The Kinship of Secrets

by Eugenia Kim

  Mother, Ajeossi fell to his knees when he saw this, and Reverend Shin helped him stand. Reverend Shin gave a short service and we prayed, then we stood aside while the men put ropes beneath Harabeoji’s coffin to lift it out from the mud. There were four men: two on each side, but they could not lift it. The ropes slipped from their hands, though they had wrapped their palms with rags for a better grip. The director went down to his office to get more men. We waited a long time, and the sun was warm on our backs. We prayed. Poor Harabeoji! The sun started to cast long shadows, and I think it was around five o’clock when four more men came back with the director. So with four men on each side, they were able to lift the coffin out. It made a loud sucking noise when it was freed from the mud.

  Mother, I am sorry to tell you this next part. Since it was so messy all around the gravesite, the men had laid planks nearby and they set his coffin on those planks above the mud. Then they drilled and made about eight holes around the base of the coffin. Especially the first time they drilled, water spurted out. Soon, all the holes had arcs of water, and we waited until it was drained. Ajeossi and I looked in the grave hole and the water level had risen. An underground stream, he said. Who could have known, I asked him, but he did not answer. Mother, tears were raining down his cheeks. I think he blames himself, but that is not fair. It is not his fault. It is nobody’s fault.

  The men brought buckets of clean water and washed off Harabeoji’s coffin. They said they’d wrap it anew after it dried. They shoveled the mud back into the hole as best they could, and we cleaned our shoes in one of their buckets. Ajeossi wanted the coffin to dry completely, and he wanted to stay with Harabeoji until he could be buried again. But the cemetery director thought it wasn’t a good idea, it being so muddy. I worried that Ajeossi might get sick if he were to stay on that mountain through the night. I am certain Ajumeoni would be upset. Reverend Shin reminded Ajeossi that we still had Halmeoni’s funeral, which we had postponed a few days, and he himself would be busy every night with Holy week leading up to Easter Sunday. The director said the weather report was clear all through Easter and Monday, which would give plenty of time for drying. While we talked beside the grave, the sun touched the tops of the mountains, and Ajeossi agreed to wait through the weekend for Harabeoji to dry. Then they would bury him again with Halmeoni in a new spot on Monday, having a double funeral of sorts.

  Ajeossi made the director promise that a man would stand watch over the coffin at all hours, and he promised. I do think he fulfilled this promise. Mother, the director was so upset when he saw the water and when he had to get all those men, that it seems to me he would do anything to make up for this mistake. Though it was not his fault either.

  It was a long day yesterday, and even today I am feeling sad and tired. Can there possibly be more tears inside? And then I think of Halmeoni and her wrinkly smile, her eyes half-crescents, and I am crying again. The new gravesite is not very far from the old one, but even higher on the mountain, in a more beautiful spot near a grove of dogwoods, which Ajeossi says is Halmeoni’s favorite flower—the Easter flower because of its scarlet four points. I did not know this. Mother, what is your favorite flower? I will have to think about what is my favorite flower, and then I will write again and tell you.

  I only tell you about being sad and crying because Ajeossi says it is better to be sad together. I think he is right about this. So I am sad with you, Mother, as is all your family here.

  Your daughter, Inja

  P.S. My favorite flower is quince blossom.

  25

  * * *

  Special Allowance

  Inja was glad for certain traditions, such as taking note of one hundred days after Grandmother’s death to honor her and spend time at the graves. On July 25, a hot dry day, Inja and Seonil were excused from school, and the family went to the cemetery with a picnic made by Ara. Aunt was pregnant again, but only newly pregnant, so she climbed the mountain with careful steps on those narrow paths with the family. As with her previous pregnancy, Aunt’s spirits were jovial and she was especially frivolous with Seonil, who would be seven years old in a few weeks. Though Inja thought the day might be sad, it was soothing to mark a beloved’s death, and they spent the entire day remembering Grandmother. Inja and Aunt laughed together when they recalled how the bedpan was used as a cook pot at the refugee camp during the war. Uncle scattered grass seed on the grave mounds and planted a white azalea at the head, and many prayers were delivered. Inja left that mountaintop comforted to be with her family, though it was hugely diminished without her grandparents. She knew her parents and Miran would’ve been pleased to have been there that day, and it was probably the only time she truly longed for the presence of her American family.

  But when Inja turned sixteen in September, her life changed forever. She had sent her parents birthday cards she’d designed and printed herself in graphic arts class and was expecting a package for her birthday on the twenty-fourth, a week after theirs. It came with a dozen Life Savers rolls packaged like a book and brand-new clothes: a fuzzy white sweater—“angora,” wrote Mother—sewn with seed pearls in a flower pattern around the neckline, her first pair of high heels—black leather “kitten heels” with pointy toes—and a blue-gray knife-pleated skirt that never needed ironing. Included in that package were cute cards from her sister and a thick letter. Miran also sent Inja a drawing of herself from art class, and Inja was struck by her sister’s pensive look, her features so unlike her own. She thought Miran’s long, untied-up hair was a disaster.

