Brother's Keeper

by Julie Lee

  Though she never spared me any details, I started trembling at her matter-of-fact tone. Pastor Joh had been our minister years ago, when church wasn’t banned. He wasn’t even allowed to preach anymore, so why would they take him? Was he dead? I bit my lip to keep from crying. “Why would they want to hurt pastors?” I managed to say.

  “Because they undermine the Reds,” Omahni said, as if she was angry with me. “They preach about God and things the communists don’t want us to hear. Pastors have the power of ideas. It’s not so easy to control people like that.”

  “But there’s no church! There’s no preaching!”

  “You don’t need a church to preach, Sora. The Reds know that.”

  Red. The color of communism. It burned through the village like a flame. It wrapped around people’s arms, squeezing. And when it knocked on your door, there was no hiding. A cold shiver crawled down my back. “Omahni,” I said, an urgency coursing through me, “what if they arrest us, too? Shouldn’t we run?”

  Omahni stopped moving and stared straight ahead, forcing her face into a blank sheet.

  “Lucky for us, we’re not one of those people with power. In fact, we gained the most from the new laws taking land from the rich and giving it to the poor!” She turned and leveled her gaze at me. “So, no, we shouldn’t leave, especially now that North Korea has taken over most of the peninsula. That’d be risking our lives for nothing. Remember, don’t go siding with your father on this.”

  As the days cooled, so did the air between my parents. A steely silence grew in the house. Omahni and Abahji hardly looked at each other.

  The only thing that got them talking again was the draft.

  “They’re coming to recruit all able-bodied men into the army,” Omahni said one day over a dinner of thin radish soup without rice. She sneaked a glance at Abahji, letting her gaze linger as if she missed looking at his face.

  “You think I don’t know this?” Abahji cleared his throat and took another sip of soup. “When they come, I’ll have to go. But I refuse to fight for them. I will let myself die in combat.”

  At this, Youngsoo burst into tears, and Jisoo scurried onto Omahni’s lap like a startled pup. I could feel Youngsoo’s watery eyes on me, begging for some comfort, but I couldn’t look at him when there was a tide rising in my own throat.

  Omahni slammed her chopsticks on the table. Our heads turned. “We didn’t stay just so they could come and take you,” she said, her voice shaking. Her eyes were rimmed red. “We’ll dig a hole. Hide you away. Keep you safe. Only for a little while. I’m sure this war will end in a few short weeks.”

  No one spoke.

  I turned Omahni’s words around and around in my head, inspecting them from all sides. Once, during hide-and-seek, I’d hidden inside a large urn for three hours. Eventually, Youngsoo announced that he’d given up because it was impossible to find me. If the soldiers couldn’t find Abahji, they wouldn’t be able to draft him into their army. Maybe Omahni had a good plan.

  For the first time in weeks, Abahji reached over and touched Omahni’s hand. Her shoulders softened with this small gesture.

  Then Abahji told me to get the shovels and picks, because he had work to do that night.

  The next morning, I looked out the window and saw my parents on the edge of the millet field. Mostly hidden by pine trees, they crouched over a gaping hole, a fresh pile of dirt beside it. I ran out to meet them.

  “This is where we’ll hide your father—just until the war ends, which will be soon, I’m sure,” Omahni said to me, repeating herself from the day before, like a mantra. She straightened and wiped her forehead. Her jeogori was soaked on the back and under the arms. Grimly, she took the shovel from Abahji, and he slid into the dark pit.

  I watched in horror as the earth swallowed him whole.

  Cautiously, I took a step forward and looked down. Abahji lay on his back as if in a grave. My breath quickened. I thought of those newsreels showing bodies tossed into simple roadside pits. This is not a grave, just a hole, I told myself.

  Below, Abahji nodded. “I think this is good.”

  Youngsoo came running from behind. “Can I hide, too, Omahni?” He lit up as if it was his turn at hide-and-seek.

  “Don’t be silly. This is not a game!” Omahni said.

  “Then what is it?”

  Omahni kneeled and looked him level in the eye, clutching his shoulders until her knuckles shone white. A frightening calm settled on her face. “This is about keeping our family together. We must protect your father.”

