When My Name Was Keoko (17 page)

***

End of the sixth week of training. Only two weeks to go. A box from home arrives with letters from everyone and a scarf. There's a crumpled paper packet, too—empty but sticky. I sniff at it.
Go-kam.
Somehow Omoni got some for me. But it's gone, stolen somewhere along the way. None of us soldiers ever get any of the food we're sent.

The letters cheer me up. Omoni tells me to keep warm, to fold a newspaper and put it under my shirt to keep out the wind; wear the scarf always, even in bed; drink a lot of soup. Mother stuff. Odd how I can hear her voice, even in Sun-hee's handwriting.

Sun-hee's own letter is a funny one. It describes Spade-face getting splashed with mud when a car drove by. Of course she doesn't say Spade-face. She says, "the man who walks down our street often," and I know who she means. Spade-face, always so proud of his uniform.

She also tells about getting rice and fish from the Japanese. I'm glad to know that—it's doing them a little good, my being in the army. Sun-hee says to write again soon, that she enjoys reading my letter over and over. I know that's her way of saying she's tried to figure out what I really meant. Her letter ends by telling me that my handwriting isn't too terrible, she gives it a passing grade. I laugh out loud.

Abuji's letter is more like a note. Short, saying everything is fine at home. He thanks me for the food, as if I've given it to him myself. He finishes by saying he's looking forward to having a long talk with me one day about my experience in the army.

I'm surprised by the lump in my throat.

Week seven.

The officers eat in a separate room and are served by soldiers. It's my unit's week to provide servers. Me and two others. One more duty, added to all the rest. Our classes and training are cut short by thirty minutes so we can rush to the mess hall. When the officers are done eating, we're allowed to eat. By that time everyone else is nearly finished; we have to wolf down our food so we can get to the next duty on time.

The officers always talk like the servers aren't there. Or at least like we can't hear. That's fine with us—it's even useful sometimes. The servers learn things. Like: rifle inspection the next day. Back at the barracks, the servers tell everyone so we can get our guns in order.

I move around the tables as quietly as I can. It makes me think of Sun-hee—how she used to listen in when she cleared the table at home. I smile a little. She might have fooled Abuji and Uncle sometimes, but I always knew what she was doing.

I carry in a bowl of rice. The commanding officer is talking. "Ridiculous even to ask us," he says angrily. He's in a bad mood about something. "They forget that we are training
Koreans
here."

I don't like the way he says it. Like we're a breed of dog—a stupid breed.

"There isn't a single soldier here who would volunteer for such a mission," the CO goes on. "How do they expect me to submit five names? It comes down to this: Either I send them five unwilling soldiers, or else I tell them I don't have any at all."

"They must not be unwilling," another officer objects. "It would be a serious mistake to send any who are. It is too great a responsibility."

"My point exactly," snaps the CO. "Oh, they're fine as foot
soldiers—they can slog through the mud as well as anyone. But for something like this? Can you imagine any Korean brave enough?"

He's calling us cowards! But not to our faces. He just assumes we're not brave enough for—for whatever it is—without even asking.

The rest of that evening, the whole night, his words rub against my mind like a blister getting sorer and sorer. I hardly sleep. By morning I know I have to do something.

Morning roll call. Sure enough, it's something special. All the officers are there, not just the sergeant.

The sergeant announces an extraordinary assignment. So demanding, requiring such bravery, that no one will be ordered to accept it. Volunteers only. And no guarantee that a volunteer will qualify. The assignment is that tough.

I don't think anymore. I click my heels and snap off a salute. "Sir!" I almost shout. I'm looking straight ahead in perfect position. I can't see anyone's face. But later when the other soldiers talk about it, they tell me the officers' mouths all dropped clean open.

The sergeant says, "Kaneyama! Are you volunteering? Do you understand that this mission may require the ultimate sacrifice from you?"

"Yes, sir. This soldier is brave enough, sir. For any job or mission. Sir!"

I stand there at attention. I can feel the surprise in the air, even though no one says anything. I can tell by the way they're shifting about.

