Jaegyeolhab: Reunion Read online

courtesy was a custom of the Japanese. Even another thank you, although redundant, would’ve set her mind at ease. Ji-Won walked out after taking another glance around the brightly lit dining hall.

  She wandered a few blocks up and down the narrow, twisting streets but never caught sight of the stranger whose name she’d never gotten. Ji-Won began to feel slightly foolish and hailed a cab, paying an exorbitant amount to be driven back to the cheap hostel in Shinjuku-ku. The money felt clumsy in her hands, her limited knowledge of the language evident in her simple gestures.

  The cabbie took money and then some.

  Alone, she stood under the bright street lights, shadowed by the several story capsule hotel behind her. Feeling lonelier, she turned the collar up on her coat and went inside, checking in once more at the front desk. In the morning she’d run down to the Mr. Donut on the corner. Being close to Kabuki-cho and the occasional burst of song from nearby bars had her wary on the streets after dark. Inside, she was glad for the brightness and modern feel of newer carpeting. The amenities were few, but she’d learned to keep to herself in a strange country.

  Before turning in that night in the tiny capsule bed one of many lining the interior walls of the women’s quarters; she dialed the number she had learned by heart, her fingers closely grasping the phone to her ear. The phone never rang but rather the service operator picked up.

  “I’m sorry, but the number you seem to be dialing is either disconnected or incorr--”

  Tetsuya.

  Ji-Won hung up, pressing the phone to her breast.

  She soon fell into a dispirited sleep broken only by the familiar sounds of other capsule inmates rising at different hours. Most were tourists from far away countries, backpackers determined to see the sites on shoestring budgets. When the quiet had returned to the upper floor, she stirred herself and climbed out, heavy-headed. Her dreams were faint, distant recollections of a woman’s arms. Warmth. Love.

  Holding onto the threads of memory, she bought breakfast from the corner bakery, ate quickly in the emptied communal dining room then went back downstairs to look up a city directory. As she leafed through the residential listings, her phone rang. She answered it without thinking. "Annyeong haseyo?"

  "Honey, where are you? I checked at the house, but the neighbors said you weren't in. Your father's almost ready for discharge from the hospital -- I, where are you?"

  "In Japan, grandmama. Remember I told you I was leaving for a few days?"

  "So you decided then? Well, I'd told Jun it was a mistake not to burn those letters."

  "How could you! They belonged to me! She sent them for me!"

  Bo-Ra grew defensive, “we don’t mix with those people! Your family is here in Hanguk, waiting for you with open arms. You are han-in, not nihonjin! Let go of your foolish wishes! That is all they are, Ji-Won, dreams that will never come true."

  Her fingers tightened around the cell. Suspicion took root in her mind. “What did you do?”

  “Pah! I told that man you wanted nothing to do with him.”

  Ji-Won prayed for patience, fatigue and the inevitable slow crushing of her hopes had worn down her emotions. She lifted her head and stared into the mirror. She could see her appa there and halmeoni, but there was someone else staring back at her. Okaasan, she desperately hoped. “I am han-in and nihonjin, Mrs. Park. Goodbye.” She hung up before the woman could say a word. Across the Sea of Japan, Ji-Won imagined her paternal grandmother’s fury; a slight smile curled her thin lips. She splashed water on her face, drying with a clean white hand towel.

  Despite her lack of leads, she wasn’t willing to admit defeat. Her search had begun with those letters and birthday cards hidden by her father; was the end result so impossible? Ji-Won thought of the busy streets and confusing wards of the city of Tokyo, despair threatening to grip her heart. She’d found the name of the ward where the old place of residence was; traveling there would take her out of city bounds. Although, there was little fear traveling alone by bus for hours, she wished she’d had a contact - a familiar face - to accompany her.

  It can’t be helped, she reminded herself, you didn’t even learn that man’s name.

  Still, Ji-Won’s feet carried her in sensible pink shoes to the small tea house on the busy street. There, she sat for an hour with a cup of lukewarm tea, her ears pricked and eyes forward, hoping to see the one face who had shown her brief kindness the day before.

  “Would you like another pot?”

  “No...no, I don’t think I will.”