  After a moment, Youngsoo nodded as solemnly as any soldier called to duty.

  Protecting Abahji was the one thing on which Omahni and I could agree. I stood over his hole, my shadow towering like a giant.

  “Will he have to stay in there all day and night?” I asked.

  “He’ll remain in the hole as long as he can,” Omahni said. She shook the brown dirt from her long skirt, and it gleamed white once again.

  “But what about food and water?” I noticed my voice rising to a higher pitch, and I cleared my throat.

  “He’ll have to come in every once in a while. We can also bring him food and water in the night.”

  I watched Abahji climb out. He was covered in a thin layer of rusty dirt, which had settled into the creases around his mouth and eyes. He looked at me and smiled. I couldn’t believe Abahji wouldn’t be able to show his face anymore.

  eight

  August, 1950

  The next evening, Omahni ordered us onto the field. “Today, we practice hiding Abahji in his hole,” she announced.

  Youngsoo, Jisoo, and I stood before her, scratching behind our ears and fiddling with our clothes.

  “Pay attention!” she snapped.

  We stopped moving.

  “Come, look.” Omahni motioned us toward the hole.

  I peeked in. Abahji was already inside lying on his back. He tried to sit up, but slipped and hit his shoulder against the wall; a shower of dirt fell onto his head. Youngsoo giggled and Jisoo squealed. But I stared blank-faced, trying to grapple with the indignity of it all. My father. In a hole.

  Omahni covered the opening with a wooden board. “Youngsoo-ya, your job is to sweep away all the footprints in the dirt.” She tossed him a broom, and he began sweeping up the whirlwind of activity around the hole. “Sora, Abahji slept in the house last night. Your job is to run inside and clear away any lingering signs of him—an extra teacup, his house slippers, anything. Go.”

  I darted across the field and into the house. Tossed his slippers under the floorboard where we kept our Bible. Rinsed two teacups sitting on the low table. Swept his undergarments up and into the chest. But what about his clothes, razor, and shoes? How much did I need to hide? Had I overlooked anything? Ai! I ran back out to the field.

  Omahni was counting. “Four hundred and twenty seconds,” she said to me. “It took you that long to do your job.”

  I didn’t think four hundred and twenty seconds was so bad, considering that the house was at least a hundred yards away.

  Omahni turned her attention to all of us. “We must be faster, better.”

  Later, we sat inside and practiced controlling our faces—loosening our mouths, draining all anxiety from our eyes—so that no one knocking on the door would know our hearts were racing with deception. “This part is just as important as hiding Abahji. We can never let our faces show our thoughts,” Omahni said to us. But I worried that mine would betray me, no matter how much we practiced.

  “Like this, Omahni?” Youngsoo asked, massaging his cheeks and crossing his eyes. I stifled a giggle.

  Omahni put her hand to her lips and frowned. “No, no. Don’t look frightened or overly relaxed. Just look normal. No one can know that we’re hiding Abahji. Understand?”

  Youngsoo nodded.

  Jisoo clapped and shouted, “Apah! Apah!” He pounded the low table.

  “No, Jisoo-ya,” Omahni said, her hands now fluttering in the air. “Don
’t call your father. He’s not here anymore.”

  Having seen Abahji in his hole just a few minutes earlier, Jisoo squealed and laughed at Omahni’s boldfaced lie. “Apah! Apah!” he cried even louder, pointing to the pit.

  At that, Omahni wrapped her headache bandana around her forehead and lay on the broad cushion on the floor. “Go outside and play. We’ll practice again later,” she said.

  True to her word, we rehearsed again and again, until one day, we were able to hide Abahji in under two minutes, our faces expertly composed. Omahni stood with her arms raised like the conductor of an orchestra, beaming at us for playing our parts perfectly. “Come, children. I’m so proud of you!”

  Youngsoo and Jisoo ran and slammed into her stomach. She hugged them.

  “Sora-ya, you come, too,” Omahni said.

  I went. She reached me with her fingertips.

