of the patrol entered the homes, one by one. They heard the clatter of kitchen utensils, mats being pushed aside. Dogs began to bark. The ponies of the village grew agitated from the pounding of the boots.

  Haemi was holding her brother when he reached for the gum the soldier offered. “No,” she said but the soldier had seen the boy’s gesture and paused. He formed a circle with his thumb and index finger and raised his hand at the boy. Haemi reached into her pocket, gripping her knife.

  She would never know why Haru stepped forward. But he did, in between the soldier and herself. Her uncle broke into a run, reaching for his son. The soldier jabbed the butt of his rifle into her uncle’s stomach.

  When the search was finished they took to the fields. She kneeled beside Haru: a thin string of vomit dripped from her uncle’s mouth. “Go away,” Haru said. She squeezed her uncle’s hand. “Go,” Haru repeated but she didn’t and he gripped her shoulders and pushed her. She fell onto the dirt, dropping her cane.

 
; Her father took her shoulders. “Let them be,” he said, helping her rise, wiping the dirt from her face. He walked her back home. In her room he laid her on the floor and made as if to leave but she clutched his arm.

  “Papa,” she said.

  “What is it.”

  “Papa,” she repeated. She had grown dizzy, her father’s body vague. She pointed at the cane with the seagull’s head, leaning against the wall. “If it’s broken, will you make me another one?” From her pocket she took out his knife and presented it to him. He stood there, looking down at her hand.

  “Sleep, daughter,” he said. He placed a hand on her head and sat with her, smoothing her hair.

  He had rolled up his sleeves and as she drifted she followed the patterns of the scars on his arms. As a child she would shut her eyes and trace them with her fingertips. In that dark she imagined caves and him digging out of the earth, and she connected the pale shapes on his skin to form the stars and the air he sought.

  She did not see Haru or her uncle the following day. Linden attempted to visit the two of them but was refused entry. He went to work in the fields, away from the others, finishing as soon as possible. In the afternoon the farmers, including her parents, met indoors. Haemi brought Linden food, knocking on the shed, but there was no answer so she left it by the door, pausing to listen.

  When the farmers came in from the fields, Haemi took her brother to the river and bathed him. She found a place some distance away from the other children. Behind a rock she took off his shirt and his pants. She rolled hers up to her knees and took the boy’s hand and guided him into the water.

  “You stink,” she said. She cupped the water and began to pour it over the boy’s head. He closed his eyes. The water darkened his hair, flattening it, and ran down in clear lines along his face. She took the bar of soap Linden had given her and created a lather in her palms. She scrubbed the boy’s hair with her fingertips and thought that if she did this for the rest of her life she would die content and know her life was of worth. She lifted her fingers up to her nose and inhaled the scent of the soap and she bent down to wash her own face.