by Eugenia Kim
The talk at the adults’ table was of Korea. Eventually Najin cleared dishes and went to check on the children, and Mrs. Kim followed with dirty plates in hand. The kitchen ambiance was bright and warm. The kids ate cake and ice cream, and Miran sang “Happy Birthday” quietly to herself. They were playing the game Chutes and Ladders that Gloria had given her.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Kim, stacking dishes on the sideboard, “I prefer to be in this world of children, too.”
“It’s simple and innocent, still so full of hope.”
“Sticky, too.” And they laughed to see the messy faces and hands of the girls.
“You mustn’t give up hope,” said Mrs. Kim, handing Najin dessert dishes from the dining room.
Her words pierced Najin. It opened her heart to her other daughter, who had never tasted ice cream. In that instant, with Inja’s face floating before her eyes, she happened to glance at Miran, whose features unsettled her—so different were they from what she was envisioning. The moment passed but left her breathless and ashamed. She loved each child equally, but in such moments when Inja’s absence surfaced, it created so strong a yearning that Miran’s presence felt irrational and inexplicable in comparison.
“Are you all right?” said Mrs. Kim, concerned eyes on Najin.
“Yes—sometimes I forget about hope.”
“Please don’t despair. Look at these little ones and how natural it is for them to look forward to each day without question. Their attitudes are exactly what your daughter Inja is feeling, war or no war. That alone should make it more bearable.”
Najin grasped her friend’s arm. “You’re right. Thank you. I mustn’t forget that each child is a mirror of another in some way.”
“And Christmas is coming—the perfect time to be delighting in our children.”
Najin sighed. “I know it isn’t useful, but all I can think of is how many Christmases we’ve missed with her. Poor child! Will she even know us as her parents?” She felt she was saying too much to Mrs. Kim, but no words could relieve her guilt at being a terrible mother. She supposed this was the reason her mind lost thoughts of Inja at times—a just punishment for having left her behind.
The counting of spaces in the game erupted as the board was toppled by Gloria. “I should win, I brought the game, it’s not fair!”
“You would’ve been second if you didn’t ruin the board, stupid,” said Susan.
“You’re stupid,” and Gloria threw the spinner at Susan, hitting her in the face. Susan cried out, and her mother, hearing her daughter, took her to the bathroom to put a cold-water compress on her cheek.
“Gloria Park!” said Najin. “You know better than to throw things. Clean up the game, and I think it’s time for everyone to go home.”
“I’m sorry I won,” said Miran in a small voice.
“It’s not your fault,” said Sarah, putting the pieces away. “Besides, it’s your birthday—you’re supposed to win.”
Najin and Mrs. Kim looked at each other, pleased with Sarah’s display of maturity.
Gloria’s mother came into the kitchen, learned what happened from the very mature Sarah, and made Gloria go apologize to Susan in the bathroom. Susan had been hit on her jaw, and Dr. Kim examined it with a jokey exaggerated professionalism, which soothed the child and made everyone laugh. With the mishap smoothed over, the guests departed. Miran helped clean up the kitchen table, still humming “Happy Birthday” to herself, making Najin and Calvin smile.
“I wish all battles could find peace that easily,” said Najin, her hands soapy in the sink.
“This war is bound to end,” said Calvin, drying dishes. “The UN is pressuring everyone to find a truce, and the losses are only multiplying with little gain.”
“When it ends, do you think we can go home?” As soon as she asked, she understood they had somehow gotten themselves into a position of not returning. To date they hadn’t been able to save a single penny for the journey home, and even without the complications of family illnesses, Calvin’s job and his ministry had become permanent. “Or bring her home here?”
Calvin said, “Yeobo, I’ll give Miran a bath, then let’s talk.”
After Miran was in bed, Calvin came into the kitchen and sat. He’d need to nap at least a couple of hours before leaving for work, so she was aware they had little time.
“The table’s all sticky,” he said, and she smiled and got a washrag. He put the balloons in Miran’s room so she’d see them in the morning, and pulled down the streamers, careful with the tape on the kitchen wallpaper.
“Why haven’t we talked about this before?” said Najin.
“It’s a funny thing about assumptions—they have a life of their own until they’re called upon. We’ve been busy and our minds are more on today’s needs than tomorrow’s.”
“K’rae,” she agreed. She had been so preoccupied with Inja’s and her family’s immediate safety, she’d thought little of the next steps. She put the washrag down and sat across from him.
Calvin said, “I’m thinking back to my own assumptions, and I see they shifted according to what was on the agenda at that moment: we’d go back for Inja and your family, or so that Miran wouldn’t lose her Korean; we’d stay because of work and church.”
“That’s true for me as well, but I always assumed we’d go back someday, if not soon. I don’t know how, though. We can barely send a few dollars to Dongsaeng.”
“And now?” said Calvin.
Her heart surged with pain, and she used the washrag to wipe her tears. “I want our child in my arms.”
He reached across the table and held her hand. She squeezed it and released.
