When My Name Was Keoko Read online

  I didn't often think about what my parents looked like. They looked like my parents, that's all. But sometimes when she was sitting calmly, sewing in the pale light near a window, I could see that Omoni was pretty. Her face was more round than oval, but she had lovely clear skin. She wore her long hair braided and coiled in a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Sometimes at night when she took it down, she let me brush it. I loved doing that. My own hair had been cut short, chin-length with bangs, when I started school, because that was the required hairstyle.

  Each of Omoni's eyelids had a delicate fold in it. This was unusual, and it was considered a trait of luck and beauty. My eyelids had folds, too. Because of them, and maybe because I was a girl, I thought I looked more like Omoni than Abuji. Tae-yul was just like Abuji, both of them tall and thin.

  Now Omoni had a firm expression on her face, almost stubborn. Maybe she was afraid, too—but she wasn't letting it show.

  Tae-yul dragged the sack and pot across the garden to the house. He paused and looked around, then put the tree in its pot near the tool shelves.

  "There's plenty of stuff here," he said. "If we need to, we can put things over the tree to hide it."

  I looked around anxiously and saw a few old sacks in the corner. I picked them up and draped them carefully over the tree. Tae-yul took a rotten straw basket and some pieces of wood and leaned them against the pot. It was a good disguise—the tree now looked like a pile of old junk.

  "Good," Omoni said and smiled at both of us.

  Later that afternoon the soldiers came around to inspect our yard. I was weeding in the vegetable garden and held my breath as they walked around.

  For a few minutes they stood and watched Tae-yul at work burning a huge pile of rose of Sharon trees. Then they nodded at each other and marched off.

  I let out my breath in a whoosh. The little tree in its pot amid the workshop clutter was safe.

  Omoni took even better care of the little tree than she did the garden. Once I heard her murmuring quietly as she pruned it, when she thought no one was around. "The time will come," she said to the tree, "when you will be free to grow in a place of honor. I will see that you live until then—that is a promise."

  Truly, rose of Sharon trees are not as beautiful as cherry trees. But if that little tree were ever planted outside again, I knew it would be the most beautiful tree in the world.

  8. Tae-yul

  It's a good thing Uncle and I have so much junk stored in our work area. That makes it easier to keep the little tree hidden. Uncle often brings home broken pieces of machinery, old tools, other odds and ends he finds at work.

  Uncle's business is a print shop. He does mainly advertisements. Flyers, signs, things like that. Most of his customers are Japanese. He says that's because the Japanese control the banking system. Koreans can't get loans. When a Korean business fails, it has to be sold, nearly always to a Japanese buyer.

  Uncle is polite to almost everyone. But I can tell he wishes he had more Korean customers.

  Every day after school I stop by Uncle's shop, hoping he'll need help. I tie up flyers with twine, make deliveries to customers, even just watch while he works.

  Used to be, he wouldn't let me stay. He'd send me home to study. But on my bicycle I get to his shop really fast. Lots faster than walking. I told him how much time the bike saves me, and that I can spend the extra time in his shop. He laughed at me. But now he sometimes lets me stay a while.

  My favorite times are when he runs the press. I help with setting the type, inking, making sure the paper runs through like it's supposed to. I love the sound of the press when it's running, that steady rhythm. And seeing the printed pages come out at the end, the ink all wet and shiny.

  Even better is when the press breaks down. Not that I want Uncle to have trouble with it. But it's an old press and has a lot of problems. I like helping him work out what's wrong and then find a way to fix it.

  Dinnertime, a month or so after the business with the rose of Sharon trees. Uncle is excited about something. I wonder if he'll talk about it after the meal. Millet again. But at least there are beans in hot sauce to go with it.

  Uncle does talk to Abuji after the meal. I sit back and listen.

  "I had a visitor at the shop today," Uncle says. "Lim. We did some talking."

  I wonder who Lim is. Abuji doesn't ask—he must know already.

  "Lim thinks it would be a good idea for me to expand my business," Uncle continues, "to encourage customers with deeper pockets."

