When My Name Was Keoko (4 page)

We study together every day after school. One day I throw my pencil down on the table. "I can't stand it anymore," I say, gritting my teeth. I feel like shouting, but Omoni's in the kitchen; I don't want her to hear.

"What's the matter, Opah?" Sun-hee asks.

"Kanjikanjikanji all day long—that's what's the matter. I'm sick and tired of staring at these stupid characters."

She frowns. "They're not stupid."

I roll my eyes at her. "You wouldn't understand."

"You're right," she says. "I don't understand. I like studying kanji."

"What's there to like about it," I grumble.

I don't mean it to be a real question, but she answers anyway. "It's a story. Every character is like a story."

"A story? What are you talking about? A character can't be a story, not by itself. You have to have a whole bunch of them to make a story."

"The characters don't make the story, Opah," she says. "7 do. Look—"

She writes down some characters. But first she sort of takes them apart, so you can see how they were formed. I've watched Abuji do this when the three of us study together, but I haven't paid attention like she has.

Then she points to the characters one by one.

"Mouth," she says.

"Gate.

"When you put them together, you get 'ask' or 'question,' right? It's a guard at the palace gate, and he's questioning Sim Chung's poor blind father—you know, the part where he almost gets turned away, but she recognizes him just in time."

Uncle has told us that fairy tale lots of times, but it's not like the gate is a big important thing in the story. I don't know how she comes up with these ideas.

"The story helps me remember," she continues. "Look, here's another.

"Man.

"Backpack.

"Man with backpack—"

"—and then you sort of square off all the lines to get 'heavy.' This man's been on a long trip, and his backpack is full of silk and jewels, lovely things for his family—"

I flap my hand at her impatiently. "You think like that for every character?" I say. "That's crazy, you'll never remember them all."

"No, Opah, it makes it
easier
to remember them. Shall I show you some more?"

"No thank you!" I almost shout. She looks hurt for a moment, then presses her lips tight shut.

I sigh and go back to my own work, wishing for the thousandth time that kanji had never been invented.

I study what I have to, to pass my classes. Then I slip out to our workplace—Uncle's and mine—under the eaves at the back of the house. A workbench and shelves for our tools.

Ever since I was little, I've liked mechanical stuff—things that move. Uncle once made me a top. You spun it, then kept it going by whipping it with a string on a stick. My friends and I had contests to see who could keep their top going the longest. I was good at it—I won nearly every time. The trick
was in the timing. Whipping it at just the right moment to get it going really fast.

That's what I like best: speed.

The Japanese military have cars. And motor scooters. Sometimes I stand by our front gate, waiting. Sooner or later a car or scooter drives past. First the sound, from far away. Then—
whoosh.
My hair and clothes swishing as it goes past. So fast!

Someday I'll have a scooter of my own. And then a car.

For now, I have a bicycle. Or what will be my bicycle someday. Right now it's just part of an old bicycle that one of Uncle's friends threw away. It's in really bad shape, with only the frame and chain worth saving. But everything else we can put together ourselves. Eventually—I mean, it'll take time to get everything we need. And I can't work on it as much as I want.

Sometimes when I go out to the work area, by myself or with Uncle, Abuji comes out, too. He watches for a little while, not saying anything. Maybe he wants to help. But he isn't good with his hands. Not like Uncle.

And Abuji being there always makes me feel guilty. Like I should be studying. Uncle feels it, too. He always says we've done enough for today, and I have to go back inside.

Still, I'm getting a lot done. I cleaned all the rust off the frame and repainted it. Then I made handlebars from lengths of pipe, pedals from sheet metal, a seat from a piece of wood. It took me a long time to whittle the wood into the right shape.

Now I have to figure out how to pad the seat. Then the bike will be finished except for the tires. Uncle told me not to worry about the tires. He'd take care of them somehow. But
that was over a month ago. He's been working late at his printing shop, so we've hardly had any chance to work on the bike together. I check the rubbish heaps in town every day, hoping someone might throw out an old tire. But I never see one.

Omoni helps with the seat—a cloth cover and straw padding. The cover is sort of a drawstring bag. The string loosens so the bag will fit over the seat and the straw, then pulls tight and ties underneath. I sit on the seat and jiggle around. The straw slides out of place a little but stays inside the cover.

One day just before dinner, I'm trying to study. Uncle shouts from outside, "Nephew! Get out here, you lazy dog—am I supposed to do all the work myself?"

I jump to my feet and rush out the door. Then I stop, halfway down the path.

Uncle is coming through the gate. He's rolling one bicycle tire ahead of him. With a second around his neck like a giant rubber necklace.

Uncle isn't tall like Abuji. He's short and sturdy. He looks so funny—that tire around his neck hanging way down past his waist.

I laugh at first. Then I let out a shout and run to meet him.

It wasn't fair. Why couldn't girls ride bicycles? It wasn't like the old days when girls had to wear long skirts. Omoni still wore long skirts, and so did a lot of older women. But young women and girls like me wore trousers. Omoni had told
me it was the Japanese who had brought in this style. A lot of people hadn't liked it, but I couldn't understand why. Trousers were much easier to wear, and better for playing in.

I could have ridden a bicycle. It didn't look that hard. Tae-yul fell off a few times when he was first learning, but it wasn't long before he was able to wobble around the outer courtyard, and then up and down the lane. By the third day he was so good at it that he took off to ride around town, and I couldn't even watch him anymore.

When I turned to walk back up the path to the house, I stumbled on a little stone and twisted my ankle. I crouched down and rubbed the sore spot, then stood up and kicked the stone with my other foot as hard as I could.

The stone went skipping down the path; I watched it until it slowed down and finally rolled to a stop. Not like Tae-yul on the bicycle. He wasn't very good at stopping; he always slammed on the brakes and fell off.

I went in to help Omoni with dinner. Abuji was listening to the radio. He and Uncle listened a lot these days. There was a war in Europe, and a lot of news about a German leader named Hitler. It didn't really interest me—a strangesounding name from a place I knew little about.

When I heard it was just war news on the radio again, I went into the kitchen. It was my job to prepare the rice every evening. I looked in the rice barrel. Empty. I was finding it empty more and more often these days.