by Eugenia Kim
They climbed into the Fury and scooted smoothly down the driveway for the twenty-minute ride to Blair High School. When he parked, some loitering boys, greasers, whistled at his car. He pretended to ignore them, but Miran saw hints of his prideful smile. Inside the gymnasium, they both got coffee, and, seeing she was the only student there, except for the PTA student representative, she detached from her father and climbed the bleachers toward the shadows of the scoreboard. The school was strange at night, even with a room full of a hundred or so parents. She spied her two favorite teachers and wondered if kids weren’t allowed at PTA meetings. Her father sat on a bottom bleacher row, looking small and formal in his black suit.
The principal stood, introduced the PTA president and other PTA officers at the front table, and a fiery discussion ensued about the need to ban those books. Miran doodled for half an hour, bored, sure that these square but very vocal parents would get their way.
Her father raised his hand like a little kid and was recognized. “Dr. Cho,” said the principal, and Miran’s eyes widened, not only because the principal clearly knew her father, but he’d addressed him thus. Her eyes only grew wider as her minister father stood and in his sermonizing voice addressed the entire room.
“My wife and I are Korean immigrants,” he said. “Many of you remember how Korea was a battleground for democracy, with North Korea under Russian and Chinese communist control and South Korea supported by the United States. Many of your fathers or brothers or you yourselves may have fought in the Korean War.”
Some murmurs of assent rose from the attendees in the bleachers.
“Both my wife and I were raised and educated in the northern part of the peninsula of Korea when we were one country before there was a North or a South, before communism and democracy were at loggerheads. My wife’s family has all managed to move to South Korea, where they live in a tenuous peace less than forty miles from the border of North Korea. But my family”—he paused and cleared his throat, and Miran wasn’t sure if it was theatrics or sincere emotion—“my family are lost in the communist North. I have not been in contact with them since 1950. My father was an outspoken opponent of communism, so if he is still alive, surely he is imprisoned.”
Miran’s eyes opened wide. She had never known this about her father’s family. It wasn’t the kind of confidence her father would’ve shared with her, but perhaps it was one of the stories her mother told that she hadn’t understood.
Her father said, “I believe I can safely assume that I, more than anyone else in this room, should have a say about whether these books that outline the tenets of communism should be allowed in school.”
People clapped in agreement, the most vigorous applause coming from the supporters of banning the books.
“When I was a young man,” he said, and Miran groaned inwardly. He would tell another story before announcing his position, “—and sought an education in religious studies, I asked my father, a minister, what books he would recommended for me to read. Naturally there was the Bible, the Gospel of Matthew to be exact, then the Greeks, but he included in my long reading list Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, the fathers of communist ideology. I continued my studies of communism, which was gaining a following in my country because we needed new ideas. But it was an ideology of repression, not freedom and the celebration of individual thought and open discourse. So now I am a die-hard supporter of democracy and will soon become a proud American citizen”—smattering of applause—“and if you ban these books, I will ensure that my daughter, who is somewhere around here—”
He looked but failed to pinpoint her since she’d made a point of receding even farther into the shadows. “I will ensure my daughter reads every one of the banned books and shares them with her friends.” Surprised responses buzzed through the rows of parents, and, after a moment, a few faculty members applauded loudly. He concluded, “I don’t think any person here can deny that education trumps ignorance in any kind of war.”
The principal and some teachers clapped, then more teachers, then parents joined in, then those at the front table stood up clapping, and soon Miran’s short father received a standing ovation. After that, the meeting was adjourned with no further discussion.
Driving home, Miran felt she ought to say something, so she said something safe. “That was interesting.”
Calvin turned and smiled. “I hoped you’d think so.”
She wanted to say how proud she was to be his daughter, how sorry she was about his lost family in North Korea, but these simple words were too difficult to express.
The next day in school, though she’d had nothing to do with it, Miran became a hero among the teachers—“Cool Dad,” they said, and the word spread throughout her tenth grade. The problem for Miran was now she would have to read those books, and while she was interested enough in Mao’s story, those other heavy philosophers were going to be a challenge.
23
* * *
Halmeoni
On a Monday morning in mid-April 1962, Inja woke early for school, looking forward to another afternoon with Hyo at his piano. She climbed out of bed, and when Grandmother didn’t stir, she knew. A glance showed the outline of Grandmother’s body, tinier in its stillness, and the dawn glossed her features with the colors of the moon. Inja ran down the hall yelling for Uncle, horrified by the thought of having slept soundly beside her grandmother while she’d taken her last breath, that no one had witnessed it, which was the last act of supreme respect to give an elder, and that she had possibly slept beside her dead body for hours.
Uncle hurried to their room, took one look, and collapsed to his knees. Then Inja really understood she was gone, and this pure finality plunged her into tears. She crouched beside him, and though they both wept, she felt very alone until Aunt and Ara came and cried out, and Uncle put his arm around her.
She dressed in a plain white blouse and black skirt and went outside to tell Hyo, who was waiting to walk to school with her. He touched her elbow, and when she asked if he’d tell Yuna to tell the principal, he said he’d tell her but would stop by the school himself.
