by Alana Terry
So we never did get to see Crazy Wu’s house, and everyone else was planting gardens, and Auntie was still lain up in bed, and I stayed real scared that first week worrying it might be the sickness, except it weren’t, thank God. But it lasted an awful long time, more than a couple weeks, and she kept saying she was sorry and I was doing such a good job with the blossoms, only I knowed I wasn’t. I was yelling at them, and she musta heard it, but still she told me how proud she was of me and how she couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her children, ’cause she weren’t old enough to be our mama, but she loved us like she was.
I prayed a lot those days. I knowed I wasn’t doing it half as good as Auntie would, but I hoped God would hear me on account of her being so close to him and whatnot. And I kept expecting her to get better, except she didn’t. And she didn’t get worst neither, which I was glad about, but it’s hard to stay glad when you got ten or so extra kids all littler than you and wanting food all hours of the day and there never being enough forage-food to make you feel really satisfied. And we started with ten blossoms, but then a few decided on trying their luck somewhere else once there weren’t no more soup or whatnot, which made my job easier but mostly just got me sad. Then one evening the littlest blossom got sick, so I sat down and cried some more on account of it being no fair that I should hafta look out for them kids who weren’t no relation to me, all while being scared of something happening to Auntie on top of that. Auntie musta heard me crying ’cause she shuffled herself away from her blankets and sat next to me and said some really nice things, and I knowed she didn’t hafta do that on account of her still feeling so poor, but she did. And then she said, “You know what, Ginkgo? I’m getting a little stronger. I think I’d like to cook something tomorrow for breakfast.” She didn’t look no better than she had earlier, and she was real thin now and her skin was the color of winter sky when you don’t see clouds except you don’t see blue neither. But she told me she was better, and I wanted to believe her, so I did. She asked me to go fetch her this special herb Crazy Wu liked to put in his soups so she could use it in the morning. It was a far stretch away where you had to get it, and at first I figured she was gonna ask me to take the other blossoms, except she didn’t. And I said I could do that for her, long as she was certain she felt good enough for me to leave, and she said I’d be helping out a lot if I just went hunting for those herbs, so that’s what I did.
I felt mighty thankful, too, on account of this being the first time since Auntie fell sick I could have a little time to myself. And I don’t know if you’re this way, but if I don’t have a little quiet every now and then, I get real grumpy-like, and sometimes I wonder if that’s why you teachers don’t come out to do recess with the rest of us, even when the game’s real fun like dodge ball or that ball on a string you got to wrap around the pole or whatnot.
Anyway, I knowed these herbs Auntie wanted would take me at least an hour to find once I got to the right spot and picked them and got back to the coal shed, and it would probably be dark by then. I felt pretty happy on account of Auntie feeling at least a little better and me having that much time to myself. So while I was walking, I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on, or else maybe I woulda seen the red-haired American first, except I didn’t.
And that’s when things went from all right to the worst they’d ever get.
CHAPTER 19
What would you do if one evening you was out picking herbs before sunset, only you seen someone so strange-looking that you figured he was an alien or whatnot? I’m not talking about a person whose nose is bigger than usual or maybe stands a whole foot taller than regular. What if he had purple skin, for example, and his eyes was yellow, or his hair was green and stood straight up? If you think about bumping into someone like that when you weren’t expecting it, maybe you’ll understand a little how surprised I got when I ran into that cameraman.
When I say I ran into him, I guess maybe that’s not quite right on account of him being the one to see me first. I was still hunting for the right sort of herbs so Auntie could make us all a real breakfast the next morning, not the forage-food we’d been rounding up the past few weeks. And then all of a sudden, I heard this strange clicking noise, and I’d never seen a camera before, so I didn’t know what it was. Now, you might figure I’d get to staring at that little machine on account of it making such a funny sound, except I didn’t. ’Cause when the man took it down from his face and I could see all of him, that’s when I got the kinda scared I mentioned just now, the kind where you think maybe you’re seeing an alien or stuff and nonsense like that, only in the old days we didn’t study outer space none, so I didn’t even know aliens was a thing people liked to pretend about.
I’d seen pictures of Americans back in my school days, but those were always painted ones on posters or stuff and nonsense like that. And the men all had big noses and green ugly eyes always turned down like they were tough and angry-like, and sometimes their hair was yellow and sometimes their hair was light brown like Miss Sandy’s, but there weren’t ever no pictures of them with hair red as fire like this cameraman’s.
It’d been a year or maybe two by then since I’d last gone to school, but I still knowed all about how Americans liked to do things like stomp on the heads of little babies or steal boys away from their mamas and turn them into spies because that’s what them posters always showed them doing. ’Course now I figure there ain’t no more Americans like they had during the Peninsula War, only I didn’t know it back then, so I imagined that the big man was going to kill me right there. And his camera was little, but maybe it was some kind of weapon that would shoot out bullets at my brains, or maybe it had knives on the inside that he’d pull out and chop me up with. What I wanted most of all was to be back with Auntie, and I wouldn’t have minded having Crazy Wu there neither, ’cause even though he was old, that’d be at least one more grown-up to do the fighting.
