by Julie Lee
I couldn’t breathe.
Uncle walked the doctor out of the house and across the long courtyard to the street, and I watched them with a feeling of being caught in a dream. Once we reached Busan, Youngsoo was supposed to get better, but now he was dying. Dying. From inside Youngsoo’s room, sounds of grief rose like floodwaters. I clasped my ears, tensing every muscle in my body.
The pounding in my chest grew louder and harder until I could do nothing but run out the front gate.
On blistered feet, I ran to the busy Gukje Market. Different sounds rushed me now—hard-edged haggling, the dueling calls of merchants. I passed a stand full of ceramic bowls and had the urge to smash them to the ground. My face felt hot, and I tugged hard on my shirt collar.
It was the war’s fault. Because of those Reds. The color of murder. If we hadn’t had to trek across the country, if North Korea had been fit to live in, Youngsoo would’ve never gotten sick. Where could I enlist on the side of the South? I’d do it right now. Just give me a rifle, and I would rage into the middle of a battle.
Then I had a terrible thought—it was all my fault.
If I had sided with Omahni, then we would have stayed home, and Youngsoo never would have caught pneumonia. Or, if I had gone straight south instead of heading back north, we would’ve found Omahni and Abahji sooner. Or, if I had taken better care of him on the journey—fed, clothed, carried him more—he wouldn’t have grown so ill.
I stared into some shiny metal pots. My face was ashen, as pale and gray as a round moon in a midnight sky. “Fine pots! Fine steel pots!” the pot-seller shouted, taking a wooden spoon and clanging them like a bell.
But I could hardly hear. My long shadow stood beside me as the sun slipped lower on the horizon, the doctor’s words echoing in my head. He doesn’t have much time left. I needed to go back to Uncle’s house. Back to Youngsoo.
I darted through the marketplace, bumping into strangers, crashing into a crate. An avalanche of oranges tumbled down. Glazed bowls shattered into pieces.
“Yah, crazy girl!” someone shouted from behind. “You’ve ruined everything!”
forty-two
When I reached the front gate, the house was quiet. I lifted the metal latch and walked across the courtyard.
Maybe it was all untrue—a misunderstanding.
Maybe Youngsoo was fine.
I took off my shoes and stepped into the sitting room. No one was there. I slid open the door to our bedroom.
Omahni sat on the floor beside him, pounding him on the back, urging him to “cough it out,” but he only moaned in protest. I cringed.
“Where is Abahji?” I asked.
“Your father went out with Uncle to get herbal medicine,” Omahni said. She wouldn’t look at me, just continued slapping Youngsoo on the back.
“Omahni, I don’t think that’s helping,” I said.
Youngsoo glanced up at me gratefully.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Omahni said. “He’s my son. I haven’t done enough for him.”
“But you’ve done everything for him.”
“I haven’t!” Omahni jumped up and gripped me by the shoulders. “Sora-ya, listen carefully. When you were traveling with Youngsoo, did you make sure he was warm enough? How much food did he eat? At what point did his cough worsen?”
I stood frozen. Had I kept him warm enough? How much food had I given him? I could’ve done more. I should’ve done more.
“Enough, please, Sister-in-law!” Auntie said, stepping into the room. “Listen to your daughter. Slapping Youngsoo on the back isn’t doing any good. You’re just making it more difficult for him.”
Omahni dropped her hands to her sides, looking lost. “But what can I do?”
“Come with me, and let me pour you some tea. Sora can sit with Youngsoo for a little while.”
“No,” Omahni said. “I’m not leaving his side.”
“Sister-in-law,” Auntie said, her voice softening. “Sora wants to be with Youngsoo. Let the children have some time together.”
Omahni’s face crumpled. Auntie led her from the room by the arm, as if she were a small child, and shut the sliding door behind them.
Bottles of strange tinctures and dark-colored drinks with gangly roots floating inside lined the floor. My map sat in the corner, neatly folded and tucked under the edge of a tray where I had left it. Just this morning, I had shown it to Youngsoo, pointing to the shores of America and making grand plans. How stupid of me. To assume that after all we had been through, Youngsoo would be well, and we would be happy. Was it too much to ask?