In the main sitting room, after the undertaker left, Uncle prepared a low table in front of a screen that mostly hid Grandmother’s sealed coffin covered with hemp cloth. Inja brought in three branches of blooming forsythia, which reminded her of something similarly laden with sadness she couldn’t quite remember from her childhood. Uncle lit candles and opened Grandmother’s Bible to Psalm 23. On the back of the makeshift altar, he set up a colored portrait he’d painted that matched the one he’d made of Grandfather. Tomorrow he would drape the portrait with black ribbons. Then, leaving Aunt and Seonil to keep vigil over her body, Inja and Uncle went out to alert the minister and to telephone the family in America.
Unlike the night Grandfather had died, their walk to the telephone office seemed too bright and clear, as if a kind of lens had fallen on her eyes that made the colors more saturated, the edges of shapes sharper. She couldn’t understand how people on the street could go about as usual, how the trams could rattle in their tracks, their wires crackling as if nothing had happened.
The telephone process was the same as when Grandfather had died. Calvin answered and Uncle told him the news, then he repeated it when Najin came on the line. He discussed the plan for the funeral with her and said many tearful times that he, too, felt sorry she couldn’t be here, but it couldn’t be helped, and that Inja would gladly stand in for her. When it was Inja’s turn at last, her handkerchief was sodden and the tears wouldn’t stop.
“Umma-nim,” she said, bursting upon saying, “Mother.”
Through the static Inja could hear her grief. “Inja, my child, are you well?”
“I am. I’m sad for you, mother.”
“Yes, my child, I’m sad for you, too. Even sadder that I cannot be with you now. But Halmeoni is at peace now, where she always knew she’d find it.”
“She told me you used to sleep with her in the way that she a
nd I sleep together. Slept together. I will miss her most at bedtime.” I will miss her all the time.
“You were a great comfort to her. She wrote so often how clever and funny you were.” She said something quickly to the side, then, “I’m going to give you to your father now, but I am praying for you, and you must pray for Halmeoni and Harabeoji, and your sister who never had the chance to know them. Will you?”
“I will. Thank you, Mother. I will pray for you and Father, too.”
“Goodbye. It’s so good to hear your voice, so mature—here’s Appa.”
The conversation with her father went similarly, except he asked Inja to write to them as frequently as she could during the coming week, and to describe as plainly as she could the services for Grandmother. He also said that she had been especially blessed, that God had been waiting for Grandmother for many years but wanted to be sure her granddaughter knew her before he allowed her to receive the great gift of heaven. “I do feel blessed, Father.” And she did feel calmer with his assurance that the clarity and beauty of Grandmother’s faith had rewarded her with spiritual peace.
She and Uncle wiped the tear-dampened telephone receiver as best they could, he signed papers, and they went home arm in arm.
24
* * *
Grandmother’s Burial
The telephone sat on a little table connected to a bench in the hallway between the two bedrooms. Miran dozed during the late evening call, but then she heard her mother say, “No, we can tell her tomorrow. No need to wake her. Go back to bed—I can’t sleep.”
“Of course. I’m sorry, Yeobo,” said Calvin.
Miran heard him deliver a prayer, and her mother sniffling as she said, “Amen.”
After her father went back to bed, Miran crept into the dining room. Najin sat, feet tucked up on the chair, writing in her diary in red ink, words in Korean and Chinese characters. “Can I make you a Sanka?” Miran said.
Najin glanced at her, and Miran was startled by how drawn she looked, yet also how beautiful, as if light were shining from her eyes and skin. “Yes,” she said. “Halmeoni passed away this morning. Died in her sleep, you understand?” Miran nodded, and her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Or was it yesterday morning? The time confuses me. Is it tomorrow morning? I could still talk to her—” Tears. Miran brought her a box of tissues.
“Did the telephone wake you?” Najin said.
“Yes. I’m sorry about Halmeoni, Mom.”
“Yes, it’s sad, thank you,” she said in English. “Sanka is good.”
Miran made her a cup, then left her, knowing she’d be up writing all night.
Najin had penned in red ink: Song Haegyeong, Monday, 16 April 1962, 6:30 A.M.
She wrote a last letter to her mother, using her diary since it would never be sent. It had been years since she’d written to her with any real intimacy—in Grandmother’s diminished condition Dongsaeng or Inja read Najin’s letters to her. Her heart opened with love and gratitude for all they had suffered together, for the protection and encouragement she’d received, and the joy they’d shared even during hard times.
Mother, I remember we were gardening late one summer toward the end of the war. We both used slanted pieces of bamboo to unearth those feeble potatoes since all of our tools were “donated” to the weekly metal drive. Do you remember how we laughed at how easy it was to find potatoes this way? You whispered, like you were saying something bad, it didn’t matter that the Japanese took everything—look how fine we were doing. Always you found goodness in hardship.
Even then you sang as you worked. It saddened me to know your songs had been silenced in these last years. I heard your voice clearly that day years ago that spurred me to buy the piano, and it will always be your piano, its notes your spirit. I weep for Inja, your granddaughter, her grief we can only share in heart.