  She counted out the yen painfully slow, aware of the stares of the surrounding customers. Steps heavy, Ji-Won paid for a roundtrip ticket on the line and took her place among the chattering couples and mothers bending over strollers. As the sleek silver motor coach snaked along the congested roads, sometimes idling at red lights; her gaze drifted unseeingly along the sidewalks and high-rises they passed.

  Gradually, the city petered out to quieter streets with high-rise apartment buildings in the distance. Ji-Won was let off a few blocks away from the address, anticipation fluttered as anxious butterflies in her stomach. All other concerns seemed sedentary; she was here...now her past would be resolved. One step, another step closer..., She left the bus stop far behind. Please, please let this be what I’ve been searching for. The numbers of vacant multi-storied buildings flew past her, unheeded.

  And then there was nothing.

  The suddenness took her breath away, plunging her heart into the blackest of depths.

  The fringe of tenements gave way to a gaping space of sky and charred rubble. Ji-Won stumbled to a stop beside the twisted metal of the chain fencing. An elderly woman pushed a tattered baby stroller past her, steps faltering. She barely had it within her to speak.

  “When...when did the fire happen?”

  “Two months ago..., there were some survivors..., ah, but don’t cry, dear. You’ll see them again.”

  “Ah! But, where - ”

  She spun around.

  The woman was gone. Perhaps I am losing my mind, Ji-Won thought frantically. Halmeoni had warned her that carrying the burdens of grief could tear down a person’s sanity. What would Mrs. Park know? An older part of herself whispered back fiercely. Ji-Won shook her head to clear it. She made a few inquiries among other neighboring residents, never seeing the old woman again. The responses were always the same, the survivors had scattered to other housing projects, names, contact gone.

  Dispirited at last, the wearied woman returned at dusk to the metal shell overhang sheltering the small bench to wait for the next bus back to Tokyo heights. Her search had been fruitless...if they'd survived...maybe...maybe they’d chosen to forget her?

  The question haunted her throughout the long ride to the lonely confines of the capsule hotel. Her mind ran over the same answers she’d never receive, futility clenching her heart until she felt it would burst from agony. I’ve come so far, she thought, lying in the silent dormitory. Is this all I’ve come to find?

  Sleep came little for Ji-Won, its soothing peace farthest from the turmoil-laden mind lying in bitterness. When she closed her eyes to the inner darkness of the domed roof above, a soft hum like a woman’s gentle tones filled the atmosphere. The soft hum became words spoken lulling in a tongue so different from the one remembered from her days as a child. It seemed to come from a much deeper part of memory...babyhood, a woman singing the same song over a cradle.

  "Odoma bon-giri bon-giri,

  Bon kara sakya oran-do...,"

  “Umma...,” she called out, struggling awake. Hurriedly, she drew back the sliding door, scrambling out into the cool darkness of the women’s dormitory. The other denizens had long since left, she was alone in the stilted silence, and in her hearing alone the woman whispered the same song of the moon and stars.

  “Umma!” Ji-Won called, forgetting for a moment the futility of her actions. "O...Okaasan...,"

  The room was empty, she was quite alone.

  I’m losing my
mind. Loneliness has done this to me. Perhaps I should return to the land of my birth. Her thoughts confused her. Hadn't she been born here and not across the sea? Hadn't she every right to seek out her mother, the secret her father had kept from her? Ji-Won buried her face in her hands, struggling to control her breathing. Her chest ached with repressed sobs, heart drowning in hopelessness. She’d known she couldn't keep searching forever, wherever her family was, they'd gone far out of her reach and for that she blamed Mrs. Park. If only! If only she'd been able to take the phone call. Then, maybe...maybe, she smiled at the picture in her head. She'd be beneath her mother's roof, tucked into a warm cot with the soft voice of a woman singing her to sleep. She'd ask her mother for that, for a little of the time lost to be renewed again.

  Certainly, no one could begrudge her a moment of comfort and caring embraces. Sleepless now, she returned to the cubicle, tucking her body in the small space. She settled the blanket lowly at her waist to wait out the coming dawn. In the morning, she checked out of the hotel, duffel bag in hand. She'd had a call at the front desk, recognizing the number as Bo-Ra's.

  Ji-Won's thoughts darkened; she kept moving, thinking to catch a bus ride down to Ginza. She hadn't seen much of the world; halmeoni said it was overrated. She realized only now how wrong she had been to listen to them. On dwindling funds, she traveled around Tokyo proper, visiting the smaller