The Kinship of Secrets

by Eugenia Kim

  I am heartbroken. He will not write to me anymore. He says this is very difficult for both of us, but he does it out of the great love he has for me. Could anything be more painful? I am so angry and sad! His letter makes me understand there is nothing behind me and that I am truly alone. Even it is pointless to try to keep up a friendship with Yuna or Hyo. Here comes Mother.

  Wednesday, 15 May

  When I got home from school, this notebook was moved from one side to the other in my bureau drawer. I think Mother wants to know what I am thinking since I do not talk so much and she sees I have been crying. So today I have begun to write in a secret code. I don’t think it will make any sense to her. I will have to write the letters I transposed somewhere else, or I will never figure it out. But I’m supposed to only think forward, not back, not even to reading what I have already written, so it does not matter. I had a terrible day in school. Headache and angry. Only the math teacher is kind to me, because I know their trigonometry already. She puts me to work on the chalkboard and gives me lots of praise. This is helpful to lift me out of the miserable days of not understanding anything. Also the students look at me differently because of the math work, like I’m some kind of idiot-genius. Mrs. Samson, the art teacher, is kind too. Like Hyo said to Uncle that day, art and math do not need English. Oh, how I miss them! Miran knew I was sad, so at lunch she bought me an ice-cream sandwich in the cafeteria. That was very sweet of her. Ice-cream sandwiches are delicious.

  Thursday, 16 May

  It feels itchy all over to be so unhappy, and to not want to be here. There is nowhere else for me to go. I am so unhappy. I wish I were the adopted daughter, then, like Grandmother feared when my parents left Korea, I would have been left behind forever. Adoption is different in America, and now in our family, too—an adopted daughter is not a second-class family member as she would be in Korea. Like Uncle says, it is pointless to talk about what can’t be changed, but how am I supposed to change how I feel about it? And yet I must.

  Saturday, 18 May

  I tried to not write in this notebook for a whole day. I am trying to do what Uncle says and bond with my family. It will take more than one day! Miran took me to the library this morning. She helped me get a library card and showed me how to use the stacks. It is a big rich library, but Miran says it is “small town.” She reads thick books. One day I want to read like she does. It seems her reading is like this notebook is to me, something private and all for herself. Then she practiced piano, and I studied English with some of the children’s books we checked out. Miniature books about Peter, a cute rabbit who always gets in trouble with a farmer. They are too easy so I feel good to move up to the next grade level. I played piano a little bit with Miran. Though sometimes she is frustrated with me, especially in school, other times she is sweet. She plays with lots of emotion but also technical skill. Hyo would be impressed. But I am not thinking about Hyo anymore.

  My trunk came last week right before I got Uncle’s letter, and when I first opened it, I could smell my room. I never thought such a brief scent that was lost in a few seconds could bring so much pain. Even in one month’s time, I can see how my things from Korea are simple and poor. I wish I did not know this. Miran and I sat on her bed and looked at that old Bible storybook. How many memories it brings! I noticed for the first time that Uncle had written a few translations in his handsome penmanship. Surely I must have seen that a hundred times and perhaps even witnessed him writing it out, but only now do I really see it. It makes me wonder what else I didn’t see in all that was so familiar to me, and which is now lost forever.

  No more crying. Miran has old storybooks with broken spines on her bookshelves, so we are joined in loving books from our childhood. Father belongs to a club that sends him books every month, so there are shelves and shelves of books in this house. I like that part about my family and plan to learn English well enough to read every single one of the books in this house. Maybe not the encyclopedias and theology books. Mother copies pages from those books as a way to learn English. I will do the same with my textbooks.

  It never gets completely dark in this neighborhood, and I cannot see many stars. I sneak out the basement door when I cannot sleep. Miran sneaks outside too, to smoke cigarettes. When I caught her once, she acted very guilty and said, “Don’t tell Mom,” like a little girl. Of course I wouldn’t, and I think she likes me a little better because I keep her secret. She sleeps very well and I envy her for that. I dream every night of being lost in a giant apartment building or a hotel looking for my room in Korea. I’m unsettled when I wake. I see the half-moon and feel calmed, as if I am seeing the moon at home, but then my eyes catch sight of the tree line, and I can no longer fool myself that it is home. I cried all day thinking about Uncle, and then I was so mad I could not sleep. I wish I knew how to curse in English. I would cuss at the world.

  Sunday, 19 May

  I couldn’t help it and wrote letters to Hyo and Yuna today. I tried not to say anything bad, but I also didn’t say I was happy and the streets are flooded with gems. Mother is disorganized, so busy doing things, she forgets what time it is. It seems we are always rushing when we need to get somewhere. I think I can help Mother with this, and that will make me feel useful. When Miran talks in her childish Korean, she sounds like Seonil. How I miss that little boy!