I reached for the map, unfolded it, then crushed it into a tight ball and threw it on the floor. It lay in a twisted clump. I collapsed beside Youngsoo, hugging my knees.
He lay on his mat and stared at the wrinkled-up paper. “Noona, will you go to school here?” He could hardly get the words out between breaths.
“I don’t know. That’s not important now.”
“You should. You’re the smartest person in the whole world.”
I forced a small smile.
Did he know? Had he heard the doctor? Why wasn’t he afraid? I looked at him and thought that his ears had grown terribly large, but in fact it was his face that had grown terribly thin.
The sun had nearly set, and all at once, I felt an urgency to play games with him, to talk about fishing and favorite foods, to get in the dirt and make mud pies. To show him just how much I loved him. I searched the room for something—anything—and found a flat box on top of the chest: a board game we had played back home.
“Youngsoo, do you want to play yoot?”
He nodded.
I put the game on the floor and opened the box. The pieces looked just like the ones we had when we were younger.
“Noona! Set the game here!” Youngsoo had said, his chubby hand patting the picnic blanket on the grass.
“Okay, but I go first.” I opened the box, set up the pieces, then flipped the wooden sticks so high that they landed in every direction, including in the bushes.
He bent over laughing, his five-year-old body rolling on the grass.
Now Youngsoo lay still. Only his eyes shifted across the board.
I grabbed the short wooden sticks and threw them up in the air. They landed with a clatter across the wooden floor. I moved the flat, round piece two spaces. Maybe if we both stayed awake, the day would go on forever.
“Your turn, Youngsoo.”
The sticks landed in a tangled heap.
“You got a lucky five!” I said.
“Wah…” The tiniest stream of air slipped past Youngsoo’s lips. His face lifted briefly, a small glint in his eyes. How could something so small make him smile at a time like this?
“Lucky five! I got a lucky five!” he had said, jumping up and down. “Noona, did you know this is my favorite game in the whole world—no—the whole universe?”
Youngsoo sucked in long breaths. I flipped the sticks in the air. Another loud clatter. Two more spaces.
“You’re still ahead of me, Youngsoo.”
The waning sun cast a warm glow in the room, turning everything golden. Youngsoo, bathing in that light, looked up at me and smiled. I had to remember the straight lines of his lashes and the way his hair spiraled in that one spot on the crown of his head.
“I don’t want to play anymore. I know you’re going to beat me,” I had said, crossing my arms.
“It’s okay, Noona. I still might lose.”
He tossed the sticks, and they barely lifted off the floor, landing facedown.
“Lucky five, again!” I said. But my voice sounded hollow and faraway. Desperation edged its way into every syllable. “You’re winning, Youngsoo. You’re still winning.”
forty-three
January 3, 1951
The next day, on a blue-skied Sunday morning, I found myself lying on my mat.
A thread dangled from my blanket, and I twirled it around my finger until my nail turned purple. The study was
bright, the sun already hanging high in the sky. I was alone and couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here. I last remembered staying up beside Youngsoo.
I scrambled out of bed and ran to the main sitting room.
Everyone was inside.
Omahni sat on the floor, cradling Youngsoo. She swept his hair to the side of his face, then smoothed his wrinkled shirt. Her shoulders rocked back and forth. She laid his hand on top of hers and stared at his fingers as if she were noticing for the first time how small they really were.
Abahji stood over Omahni, blotting his eyes with a handkerchief, his face red and puffy. Uncle stood off to the side, sniffling and clearing his throat while Auntie sat on the floor, hugging Jisoo on her lap.
A prickly feeling scurried up the back of my neck. “What’s going on?” I cried out from the doorway.
Omahni jerked and dropped Youngsoo’s hand. Everyone looked up in surprise as if they had forgotten I was in the house.
Then I knew, from the way his hand fell.
