Echoes of the White Giraffe Read online

  “Inchun, what was that? Who said that?” I asked excitedly.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard. Why get so excited? It’s probably a crazy man, probably a crazy poet who thinks nothing of waking people up at dawn,” Inchun said flatly. But I saw how his dark eyes twinkled. He, too, was hoping to hear more. I even saw his toes wiggle with restless anticipation.

  To our delight, the voice bellowed forth again, this time louder and stronger.

  “Hello, all you refugees on these mountains. Rise and shine. Remember it is a new day, a brand new day. Hello, hello.”

  The happy mountain called back, “shine ... and shine. A new day, new day ... hello, hello, hello.”

  How deep and resonant his voice was! How sweetly it reverberated through the mountain, slowly dissipating in the vast morning sky.

  The sleepy mountain came alive. I heard some men grumble and cough loudly. An old man who lived below us grumbled, “So early in the morning! Be quiet, you, you rice bucket!”

  “Old man, you’re waking up my grandchild. You hush!” an old woman from another hut farther down the mountain yelled out. Babies were crying, and pots and pans were clanking as the young women set about making breakfast. The thin plywood walls and rice-paper doors didn’t muffle any noise. I felt as if I were in the middle of one big room with everyone else.

  I was itching with curiosity. I wanted to see this bold and enchanting man. How rude of all these refugees not to respond to his friendly greeting. Only the mountain had responded to him. I wanted to shout back a morning greeting myself. What did he look like? Which mountain top was he shouting from? I imagined a strong and handsome, but tormented, poet with so much more than a morning greeting pent up inside him. I could picture him standing bravely at the top of a mountain with white fluffy clouds overhead, and his echoes wafting around him. How grand it would be to see him and to shout back at him. I should. I must.

  I jumped out of bed and dashed outside, ignoring Inchun’s wide-eyed stare. I went around to the back of our shack and climbed the remainder of the way to the very top of our mountain. For the first time, I was happy that our little house was the very last one on this side of the mountain. It took over an hour to climb up here from the streets of Pusan city, but now, with a little hop, I was at the very top, where the view was clear.

  Standing on the other mountain top was a thin man in a white T-shirt with his head cocked way back to face the blue skies and with his hands cupped over his mouth. He shouted another morning greeting, and then cupped his hands around his right ear to hear his greeting echo through the mountains.

  Standing on tiptoe, I stretched my arms way over my head and waved them back and forth. Jumping up and down, I shouted as loud as I could, “H-e-l-l-o, h-e-l-l-o, good morning to you, too!”

  “Oh, hello, little girl. You have a great day!” He shouted back with delight, waving his arms wildly. His enthusiastic response made me jump with excitement. I cupped my hands around my mouth just as he had. I wanted to shout to him, “Are you a mountain poet?” Mother suddenly grabbed me, and whispered harshly, “What on earth are you doing? A grown-up girl shouting at the top of her lungs, and so early in the morning, too. What a crazy thing to do! What a disgrace! One more step backward and you might even have fallen.”

  I was so enchanted by the shouting poet, I hadn’t seen Mother storm up the mountain. Her face was flushed and she was panting. She held my hand firmly, dragged me home, and pulled me inside, shutting the door tightly behind her.

  Inchun took one look at my ghostly white face and erupted with laughter. Pointing his long, bony finger at me, he laughed so hard he doubled over. Nearly choking with laughter, he gasped, “Mother, you have to watch out for Nuna. She is just as mad as that crazy shouting poet. Nuna’s poetic heart knows no shame and has no sense.” He pounded on his knee with one hand, and held his stomach with the other, as tears of laughter pooled in his eyes. “I am not going down the mountain with you this morning, Num. Oh, how embarrassing, how embarrassing! How I wish I had a camera. What a sight it was, what a sight!”

  Mother’s stem face softened and laugh lines appeared around her dark almond eyes. She covered her mouth to stifle her laughter, and then, looking in my direction, she forced a stem look back on her face. “Sookan, my dear, sit down next to me. Listen very carefully. It is a disgrace for a well-brought-up girl to shout like that with such abandon. You are a young lady now. You cannot afford to be so impulsive anymore. People are going to say you are growing up wild and without manners because you have no father and no older brothers. I expect you to behave like a proper young lady at all times. Do you understand?”