I thank you with every ounce of my body, with every beat of my heart, for raising my daughter in the way you raised me. I pray that she gave you comfort in my absence. You were her beacon as you were for me. I think of my childhood with such a loving and strong mother, and I am humbled by this blessing. How many hundreds of times did you guide me to modesty, to compassion, to prayer, to grace. How much you taught me about how to work and live! I thank you in prayer.
I think of the rice you brought me for ninety days that terrible winter, and the message at the bottom of each rice bowl that gave me hope, precious hope when so little was to be found. I could not see your face nor hear your voice for all those days, but you were with me then. Your courage became my courage, your faith, my faith, your sacrifice, my survival.
How I regret not being with you these last years!
She stayed up all that night writing to her mother, grieving. When she heard Calvin’s alarm clock buzz, she washed her face at the sink and started a pot of coffee. Miran came into the kitchen, said again how sorry she was about Halmeoni, and leaned in for a hug. Najin held her close, comforted by the rare intimacy.
Over breakfast, Calvin made Najin, who’d taken the day off of work, promise to rest, then he’d come home and make dinner. So when Miran came home, her mother was prone on the couch, though awake by the time she came into the living room.
“Aigu!” Najin said. “It’s late.”
“You were supposed to sleep,” said Miran.
“I couldn’t. That dream of water . . .”
A chill cascaded down Miran’s back. “The one about Harabeoji in his grave? The same one?”
“Yes, awful. Did Appa tell you about it?”
“A while ago.” Miran had an image of her grandfather, like in his portrait, but with water pouring from empty eyes, from his sleeves. She shook it off and wondered what people were supposed to do when there was no funeral to go to. Even after Grandfather had died, there was no discussion about returning to Korea. And if it was impossible to bring her sister to America, surely it was equally impossible to go to Korea even once for Najin to have seen her mother. “Wow. I haven’t heard you having nightmares for a while.”
“Not this one, not for years now. Terrible.”
“Do you want to try to sleep in my room?”
“Good idea. You change clothes first.”
Najin slept soundly in Miran’s bed until Calvin came home, and after a few days, when it grew apparent that it was the only place Najin could sleep without that dream, Miran moved downstairs to a cot in the basement, where her dad had put up studs and drywall for a third bedroom he hadn’t quite finished—no doors, in need of paint, and only a few sticks of donated furniture. On the weekend Dad took her downtown to Lansburghs, and they bought a double-decker bed, a tall chest of drawers, and a bureau with six lateral drawers and a mirror. She already had a bookshelf, lamps, some odd side tables, and a rocking chair, so finally she had space and privacy she hadn’t known she was craving.
Najin converted Miran’s former bedroom into a sewing room, and the existing bed doubled as a surface to lay out patterns and fabrics as needed, or as a place where she could rest undisturbed by the nightmare that clawed into her nights.
25 April 1962
Mother and Father,
It is two days after Halmeoni’s funeral. We are all at home, feeling sad and missing her. I am missing you and Father also. And my sister. There are still visitors to the house, but not so many now. Ajumeoni said there was lots of money given, and Ajeossi said it will pay for her funeral. I will go back to school tomorrow. Ajeossi says I do not have to go back until next week, but it is too quiet around here, and I see her shadow everywhere. I hear her flyswatter, and it makes me jump. I do not want to make you too sad, but Father had asked me on the telephone to describe the funeral to you. Ajeossi is writing to tell you about that part and is sending you photographs as well, and he said I should instead tell you everything that led up to her service.
Last week, Ajeossi got a telegram from the cemetery director in Osan late Wednesday morning, the day before Halmeoni was supposed to have her funeral, saying the
re was a problem and to come right away with the minister. We went to see Reverend Shin and asked him to take us to the cemetery. He has a car and a driver so we didn’t have to take the tram, train, and long bus rides to the twin cemetery mountains there. They are beautiful, these mountains, especially in this season, because they are cultivated and landscaped. There are still cherry blossom trees blooming, bright yellow forsythia scattered among the gravesites, and flowering plums and pear trees as well, though their flowers are mostly gone now. Still, it is very pretty and peaceful. Halmeoni would have enjoyed it. The paths are steep and narrow, mostly just dirt, but by the graves of rich people, there are white pebbles spread on the pathways. You can tell who is rich from as far away as the opposite mountainside. But not rich in the way Halmeoni was.
Harabeoji’s grave was very high up the mountain, so we walked a long way up, even after the cemetery director drove us most of the way in his car. Before that, though, Ajeossi and Reverend Shin had a long talk with the cemetery director in his office. I waited outside the door since his office is so small and dark, and it was a sunny day. Voices were raised for a while, but when they came out, everything seemed settled. We went up the mountain and were out of breath by the time we got there, especially poor Reverend Shin. There were many workmen waiting for us with shovels and ropes, smoking cigarettes. I am sorry to tell you that Harabeoji’s gravesite was a mess of mud and dirt. They had deconstructed his mound, and though I remember how much grass had grown on his grave last fall, all of it was now covered by orange mud. Inside his grave I could see his coffin, still looking sturdy, but mostly it was a muddy hole, with muddy water puddled in the footprints left behind by the workers.