  Inja missed sharing all her presents with Grandmother so she went to Yuna’s house. She showed off her new clothes and Miran’s drawing. Yuna said that’s how the girls were wearing their hair now: long, loose and straight. She’d read in Ingenue how to roll your hair in curlers made of orange juice cans to straighten it. “I don’t know,” said Inja, examining the photos of girls with long blond tresses. “It looks okay if your hair is that color, but otherwise it looks like a funeral.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “I’m teasing.” Inja undid her ponytail, spread her hair over her face and shoulders, clawed her hands and howled like a wolf. Yuna screamed and they fell apart laughing. But Inja sobered, for she had come over to talk to Yuna about the fat letter, which she hadn’t yet shown to Uncle. She tugged it out from her skirt pocket and displayed a sheaf of tri-folded documents. “I wanted to show this to you.”

  “They look official. Do you know what they say?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but my mother writes here that since I’m sixteen I need to sign in all the places marked with an X, have a non-family member witness it, and send them back to her. It’s something about immigration.”

  Yuna took the papers and studied them one by one. “There are lots of places to sign. What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. She wrote to Ajeossi about it, so I have to find out what he knows. My mother says all this is thanks to an American woman, someone they met on the ship when they went to America. She works for the government, for a minister in parliament or something.”

  “But why is that lady meddling in your family’s affairs?” Yuna handed her back the sheaf.

  Inja appreciated Yuna’s loyalty, but for all the years they’d been friends, Yuna also knew about an imminent reunion—except it had never happened, and here she was, on the verge of her adult life with friends of her own, successes she was proud of, college to plan for, family she loved. It couldn’t be happening now! “She’s helping. She’s helping my parents bring me to America. I think that’s what these papers are for.” She folded them back into the envelope.

  “Don’t sign them!” Yuna made to grab them.

  “I don’t think I have a choice.”

  “You do. You could pretend they were lost in the mail. You could say they blew away when you opened the envelope, that it was a sign—you’re not supposed to go where you don’t know anybody and you don’t have any friends. You can’t go to America! You can ba
rely speak English. What about Hyo?” Tears were in her eyes, and Inja tried to ignore them. She had cried buckets for Grandmother and it had helped, but for this there was no point in crying. Nothing would help.

  “Don’t make me cry. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s paperwork for them to come and visit here. If they came, they’d see my whole life is here already. They’d have to see—”

  Yuna turned to wipe her eyes and said, too brightly, “You’re right! What was the American saying your mother wrote about roosters crossing the road?”

  Inja smiled. “Chickens. You mean, ‘Don’t catch your chickens before they cross the road.’ She says it means not to expect things that haven’t happened yet, though I don’t know how to make sense of it.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Yuna, and she folded Inja’s fingertips over the envelope. “Let’s wait and see what those papers say before I get any more upset.” She shoved Inja, and Inja shoved her back. Then they listened to music and read magazines as usual, though both felt an ominous tug each time “America” was mentioned.

  That evening Ara made a fuss over Inja’s dinner and gave her a small birthday cake made of ddeok, rice cake with a candle stub in it left over from Seonil’s birthday, which went out in a tiny puff of smoke when it reached the table. Inja pretended to blow it out anyway and thanked her. She handed out Life Savers rolls as if she were Father Christmas, and Aunt excused her from cleaning up after dinner. Usually Uncle would use that time to play with Seonil or catch up on the newspapers or work on his self-imposed task of copying the entire Bible in his elegant calligraphy, but tonight he agreed when Inja asked if they could go for a walk on such a beautiful night.

  In the clear cool dark, a strand of moon shone among the bountiful stars, and she wondered if they would look different from America. But she remembered about the hemispheres and the earth’s rotation, and found tiny consolation in knowing the same ceiling of splendor would be above her as long as she remained above the equator.

  They walked without speaking for long stretches of road, and because Uncle was unusually quiet, she knew he was aware of her need for this time with him. The tops of the trees swayed in a night wind, sounding like the ocean waves she first saw and heard in Busan, and it made her feel like a child. “Ajeossi, Mother sent me papers to sign, and I don’t know what they mean.”

  He sighed and opened his elbow for Inja to take his arm. Their footsteps crunched along the packed dirt road, and they walked awhile before he cleared his throat. “She wrote to me, too, as did your father. It appears you may soon be going home to live with your family.”

  Of course she had suspected this, but to hear it filled her heart with dread. Tears fell. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her cheeks. “My home is here.” She tried to sound calm and adult.

  “Yes, and there is always a home for you here, but your real home is with your parents. You’ve always known this. I’ve always known this. Now it seems it will actually happen.”

  Inja heard the grief in his voice but was too full of her own sadness to take his in. They walked farther, out of their neighborhood and beyond the park and her school. The road wound around, unfamiliar, and broad open spaces made them vulnerable to cooler winds. A storm brewed inside her, and anger, resentment, injustice, and loss broke into sobs, but they didn’t stop walking.

