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Authors: Linda Sue Park

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BOOK: When My Name Was Keoko
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It was because of the war, but not the one in Europe—the one in Manchuria. Japan was at war there, fighting against the Chinese. This was why they'd taken over Korea in the first place; it was only one step from the northern border of Korea into Manchuria.

The Japanese army always needed supplies. For years they'd taken part of every rice crop to send to the troops in Manchuria or to ship to Japan. Sometimes there was no rice in the marketplace; other times it was very expensive. To make it last longer, Omoni had started mixing it with barley.

Barley was cheaper than rice. We thought of it as food for poor people. It was chewier and coarser and had a strong flavor. Neither Tae-yul nor I liked barley; we used to pick out the brownish grains and eat only the rice.

But soon there was more barley than rice in our bowls. We couldn't pick it out anymore—there would've been hardly anything left to eat. I guess you could say we got used to it, but there were still times when I missed having a whole bowl of pure white rice.

It seemed we'd be having only barley tonight. I picked up the barley bag and was startled by how light it was. There wasn't enough for a meal. "Omoni—" I started to ask.

"Here," she said, handing me another bag. I opened it and looked inside.

It was millet. Little round yellow grains that farmers used as chicken feed. Startled, I looked up at Omoni again, and she nodded reassuringly. "It's quite nutritious," she said. "Who knows, perhaps it will even make a nice change."

I said nothing. I could hardly believe we were cooking animal food for our dinner.

As usual I served Abuji, Uncle, and Tae-yul their food first. Tae-yul took one look at the yellow grains in his bowl and said, "Omoni, what's this?"

It was very rude of him to comment on the food at all, and even ruder to ask such a question of Omoni. Abuji looked at him sternly. It was Uncle who answered.

"That's millet, nephew. Come, now—chickens and pigs love it, so I'm sure it will be good for you too!"

Uncle smiled at Tae-yul and took a big bite. "Your mother is such a good cook, she can make even millet taste delicious. Now, then, eat when you are eating, talk when you are finished." That was one of our traditional sayings; it was good manners to pay full attention to your meal.

Uncle's words had been said in his usual cheerful joking manner, but there was a hint of a warning behind them. I heard it, and I knew Tae-yul did, too, for he ate his dinner without another word.

Millet had a grassy taste and felt awful in my mouth—half mushy, half crunchy. I never got used to it, even though we had it nearly every day from then on. The bowls of yellow grain made me long for rice even more.

But Omoni always made our meals taste better by cooking lots of vegetables—squash, sweet potatoes, cucumbers. She was a skilled gardener, and the vegetable patch flourished no matter what the weather.

I liked helping her prepare the bed—chopping and crumbling the dirt until it was like silk between my fingers, then planting the seeds or seedlings in nice straight rows and giving each of them a drink. And later in the year I loved it when she'd tell me to run out to the garden and gather vegetables for our dinner. But I hated weeding and often found an excuse to be doing something else when Omoni went out to weed.

Along the back of the vegetable patch was a row of small trees. Really, they were more like large shrubs. In the summer they blossomed—big pink- or white-petaled flowers with magenta throats. They were rose of Sharon trees, the
national tree of Korea. Omoni had planted them years before, when she and Abuji had first moved to this house.

One evening in the fall Uncle brought home more news. The government had issued another official order. All families who had cherry trees were to dig up shoots and saplings from around their trees and bring them to police headquarters. The little cherry trees were to be planted all over town, and everyone was supposed to take good care of them.

The government order spoke of wishing to make our land more beautiful, with thousands of cherry trees. But it wasn't just a wish for beauty. The cherry tree was a national symbol of Japan.

And the final part of the order was that all rose of Sharon trees had to be uprooted and burned. The military police would be inspecting gardens to see that the order had been followed.

Omoni stayed inside the house; she couldn't bear to watch as Tae-yul chopped down the rose of Sharon trees one by one and dug out their roots. It was a difficult job; the trees were old and their roots reached deep into the ground. I helped him by dragging the fallen trees to a corner of the yard, where they'd be burned later.

Tae-yul had reached the last tree—a small one that Omoni had planted only a few years before. As he began to dig, Omoni came out of the house and said, "Tae-yul, wait. First go fetch a big pot, or a basin or something."

"What kind of pot?"

"I don't know—it needs to be big. Oh, wait—where you keep the tools, there's an old ceramic pot, with a crack in it. That will do."

I helped Tae-yul carry the pot out to her. It was quite large, as large around as my two arms could make a circle.

"Now," Omoni said, pointing to the last little tree. "Dig in a circle, and be careful not to cut any of the roots. I want you to bring the whole root ball out of the ground."

This took a long time. Tae-yul had used an ax to chop up the roots of the other trees and make it easier to dig them out. Now he could only use the shovel. Omoni returned to the house, but she came out from time to time to watch him work.

At last he put down the shovel and wiped his brow. "I think I can get it out now," he said. Although it had been the smallest tree, it was nearly as tall as me. Tae-yul pulled it carefully out of the hole and laid it down on the ground.

"Omoni!" I called.

She came out again and patted Tae-yul's shoulder. "You did a good job," she said. She walked around the little tree. "I think you will need to cut off about this much—" She pointed to a spot about a third of the way down from the top.

While Tae-yul chopped away with the ax, Omoni took up the shovel and began to fill the ceramic pot with dirt from where the trees had been dug up. Now I knew what she was doing. I got a trowel from the tool shelf and helped scoop dirt into the pot.

Omoni and Tae-yul lifted the little tree and settled it into the pot. Then we packed more dirt and mulch around it. Finally, I fetched a basin of water and gave the tree a drink.

The three of us stepped back and looked at the tree and then at each other. We were tired and dirty, but we managed to smile. We'd hardly spoken throughout the entire task, yet we'd all known what to do. It felt good to have done this together.

All the same, I was troubled: Omoni was breaking the law. If she got caught—if the guards discovered the little tree—what would happen? Would she be arrested? A cold wind blew through me.

I was afraid for her. But I was proud of her, too. How could I be proud of my mother for breaking the law? I shook my head, trying to clear it of these confusing thoughts, and looked at Omoni again.

She was watching as Tae-yul lifted the heavy pot onto an old burlap sack. There was something in her face I hadn't seen before.

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.

BOOK: When My Name Was Keoko
11.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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