Ping-Pong Heart

by Martin Limon

  “And you agreed with her, that it’s best that he stays with his mother?”

  “I agreed.” For a moment the pain of not seeing my son again—intertwined, I suppose, with the pain of my own mother dying when I was young—almost overwhelmed me. Leah realized it, gave me a moment and then hugged me.

  “You’re a brave man, George Sueño.”

  “Not brave,” I said.

  She smiled and said, “Then how would you describe yourself?”

  “Trapped,” I said.

  “Why so?”

  “Because my son’s mother can’t step out in the light of day.”

  She paused for a moment, working up her courage, then asked, “Would you marry her, if you could?”

  “She and I are beyond that now. Too much has happened. Besides, I don’t think she would marry me.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s completely dedicated to her cause. An American husband would just get in her way.”

  Leah sat quietly for a moment. “But if you put in marriage paperwork with her, wouldn’t the government leave her alone?”

  “No chance. Marriage between a GI and a Korean woman requires a security check, conducted by the ROK’s Central Intelligence Agency. If a woman is found to be a Communist, they deny her permission to marry, as well as permission to leave the country. And probably locate and arrest her.”

  “But she’s not a Communist.”

  “No, not technically. But right now, if you believe in trade unions and autonomy for an entire province, the Pak Chung-hee government sees no difference between you and a North Korean.”

  “So there’s no way out for you two?”

  “No. Even if we wanted to, marriage wouldn’t be allowed. The arrangement I’d want is some sort of shared custody of Il-yong. Then I could apply to get him a dependent ID card and healthcare on the base. Things like that.”

  “And see him occasionally.”

  I nodded.

  “But you can’t,” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “So what will you do?”

  I stared into her big green eyes. They betrayed her wisdom and kindness. “Stay here in Korea,” I said, “keep extending my tour as long as I can. Try not to let my feelings bounce around so much that they kill me.”

  “What’s he like,” she asked, “your son?”

  “To American eyes, he looks Korean. But the Koreans can tell in an instant that he’s ethnically mixed. He’s just a little too big, his hair’s light brown, and his facial features—the eyes, the nose, the cheeks—are different from the pure race. Softer, maybe, on the cheekbones. More pronounced on the eyes and nose.”

  “Koreans view themselves as a pure race?”

  “Very much so. Which is one of the reasons that half-American children have such a hard time growing up here. But more important than that is the fact that most of the half-American kids in Korea grow up abandoned by their fathers. This is much more of a stigma than any genetic difference. Koreans believe that children should live with their father. Who you are, who your ancestors are, and what you’re likely to be able to accomplish in this life, is all defined by your patrilineal ancestry.”

  “Ancestral worship,” she said.

  “Ancestral reverence,” I corrected her.

  “But if you don’t have ancestors you can point to because you don’t live with your father . . .”

  “Then you’re nothing.”

  She tightened her grip on my hand. “Your son, he won’t be nothing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’ll be like you.”