This American — and I figured right away that’s what he was on account of his face looking like the ones in those posters except for his hair being red and his eyes looking not quite so mean-like — he squatted down and reached out to me and started saying some crazy nonsense I couldn’t make out. I was surprised on account of his voice sounding nicer than I woulda expected, but I figured he was just acting sneaky, and I wasn’t gonna fall for his tricks. I was trying to figure if I was fast enough to run back to the train station without him catching me. I’d go find Auntie, and maybe she’d pray some prayer or something so God would scare him away. Except that’s not what happened.
Before I could think on nothing else, two Korean men in expensive suits ran up shouting at us. One was older with gray hair, and he was yelling, “No pictures!” The younger one, he had a little black mustache and was shouting too, but he weren’t speaking Korean so I couldn’t make it out, only he sounded even madder. The American stood up slowly and kept saying ok, ok over and over, which back then when I didn’t know any English, I thought it made him sound kinda stupid.
So the one with the mustache was yelling in a nonsense language, and the one with gray hair kept yelling in Korean, calling the American a spy and threatening to send in the police and asking why he brought his camera when they told him no pictures. As soon as the old one started talking about the police, I had to leave ’cause the police back home weren’t like the ones you have here in Medford where their job is to help you if you get lost or warn you about joining up with those bad kinds of gangs. The police back home would steal from you if you had food, and if you didn’t on account of being a flower swallow like me, they liked to round you up and make you live in these big factories where all you do is go to school part of the day and work in the factory the rest. I even met a few boys at the train station who run away from that kinda life, which explains why I didn’t want to be around when the police came.
So I took off, and thankfully nobody thought to chase me, and I hid myself a little further on. I couldn’t hear too w
ell, but ’least I could see what those men would do with the red-haired monster. Only he weren’t acting like I expected on account of him not fighting back or even yelling like the other two, and by the way he was making those ok, ok noises, I mighta figured he was apologizing if I thought Americans ever did stuff and nonsense like that. At first, I hoped that maybe I’d get to see them fight, except they didn’t. But I stayed watching anyway to see what’d come next. I wouldn’t have been too surprised if something like a helicopter flew overhead and picked him up. ’Course I didn’t know about helicopters back then, so anything I seen flying in the sky woulda been as weird to me as an alien spaceship would be to you.
And so I was waiting for something interesting to happen, except nothing did. The two men took the American’s camera, and they started ripping out the insides, and the American didn’t look too mad, just a little sad-like, but he didn’t try to stop them. That got me to thinking maybe Americans are more cowardly than my teachers let on, ’cause the ones in the posters looked so mean, like I already told you, but this one acted sorta wimpy.
After they finished ripping the insides out, the older one took the camera itself, and the young man took the parts they’d pulled out, and they all three walked away. I thought that was going to be all, except it weren’t. Now looking back, I wish to God it were. Once I asked Pastor if you could pray for God to change the past, and Pastor said it didn’t work like that. But if I ever see God in a dream and he gives me one wish like he did to that Solomon fellow, I wouldn’t ask him to bring Grandmother back from the dead (although that would be my second favor if he felt like giving me two), and I wouldn’t even wish to be with Auntie again, even though of all the people I knowed in Chongjin, I miss her the most. The one thing I’d ask God is to make things work out so I woulda never run into that red-haired cameraman in the first place ’cause it was meeting him that started The Nightmare. And you might ask me why I call it that, and that’s on account of me sometimes pretending it was all a bad dream and not real life at all. Sometimes I don’t even need to pretend because it’s hard to think a real person could hafta go through something so awful. And maybe that would be my second wish if God couldn’t change the past or bring Grandmother back to life or let me be with Auntie again. Maybe I’d wish to go on the rest of my life believing it really was just a nightmare ’cause if that’s the case, that would mean boys like me weren’t still going through things like that today, which is too sad for me to think about, especially not around Christmastime when there’s happy music and cookies most everywhere.
So like I said, the two men in suits were leaving, the American was going with them, and he wasn’t fighting back or yelling. In fact, none of them was yelling no more. And the old man was in the front, and the younger one with the mustache was walking side-by-side with the cameraman. Then the American slowed up for just a second or two, but it gave him time to drop something down on the ground, and the sun hadn’t gone down quite yet so I seen the spot where it fell. I stayed crouched there and tried guessing what he mighta left behind. Maybe it was a bomb, ’cause our teachers told us all about the bombs you could throw if you was an American and wanted to blow up a school full of kids, for example, except that’s not what it was. Then I thought maybe it was some kinda treasure, like maybe the American was a thief and wanted to steal something from the Dear Leader, only if the others had suspected that, they’d be even more mad at him and definitely woulda called the police, so that didn’t make much sense neither. Besides, what kind of treasure was that little he could keep it hidden in his hand before he throwed it on the ground? So anyway, I sat there wondering, even though now I wish I’d just left. I coulda gone back to Auntie, and we’d have all gone to bed, and in the morning she woulda made us breakfast, and in a few days we woulda moved all them blossoms to Crazy Wu’s house where we’d even have our own garden. And Auntie’d sleep in the room with the girls, and I’d sleep in the room with the boys and be in charge of them on account of being the oldest and Auntie’s favorite, and I wouldn’t ever be hungry no more.