  “You all did very well today. I think we’re ready. Our family will stay together. We’ll be safe.” She nodded fiercely.

  I wanted to believe her and would’ve done anything to make it true. If someone had told me that eating a grasshopper could somehow protect us, I would’ve eaten a hundred.

  But I knew there were no guarantees. And it wasn’t long before I realized that I wasn’t ready. That nothing could’ve prepared me for that late August morning when two military officers came knocking on our door.

  “Let us in! It’s Byun Tae-joon, Lieutenant of the Korean People’s Army,” a man shouted.

  My stomach plunged.

  Abahji was hiding in his hole. Omahni and Youngsoo were out at the market. Only Jisoo sat in the house with me.

  I looked around the room. Hadn’t Abahji come inside in the middle of the night for a cup of tea and a shave? I flicked my gaze to the table, to the water basin. There were two teacups. And Abahji’s razor, still wet on a hook.

  Fists pounded. “Open the door!”

  I darted toward the hook and wiped the razor dry against my skirt, slicing through the thin cotton, into my skin. A trickle of blood seeped through the white fabric.

  “Let us in!”

  My hands fumbled. I hung the razor, ran to the door, and turned the knob.

  “What took you so long? Are you hiding something?” the lieutenant demanded, his face angular and sharp. Another officer stood behind him. They were grown men wearing black leather shoes and fitted caps.

  I glanced at the razor still swinging on its hook. But then a squeal of laughter shot into the room. I had nearly forgotten.

  Jisoo.

  He clenched a sheet torn from Youngsoo’s language book in his fist, the elegant black-ink type now awkward and twisted. “Jisoo, no!” I scolded. Not the precious schoolbooks!

  I watched him tear at another page, something inside me ripping, too. I rushed over. “Give it to me,” I said, a prickly heat rising on the back of my neck. But Jisoo strengthened his grip on the book, a deep frown drawn across his face.

  “Ha, look at the little rascal,” one of the officers said, a knife sitting in a sheath around his waist.

  “You will not ruin this, too!” I cried, tugging on the book until something wet hit my cheek.

  Jisoo was spitting at me.

  I loosened my hold in astonishment, and Jisoo yanked another page out of the book. He scurried across the room and crumpled it, squealing in victory.

  The officers roared with laughter.

  The open book lay on the floor, jagged paper running down the middle of its spine. I felt words bubbling to the surface. “You ruin everything! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been pulled out of school!”

  Jisoo wailed. “Omah! Omah!”

  “Omahni is not here! She’s still at the market!” I shouted.

  Which made Jisoo cry even harder. “Apah! Apah!” he screamed this time.

  I stopped breathing.

  “Enough of this nonsense,” the angular officer said, no longer laughing. His eyes narrowed. “Indeed, where is your father, Pak Sangmin? We are here to recruit all able-bodied men into the army.”

  I couldn’t find my voice. My body trembled. I stared at their shiny black shoes. “Our father. He left us. Married another woman,” I whispered, then burst into tears.

  Jisoo dropped the torn sheet, looked at me, and bawled so loudly that the officers had to cover their ears. His sharp cries surprised me. How much could Jisoo understand? I wanted to pick him up and tell him that it wasn’t true.

  “Ai! Enough! Enough!” one of the officers said. “Let’s go. There’s no man in this household.” They turned and hurried out the door.

  Minutes later, Omahni and Youngsoo returned to a house full of crying.

  “What’s going on here? Can’t you even keep your baby brother quiet?” Omahni said. “And you wanted to leave! How could we ever consider escaping when you make him cry like that? We’d be caught before we left the village!” She headed into the kitchen, muttering, “Can’t depend on you for anything.”

  My head still whirring, I couldn’t respond. Instead, I tucked Omahni’s words deep inside me, like a tiny gong, reverberating endlessly.

  nine

  September, 1950

  By September, the mountains blazed with bright oranges and reds. Youngsoo and Jisoo played with the fallen leaves in the front courtyard while I pumped water from the well.

  “When can Abahji come out of the hole? He’s been in there forever,” Youngsoo said, building a tiny village of twigs and leaves.

