Once the Shore

by Paul Yoon

  It calmed her skin and she felt the cool of the river water bring clarity upon her surroundings, as though her vision had shifted. She began to undress. Her brother watched her, unashamed, curious. They had not bathed together in years. She heard the voices of the other children but did not care. They were far enough away. She took off her shirt, untying the sash, then folded it and placed it against the rock. She slipped off her pants, careful not to dip the ends into the water, and then took off her underwear. Her cane she leaned against a rock on the banks.

  Naked, she stood there beside the child and laughed. Ohri smiled and she dipped the soap into the water and washed herself, slowly, her skin tightening, the pebbles under her feet sinking deeper with the pressure of her weight. She turned, said, “Ohri, scrub my back,” and he did so, guiding the soap along his sister’s spine.

  She felt his hands and imagined all his years through those hands, growing, and she thought he would one day leave, she was sure of it, and her eyes welled and as much as she wanted to turn and hold him she did not. “Finished?” she said, but Ohri ignored her and continued washing her, over and over again, the same spot, she realized, between her shoulder blades, but she said nothing, did not tell him to move beyond that spot. She dipped her fingers into the water and brought them out fast, splashing her brother, and he shrieked and she did it again.

  When she heard the footsteps she thought it was Linden. But when she looked toward the banks there they were, the children of the village, standing side by side, some with their arms crossed, boys and girls, like a chain of distant hills. She rushed to grab her clothes, covering herself, then wrapped an arm around her brother, bringing him behind her. She was shivering and she pressed her clothes to her chest as the water lapped her shins, the wind around her skipping.

  “We were bathing,” she called, and her voice sounded different, echoing against the trees. Her heart sped.

  Haru was there and he stepped forward and picked up her cane. He hooked it onto his wrist and swung it wildly until it fell. He picked it up again. She watched as though time had slowed. She gripped her brother and felt the pressure of his breath against the small of her back.

  Haru called to the other children. He said, “She is in love with the Yankee.” He cupped his crotch and shook his hips. There was laughter. And then he climbed the bank. He leaned over the well and the cane hung for a moment, suspended, before he let go.

  “Whore,” he called her then, and when she did not answer he left and the others followed.

  Haemi remained there holding Ohri against her back. She no longer felt the cold. It wouldn’t be until later that she realized she had lost the soap. Down the river it floated like a miniature boat, growing smaller and smaller, and she wondered whether it had reached the sea.

  For two days the villagers argued over what to do with Linden Webb. The majority, worried about future violence, wanted him to leave at once. But there were some who, infuriated by the American patrols, grew stubborn and refused to acknowledge such demands made by foreigners. He was their guest. He could stay if it pleased him.

  Haemi avoided these meetings. Throughout this time she walked without her cane. No one seemed to notice. It remained in the well. If someone drew water she watched in case it caught the bucket but it never did. She kept close to her home, feigning sickness. Though he continued to work in the fields, Linden was seen less.

  One night, when the village was asleep, she walked the length of the road. A mild wind followed her. She could not see the moon. The pain started quickly, stemming from her ankle and rising up her thighs and into her stomach, but she continued onward, to the gate, where her father left every week. She then turned and walked back through the village. Back and forth she went. Her eyes watered and she pressed her lips together, concentrating on her feet, pale in the darkness.

  She did not blame her cousin, although whether she believed this or not she could not say for certain. The thought came as she approached the well and leaned forward and looked down at the stillness of her reflection below and the stains of stars and clouds. She saw them as the faces of everyone she had ever known and loved, observing this moment. She lifted her hand, like a departing sailor, and waved.

  It began to rain. She walked around the house and pressed her ear against the door of the shed. She heard Linden’s breathing. Across the yard the pony lifted his head, unbothered by the rain, but did not approach her. She heard the echo of an owl. The fields shone, striped by the falling water.

  She opened the door. The room was illuminated by moonlight and his figure was outlined under a blanket, lying on his side. She stepped into the shed. He woke, startled, and she said, “It’s me.” He calmed and slowly she lay down beside him. Under the light from the window he blinked. His beard smelled of citrus and the river. She gazed up at the ceiling beams and the straw, listening to the soft thud of raindrops. “This was once my father’s,” she said, tapping the wall. The night came through the window in the shape of a wing. “Linden,” she said, pointing outside. “There is heaven.”

  He craned his neck, following her finger. “That’s right,” he said.

  “There’s the rope and the bucket. There’s the water.”

  He gave her half the blanket. The rain was light yet persistent, like the soft beating of drums, and she thought of those days when her mother came here when her father was away at the market. She would examine the wooden animals on the shelf and then, looking out the window, as if checking to see if anyone were watching, she would pick up the flute. For hours she sat in the privacy of this room and shyly raised the instrument to her lips. She placed her fingers against the holes and the melody came out quiet and thin and out of tune. But she played on, her back straight, sun on her brow. Her body swaying like the slowest of pendulums.