  Abuji says nothing, just raises his eyebrows a little.

  "I think I'm going to take that advice," Uncle says. "It's been slow lately. And certainly some customers can afford to pay well." He picks up his cup for one last gulp of tea and waits for Abuji to say something.

  I think I know who Uncle's talking about: Japanese customers.

  At last Abuji leans forward, serious. "Be careful," he says. Then he gets up from the table. Conversation over. I don't know why Abuji said that to Uncle, but the way he said it worries me.

  After that things are different at the shop. Uncle changes, almost overnight. He welcomes business from the Japanese merchants. Works long hours to get their orders finished ahead of schedule. Offers them special bargains—fancier designs for their flyers, a greater quantity for the same price.

  Some of this stuff I overhear when he talks to Abuji. Other things I see for myself when I stop by the shop. Uncle, being very friendly with his customers. Joking with them instead of serving them quietly like before.

  It takes only a few months for his business to grow. A lot. But I'm not glad about it—I'm worried.

  Uncle being friends with the Japanese businessmen ... I hate what I'm thinking. But I can't stop thinking it.

  Uncle, chin-il-pa? Making his business more successful by favoring the Japanese?

  Not possible.

  But what else could explain the change?

  ***

  Uncle is the younger brother. His duty is to obey Abuji. Before, they almost never disagreed with each other. But now things are different.

  Uncle stays late at his work, sometimes coming home after dinner. Then they argue.

  Omoni shoos Sun-hee and me out of the house so we can't hear. When we come back in, Uncle is grim-faced, Abuji silent, their words like ghosts hanging in the air.

  One evening when we're sent out of the house I creep around toward the back, toward the room I share with Uncle. There's a paper window in the wall.

  Just then Sun-hee calls out to me. "Opah! What are you doing?"

  I wave her away. But she does something pretty smart—she waits until I've almost reached the window. Then she tiptoes after me. I can't yell at her now, they'll hear me. So I just glare at her and put a finger to my lips.

  We crouch there together and listen.

  "You show great disrespect by not heeding my desires." Abuji's voice is stern and sad.

  "Hyungnim, please try to understand," Uncle says, pleading. "You are the firstborn. Your duty is to the family. You cannot do as I know you would wish to do, were the circumstances different. I am a second son. I have no wife, no children. It is men like me who must act on behalf of our people. How can showing love for our country be considered dishonorable?"

  Abuji again. "A second son's duty is also to his family. What if something were to happen to me? Is it not a second son's responsibility to keep the good of his family always foremost in his thoughts and deeds? You put yourself in danger. That is a great disservice to the family."

  "But is it not for the good of my family—for every family—for our entire nation—that I act as I do? Hyungnim, I do not wish to anger you. But I tell you now, I will not stop what I am doing. If it is your wish, I will leave the house so your orders will not be disobeyed in your sight. That is all I can offer."

  Silence. Sun-hee looks at me, her eyes wide. But at least she knows not to talk.

  I can hardly believe it myself. But I know why Uncle said it. Saving
face—Abuji's face. If Uncle doesn't listen to Abuji, his older brother, it makes Abuji look bad. With Uncle living somewhere else, Abuji wouldn't know what's going on. So he wouldn't be as responsible. I hold my breath, waiting to hear what Abuji says.

  We hear the sound of the paper door sliding open. One of them is leaving the room. Which one?

  Then Abuji's voice. "This is your home." The door slides shut again.

  That's it. Argument over. I still don't understand, but I know Uncle will stay.

  I tiptoe away from the house. Sun-hee follows me. Any minute now, she'll start asking questions. We reach the back garden, and right away she says, "What's Uncle doing, that Abuji wants him to stop?"

  I shake my head. "I'm not sure. But it must be dangerous somehow, or Abuji wouldn't be worried."

  She has her hands on her hips, glaring at me. "Are you telling the truth? Or are you saying that because you think I won't understand?"

  I'm trying to figure things out—I don't have time to answer a million of her questions. I take a deep breath, hold it for a moment, and let it out. "No, Sun-hee, really I don't know. But at the end there, Abuji sort of said it was all right for Uncle to keep doing what he was doing. I don't know what that is, honest."

