Finding Junie Kim

by Ellen Oh

  Tears rolled down Sunjin’s cheeks as he followed the soldier quietly. The only sound now was the weeping of Sunjin’s mother as they were led away.

  Anguished, Doha tried to follow, but Gunwoo held him back.

  “Are you crazy? Didn’t you hear the soldier? They’ll arrest you too!”

  This time Doha shoved Gunwoo away.

  “I don’t understand you, Gunwoo!” Doha yelled. “Sunjin’s our friend! You’ve eaten at his house many times. We’ve played together for years! How could you do this?”

  “He’s not my friend! You’re my friend. But if you keep defending him, you won’t be anymore!”

  Doha stared in disbelief. What had happened to Gunwoo? He shook his head sadly. “Gunwoo, I don’t know you anymore.”

  Gunwoo stepped right up to Doha’s face. “Maybe that’s what happens when your father is murdered for rejecting Communism. And your mother is stabbed almost to death just because her son became a military policeman. Maybe the Gunwoo you knew is dead because the Reds destroyed his family. I would have rather died than do anything for the Red scum. Sunjin should have known better.”

  His intensity was too much for Doha. “I understand how you feel . . .”

  “Then stand by my side, not Sunjin’s!” Gunwoo cut in.

  “Gunwoo,” Doha said carefully. “This isn’t right.”

  “Then you’re no longer a friend of mine.” Gunwoo stepped back, his eyes still burning with the intensity of his emotions. He turned and followed the soldiers, walking away without a single glance back.

  Doha shivered as a chill went through him. What had happened to his friend?

  Junie

  “No! How could he do that? I don’t understand!” I explode in anger. “He put Sunjin and his mother in terrible danger! That’s just wrong!”

  Grandpa is silent as I rant and rave. When I’m finally done, he says, “Maybe this is a good time to take a break.”

  “No, no, I’m fine, Grandpa,” I say, as mildly as I can. “I can keep going if you can. . . .”

  IN ORDER TO HELP SUNJIN and his mother, Doha knew he had to talk to his father. He was the only one Doha could think of who could save his friend.

  Doha raced back to the clinic, shouting desperately for his father.

  “Doha, what is it? What is wrong?” His mother came out first.

  “I need Abeoji! Sunjin is in terrible trouble! The soldiers took him and his mother to prison. They said they were Communist collaborators!”

  “Omo! Yeobo! Yeobo!” Doha’s mother hurried inside, calling for her husband. Doha entered the waiting room and collapsed onto a stool, exhausted by everything that had happened.

  Dr. Han came out quickly, wiping his hands on a towel. “Tell me everything.”

  The words came tumbling out of Doha as he tried to explain the situation. His father listened carefully, asking only a few questions. When Doha finished his telling, he could see the serious expression of concern on his father’s face. Dr. Han squatted in front of Doha and wiped his tears away with a clean handkerchief.

  “Doha, I want you to listen carefully,” his father said. “Stay here. Don’t go anywhere. I know the commanding officer. I’m going to go and talk to him. But you must stay here, okay?”

  Doha nodded. He watched as his father gave instructions to his nurses and then walked out of the clinic, still wearing his white doctor’s coat. An enormous sense of relief washed over him. Sunjin would be all right. Doha’s father would save him.

  Not long after, Doha’s mother took him by the hand and walked him home. Halmoni had made chicken soup. Although Doha wasn’t hungry, his grandmother gently coerced him to eat every bite, stroking his back the whole time. His mother and sister ate quickly and returned to the clinic while Doha waited anxiously for his father.

  “Rest, my little puppy,” Halmoni said, “so you can grow strong and healthy.”

  Doha went to his room, crawled into his blankets, and closed his eyes.

  He woke up to the sound of his grandmother greeting his father. Several hours must have passed as it was now completely dark. In the living room, he could hear the hushed voices of the grown-ups. Creeping to the outer door, Doha listened.

  “The ROKA soldiers are just as bad as the North Koreans,” his father said bitterly. “They refuse to listen to reason. Everything is black and white. Good or bad.”