After I say that, three others volunteer. The sergeant dismisses everyone but us. "Report to the CO's office," he says. "Briefing on your new assignment. You'll be shipping out to Japan in two days."

Two days! So soon?

The four of us salute, then march together to our briefing.

The cherry trees blossomed all over town. A few days later the ground looked as if it were covered with pale pink snow as the petals fell and were carried by the wind everywhere. Our rose of Sharon tree grew new leaves, too. There were only a few shoots. But it had survived another winter, and Omoni and I were delighted.

In May we got Tae-yul's second letter—weeks after he'd written it. Abuji said we were lucky to receive it; the war had all but stopped regular mail service.

Dear family,

I am sure it will be a surprise to you to hear that after only a few weeks of training, I am being sent to Japan. I can assure you it was just as big a surprise to me! A few of us have been recruited for a special assignment, by order of the Emperor. I was chosen because of my previous commitment to the Youth Air Corps. We are to be transported to a new base in Japan. You must understand that I cannot tell you the exact location. We will have further training for our new positions. Please do not worry about me. As always, I will do my utmost to make the whole family proud of me.

Your son and brother

Once again, Omoni was happy to hear that Tae-yul was still in training. For my part, I wondered why the letter was so short. It seemed quite straightforward, without any hidden meaning. Probably he had written it in a hurry and
hadn't had time to put in a message for me to figure out.

One evening a few days later I couldn't write in my diary because my pencil had worn down to nothing but a stub. Abuji would have to bring me another one from his school. It annoyed me to miss a day in my diary.

I was in Uncle and Tae-yul's room. I'd taken to using it as kind of a study; I didn't want them to come home to a room with the stale, musty feel of having been empty for a long time.

I put my diary back on the shelf and took both of Tae-yul's letters from the box where I kept them. I loved reading them over and over. I loved knowing that my brother had touched the sheets of paper I was holding.

For the hundredth time I wished we'd gotten more letters. Abuji had said they'd probably allow him to write us before he was shipped out for combat, and Omoni held on tightly to that idea. It was good
not
to get a letter from him, she said, because that meant he was safe. Another way the war turned everything inside out.

I refolded the first letter, put it carefully back in the box, and studied the second letter yet again. I was curious about Tae-yul's new assignment. There didn't seem to be any clues, but maybe I'd missed something....

"
A few of us have been recruited for a special assignment, by order of the Emperor. I was chosen because of my previous commitment to the Youth Air Corps.
"

"
By order of the Emperor"?
It seemed strange that he'd write this phrase in a letter. It made him sound like the announcer on Radio Tokyo or the block leader at a neighborhood accounting. Did he mean to sound like that? Why? To remind me of something? What?

"
...my previous commitment to the Youth Air Corps.
" I thought back to those days—not really so long ago, but it felt like years. What had he done when he was in the Youth Air Corps?

The airstrip. Digging with spades all day long.

Perhaps he was being assigned to dig trenches. I didn't know much about war, and hardly anything about battles, but I guessed that trenches would probably be dug quite near the front line. I hoped that wasn't Tae-yul's new assignment. Then again, digging trenches was surely better than being sent to the front line itself?

By order of the Emperor. The Youth Air Corps.

Emperor ... Air...

Tae-yul was going to be a kamikaze.

He was going to fly an airplane for that unit—the Special Attack Unit. How often I'd heard him use those words! That was the reason for the extra training. Surely, pilots needed a lot of training.

And after the training—a mission.

A suicide mission.

I was so frightened by this idea that I could no longer sit still. I stood and paced around the room.

It was crazy.
I
was crazy. I had to be wrong. I was imagining things—those words might mean something completely different.

No—I was right. It was so like Tae-yul to want to fly an airplane. Maybe he thought that if he was going to die anyway, it might as well happen when he was doing something he wanted to do.

But maybe I was wrong.
Remember Tomo—remember
Uncle.
I'd been so sure, and had made a terrible mistake.
Don't make a mistake this time.