“I do, too,” he said. “Ultimately, after this war, it may be less complicated to bring her here than for us to attempt moving to a war-torn country without prospects of work, though I could probably get a job with the American military.”
“We always meant to go back with funds to start a school. Who knew it would be so hard to save money? Instead, we started a church right here.”
“We still have the house in Seoul.”
“With the war . . .”
“We don’t have to decide anything at the moment,” Calvin said. “Let’s pray on it and see what happens.”
“Okay. You should go to bed, you’ll be exhausted.”
He kissed her forehead and left.
She got up and put away the dishes, hung Miran’s new coat in the closet, and piled the few birthday presents on the kitchen table. She tried to gauge how she felt: Disappointed? Relieved? All she felt was the ache of wanting Inja at home, it didn’t matter which home. But she also saw they’d made a life here, in America, that would be hard if not impossible to leave.
23 Jan 1953, Friday. Earlier in the month when the house was quiet, I heard Halmeoni humming hymns as she always did when working, and when had she ever not been working? It was unseasonably warm, so I thought the radiators were buzzing, but I heard her sing all week. I got Dongsaeng’s letter today after asking him if something had happened, but he said all was well and my asking about it made him realize she rarely sang or hummed at all these days, except at church. I cannot know why her lifetime habit is silenced, but I have decided I must have music in the house not only to compensate for this small loss, but because hearing her sing made me long for her and for music. I will tell Miran’s father the child should have piano lessons, though I’m the one wanting to play once again. He won’t care about the cost, probably his biggest folly. Dongsaeng says to send them things they can sell. He has no thought about what it costs here.
18 Feb 1953, Weds. We cut back on the frequency of our dog-and-pony shows. Calvin is exhausted with pre-diabetes. People still leave things on our porch. Postage went up, but I can still send packages filled from the bounty of America’s gold mountain. How sweet that Inja shared her candy at Sunday school—I suppose I should thank Dongsaeng for raising her with good Christian spirit. And I do thank him for bringing her to safety during the inv
asion. He surprised me with his persistence and strength. Perhaps my child has changed him, too. My mind grows cluttered with absent buttons, missing keys to anchovy tins, broken zippers, mothballs, and crumbling soap bars. But she is always in my heart.
The Cho family continued to make presentations about Korea, though not as often. Najin had to let out the sleeves and hem of Miran’s hanbok, until she cut down one of her own Korean skirts and blouses for her growing daughter. Najin’s kimchi business brought in thirty-eight dollars every two weeks, and she sent goods and money to her brother. The civil defense drills continued at school, and Miran still helped with the packages, though now Calvin delivered them to the post office in his car. Miran kept a detailed inventory of each carton at her mother’s request, recorded in leather-bound diaries.
97th package to Han Ilsun, 25 March 1953
7 polo shirts
5 nightgowns
10 slips and underwear
6 pair men’s socks
9 dresses, 1 made and 2 purchased
5 yards of material
5 cards of hairpins
10 air fresheners
toothpaste, toothbrushes
2 bottles cologne
1 can DDT
1 doz. chewing gum in box
16 lbs. $2.24
Miran’s printing grew smaller, developed into cursive and got even smaller, a maturity demonstrated in the progression of those lists intermixed with Najin’s entries in Korean. And her arithmetic improved when Najin began listing prices of purchased items and asked her to total them up per package, per week, per month. She sat on the floor for countless hours with her mother to tape and tie up boxes, and never once revealed her longing for the chocolate bars, chewing gum, the trendy sneakers, the pink toothbrush, the pencil sharpener shaped like a globe that got sent overseas. She thought her Korean sister was lucky, luckier than she was, but it was risky to be jealous of this sole sibling whom she might actually like, so, instead, she resented Korea and everything Korean.
Part II
* * *
Armistice
1953–1956
11
* * *
Return to Seoul
Ami-dong locals proclaimed the summer of 1953 as the hottest ever recorded, with frequent cloud cover that elevated the humidity to nonstop sweltering. Some blamed it on a surge of aggression by Chinese troops, or a Russian atomic bomb at an undisclosed location to commemorate the death of Stalin, or alchemy performed by Chairman Mao to disrupt the forces of nature. All such talk ended when a cease-fire was declared on July 27, its requirements finally negotiated to satisfaction by both sides. Inja learned in class how to spell armistice, Eisenhower, Panmunjom, Demilitarized Zone. When she showed Uncle the A+ on her spelling test, he praised her work, then said that with the exception of a few kilometers at the DMZ, their divided country ended up being exactly like it was before the war, so nothing had changed—and everything had changed.