  “What does that mean for Sunjin? Where are they?”

  Dr. Han heaved a deep sigh. “They are being held in jail at the police station. They’ve got so many people crowded in there. Most of them are poor peasants who only signed up with the Reds’ People’s Committees so they could get free rice! Their only crime is hunger!”

  Doha’s mother let out a shocked cry. “I almost signed up for that. I could have destroyed our family!”

  “Aigo, aigo, what is happening to our country?” Halmoni asked. “What will happen to them?”

  “I tried to talk to the leadership, but they refused to see me on this matter. They say there will be trials held for all the prisoners. I’ll have to make sure to go to Sunjin’s and speak for them. That’s the best I can do right now,” Dr. Han said.

  “My son.” Halmoni’s voice seemed quite urgent. “Maybe you should stop. What if they arrest you also? What would we do?”

  “How can I not speak up when something so wrong is happening? If we are silent now, then they will still come for us later. It will not stop.”

  There was a long silence.

  “What will you tell Doha?”

  “I’ll tell him the truth,” his father replied. “But not now. Let him sleep. I have to go back to the clinic and check on my patients.”

  “Eat first, my son,” Halmoni said. “You need all your strength.”

  Doha crept back into his room and went back to bed. His father’s words had reawakened the awful fear from earlier in the day. His friend was in jail waiting to be put on trial for the crime of helping the Reds. His other friend was the one who’d put him there. What kind of tragedy was this? And if his father spoke up, it could put him in danger also. Doha felt utterly helpless.

  Early in the morning, Doha’s father came to wake him up.

  “Doha, I know you are really worried about Sunjin and his mother, but try not to be too anxious,” his father said. “The ROKA are not like the Communists. There will be a trial. And I will do all I can to talk to whoever will help them.”

  Doha wiped the tears from his eyes and nodded. “Thank you, Abeoji.”

  His father patted his cheek with a smile. “I know it will be hard for you to see your friend in prison. It isn’t fair. Even though we know Sunjin and his mother are innocent, and that they were forced into helping the Communists, there have been a lot of bad feelings and people are not reacting rationally. I can only hope the trials at least will be fair.”

  As his father got up to leave, Doha couldn’t hold back his feelings. “I hate Gunwoo!” he cried. “He told the ROKA that Sunjin and his mother were collaborators. He turned them in.”

  The tears began to fall faster as Doha couldn’t hold back his emotions.

  “Why, Appa? Why would he do that? I don’t understand.”

  His father sat down and gathered Doha into his embrace, letting him cry as he patted his back. “Gunwoo is angry with the world,” his father said. “And in his pain, he doesn’t know that he is hurting others. That he is doing wrong.”

  “I don’t care! I’m so mad at Gunwoo and scared for Sunjin.”

  His father pulled away to look into Doha’s face. “My son. You are a good friend in a difficult situation. But do not hate Gunwoo. Pity him. For he may end up hating himself far more in the future.”

  Doha wasn’t sure about that. But he didn’t know what to think anymore. “Will it be okay if I go visit Sunjin? Maybe I can bring him food?”

  His father hesitated but finally nodded. “Yes, but you must go with your noona.”

  With one last affectionate ruffle of Doha’s hair, his
father rose to his feet and left the room.

  Later in the morning, Doha’s mother packed a small wooden container full of food, including fruit, and tied it with a brightly colored wrapping cloth for easy carrying.

  “Doha, I don’t know if the prison guards will let you bring this to Sunjin and his mother,” she said with a worried frown. She turned to Doha’s sister and handed her the package.

  “Yuni, you explain to the guards for Doha,” she said.

  “Yes, Eomma,” Yuni replied. “Let’s go, Doha.”

  Full of nervous energy, Doha hurried to slip on his shoes and wait for his sister at the front gate. He chafed at the slow pace his sister kept. He wanted to hurry her but knew she’d get mad. Yuni was a kind and gentle person, but she had only one pace. Slow and steady like an ox. Although Doha could have run to the prison and back in the time it took Yuni to walk to the police station, he swallowed back his impatience and stayed by her side.