  She looks doubtful for a moment longer, then nods. "Maybe you and I could figure out what it is. Maybe we could help."

  I've got the same idea. About myself, anyway. She's only a girl—how could she help? But right now I have to get rid of her so I can think. "Good idea, Sun-hee. You come up with a plan, and I will, too, and we'll get together and talk things over, OK? You be sure to tell me if you ever find out anything."

  Her eyes bright. "Yes, Opah." She goes back into the house.

  Good. Being nice to her worked. I go to the workshop area, pick up a rag, and begin polishing my bicycle. My hands moving by themselves, my thoughts on Uncle.

  Uncle becoming chin-il-pa—is this what worries Abuji? The chin-il-pa do everything they can to please the Japanese. Patriotic Koreans—those who work for independence from Japan—hate the chin-il-pa. Sometimes the patriots wreck shops and homes. There are rumors that chin-il-pa get beaten, even killed. Abuji's face always goes dark when he hears those rumors. Koreans killing Koreans, he once said—it's worse than anything the Japanese can do to us.

  Maybe that's why they argue. Abuji is worried about Uncle.

  That makes sense.

  But then I think about Uncle telling us those old Korean stories, and how he hates having to use a Japanese name. How he'd shown us the Korean flag, and what he'd said just now, about our country.

  There's no way he could be chin-il-pa—I'm almost certain about that.

  Almost.

  9. Sun-hee

  It wasn't easy to think of a plan when I didn't even know what the problem was. Uncle was doing something that Abuji didn't like. So should the plan be to try to stop what Uncle was doing? Or to help him do—whatever it was, and then get Abuji to agree that it was a good thing?

  At least I knew what the first step was. I needed to find out exactly what Uncle was doing. So I started stopping by the shop on my way home from school.

  I didn't think Uncle would suspect anything; I'd always gone to his shop at least once every few weeks. If he wasn't too busy, we had fun together. He'd print fake newspapers with my name in them. Like the time I'd been named Class Leader. "Kim Sun-hee Appointed to Important Post"—that's what the headline had said.

  Of course I couldn't keep the papers because he always used my Korean name. So I'd look at them for a while and then burn them. It was odd, but whenever I had one of those pretend newspapers in the house, my hearing seemed to get better. I was always hearing footsteps in the lane—footsteps that sounded like Japanese guards.

  The first time I went to Uncle's shop on my "mission," it was a bright autumn day. My friend Jung-shin came with me. Jung-shin's family had moved to town some months earlier, and we'd become friends almost right away. I liked her on sight, because she had the same kind of smile behind her eyes that Uncle did.

  We had a lot in common. We were both the youngest in our families—she had an older sister, Hee-won. Both of us liked to read and enjoyed learning kanji. We were exactly the same height. And her Japanese name was Keiko, which was very similar to Keoko.

  Jung-shin was teaching me to play cat's cradle. Every day she brought a long piece of string to school. She'd tie the ends of the string together and put her hands into the loop. Then she cleverly wrapped and pulled the string with her fingers until it looked like a gate with crossed bars. She showed me how to transfer the string from her hands to mine in another pattern. We passed the string back and forth; Jung-shin seemed to know dozens of ways to make new patterns with it.

  I made up little stories to go with the passing of the string and would say them aloud:

  "A girl opens the gate—" (the crossed bars)

  "—and she comes to a road." (the string in four neat straight lines)

  "The road goes over a bridge—" (crossed bars like the gate, only upside down)

  "—on which a spider has woven its web."

  This was my favorite pattern; it was intricate but perfectly symmetrical and really did look like a spider's web.

  We always played cat's cradle for a few minutes after school. Sometimes Jung-shin would come home with me. We'd do our homework together, and then play more cat's cradle.

  Jung-shin was better at it than I was—she played quite often with her sister—and when we played fast it was almost always my fault when the string ended up in a tangle. We passed the string so quickly that we had to concentrate hard on making the right moves, and it was always a relief to collapse in laughter when one of us made a mistake.