  Her mother performed all the songs she knew and invented her own, and Haemi would sit outside against the shed wall, under the back window, and listen. With her good leg Haemi tapped the earth, matching her mother’s rhythms, pretending it was possible for her to dance. She stayed long after her mother returned to the house, facing the field, the trees across the way unmoving. The bright hats of farmers. The rush of river water. Birds through the valley. Some days thunder from faraway, the reverberations of the Pacific Ocean adjusting to a bomb. Japan on fire. And yet, before her, this changeless scene. And what world did her mother travel to on those evenings? What voice was there in music?

  She had never asked why Linden had run away. He had never asked what happened to her. Neither of them moved, lying beside each other on the shed floor underneath the blanket. The room darkened and the rain fell, blurring the window.

  She spoke quietly: “It was a fall. I used to think my father was a tree. I climbed onto his shoulders and climbed down his back. He carried me all through the valley like this. We scaled rocks. We followed the ridges. ‘Higher,’ he would say, the liquor on his breath. ‘Higher.’ I stood on his shoulders. I reached for clouds. One day he stumbled over a crevice and dropped me from a great height. I landed on my right foot. I heard the snap. When I opened my eyes my father’s body covered me like a tent and the world shook and he was running.”

  The moon had appeared again. Linden did not speak. He had pulled the blanket up to his chin. His eyes were closed, his lips parted, and she lay there watching the clear reflections of water swim across his face and the fabric, memorizing the patterns.

  “Linden,” she said. “I am sorry. But you must go.”

  She stood, wincing, and limped to the shed door. She said she would accompany him tomorrow. She would take him to the sea. And then she left.

  She woke before the light of morning. In the kitchen, in the dark, she prepared a stew her parents enjoyed during the summers. She worked quickly, letting it simmer with the garden vegetables. She took for herself a spare carrot and a shoulder bag filled with rice, fruit, and strips of dried squid. Her leg throbbed and she dipped a cloth into cold water and wrapped it around her ankle. In her pare
nts’ bedroom she bent to touch her mother’s shoulder. “Mama,” she said. “There is food in the kitchen.” She pressed two fingers against her own lips and transferred a kiss onto Ohri’s, thinking how much the boy would miss the American and what she would tell him.

  Outside, the air was damp and cool. The rain had ended, replaced by an early mist. All the windows were shuttered. The sky was a dim shade of blue. She walked around to the shed. The pony approached her, fluttering his lips to the carrot she held up to his mouth. The door of the shed stood ajar. In the same moment she knew, and did not go inside.

  Hurrying, Haemi used a stepladder to climb on top of the pony’s back. She stroked his mane and spoke to him and clicked her tongue. With some effort she pressed her legs against his sides. He moved forward, following the footpath around the house and out onto the clearing. On instinct he turned to face the village gate but she pulled hard on his mane and the pony turned again toward the grove.

  They moved through the low mist, under the bright remnants of stars. At the edge of the field, where the forest began, the animal hesitated. Again she pressed her legs together, the pain rising to her waist, and he entered the trail and began to climb the hill. She concentrated on his hooves striking the dirt. She leaned against him to avoid the branches.

  In this way they ascended the hill forest. Behind her the village was waking, the farmers walking out to the fields where the trees seemed no bigger than shrubs, lined in even rows, a giant’s garden. The winds were strong and she gripped the pony’s mane. They climbed as fast as the animal could go, the forest canopy beginning to pale.

  The cave did not appear to be where it had always been. Instead, through the mist, she saw a cluster of trees blocking the way, their thin branches at varying angles, some pointing at the sky, others parallel with the ground, and still others drooping down. She halted.

  Then the trees moved. It was as though they beckoned to her, stepping aside for her to enter. She comforted the pony as she slowly approached and the trees turned into men, their dark clothes now distinguishing themselves from the leaves of the forest.

  Behind them she could see the cave where the offerings were kept. The baskets lay scattered on the ground, overturned, the grains lying in a heap and spilling over the entrance. The men kept silent, looking at her and the pony with indifference. They wore thick belts, a shade of green that was lighter than their uniforms. They carried rifles. One of them tossed a handful of dried fruit into his mouth; another had taken a piece of white silk from the cave and wrapped it around his head.

  In the middle of them stood Linden Webb. His face was bruised and blood dripped from his nostrils and mouth, staining the shirt he wore on the day he came to the village. He lowered his head; two men kept their weapons aimed at him.

  The soldier wearing the silk patted the pony’s flank, his hand brushing her leg, and spoke. She did not understand him. In the early light his face shone, his nose flat and crooked, as if he had broken it long ago. The silk was knotted at the back of his head and the loose ends flowed past his shoulders. He moved the way she thought spirits did, with a careful slowness. It seemed he was waiting for her to reply but grew impatient and rolled his eyes.

  He motioned for her to dismount. She stumbled, limping back toward the pony. When she turned to face him he was staring at her body and the wet cloth around her ankle. He moved closer. She focused on the trees behind him. Heard his breathing. Gently he lifted the braid of her hair, his knuckles grazing her ear, and removed the bag from her shoulder. He inspected its contents, then, satisfied, gave it to the nearest man.