He was gone.
My stomach plummeted. The air was sucked out of the room. Uncle and Auntie said something, but their voices were just muffled sounds. They moved toward me. Arms curled around my shoulders. I shook them away. Don’t touch me, shot into the room. Had it come from me? My mouth hung open. Pleading voices filled the air. Sora, please calm down.
A sob welled in my throat. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not yet, not ever. There was still more I needed to say. Had he known that I never minded taking care of him, not really? That it wasn’t his fault I couldn’t go to school? That there was no one else I would’ve rather had by my side? I tried hard to remember if I’d ever told him this.
“Let me die, too!” Omahni wailed. She thumped herself over the heart and wouldn’t stop.
Auntie jumped up, and Jisoo tumbled off her lap. She wrapped her arms around Omahni, soothing, embracing, and restraining her all at once. Jisoo lay frozen on his back, staring up at me, too afraid to move. Get up, I wanted to scream at my littlest brother. You’re a baby. Do something cute, make everyone laugh. But when he wouldn’t, my heart slid down faster.
Abahji walked over and pressed my face into his chest. His shirt smelled medicinal, like desperation and dying. And for once, I turned my face, not wanting to breathe in Abahji’s scent. “It’ll be okay, Sora-ya,” he whispered. But his voice broke when he said it.
I knew nothing would be okay. I had lost my brother, my best friend.
From the edge of my eye, I could see Youngsoo lying on his mat. Maybe Omahni and Abahji were mistaken. They weren’t doctors. Had they checked his breath?
But as soon as I went and looked at his face—so slack, so hollow—I knew every trace of him was gone. My head started lifting like a balloon, detaching from myself, looking down on the tiny room as if it belonged to a dollhouse, all of us nothing but toy figures.
We would never talk again, never see each other grow up. There would be no fishing, no grand gestures offering me any catch in the sea.
I took in a shuddering breath.
Although I had known it was coming, nothing could’ve prepared me for this moment, this feeling of utter loss and loneliness.
forty-four
January, 1951
The days passed in a fog.
Everyone rushed around the house preparing for the burial. I did nothing to help. From morning till night, I sat in the corner of the sitting room beside the colorful wardrobe, my eyes round and ring-tailed. My one task, given to me by my father: keep my face angled away from the study where Youngsoo’s body lay.
“Why don’t you take a break? It’s dark outside,” I overheard Abahji say to Omahni in the kitchen.
Omahni’s hands blurred in a chopping frenzy, bits of minced garlic falling to the floor. “Everyone will come after the funeral, and I still need to prepare the dduk and yukaejang soup,” she said, not looking at him. Pots and pans covered every cooking surface. A slab of raw meat dripped blood over the edge of a cutting board, and I thought I could feel myself draining the same way.
“Why isn’t Sister-in-law helping? Where is she, anyway? I’ll go find her,” Abahji said, heading toward the door.
“Don’t. She has been helping.”
“Then let her do the rest.”
“No, I have to make his food. No one else. Just me.”
Abahji held the sides of her arms and stared into her face, his eyes searching. “Please, stop fretting over the food. Just stop.”
That was when Omahni shrugged his hands off her shoulders like a wild, bucking horse, and Abahji stumbled backward.
“I need to do this,” she said, her voice low and steady.
Abahji looked at her and nodded, his unshaven face long and drawn. “Fine, I’ll leave you alone. I need to get ready for the funeral as well.” When he walked out, he glanced at me sitting in the corner, then lowered his eyes and continued out the front door.
Omahni stopped chopping. I heard a snuffling sound from the kitchen.
I curled myself into a tight ball, covering my ears and squeezing my eyes shut. I didn’t want to picture her standing still, the back of her hand to her lips, shoulders shaking. I gritted my teeth.
The next morning, I woke in the same crook of the room, a blanket covering me. Everyone had already gotten up. It seemed like no one slept anymore.
