4.
Kaneyama Nobuo . . . Kaneyama Nobuo. No matter how many times I say it, I can’t get used to it. It feels all wrong, like shoes that don’t fit.
On the way to bed after we get our new names, Sun-hee whispers to me. “Sohn Kee Chung,” she says, her eyes big.
I nod—I’ve been thinking of him, too. The Olympic champion. A world record holder in the marathon. The newspapers call him Kitei Son. But Uncle always calls him by his Korean name.
The day after the Olympics marathon, Uncle doesn’t come home for dinner. After we eat, Abuji goes out. He doesn’t say where he’s going, and he’s gone a long time.
We’re in the sitting room. It’s late, past bedtime, but Omoni doesn’t seem to notice the time. We hear someone coming, and I run to the door.
Abuji comes in with his arm around Uncle. Holding him up, sort of dragging him. Because Uncle can hardly walk.
He’s been beaten up. Really bad.
Omoni bathes Uncle’s wounds and bandages them, with him groaning the whole time. Sun-hee gets in the way, so Omoni sends her to bed. I help Omoni, fetching water and rags.
Abuji talks to me afterward.
“My brother was at his shop late today because he was waiting for the newspaper delivery.” I know that newspapers from Taegu, the nearest city, get delivered to Uncle’s printing shop late in the day. “There was a photograph of the marathon champion on the front page.”
A pause. He looks away from me. “Uncle and some of his friends changed all the newspapers. They crossed out the Japanese name and wrote his Korean name in its place. They altered the Japanese flag on his uniform, too—they drew a wavy line in the middle of the circle, so it looked like the Korean flag instead.”
I gasp. So brave of Uncle! He must have known he could get into trouble. But he did it anyway. “What happened?” I ask. My voice comes out all croaky. I take a breath, steady it, speak louder. “How did he get hurt?”
“They were caught in the act by a group of soldiers and dragged off to jail. All of them were beaten. Besides his face, he has several broken ribs. They kept most of them in jail, but a few were released.”
“Why? Why did they let them go?”
“I am not sure. Perhaps as a warning. They want the townspeople to see them, to see how badly they have been hurt. To discourage further acts of this sort.” A pause. “Or perhaps out of respect for my position at the school.”
We’re quiet for a little while. Then Abuji tells me to go to bed. “Sleep by your sister tonight,” he says.
Sun-hee’s eyes are closed, but she isn’t asleep. When someone is really asleep they look . . . I don’t know, heavier. Anyway, I can tell she’s still awake.
And probably scared. She’s only little. I get out some bedding and lie down right next to her. I whisper, “I know you’re still awake, Sun-hee. Don’t worry. Uncle is hurt, but he’s going to be all right.” I don’t know that for sure, but I’m hoping hard. If he was worse, Abuji would have gone for the doctor.
Sun-hee turns toward me and touches my arm. I let her take my hand and hold it until she falls asleep.
A few days later Uncle calls Sun-hee and me into his room. It’s the first time we’ve been allowed to see him. I’ve been sleeping in my parents’ room to let him rest quietly.
He’s still hurting a lot. It’s hard for him to move or even take a deep breath. The swelling on his face has gone down, but the bruises look awful. Dark blue, purple, red, and the biggest one, on his cheekbone, is greenish yellow around the edges.
Uncle sees the way I look at him. He grins and makes a terrible face. That makes me feel a little better. Then he tells Sun-hee to bring him the mirror. She holds it in front of him.
“Oh! Such colors!” he says. “Really, they’re rather pretty, don’t you think? I wonder if I could manage to stay this way.”
We laugh and I feel even better. He always makes us laugh.
Then Uncle nods at me. “Paper and pencil,” he says.
What for? I get them from the shelf and give them to him. He raises himself up on one elbow, wincing. Then he takes the pencil and draws a rectangle on the paper.
“I am going to draw the Korean flag for you,” he whispers.
I lean closer. There have been rumors in the street, people talking about Sohn Kee Chung and the newspapers. But I hadn’t seen the paper. The Japanese had burned them all. I’d never seen a Korean flag either.
Uncle draws a circle in the middle of the rectangle.
Sun-hee pouts. “That looks just like the Japanese flag,” she says. I’m thinking the same thing. It’s the flag on top of every public building in town: a red circle on a white ground. So familiar.
“Shh. Wait.” Uncle draws a curved line in the middle of the circle. “The top half of the circle is red”—pointing with the pencil—“and the bottom is blue.”
Then he draws four symbols, one in each corner. “These are black,” he says. “Each has three parts, and each part represents a different cycle. The seasons: summer, autumn, winter, spring”—he points at the corners in turn. “The directions: south, west, north, east. And the universe: sky, moon, earth, sun.”
“That’s good, Uncle,” Sun-hee says, bobbing her head and smiling. “It’s a lot fancier than the Japanese flag.”
Uncle smiles back at her. Then he looks serious. He glances around cautiously, so I do, too. Only the three of us there, but I still get a funny feeling, like someone might be watching us. “Bow,” he whispers. “Bow to the Korean flag.”
We stay as we are, squatting on our haunches, but we bow our heads.
“Never forget,” he says. “Keep it in your minds always—what the flag looks like and what it means.”
His voice is quiet, but strong at the same time. I stare hard at the paper, trying to memorize the flag.
As usual, Sun-hee has a question. “Why, Uncle? Why do we have to remember it? Why can’t we just put the picture up on the wall? That way we’ll see it every day and we’ll always know what it looks like.”
Uncle reaches out and pulls gently on one of her braids. “We can’t, little cricket. It is against the law to fly this flag—even to put up a picture of it. Korea is part of the Japanese Empire now. But someday this will be our own country once more. Your own country.”
He looks at us again. “You have it now? In a safe place in your minds?”
Sun-hee nods so hard her head is like a bouncing ball. I just look at Uncle and nod once.
Uncle lies back down. “Burn it,” he says.
Sun-hee looks scared. She follows me to the kitchen. Omoni is out doing the marketing. I wonder what she’d think if she were here.
We watch the drawing blacken and then disappear in flames. Sun-hee looks a little less scared then.
When we get back to his room, Uncle raises his head and stares at both of us. “Never forget,” he says again. “I swear there will come a time when you, little Sun-hee, will sew that flag. And Tae-yul, you will help put it up over every building in the land.”
His words put a picture in my head. Me, on the roof of a building, raising a big Korean flag. Uncle down below, signaling to me that the flag was straight. It’d be fun, climbing on all the roofs.
There will come a time . . . he’d said.
But when?