  He twirled his finger around the side of his head. He pointed at Linden. He twirled his fingers again. “Do you understand?” he said, and then in her language he said the words for “sickness” and “patient.”

  He looked at her once more, whistled, and then left the clearing. The others followed. They were young and their steps betrayed fatigue. They passed her and the pony without speaking, sweat and dirt streaked across their cheeks from trying to wipe it all away.

  And Linden. When he approached her their eyes met briefly. She called to him. And then she stepped forward to embrace him, and as their chests touched she took her father’s knife and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

  If he noticed he made no sign of showing it. She would never know if it served him in some way. He walked away. Soon, as the distance between her and the men increased, she could no longer tell them apart. She remained motionless. The pony picked grains. The blood on her shirt and fingers began to dry. Daylight appeared above the valley and spread across the distant ridge, where a group of silhouettes were walking, it seemed, along the edge of a continent. She followed their course and imagined the sea beside them until at last their shadows fell and they were gone.

  LOOK FOR ME IN THE CAMPHOR TREE

  ON THE DAY MIHNA’S FATHER sold their farm and the land surrounding it, the child kneeled on top of the bed she had slept in all these years and pressed her nose against the cold windowpane. Her breath fogged the glass in bright rings, then receded to a small point in the shape of her open mouth. It was winter and the first snow had already settled along the hills and in the woods, dimming the trees. Hoofprints littered the fields where the ponies grazed and among those lay the narrow path her father had made to be with them.

  Overnight, icicles had formed above the front entrance of the house and it was there a man was now taking leave of her father. He had visited several times over these past months. Whenever he greeted her, he bent down to pat her head and Mihna felt the urge to wash her hair afterward, although his fingers were as clean as polished silver. A businessman, her father had said. He was short and carried a briefcase. He wore tweed suits and, even in this weather, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, which he then tucked inside his jacket pocket. He was courteous with her father and as they parted, he bowed and shook hands with him.

  Today seemed no different than any of his previous visits. After they said their goodbyes, however, her father did not call to her as he usually did. In these winter months the light faded before suppertime but it was early still, not yet afternoon, the sky clear, the sun the color of ivory. The car descended the hill, leaving clouds of engine exhaust across the fields, and her father remained there in front of the door as if he had spent the night in that position.

  The ponies had yet to raise their heads, huddled under the wide shade of the camphor tree. Save for the occasional escape, having somehow learned to unlock the gate that led into the forest, they stood in the fields all throughout the day, sifting the snow and chewing on the frozen grass. Riders had been scarce in this season, though a few couples paid for lessons and rode across the grounds. The ponies were obedient in those times, their hooves flicking arcs of powder as they followed one another. Every day, at dusk, her father led each of them back down to the stable, emptying the field, where the snow blazed copper under the setting sun.

  She used to accompany him and hold the lead rope, her father beside her, encouraging. “Guide them with your elbow,” he said. And from the far hill, on the neighbor’s farm, she heard the cows, a deep song, as though it came from the bottom of the sea.

  But it had been weeks since she had done so, her father working alone. “You won’t be with me now?” he said the night before, as he visited her in bed. She didn’t know how to respond, feigning sleep. His hand touched her cheek and then he left, leaving the door ajar, as he always did. When her father was asleep, Mihna stood with all the intention of going to him. “I am sorry, Papa,” she wanted to say, but she didn’t leave the room. She remained on the edge of the bed, her toes unable to move from the floor, and she cried, pressing her fingertips against her closed eyes.

  It wasn’t a new life, she told herself. It wouldn’t be any different. He had said as much. He had called for her, she remembered, several months ago, while she was listening to the radio, the way she did after dinner, listening to the songs and the stories that were on every Friday. �
��The Fox and the Maiden,” was the story on that evening, when her father knocked. “Mihna,” he said, “Come here.” He picked her up, which he hadn’t done in a year, Mihna too big, too old, as her mother used to say, and she rested her chin on his shoulder as he carried her down the hallway. She was wearing her striped pajamas, the ones she had begged her father to purchase at a department store because they resembled the clothes a prisoner wore in an American movie she had seen.

  She sat where she did every night beside the dining table, where her mother once sat, to his left. Her hair, unbraided in the evenings, shone dark against the setting sun. She had her mother’s hair, it was often said, and her worried eyes. From her father she had inherited his small nose, his pointed chin, and his gentleness. Mihna was not yet nine.

  “I’m so sorry, Mihna,” her father said.

  He was selling the farm. He had decided. He had tried, her father continued. He had done all that he could. He could no longer manage it, the house itself too large for the two of them alone. A smaller place was what they needed, he said. They would find a house close by. He had thought of her school, considered her friends, the ponies also. He would still run the stable. That was all arranged by the man whose hotel was to be built. He would give lessons for the tourists.

  How long they were there beside the table Mihna couldn’t remember.

  “Say something,” her father said. “Please, Mihna. Say whatever you want.”

  She had been staring at her father’s hands, old and brittle. She looked away. She thought she had been helping with the farm, she wanted to say. For a year now she had been doing so. But instead she told him she understood and then asked if she could return to the radio.