23.
Tae-yul and I talked in the garden for a long time. He told me everything that had happened in the police station. “Do you know what this means about Uncle?” he asked. “They said it themselves—they said, ‘Your uncle is a problem for us.’ That means his work has been successful, Sun-hee—that he’s still printing the newspaper. And it must be reaching hundreds of people. Maybe thousands. Even if—if something were to happen to me, it’s of no importance compared to what the independence movement would suffer if Uncle is arrested.”
He looked at me fiercely. “If they catch him, they’ll kill him. The paper he prints—the truth in words—it must hurt the Japanese as much as a thousand guns.”
In a single day, he seemed to have become so much older. “Oh, Opah,” I whispered. “Isn’t there any other way?” But I knew if there were, he’d have thought of it already.
He shook his head. “It’s possible that their plan wouldn’t work, that Uncle wouldn’t let himself get trapped. But I can’t take the risk.”
He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry to burden you with this knowledge, Sun-hee,” he said. “I don’t want to tell Abuji. I’m his only son. I’m sure he feels that—that my life is worth more than Uncle’s.”
It was a staggering thought—to weigh the lives of two people I loved against each other, to decide which was worth more. For a moment I was glad it was not me having to make such an evil choice, and in the next moment, I was ashamed of my cowardice. I wiped away a few tears with the back of my hand and tried to compose myself.
“Opah, is there anything I can do?” It seemed so empty, my pitiful offer of help. What could a schoolgirl like me possibly do?
“Yes, Sun-hee, there is one thing. I’ll be allowed to write letters, but I’m sure they’ll be censored. I won’t be able to put down the truth as I see it. I’m counting on you to read between my words and uncover their true meaning. It would mean a lot to me to know that you’ll try to understand what I really want to say.”
Such a small thing. I felt ashamed again and, worse than that, helpless. Here was Tae-yul, risking his life to save Uncle . . . and I could do nothing for either of them.
Maybe, at least, I could make Tae-yul smile, take that awful heavy look out of his eyes. Like Uncle would have. “Yes, all right,” I said. “But please try to write legibly—your handwriting is terrible at times.”
He looked surprised for the briefest instant, then burst out laughing when he realized I was joking. “I beg your pardon, O Queen of Kanji,” he replied. “I cannot promise that my handwriting will meet your absurdly high standards, but I’ll do my best.”
“The queen has spoken,” I said loftily. “Do not risk incurring my wrath.” But I found that I couldn’t stay very queenlike; I broke into giggles.
Now Tae-yul and I were both laughing. We laughed until we had to stop for lack of breath. Then Tae-yul looked at me and mimed a groveling bow, as if he were a lowly servant, and we were off once again. Soon we were both lying on the ground, weak from laughter.
Finally, Tae-yul stood and helped me to my feet. We walked back slowly toward the house.
At the back door we faced each other and bowed. A formal bow—a bow of farewell.
“Help our parents, Sun-hee,” Tae-yul whispered. “And when you think of Uncle and me, don’t be sad. Be proud.”
The next morning he was gone.
I went to school and did the task we had been assigned for the day—filling sandbags? piling stones? Whatever it was, I did it automatically. At the end of the day I found myself in our courtyard with no memory of having walked home.
First Uncle, and now Tae-yul. I simply couldn’t think about it—couldn’t imagine what life would be like with both of them gone.
My feet took me the few steps to the room that had been theirs. I stood at the doorway and looked inside. Omoni had already tidied up. Everything was in its place: the sleeping mats out of sight in the low cupboard, books and a few old toys on the shelf.
I walked over to the shelf. There was Tae-yul’s old top, worn down at the nib from all the spinning. He hadn’t thrown it away. His books were there, too, including the primer with the Japanese alphabet—the one we’d used to choose our new names.
Suddenly, I longed to hold a book again. It had been weeks since we’d had regular classes at school. Abuji had offered to continue my kanji lessons at night, but after the hours of defense-preparation work, I was usually exhausted and went to bed early. Standing there in Tae-yul’s lonely room, I realized how much I missed my studies—reading and writing most of all.
My diary—of course. I usually wrote in it just before bed. But there was no reason I couldn’t write in it now.
I fetched it from the cupboard in the other bedroom and wandered out into the backyard. I ended up at Tae-yul’s work area. Like his room, it looked a little forlorn—nearly all the tools were gone. Omoni hadn’t cleaned it up yet, so it had more of the feeling that he’d just been there.
I sat on an old mat beside the little tree. The tree wasn’t doing very well. We’d kept it covered up for days at a time, while the soldiers were searching for Uncle. It had lost a lot of leaves back then and hadn’t grown them all back. But it was still alive.
My diary had a lot of entries about Uncle now. No one reading them would know they were about him, but I’d been thinking of him when I wrote them. I turned the pages and found my poem about the dragon pin:
The dragon is alone with his pretty ball.
There is no one to play catch with.
Hidden away in his cave,
he waits for the light.
And another, about the tree:
Do not mourn, little tree.
Your brothers and sisters have been struck down—
but you live still.
Be strong!
For you alone are the beginning
of a whole new forest.
I always looked forward to writing in my diary. It had become a great comfort to me—almost like a nightly meeting with a good friend.
Perhaps it could comfort me now. I could try to write about Tae-yul.
I held the pencil above a blank page.
Half an hour later I threw down the pencil in disgust. How many words had I written and crossed out?
My brother—older than me but still so young
You wear the wrong uniform—of a soldier, not a schoolboy
A short train ride over the mountain, but worlds away
It wasn’t that the words were bad—they just weren’t right. I couldn’t understand it. I knew Tae-yul so well; why couldn’t I write about him? And why was it different from writing about Uncle?
Maybe it was still too soon. I hadn’t started writing about Uncle until weeks after he’d left. Tae-yul had been gone only a few hours. Perhaps when enough time had passed . . . Maybe this was the reason nothing I wrote satisfied me.
But I knew it wasn’t the only reason.
I’d often been angry at Tae-yul, especially when he treated me like a baby. But just as often I’d looked at him and, without either of us saying a word, I’d known we were thinking the same thing. At those moments, his thoughts were my thoughts, my thoughts were his.
When he left, he took too many of my thoughts with him.