  That was how Jung-shin's sister, Hee-won, usually found us, playing cat's cradle or else silly with laughter. On the days Jung-shin was at my house, Hee-won often came by in the late afternoon to walk her home.

  On this particular day I had had enough of cat's cradle and thought of something else to do. "Let's go into town," I suggested. "We can find the popcorn man."

  A few days earlier Jung-shin had brought me a special treat—a few pieces of duk. This sweetened rice cake was my favorite snack, and I couldn't even remember the last time I had eaten some; it took a great deal of the finest white rice to make duk. I had nibbled the slices of duk slowly, slowly, to make them last as long as possible, and Jung-shin had seemed very pleased at my appreciation.

  Now it was my turn to treat her. I went to the kitchen shelves and asked Omoni for some popping corn. There wasn't much left in the little bag. I took nearly all of it and put it in a hollow gourd. Then I fetched two pennies from my savings box and put them in my coin purse. I also brought along an empty grain sack.

  On fine days the popcorn man roamed the streets of our town, wheeling a little cart. He sold corn, or for two cents he would pop the corn you brought him.

  We found him a few blocks away and gave him the gourd of corn. The popping was always fun to watch. He poured the dried kernels into one end of a device that looked rather like a pot-bellied cannon, which contained some kind of heating element. After a few minutes, popped corn came shooting out of the cannon's barrel and was caught in a wire mesh basket. When the popping sound stopped, the popcorn man took the basket off while I held my sack underneath so the fluffy popcorn could fall into it.

  Jung-shin and I walked along the street munching our snack. We turned the corner, and I said, "My uncle's shop is on this street. Why don't we go there?"

  This was really what I had had in mind all along. If I showed Jung-shin around the shop, I might learn something about what Uncle was doing.

  Jung-shin agreed eagerly. She had often heard me speak of Uncle but had never met him.

  When we reached the shop, Uncle greeted me with his usual cheerful smile. In return I said, "Uncle, I would like you to meet a friend of mine. This is Pak Jung-shin."

  Jung-shin bowed politely to Uncle, and he smiled at her. I was proud t
o be introducing my friend; she looked so pretty, with a new white collar on her uniform.

  "I am pleased to meet you," Uncle said. "Tell me about your family."

  "My father is Pak Sung-joon," Jung-shin replied. "My family moved here a few months ago. My father has a new job at the bank."

  Uncle nodded, but the look in his eyes changed. The little lines around his eyes that made his smile so pleasant seemed to disappear. His eyes suddenly looked almost blank, expressionless, even though his mouth was still smiling.

  Or was I only imagining things?

  Then Uncle turned to me. "I'm sorry, Sun-hee, but I am busy just now. You and your friend must stop by another time. Perhaps then I will be able to print something special for her."

  Jung-shin was delighted by his offer and thanked him politely, but I was puzzled. It was quiet in the shop—there were no customers, and Uncle was not running between the printing press and the counter and the paper storeroom. But of course I honored his request, and we turned to leave.

  Uncle walked us to the door—and this, too, puzzled me. He waved to us as we walked away. I took one last glance over my shoulder and saw Uncle scanning the street carefully.

  I didn't know what to think.

  When I got home, I took my shoes off as usual, put on my straw slippers, and went to find Tae-yul in the workshop area behind the house.

  "I went to see Uncle just now," I said. Then I hesitated. I'd intended to tell him about Uncle's behavior with Jung-shin, and how he'd looked up and down the street after we left. But now it seemed silly. I didn't want Tae-yul to think I was making a big deal out of nothing.

  I bit my lip, then said, "I didn't discover anything."

  He sighed. "I haven't been able to find out anything either. We'll just have to keep trying. Now, don't forget—whatever you find out, don't do anything about it. Come and tell me first. We're working on this together, remember?"

  I nodded automatically, but I felt annoyed. He still thought I was a baby.

  How I wished I could simply talk to Uncle about it. But I knew this would be unfair. Asking him to talk to us about things Abuji disapproved of would be disrespectful.