  Monday, 3 June

  I have made a big effort to not write in this diary and to be a good daughter. Sometimes it’s easy to laugh, because Mother can be cute and funny, like with how much joy she gets from seeing our artwork, and she loves to laugh. My best place here is to be a good daughter for Mother, and it is easy to do, because Miran does not talk very much to her. I can see why she did not learn Korean, though I do fault her a little. It is hard enough to fit into school with everyone else, and who am I to judge? This is a phrase Mother uses after she has gossiped about the churchwomen. I would like to point out this irony to her, but I am not yet certain of her reaction, though I think she would laugh. School will end this week, and then it is summer break. They have a very short school session. We would still be in classes until August. I got a strange letter from Hyo today. He did not write anything personal, only about politics and organizing his classmates to join demonstrations. I wrote him back right away to tell him not to put those kinds of thoughts on paper. I have not heard from Yuna.

  Thursday, 13 June

  Today I received another terrible letter from Seoul. Actually it is not as bad as Uncle’s letter, the very thought of which gives me such heartache I want to crawl into a deep hole. Yuna finally wrote me a short note and asked me to not be mad that she and Hyo are close friends now. My first thought was “Oh! She too knows what it’s like to be kissed by him!” And then I had ugly feelings of jealousy. Hell and damnation. See, it does help to curse even in English. It makes sense, but I wish she hadn’t told me. Like Uncle says, I must separate from my past in order to find happiness in my future. But how can I do that when I am feeling everything right now?

  Next day

  I cried all day thinking about Hyo and Yuna. Then about Uncle and Seonil. Then about the baby Seonwu I will never know. Then about Ara. Then about everything. I will not write letters to anyone at home anymore. I wish Halmeoni were still alive and younger, and then I could write to her. Could anyone be so unhappy as me?

  Thursday, July 4, 1963—Father’s favorite holiday

  Weeks of crying, anger, frustration, and sadness. I am a walking thunderstorm. It’s like something I had forgotten about—the gray days when the crematorium ash covered everything. Nobody talked about it, but it was everywhere, underneath our fingernails and in our hair. The storm will always be a part of me, pervasive like that ash is surely still inside my lungs. I must put my hard feelings inside a drawer in my head. There are many drawers there, and like the bureau of drawers filled with clothes just for me, these drawers are filled with memories that are only mine with no one to share them with. Hyo andYuna. What happened to poor Junghi, le
ft behind by those two? Lucky he was carefree and lighthearted. I wish I could be that way, then I wouldn’t be upset by, well, everything. I will never forget my life at home and my love for Uncle, but those drawers must be shut tight. This one drawer that holds the storm will have an iron padlock and key so heavy it cannot be lifted.

  On this American holiday, I pledge to work hard to make my parents happy. They suffered so much to bring me here and to live all those years worried about me. Mother tells me stories about those years, and they make me see things differently. One day in the kitchen, long after everyone was in bed, she told me the story about Miran, I think as a way to help us both to understand her decision. The way she told it was the same as Uncle and Halmeoni except for one thing—that part of her decision to leave me behind was not only because I was the true blood daughter, but that Miran needed to stay with them because she was inherently more needy, having been abandoned by her mother. The widow had sacrificed her child for a better life, knowing her own life was ruined from having birthed her. Mother did not want to erase the benefits of that sacrifice with a second abandonment. It is good to know this story from my mother’s perspective; it is a generous and loving perspective. Still, though it is at the root of what I suffer today, it does little to ease my daily regrets and unbearable longing.

  It is Independence Day, and I declare independence from my past. Yesterday I discussed with Father that an English tutor could help me learn faster. I believe that is one way for me to find happiness. Language is a different kind of key to a different set of drawers. I should have studied harder in Seoul, like Hyo said (I am not thinking about him), but who knew what it would really mean? There is a young man at church, thick glasses, a round head, and thin hair who is bilingual. Miran says he looks like a Korean Charlie Brown with eyeglasses. He is attending Maryland University to be an elementary school teacher, so he will know how to teach me basic English. Father said it was a good idea, and though I offered to do some job to pay for it myself, he said it is his responsibility to ensure my success. I think he understands me more than Mother, but I am not supposed to write bad things about Mother.

  31

  * * *

  Art Class

  Inja was so clearly unhappy that, at first, all Miran wanted to do was make her feel better. She tried to think of things that would lift her sister’s spirits, but all the things she herself did to lift her spirits she didn’t want to share—her Campfire trips, her friends and their bad habits. She guessed Inja wouldn’t appreciate the luscious sense of rebellion she felt smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap wine. She was used to reading feelings when language was a barrier, but not when the person was such a strange presence in her own bedroom, and one as closed up and miserable as Inja was.

  It seemed like her parents, too, were tiptoeing around Inja’s feelings, speaking softly to her, solicitous about what she might like to eat, careful in how they showed her something new, such as how to use scouring powder in the sink or the vacuum cleaner on the rugs.

  By summer break, Miran was fed up with the vigilance about Inja’s sensitivities, which had spilled over into the summer art class they took. Her friends and the teacher were as cautious and considerate of her sister as her parents were. Mrs. Samson was more accommodating to Inja than to Miran or anyone else. Miran wasn’t resentful at first; she got a secondary glow of attention from what was showered on Inja. But then Inja’s artwork took center stage, from sketches to watercolors and finally to ceramics.