  “Doha, weren’t you afraid when you saw the soldiers take Sunjin away? They could’ve taken you too!”

  Shrugging, Doha kicked a stone hard, watching it raise clouds of dust where it hit the road. “Gunwoo told them to leave me alone,” he said bitterly. “But honestly, I still can’t accept what he did.”

  Yuni nodded. “But we all know Gunwoo. He’s been hurting bad. We have to understand and forgive him.”

  “But what about Sunjin and his mom? Gunwoo sent them to prison! No matter how badly he suffered, I can’t forgive him for ratting them out! What if something terrible happens to them? How can he live with himself?” Doha choked a little on his words as he could feel the frightened tears he was so desperately suppressing.

  “Sunjin and his mother are good people who have already suffered too much in life,” Yuni said. “I’m sure they will be released. Abeoji will help them.”

  His sister’s warm hand slid into his and held it tightly. He rubbed his eyes and focused on the road before them. His father was the smartest person in the world. He would trust in his father to save his friend.

  Junie

  “Grandpa, you can’t stop there! I need to know what happens!”

  “Junie, I just need a glass of water.”

  “Oh, okay,” I say sheepishly and dash off to the kitchen.

  I rush back with ice water, then anxiously watch him drink it. Grandpa takes his time, leaving me squirming in my chair.

  IN THE TOWN SQUARE, THE marketplace was busy with people again. But it was not the normal buzz of usual business. There seemed to be a watchfulness. An air of distrust and apprehension. As they passed the stalls of seafood vendors, a fight broke out between a merchant and a customer. The two women were shouting at each other.

  “Oh, it’s the squid ahjumma!” Yuni said. “She talks in such a mean voice, but actually she’s really nice. Whenever I go buy seafood from her, she always gives me a sweet treat. I wonder why she’s fighting with that woman?”

  Doha looked over at the woman. She wasn’t familiar to him. The fighting intensified, and both Doha and Yuni were shocked when the customer called the squid vendor a very bad word. He was not as surprised then when the customer got slapped. His grandmother told him that if he ever used words like that he would be beaten.

  The woman became so angry, she began screaming at the top of her lungs. She accused the squid merchant of being a Communist sympathizer. An immediate chill went down Doha’s spine. This was even worse than the curse words she’d used before.

  “Oh no, what is she doing?” Yuni asked in shock. “The squid ahjumma might be mean, but she’s never been a Red.”

  Doha was close enough to see the horror on the merchant lady’s face. She was trying to appease the other woman, who kept screaming until the soldiers who were stationed at the marketplace came to her aid. Doha and Yuni watched as the soldiers started to tie the merchant’s hands together. When her husband came out to stop them, they tied him up also and dragged them both away.

  Doha could not believe what he was seeing. He glanced at the customer and saw a mix of smugness and guilt on her face. Was she happy about what she’d just done? Was she perfectly fine sending innocent people to jail? What was wrong with her?

  But it was his sister who really surprised him. Yuni, who was slow to anger, was visibly upset. She rushed toward the woman before she could leave.

  “Ahjumma,” Yuni said loudly. “The squid merchant is not a Communist sympathizer. Why did you say that?”

  The customer glared at Yumi. “How dare you speak so disrespectfully to your elder! Who are your parents?”

  Yuni bowed deeply. “Forgive me. My father is Dr. Han, and I don’t mean any disrespect. But I must please ask you to take back your accusation.”

  A crowd was now forming around them. Other merchants were yelling angrily at the customer for falsely accusing the squid merchant.

  “You’ve never liked her and always accused her of ripping you off!” the vendor from the nearby fruit stand shouted. “That’s a horrible thing you did!”

  The customer waved her hands angrily in the air. “You don’t know anything! I saw her talking to the Reds and smiling at them. Giving them free seafood.”

  “That doesn’t make her a collaborator!”

  “We all had to smile at them in order to survive!”

  The customer tried to leave, but Yuni stepped in front of her. “I’m very sorry, Ahjumma! But please take back your accusation!”