Schools closed for the August summer break. Despite the stifling heat, Busan witnessed an exodus of its northern refugees, some on trains but most on foot as they had arrived. Uncle declared it was time to go home. The crematorium’s stack still belched its dreadful smoke, making their sorry real estate unsalable, but he sold its raw materials to a man who wanted to build an addition to his house. The family parted from the EunCheon church that he and Inja’s mother had helped establish. Though sad to leave her teachers, Inja was eager to go home, hoping Uncle and Aunt would fight less in their bigger house in Seoul, or at least she could avoid hearing them in a different part of the house. She remembered little of Seoul, though she recalled the crowds at departure, falling under the cart, the nighttime river crossing, and that she’d received the Bible storybook soon before they’d left. She still treasured it and had copied most of the English letterforms of the captions, though she didn’t know how to pronounce the words. At bedtime certain pictures from the book came alive in her imagination—the women ogling Moses at the well, Lot’s daughters eyeing him with lust, the half-naked idolaters at Mount Sinai—and warmth would blossom in her gut. She’d sigh with pleasure and fall asleep, dreaming of books filled with glossy color plates.
The family of one of Uncle’s acquaintances, a fellow he’d known from grade school in Kaesong, shared a boxcar with them and other Seoul-bound folk, who sat with their bundles and suitcases. There were seven members of the Jeon family, all adults except a boy Inja’s age, named Hyo. Before boarding, he bumped into her and feigned a broken rib with such conviction that she almost called for Uncle, until he started laughing. Inja had saved a stick of Juicy Fruit gum from her mother’s last package and gave him half. The Han family settled inside, sitting on bundles knee to knee with others, and she showed Hyo how to wrap his tiny lump in his half of the gum’s foil for the next time. Hyo’s father, Mr. Jeon, told Uncle in a loud voice that now was the time to invest in industry—automobiles, electricity, construction, steel, that sort of thing. He boasted how well he’d done with bricks and said that the way to overcome the communist threat was to bolster industry. Uncle agreed, amiable, and Aunt said he wasted all his money on church.
The train grew more crowded as it continued north. At Daegu, Inja and her uncle peeked outside to see many people sitting on the roofs of the railcars and hanging off its ladders, and she was glad they were inside and not in danger of falling off the train, even if it was stuffy and hot. Though Busan had been her primary home in her memory, she wouldn’t miss the ramshackle school where she’d been the brunt of much teasing because of her mother who wasn’t a mother. They sat in the dark closed car, coughing in wafts of coal smoke when the train took a corner, and dozed as the light broke through the cracks in the wood. The keening wind and clamorous train prevented conversation. She and Hyo chewed their gum twice more, then tucked the wads of foil into their pockets for later. Nothing but a hint of that delicious sweet fruitiness remained in those wads, but they chewed them with gusto anyway.
Both grandparents had aged during the war years in Busan, and Grandmother had grown forgetful and repeated herself, which drove Aunt mad. Though still interested in politics, Grandfather had shrunk, his face drawn with many unmentioned aches.
At Yongsan, the Seoul terminus, they parted from the Jeons, who hired a man with a cart and several porters to haul their many bags and bundles to a downtown hotel. Inja’s family found a nearby inn to rest for one night, while Uncle went to investigate the condition of their house. He returned long after dark, sweaty but pleased. “It’s vacant now,” he said, “but someone was living there. There are bullet holes in the walls and dirt is everywhere—broken crockery. Nothing of ours remains, though I can’t recall what we left—some chests and tables.”
“Any sign of Cook and her daughter?” said Grandmother, lucid.
Inja had almost forgotten them, and at this mention a sharp memory rose of Cook laughing with Grandmother on her back, of Yun’s thin wrists and timid smile.
“Perhaps they’ll find their way back to us,” Uncle said, more placating than optimistic.
Inja understood they had been lost in the war, like so many others she’d heard about in church and school, and they would never know what happened to them. She said a prayer, asking God to see them to their home village, safe and with plenty to eat. Even it if wasn’t true, that tiny bit of hope embedded in those few words gave her an image of Cook and Yun that made it bearable. Cook was an uneducated widow with a thirteen-year-old daughter, now sixteen, who had been her nanny and friend, and they had left them behind. There was so much to feel bad about in the war. A few words of prayer helped shift those feelings into the recesses of a busy mind.
Uncle said, “The city is empty. Everyone is hiding or—who’s to say where they’ve gone? There’s a new American base a few streets from our house, and downtown is all bombed-out buildings blackened by fire. Lots of soldiers, both ours and GIs, checking papers—mine were checked dozens of times.”
The next day they packed quickly
and left the inn. Uncle carried Grandmother, and Inja stayed in step with Grandfather, burdened by her own small bundle, with three porters trailing behind. She almost turned to examine these laborers to see if any were big or friendly, but instinct told her such a gesture was pointless—and sad. When the sun peaked and they neared their road, smoke still rose from the black rubble of the decimated house across the way. Though Inja was eager to be inside their gate, she hung back until Grandfather said, “Don’t worry, there are no bodies.”
Their property appeared small, the two houses covered in grime. She didn’t remember the front house, which had always been leased out, but the rear house had a strange familiarity, dreamlike yet sturdy, and she felt older to have a memory of those rooms. She and Aunt opened the windows wide and scoured the sills, shelves, and floor. Grandfather went to bed with a stomachache. The few markets open were those edging the city, so Uncle and Aunt took salt to trade for rice, cabbage, what other food they could find, and medicine for Grandfather. Uncle said to clean well so he could fill the bullet holes with straw and mud.