  A week into the summer class, though Miran was in the midst of a cups and bowls project, she willingly relinquished the sole potter’s wheel for her sister to learn how to throw a pot. Miran sat nearby making a coil pot, and she taught her sister the language of pottery: silica, slip, wedge, bisque, fire, kiln. Inja took to it immediately, and within a week had thrown two vases with elongated Asian profiles: a long-necked flask and an urn-shaped amphora.

  “Extraordinary,” said Mrs. Samson, admiring the taller vessel. “Tell your sister no one has such steady coordination, or an eye for profile like hers. That’s a gorgeous vase. Everyone, come look at the balance of these curves. It’s almost like yin and yang, it’s so harmonious. Absolute perfection.” The dozen students crowded around with exclamations that matched Mrs. Samson’s in wonder—and envy.

  Miran showed Inja how to look up gorgeous, extraordinary, harmonious, and perfection in her English-Korean dictionary. At each translation, Miran begrudged the growing smile on Inja’s lips that, at last, erased her perennial frown. Miran’s double bind couldn’t last: she resented her sister’s natural talent and hated herself for resenting her sister. She also begrudged the months-long frustration of caution and constraint without relief, tense even at bedtime when Inja wrote furiously in her spiral notebook, often crying silently until she had to grab tissues.

  They stayed late alone in art class that afternoon and would lock up when finished—something they’d done before with Mrs. Samson’s permission. Miran stuffed her coil pot with damp newspaper for support before firing, vexed at her own admiration of Inja’s two vases that had garnered such praise. The urn was upside down on the wheel, and Inja carved its foot with a wire loop tool, turning the wheel slowly, applying the tool with just enough pressure for the firming clay to peel off in smooth layers. In rhythm with the creaking of the potter’s wheel, Inja recited her new English words in a soft singsong: “gorgeous, perfection, extraordinary, harmonious.”

  “Fuck!” Miran said, and leaned over to crush Inja’s vase with a swift clutch of fingers. “Fuck your damned perfection!”

  “Wae geurae! Michyeosseo?” Inja cried, eyes wide. “What’s wrong with you! Are you crazy?” The wheel spun her lumpen vase. She threw her wire tool at Miran, and it cut above her left eyebrow, drawing a bead of blood. “Oh! I sorry! Not meaning to hitting you.”

  Miran, equally surprised that she’d been struck, blotted her forehead with a rag, dusty with clay, and when she saw blood, she burst out laughing and crushed her own pot with a fist. “There, we’re even!” It made no sense, but she laughed and threw a piece of her clay pot at Inja. Inja grabbed her broken pot, threw it at Miran, and it landed on her apron. They both laughed.

  “Oh jeez, I’m sorry,” said Miran, wiping her eyes and brow.

  “See your face, all clay,” said Inja, and they went to the mirror above the sink to laugh at Miran’s face streaked with brown and a little bit of blood.

  “I ruined your pot,” said Miran, washing her face.

  “You ruined your pot, too,” said Inja, and they laughed again.

  They cleaned up their mess, recycled the clay, and walked home in the late summer afternoon, ribbing each other and giggling now and then.

  Before they went into the house, Inja touched her sister’s forehead. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry about your vase.”

  “Is okay. We sisters.”

  “Yes, we are,” said Miran, and they went inside.

  32

  * * *

  At the Movies

  Inja’s seventeenth birthday present was to celebrate it however she wished and have prepared for her whatever she wanted to eat. In a rare display of selfishness, she told her mother she wanted rice, kimchi, Spam, and also the sailor hot dogs she remembered from pictures of Miran’s birthdays. She wanted to spend all day at the movies and have birthday streamers hung in the dining room. Since September 24th was a school day, they celebrated on Saturday: a matinee at the Avalon Theatre downtown to see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Cleopatra, and after the silly Spam and hot dog dinner, to the Thunderbird drive-in to see Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Both girls were titillated by the scandalous Taylor-Burton affair that had emerged during the making of Cleopatra, and Miran, who still charted stocks for Miss Lone, had bought half a dozen movie magazines with headlines like “Brazen Burton!”

  In the theater during the kissing scenes, Najin clucked her tongue, making Inja uncomfortable to be watching with her mother. But Miran
said she loved all the indecent innuendo. Later at the drive-in, sitting in the back with Najin, Inja easily ducked her head behind the front seat when the scary parts came.

  On the way home, Inja spoke to her mother about Hitchcock’s film, “I don’t like how that ended. What does it mean, all those birds sitting quiet, and they drive to the hospital. Will they attack again? Are they everywhere in California and in America?”

  Najin said, “You understood a lot.”

  “They used simple English or none at all,” said Inja. She swatted her hands, mouth open and silent, like Tippi Hedren in the phone booth being attacked by birds, and they all laughed. “Mother, didn’t you once live in California? Was it like in the movie?”

  “No birds like that,” said Najin. “How awful for that poor schoolteacher!”

  Inja tried to shake the image of Suzanne Pleshette with her eyes gouged out. “Awful.” They drove by the darkened storefronts on Chillum Road, and the early autumn evening blew cool through the car. Her mother rolled her window closed, and in the windless quiet of the back seat, Inja said, “It’s like the newspaper photograph that started the Four-Nineteen Uprising.”