  The woman slapped Yuni hard and pushed her out of the way. “If you don’t stop bothering me, I’m going to report all of you as Communists!”

  Her words quieted everyone, and the woman walked away. But for the first time, Doha felt a terrible rage overcome him. The sheer injustice of everything he had witnessed was too much. Gunwoo’s father brutally murdered, Sunjin and his mother dragged to prison, his whole world thrown upside down by political ideology. Unable to control his temper, Doha grabbed a tangerine from the fruit stand and threw it at the woman’s back, screaming “Don’t you hit my sister!”

  When the woman turned around in fury, Doha whipped another one at her chest.

  “Ah, you nasty brat!” Before she could attack him, an egg came flying through the air and hit her on the side of her head.

  When he turned around, Doha’s mouth gaped open to see his sister holding another egg in her raised hand.

  “You are a horrible, evil woman,” Yuni said fiercely. The woman’s eyes went wide, and she beat a hasty retreat.

  His sister put down the egg but continued to glare at the retreating woman. Behind her, the merchants who had gathered to support her were all holding some kind of food item at the ready.

  Yuni turned to the merchants in alarm. “We have to stop her! She made a false report!”

  The fruit vendor put her arm around Yuni and squeezed her for comfort.

  “That woman will never take it back,” the woman said grimly. “She is a terrible person. The only hope we have is to try to talk to the authorities. But we will do that. You go home now.”

  “But the squid ahjumma—they took her to prison!”

  “There’s nothing you can do,” the fruit vendor said. She urged them to leave.

  Yuni took Doha by the hand and slowly walked out of the marketplace.

  “Noona, are you all right?” Doha asked anxiously.

  She shook her head. “It’s supposed to be better now,” she whispered. “The Communists are gone. But why is life still so scary?”

  The soldiers hadn’t even tried to listen to the squid merchant or her husband. They just heard “Communist sympathizer” and took them away. It was frightening.

  “Maybe they knew the ahjumma, and that’s why they believed her?” Doha asked.

  “That’s not right! They are bad people! They are garbage dog excrement . . .”

  “Noona!” Doha cut her off in surprise. He’d never heard his sister use bad words before.

  Yuni’s lips tightened and she began to walk faster, dragging Doha along.

&n
bsp; “They took her to the prison,” she barked. “Let’s go help them and Sunjin.”

  Running to keep up with Yuni’s long, quick strides, Doha marveled at the change in his usually mild-mannered sister. The normally placid, slow-moving ox was now on a rampage.

  At the prison, the soldiers were stern and intimidating. Yuni respectfully approached the desk guard and asked if they could bring food to Sunjin and his mother. They motioned for her to leave the food on the desk as they wrote down Sunjin’s name. The desk guard gestured for them to leave, but Yuni stayed put.

  “Sir, I wanted to report that we just came from the marketplace and a woman falsely accused a merchant and her husband of being Communist sympathizers,” she said. Her voice trembled but she showed no fear.

  The desk guard slowly put down the papers he was shuffling through and gazed at Yuni with cold eyes. He was a middle-aged man with a severe hair part that was slicked back with pomade so thick that it made his hair look waxed.

  “And how would you know that it is false?” he asked. Doha shuddered, and he pulled at his sister’s arm in warning. The desk guard’s voice dripped with disdain.

  Disregarding Doha, Yuni continued. “Because I know them—”

  “You know the Communist sympathizers?” His eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Tell me again who you are bringing this food to. Are they also fake Communist sympathizers?” He tapped at the package sitting on his desk.

  “Fake? They aren’t Communist sympathizers at all! They were forced to because—”

  Before she could continue, several soldiers surrounded Yuni and Doha as the desk guard walked around his desk to stand deliberately close to them.

  “Who are you, and what is your association to the prisoners?”

  “Sunjin is only eleven, and he has been friends with my little brother since they were babies,” Yuni answered. “We are the children of Dr. Han, who is taking care of many of your soldiers at our medical clinic.”

  “Just because your father is a doctor doesn’t mean he’s not a Communist sympathizer also!”