  Mother felt the absence of my father and three older brothers in every facet of our lives. I, too, thought of them often and missed their presence, especially when I saw children in Pusan walking by with their fathers and older siblings. That always looked like such a perfect picture. My family wasn’t perfect anymore. I often felt lonesome, sad, and scared.

  The hut we lived in always felt empty somehow, and I liked hearing the sound of a man’s voice, even if it were that of a crazy shouting poet, a total stranger. His hearty morning greeting made me feel safe and happy somehow. Despite Mother’s reprimand, I hoped that someday I would meet that brave and unusual man. There were many questions I wanted to ask him.

  Inchun was still grinning, shaking his head in disbelief as he stared at me. Mother looked pale and drained as she quietly looked down at her clasped hands. I felt silly in front of Inchun, and I was ashamed that I had worried Mother. “Shall I go down to fetch some water before I go?” I asked, hoping to distract her.

  “Oh, no! You two are due at church soon. I’ll take care of the water. I am getting quite good at balancing the jug on my head these days,” she said with a forced smile.

  I tied a bag containing my good shoes securely around my waist, and started down the mountain. Tilting my body backwards, I held my arms out for balance and took each step cautiously to avoid sliding. Halfway down the mountain, I passed the long line of women waiting for water from the well. All those women standing patiently in line suddenly seemed to me like bold heroines waging a daily battle, determined to win just one day at a time. I knew how difficult it was. Carrying the water uphill was the worst part. The bucket was always half empty by the time I got up to our small hut.

  A thin woman with a jug of water poised on her head and a baby tied to her back walked past me. The baby hung heavily on her back, and the cotton strap knotted tightly in front made her look so fragile. She breathed rapidly, and her face was red. With her eyes glued to the ground and her arms outstretched, she carefully moved forward. I watched her in admiration as she passed me and went up the hill. When she reached the slippery part, she held the water jug in place with her right hand and put her other hand on the baby’s back to soothe him.

  Noticing the sun way up in the mountain sky, I started running down the mountain. I would rather risk falling and bruising myself than walk in late and have Haerin, the choir conductor, roll her eyes at me. After a good deal of skidding, I finally reached the bottom of the mountain, where I stopped to make myself presentable. I wiped the dirt from my face, smoothed my hair, and beat my blouse and skirt to get rid of the fine mist of red dust that had settled on me. Then, I hurriedly took off my grimy sneakers.

  Just then, I heard someone whistling a familiar tune. I turned and saw Inchun, looking cool and collected. His dark hair was neatly combed in place, his white shirt was crisp and fresh, and his city shoes shone. He looked as if he had just stepped out of one of the houses on the city street.

  “I saw you dawdling and watching the women at the water line,” he teased. “You didn’t even see me speed past you, did you?”

  I glared at him, annoyed at his composure while I was still busily emptying the pebbles from my sneakers. Despite what he had said earlier about not wanting to be seen with me, he had been waiting for me.

  While I put my city walking shoes on, he said, “Hurry u
p! Father Lee is waiting for me. I have to help him break in a new altar boy, since I am getting too tall and too busy with my science classes these days.” I gave him another sour look for bragging about his height. I looked so short walking next to him.

  Under the warm morning sun, we walked toward the church in silence. I swung my shoebag, and was happy as I rushed to keep up with my younger brother’s long strides. When Inchun, Father Lee, and the other boys from Inchun’s school were helping us to build Ewha, Inchun and I always walked home together. But now we did not get to be with each other often, since he went to the all-boys’ school and I went to Ewha, the all-girls’ school, and after classes, we were both busy with our school projects. Now Inchun spent most of his afternoons and even weekends with his favorite teacher, the one who taught science.