  “When will it happen?” she said when she knew her voice was steady.

  “She couldn’t say. It could be next month, three months. But it’s certainly going to happen, so you must be prepared.”

  Inja focused on the sounds of their darkened footsteps, the waves swaying through the treetops. “We should go home now,” she said, her throat catching on “home.”

  He pivoted and offered his other arm, then hugged her hand to his ribs. “Your mother’s letter explained the plan, which is why they don’t know exactly when it might happen. Do you want to hear about it?”

  “Yes please.” She hoped, with failing desperation, there could be a breakdown in some part of that plan.

  “The woman helping them—you’ll meet her I’m sure—is Miss Edna Lone.”

  “Miss Edna Lone,” she repeated, tempted to curse the name.

  “Before the war she was a missionary in Anseong and Seoul, but now she’s an aide for an American politician from her home province, and it was he who took up your parents’ case. I don’t know why he did, though. I suppose politics works the same there as it does everywhere. Who you know is who you do favors for. Miss Lone has been his aide for a long time, and perhaps this is a reward for her loyalty.”

  They neared the park, and the silhouettes of trees and structures grew familiar—a familiarity both comforting and sad.

  “Your mother says they’re trying to get around the immigration law by creating an exception to that law. It’s called a ‘special allowance,’ and the plan is to add the special allowance to another law they think can be passed.”

  “What law?”

  “I’m not sure, but your father says it’s a small bill that should get voted on with no problem.”

  “They haven’t voted on it yet?” There was hope.

  “Don’t get your hopes up.” Uncle knew her too well. “Your father says it’s bound to happen; they just don’t know when.”

  “What are all those papers for, then?”

  “We’ll take them to a lawyer and have you sign them with an official witness. It’s to certify your birth, since your birth record went up in smoke, and your citizenship, education, health and health history, genealogy, that sort of thing. They want to be sure you’re not a communist spy,” he said, a weak smile in his voice.

  “What about the cost?” If her parents hadn’t ever been able to afford it, how could they now afford to bring her?

  “They took out a loan for your plane ticket.”

  “Oh.”

  “Your parents love you very much, and they’ve been waiting for you a long, long time.” Uncle folded her in his arms. “It doesn’t matter where you live,” he said. “I’ll always love you best.” He held her for several minutes in the shadow of their battered and beloved wooden gate, while she mourned the inevitable loss of her uncle, the heart of her Korean family.

  Passage of the bill failed in November. Inja breathed relief, and the bill underwent revision. Holidays and anniversaries came and went. Samjinnal, the spring festival that annually occurred on the third day of the third lunar month, fell on March 27 in 1963. They were supposed to have azalea ddeok, but the blooms were late, though the flowering trees at her grandparents’ graves were in glorious color. Uncle, Seonil, and Inja visited the cemetery with a modest picnic lunch. Aunt stayed home, complacent during her pregnancy, nearing full term.

  Inja talked to Grandfather and thanked him for his care when they fled Seoul during the war, the little birds he brought down with a slingshot and roasted for her, walking to and from school in Busan though it had embarrassed them both, and even for the horrible medicine because he believed it would make her stronger. But it was he himself and Grandmother who had made her strong. She thanked Grandmother for teaching her about her family, faith, and a mother’s love, and she bowed goodbye to them both in case she wouldn’t be back. That very thought sent shivers down her legs, and she bowed fully to the ground three times more, gripped by that premonition.

  By then, all of her papers had been verified and she had procured a passport and visa, but her desire made it easy to believe that the bill would never pass. Life went on as before, her sixteen-year-old life filled with school, American music, an occasional cinema, and her friends, Hyo, Yuna, and Junghi.

  On Tuesday, April 2, the telegram came:

  BILL APPROVED STOP PLANE TICKET VIA SPECIAL DELIVERY 9 APR TUESDAY STOP DEPARTURE 12 APR GIMPO STOP BRING SCHOOL TRANSCRIPTS END

  Inja had ten days to prepare. How could a slip of blue paper so dramatically change her life? The next day, to order her transcripts and officially withdraw, Uncle accompanied her to school wit
h Hyo. Hyo had paled to learn how soon she would be leaving and asked her uncle many questions about what her life would be like in America. Inja appreciated this, as they were questions she could not ask without tears, questions she hadn’t even thought to ask for the grief that heavied her heart.

  “She’ll go to school soon,” said Uncle. Inja walked on the opposite side of Uncle and kept her head bowed. “Except for English and history, I think she’ll do very well. Her father says Korean schools are more rigorous than those in America, and she’ll have help, attending the same school and same grade as her sister, Miran.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hyo. “It’s good that her favorites, math and art, don’t require too much language.”

  Uncle clapped Hyo’s shoulder, and the young man blinked in surprise. “Very astute,” said Uncle. This normally would have embarrassed Inja, but she was too absorbed in misery.

  “Is the school far? Is it coeducational? Will she have one teacher or teachers for each subject?”