I opened my mouth wide to stretch it after not talking for days, and my lips cracked and bled. When I got up to get a cup of water, I found Omahni still cooking, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. I pretended not to notice and hurried back to my corner where it was safe, where I could sleep endlessly, where no one saw me, even when they walked right past my legs splayed out like a rag doll’s.
Later that day, I ate four bites of rice. Auntie wouldn’t leave the kitchen until I’d finished chewing every grain. So skinny, she’d said. Eat more. You’re disappearing. But the rice clumped in my throat like cotton balls; I could hardly swallow. I just wanted to return to the corner. So, I moved my jaws up and down like a piston to earn my pass back to solitude.
With Auntie’s approval, I returned to my usual spot. But something in the room had changed. I could sense it, like a dog with its ears pricked. The back of my neck stiffened, a pounding droned in my ears, my palms turned slick.
Youngsoo’s door was slid open.
My head snapped away from that opening as if something had jumped up and bitten me on my other side. I didn’t want to look when only his body lay in that room, like an imposter. I stared at a knot in the wooden floor, even put my finger in it, but when slippers started shuffling inside the other room, I let my eyes wander toward the sound.
Omahni sat on the floor, swaddling Youngsoo in white hemp like a cocoon. She took her time, wrapping and unwrapping, then wrapping again, until the binding was perfectly taut. I stared long and hard at those bands of cloth stretched over the shape of my brother, wishing that he would emerge like a butterfly from its chrysalis. A sickly sweet perfume came from his direction, permeating my nostrils even in the main hall, and I wanted to stop breathing.
Omahni tied the last knot in the hemp. The cloth covered him from head to toe, like an extra skin between us, and I could feel him slipping even further away. Omahni must’ve felt it too, because she grabbed the one thing we had left of him—his coat—and brought it to her face. After a few seconds, she laid it flat on the floor, smoothing one sleeve, then the other, and straightening the front. I knew she would want to fold it into a perfect square to keep forever. Her hand grazed over the pocket, then paused in midair.
I leaned closer toward the door.
Omahni reached inside the pocket and pulled out a cluster of objects: a spinning top, a handful of river rocks, fishing net string, and twigs. I stared at the unexpected treasures—we both did. Were those the things he grabbed when Abahji had told us to pack only the essentials? And on our way here, after walking all day, our knees shaking, had he carried handfuls of rocks in his pocket?
I clamped
a hand over my mouth, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. It was like seeing Youngsoo again, his small, grubby hands touching all of it.
I blinked, the fog lifting briefly. Pieces of him had followed us here and were now staring up at me, saying that I’d fed him enough, clothed him enough, carried him enough, and that he had been happy. I laughed and snorted, not even caring about the snot dripping from my nose, because it was the first sound I’d uttered in days while sitting trapped inside myself.
Omahni cupped the objects in her hands and sniffed deeply. I wanted to step into that room and do the same, but I didn’t, a part of me still afraid. Whether I touched those things or not didn’t matter. More important, we needed to preserve Youngsoo’s belongings in a special box for the safest keeping—on this, I knew Omahni would agree. We just had to find a box. As if she could read my thoughts, Omahni got up and searched the room, and when she couldn’t find what she wanted, she put Youngsoo’s things back into the pocket, then resumed folding his coat.
“Omahni, we can get a pretty box at the Gukje Market,” I said from the other side of the sliding door.
But she continued only folding.
forty-five
January 6, 1951
The next day was the funeral.
Abahji and Uncle carried the coffin on a wooden bier. They stopped once at the gate and lowered it three times before heading toward Yongdu Mountain—a gesture to mark Youngsoo’s final departure from this house. They stared at the ground as they walked, stoic as two monks, though I could see the line of Abahji’s clamped lips quivering.
I looked up at the fresh blue sky. It felt like spring in the middle of winter—like that afternoon by the Imjin River, before it had turned bloody.
Nothing seemed real. I felt weightless as I trailed behind Abahji and Uncle, my arms stuck at my sides. That morning, I had searched Abahji’s eyes for reassurance, but he looked right through me as if I were dead too.