Except that’s not what happened.
After the American was so far away I couldn’t see him or the others, I waited a little longer and then creeped out and went searching the area where he dropped his secret. It didn’t take me too long to find it, except even then I didn’t have a clue what it was or why it was so important he woulda hid it from the others like he done. It was a little black case, no taller than your finger, and it was shaped like a cylinder. And now I figure I owe you an apology, Teacher, on account of asking why we’d hafta know all them fancy words for different shapes, ’cause if you hadn’t made us do all that geometry practice, I wouldn’t know what to call it. Well this can thing, it had a gray lid that popped right off, and I didn’t know what to expect when I looked at the inside, but I didn’t expect to see nothing but a funny roll that was kinda like paper and kinda like plastic, except that’s exactly what it was. It was brown, and you could see through it if you held it up real close to your eyes. I didn’t know what it was, but I figured Auntie might have an idea, so I rolled it all back up and put it in its case and closed the gray lid and put the whole thing in my pocket. And even today, I sometimes pray and ask God to make an exception and go back and change the past just this once, on account of The Nightmare starting all because of that little black container the American dropped.
CHAPTER 20
So I already told you how it was the American’s fault about me going to The Nightmare and all, but it was also on account of the police and how they’ve all got eyes on the back of their heads. I didn’t even know what that phrase meant until Pastor explained, and that was back when I first moved in with him and Miss Sandy. I woke up from one of them bad dreams I sometimes get, and I was afraid to go back to sleep and dream the whole thing over again, so I sneaked out of bed and tiptoed into the kitchen and got a bowl of cereal and took it to my room even though I knowed it was against the rules to eat in there. Miss Sandy came in a few minutes later asking what I was doing, and I didn’t know her well enough then to understand she was surprised, not angry. So I tried acting like I didn’t understand, except she knew I was better than that with my English by then, and she sat down on my bed and said, “Sweetie, if you’re ever hungry, all you have to do is ask.” And then she said I’d hafta give up my TV time tomorrow on account of taking food to the bedroom, but she said I could go out into the dining room and eat it proper-like if I wanted.
Once we got to the big table, Miss Sandy said, “Well, it’s only a few hours before we need to wake up anyway,” and she wanted to know how I’d feel about her making us some pancakes. Then we musta been raising enough noise that even Pastor came out to see what the fuss was about, and when I told him I didn’t mean to wake nobody up, he said, “Something you’re gonna learn real soon is that Mom has eyes on the back of her head.” I’d gone to enough meetings by that point with social workers and whatnot that I knowed the difference between birth parents and adopted parents and there’s even an in-between thing called foster parents. And Pastor and Miss Sandy said it’d make them real glad if I called them Mom and Dad, but I didn’t hafta unless I felt comfortable about it, which I didn’t, ’least not yet. But I didn’t mind neither when they called each other Mom and Dad around me, and funny thing is lots of people call them that too, even a bunch who aren’t their real kids or even their adopted ones.
Anyway, when Pastor said Miss Sandy had eyes on the back of her head, he had to explain to me that it weren’t really eyeballs beneath her hair. It means she knows everything that’s going on even when you think it’s impossible. And I figure in some ways teachers get that too, that extra set of eyes, on account of you always knowing when Chuckie Mansfield’s giving me a hard time even if you’re looking at the whiteboard. And that seems like a good kind of extra eyes to have, but there’s another kind that makes life real hard for certain folks. Here’s what I mean. Back home, if you did something really bad, the police was gonna f
ind out. And once they learnt about it, you’d sorta disappear, you and your whole family. And that’s what I mean when I say the police there had eyes in the back of their heads, except they didn’t use it to stop bullies or give extra snacks to hungry little boys in the middle of the night. They used it for really bad things, like catching kids who didn’t do nothing wrong and locking them up. I still don’t know how they found me after I picked up the American’s black container, but I figure them extra eyes might have something to do with it.
What happened was I walked toward the train station with that roll of film in my pocket (’cause that’s what it was, by the way, except I didn’t find that out until later). I wasn’t even to Auntie’s yet when I heard someone say, “That’s him there,” and it was the man with the mustache pointing at me. Before I could do nothing, it was him and his partner and two policemen that catched me and carried me away while I was flapping my arms and legs and squawking like a chicken getting stole. I never seen that red-headed American again, but if I do, I figure I’d kick him in the privates and not even feel sorry for it on account of what happened to me when those men found his stupid film in my pocket. And by now you’re probably wondering what it was that happened, only I’m not gonna talk much about that part, and here’s why.
When I first got to America, I had to do these things called interviews where sometimes it’s a man and sometimes it’s a woman, but they’re always dressed in suits and offering you bagels or muffins or stuff and nonsense like that and expecting you to talk for hours about the old days. And Miss Sandy, she’d come and sit with me through them. Sometimes they had an interpreter who would say the things to me in Korean and then give my answers back to the workers in English, but sometimes they didn’t, and we did the whole thing in Korean, so Miss Sandy couldn’t understand it none anyway. But she went with me to all of them just the same.