  I often wished that he would join the choir, for that was the one thing that we might be able to do together. But I think Inchun was tone deaf. It was a strange phenomenon that I did not understand. He whistled beautifully; the melody and rhythm were perfect, and he whistled with such feeling, eliciting just the right emotion. But when he sang, he was somehow always miserably out of tune. I once laughed at him, thinking he did it on purpose. But after I laughed, I never heard him sing again.

  I wondered if I should ask him to sing a song for me now, just to see if anything had changed. But I decided to keep him company in silence. I knew Inchun better: he probably tested himself often in private to see if he could sing. If there were any change, he would surprise me with a beautiful song in perfect tune, and would smile deeply as I looked at him with awe.

  Chapter Three

  The choir members stood at attention in the back of our one-room church. When Haerin, the conductor, waved her baton, our choir practice began. As I followed the exaggerated movements of her baton, the words of the Shouting Poet kept ringing in my ears. “Good morning, refugees ... refugees ... refugees.” It resonated so sweetly through the mountains. The word “refugee” rang as melodiously as all the other words, not sounding as cold and ugly as it had the first time I heard it, the first time I met Haerin. My mind raced back to that unforgettable day, our first day in Pusan.

  We had escaped the bombing in Seoul just three days before and had spent an entire day walking in the bitter cold all the way to Inchon harbor. From there, a small rowboat carried us out to a large ship. In the ship’s bowels, we rode for hours until we reached Pusan. Famished, frostbitten, and dirty, we made our way to the base of the refugee mountain. In our tattered, filthy clothes, we stared up at the steep, jagged, red-brown mountain looming above us. Exhausted and overwhelmed, we did not know what to do.

  I looked over at a brick house at the foot of the mountain. Shaded by leafy persimmon and apricot trees, and enclosed by a low brick wall covered with morning glories, it looked safe and comfortable. The shiny brass door knockers on the big wooden door shimmered in the sunlight, reminding me of our dark cherry-wood doors at home in Seoul with the two brass door knockers shaped like dragons. This house was not as big and grand as our house in Seoul had been, but it looked so inviting that I wished someone would ask us in to rest.

  I could hear the clanking of dishes and the murmur of voices. How wonderfully peaceful life seemed here. Yet visions of bombs, burning trees, and smoldering buildings kept filling my head, and the horrible smell of smoke and death stayed with me. I shook my head from side to side, trying to rid myself of these horrible memories. Feeling miserable and helpless, I started to cry.

  “Shhhhh, everything will be fine,” Mother said as she hugged me. “Don’t think of the past. We have to move forward and figure out what to do. Now, let’s just start climbing. We have a place to stay at the very top.” Placing me in front of her, she held me tight, and together, we gazed up at the ominous mountain.

  A brown dog ran out into the yard of the house I had been gazing at so wistfully. Speeding toward us, it jumped up to rest its paws on the low wall and barked furiously. Its deep brown eyes and short brown coat reminded me of my boxer Luxy in Seoul. I went over and patted him and he immediately lowered his head, whimpered, and wagged his long thin tail. I thought of my boxer’s stubby tail that wagged so busily, forming little pools of wrinkles on her back.

  The door of the house opened, and a girl in a bright pink lace dress ran out. She grimaced when she saw us, and said, “Browny, come here! Stop barking at the refugees. They all have to come this way now. They can’t find another path up the mountain. Come over here!” She shot a disdainful glance my way, and as the dog rushed in, she shut the door and quickly disappeared. But her shrill voice rang in my head. She had called me a “refugee.” That’s what I am now, I thought to myself. How terrible the word refugee sounded! She said it as if it were the name of some horrible disease. A chill ran down my spine, and I shivered. Through tear-filled eyes, I stared down at my tom shoes and dirty clothes. I fingered my stiff, dusty hair, which had not been washed since we left Seoul. My body ached, and my head pounded as my new name echoed through my mind. “Refugee, refugee, refugee.”