I slipped into the other bedroom and got into bed without either of my parents noticing. If they'd seen me or talked to me, they'd have known something was wrong. I didn't even have to look in the mirror to know that my face was pale and strained.

In bed I lay flat on my back, forcing myself to think.
The war is going badly for the Japanese. Tae-yul said so—there are rumors in the street ... and the lessons at school—no news of victories anywhere, not for a long time now. If he's going to be a kamikaze, he'll need a lot of training. The war is almost over—how much longer? Maybe it will end before he gets to fly a mission....

That was it. That was the answer. If somehow Tae-yul could be stopped, or at least delayed, for a month perhaps—even a week or two might be long enough.

But how?

The next day at school we had bayonet practice and bomb drills, but I was so inattentive and listless that the teacher thought I was ill. She sent me home early in the afternoon.

When I walked into the courtyard, Omoni dropped the wet laundry she was holding and rushed over to me. "Sun-hee! What's the matter—are you all right? Has something happened?"

I shook my head. "I'm fine, Omoni. Just tired. But the teacher thought I shouldn't work anymore."

She put her hand on my cheek and made me open my mouth so she could look at my throat. "Go to bed," she said. "I'll bring you some soup."

I felt a little guilty going to bed; after all, I wasn't really sick. I should have helped Omoni with the laundry. But I needed the quiet time alone, to think.

After I'd drunk the soup Omoni brought me—it wasn't really soup, just the water the vegetables had been boiled in, but we always called it soup—I lay quietly on my mat and waited. When it was nearly time for Abuji to come home, I got up, rolled my sleeping mat, and put it away. Then I combed my hair. I arranged two cushions on the floor. Finally, I went to Tae-yul's room and fetched both letters.

I sat down on one of the cushions and waited. After a few minutes I heard Abuji come into the house. I heard him speak briefly with Omoni. Then he came into the bedroom. "Sun-hee—you are not in bed?" he said. "I hope this means you are feeling better."

"Yes, Abuji. I'm fine, thank you. Would you sit with me for a few minutes? I have something I would like to talk to you about."

He slid the door shut and sat down on the other cushion. "Please go ahead," he said.

I hesitated for a moment. Tae-yul might not approve of what I was about to do. But he'd never said not to tell anyone what I discovered in his letters. Maybe, in a way, he wanted us to know, all of us.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The last of my uncertainty was blown away with that breath.

"Abuji, before he left, Tae-yul told me he wouldn't be able to write his true thoughts in his letters—because they'd be censored. He asked me to read his words carefully, so I would be able to figure out what he
really
meant."

Abuji looked thoughtful. "So you believe his letters have
messages of importance beyond the actual words?" he asked.

I smiled a little inside. Abuji was making things easier for me. "Yes. The second one especially. I do not know if it's a message he intended to put in, or if it was almost ... accidental on his part. But last night I understood the letter in a different way."

It took me a while to explain everything. I had to go back in time, to talk about how fascinated Tae-yul had always been by the kamikaze. Then I showed Abuji the first letter, and pointed out the places where I'd uncovered Tae-yul's true thoughts.

Finally, I unfolded the second letter and held it out to him. I no longer needed to look at it myself; I'd memorized the whole thing. After he read through it quickly, I revealed my true fear: That Tae-yul's new assignment was kamikaze training.

Abuji never once interrupted me. He listened intently to every word. He didn't shake his head or act like I was crazy. I was grateful for that.

When I finished, we sat in silence for a few moments. Abuji drew in a long breath and let it out slowly, just as I had before I started talking. Then he said, "Is it your wish that I act on what you have told me? That I do something to prevent your brother from taking part in a mission?"

"Abuji, the war may end soon. I thought that if Tae-yul could be delayed—even for a little while—perhaps there would be no need for him to fly a mission at all."

Abuji nodded thoughtfully. "Let us say, for the moment, that you are correct about your brother," he said evenly. "Suppose I went to the military authorities. What could I say to them that might have the desired result?"