  “Shush. Don’t talk about it.” Our family had committed such hefty crimes—lying to authorities about hiding Abahji, avoiding his conscription into the army—that I was sure the punishment would be death. For all of us. “Besides, you saw him last night when he came inside to eat and exercise.”

  “No, I was asleep! That doesn’t count.”

  He was right. Abahji had been in that hole for weeks now, appearing for only a few short minutes in the dark. I’d catch glimpses of him in the late night or early morning shadows, never knowing whether I was seeing my father or his ghost. I missed him.

  “What about Chuseok?” Youngsoo asked. “Aren’t we going to celebrate Thanksgiving this fall?”

  I thought of the sweet songpyeon, our special meal with the Kims, visits to ancestral graves, and knew there was nothing to celebrate. “Of course there’s no Chuseok this year—use your head and think. It passed anyway.”

  My buckets were full. I lifted them and shuffled toward the kitchen, water splashing over the sides.

  Closer to the house, I could hear Omahni clapping and cheering inside. One of her friends rushed out the door, a scarf covering her smiling face.

  I hurried into the main room and found Omahni sitting on the woven mat. She clapped her hands again loudly and grinned, whispering, “Oh, thank you, God. Thank you, God.”

  “What is it? Why was your old choir friend here?” I nearly dropped the buckets. I couldn’t remember the last time Omahni was this excited. Was the war over? Which side had won?

  “She received word from the South. Oh, that General MacArthur, he’s something else!” Omahni’s eyes flickered with determination.

  “MacArthur?”

  “He’s an American general. He launched a surprise attack at Inchon! He defeated the North Korean army there! And now the Americans and their allies have recaptured Seoul. Soon, we may all be free!”

  “Does that mean we don’t have to leave home?” I asked.

  Omahni gripped my shoulders. “I think we’ll soon have our freedom and be able to stay in our homeland.”

  My heart leapt. Such promising news! I imagined all the banned books coming out of hiding, like Abahji from his hole, and I laughed aloud. Then, without warning, Omahni tuned the radio to a lively pansori song and danced from side to side. I sat still with rounded eyes, but when the janggu drum kicked in, I let go of any reservation and clapped to my mother’s beat.

  I had heard the janggu drum from a half mile away. We ran down the dirt road toward the sound, Omahni hoistin
g Youngsoo on her hip and Abahji carrying me on his shoulders. The wide-eyed sun beat down the back of my neck.

  Abahji grabbed a passing villager. “Is it true? Did the Japanese surrender?”

  “Yes! The Russians have liberated us, and now the Japanese are packing up and leaving! No more Japanese rule! After thirty-five years, we are finally free!”

  Omahni burst into tears.

  By the time we arrived, the entire village had gathered on the large lot in front of the high school. The Japanese flag was torn in half, and in its place we flew the Korean flag. A group of singers stood up front, cradled by the lush Rangnim Mountains in the background, the river weaving in and out of the hills like a silk ribbon. I stood on the raised roots of a tree to see. They started singing “Arirang.”

  I looked at Abahji. He closed his eyes and sang. Omahni’s mouth quivered with the lyrics. Soon, the entire village was singing in unison, their voices sweet and strong. It was the song of a people constantly besieged, yet hopeful. Always hopeful. Pride swelled in my throat. The melody nearly lifted me off my feet, and I gripped a branch to hold on.

  The final note had everyone cheering. Then the janggu drum started thumping again, and a woman’s singsong voice rode the rhythm like a wave. Abahji clapped with the music. He grabbed Omahni’s hand. “Let’s dance,” he said. His eyes softened as he stared into her face, and I looked away, feeling suddenly shy. Omahni twirled in the dusty air, her long skirt fanning out like a lily.

  “Noona, dance too!” Youngsoo said, toddling toward me.

  I laughed and took his chubby hands. We leaned our heads back and spun. Blue sky and green mountain swirled above, colors so brilliant that I had to stop and stare.

  ten

  October, 1950

  The first bomb came in the middle of the night. When it hit, it rumbled low in the distance.