  I hoped that I would never lay eyes on the girl again, and I vowed to stay clear of her house every time I climbed the mountain. But it wasn’t meant to be. A month later, Father Lee asked me to join a choir he was forming with members from Pusan High School for Boys, Pusan Girls’ School, and students from Seoul. He thought it would be a good idea for us to get to know each other better; we might be in Pusan for longer than we had hoped. There was someone special he wanted me to meet, he said; someone with whom he thought I would have a great deal in common. We were about the same age, he noted. Haerin was sixteen, only one year my senior. We were both fond of music and loved to sing. So, at the refugee information center, Father Lee introduced me to a tall girl with long silky hair and unusually long bangs that gave some balance to her thin face and framed her protruding eyes. She stood proudly in her Pusan Girls’ School uniform, with hymnals under one arm and a thin black leather case under the other. I immediately recognized her as Browny’s owner.

  I lowered my eyes and fumbled for something in my pocket. I didn’t know what to do or say. My face burned, and I knew that even my neck had turned an embarrassing pink.

  “Sookan,” Father Lee said, “I’ve been wanting you to meet Haerin. She will be the conductor of our choir. You two will have a lot to talk about. You can teach each other about your homes. Haerin knows all about Pusan. She has lived here her whole life.”

  When I mustered enough courage to look her in the eyes, I realized that she had no recollection of having ever met me. She stared at me with blank disinterest.

  From then on, I had seen Haerin several hours every Saturday for choir practice, and four hours every Sunday, when we sang at four Masses. There were twenty-five choir members, seventeen boys and only eight girls. I knew a few of the girls by sight, but I didn’t know any of the boys. It wasn’t proper for girls and boys to talk, unless, of course, there was a legitimate reason to do so. All the boys stood to the left of the organ, and all the girls stood to the right, just as all the men sat on the left side of the church at Mass and all the women sat on the right. Most of the boys in the choir were from Pusan and I had never seen them before.

  However, I had noticed one handsome boy who had a beautiful tenor voice. I found out that his name was Junho, and that he was Haerin’s oppa (meaning “older brother”). He was seventeen, a senior at Pusan High School for Boys. I heard Haerin speak proudly of her oppa to several church ladies, boasting about his good looks and singing talent.

  I heard Haerin tapping her hymn book, demanding my full attention. Standing on her podium, a small step stool that she carefully stored with the hymnals in the closet, she bent forward so that she hung over us, and with her long fingers, she wielded her baton with exaggerated precision. Her blue lace dress with the billowy sleeves made every wave of her arm seem that much more commanding and majestic. Her hair was pulled back, held by a large blue velvet bow perched on her head like a bluebird ready to take f
light. I watched her eyes, which at times closed dreamily, and at other times rolled wildly with emotion as she conducted.

  When we sang, I often forgot my dislike for her. The songs seemed to transport me to another world. The songs in Latin were my favorites. It was strangely enchanting to be singing in an ancient foreign language, and I felt as if I could suddenly understand those people who had lived so long ago. I attentively followed Haerin’s directions and listened carefully to the intermingling of our voices.

  Haerin suddenly cocked her head, listened, and brought us to an abrupt stop. “Sookan, you move over here to the center, in front of the organ.” Then she looked at her brother Junho and said, “Oppa, you move to the center too. Your two voices harmonize well. I think we’ll have you do a duet.”

  Junho, the handsome, quiet tenor smiled at his younger sister’s bossy manner, but quickly obliged her and moved next to me. I stood quietly and looked away, as I had nothing official to discuss with Junho. I had never stood so close to a boy other than one of my brothers before, and I tried to contain the smile that kept surfacing to my lips. I could feel myself blushing, and I stared down at my feet, pretending to concentrate on lining them up properly.

  As I stood next to him, I could hear how sweetly his mellow voice accompanied mine. Haerin was right; it was better to put us nearer each other. Suddenly, I could hear only our two voices. I had to look around to assure myself that the rest of the choir members were still there. Proud of her arrangement, Haerin signaled for Junho and me to continue singing while the others hummed. Haerin beamed triumphantly as if she had invented something brand new.

  Father Lee came over after Mass the following Sunday and complimented her. “Beautifully done! Getting better and better, ” he said. Then he smiled broadly at Junho and me. My heart pounded, my chest felt tight, my throat burned, and my whole body tingled with a strange blend of exhilaration and embarrassment.