ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THOMAS LEE writes short stories of various themes. His work has been published in the American Literary Review, AIM Magazine, Asian Pacific American Journal, Lullwater Review, Reed Magazine and Short Fiction World.
Old World Heirlooms
By Thomas Lee
Up until that foggy April Sunday in 1977, Chang had never gone to church to find forgiveness. Even at that moment, as he stared back six pews at his wife Yoon while the other thirty or so Koreans in the congregation bowed in prayer, he wasn’t looking for God’s grace. Chang could feel his gaze bore into Yoon through his black horn-rimmed glasses held together with masking tape, but she still refused to look his way. “Just look at me,” he thought. She had a way of stoically snubbing him, facing downward so motionlessly that he knew she was fully aware of his desire for attention.
He had surrendered some ground to Yoon already by walking into that white pillbox of a church, an eyesore in the stinkiest outskirts of Queens with crumbling pews and lumpy red carpet. Despite Yoon’s pedantic naggings every week during their year of marriage, he had never gone with her to church. But, as his marriage threatened to unravel, he arrived that Sunday wearing his best shirt and slacks, and carrying a black-lacquered jewelry box he had bought in Chinatown with a month’s wages, meant to replace the one he had broken in a drunken mishap. He didn’t want anything from the minister or the rest of the congregation. He came because he knew his wife would never miss a day of worship, and she would be caught with him in a place filled with reminders of the need for forgiveness.
“Look up. You know I’m looking. Damn you, woman. At least acknowledge that I am alive.”
Twenty-five years ago, when Chang was seven years old, his father, a confident muscular man who competed in track meets as a youth, tried to outrun the Communists in the darkling pine forest adjacent his village with Chang slung over his right shoulder and Chang’s mother pulled behind with his left arm. Looking toward the village over his father’s shoulder, Chang watched in terror as howling Communist soldiers in tan uniforms, their shrill Northern accents criss-crossing on all sides, obliterated with noxious orange fire his entire world. His father’s wood-and-rice-paper estate, a multi-building home worthy of the wealthiest merchant in the most verdant village in Korea, was aflame and near collapse. Chang tensed his hands into little fists, and, with his heart nearly bursting as bullets seared past him like metal hornets, he screamed with a voice not strong enough to unleash all the fear exploding inside him.
Chang was scared of the forest as the older kids of the village convinced him it was inhabited by ghost women who kidnapped children, cut them to pieces and cooked them in stews. Ghost women had lurid names, like the Woman With Red Eyes, Woman With A Devil’s Tale, Woman Who Turned Into A Tiger, but on that day, he would’ve gladly faced one of them over a Communist.
When they were hundreds of meters into the woods, his father clenched Chang stiffly and then collapsed with a resigned, groaning exhale. Chang hit the chilly dirt underneath, clutching on to his father’s inert body as it fell over his legs and trapped him against the ground. Through welling tears, Chang saw his father laying face down with a dark, red spot in the middle of the back of his white shirt growing larger with each second. Chang’s scream stopped in the middle of his throat and turned into an icy swallow.
Chang’s mother dragged him out from under his father and led him into a clump of spindly lilac bushes with little branches that cut into him in a dozen stinging places. Though she was a petite woman who never did a day of manual labor, she clutched him with savage strength, her soft arms squeezing him so hard he could only breathe with shallow gasps. He tensed his eyes shut, so he wouldn’t see anything, but he could hear villagers being discovered by the Communists one by one, Mr. Park, the fat noodle maker, then Mr. Kim, the smiley tailor, then many others. Each wild plea for mercy from the villagers’ mouths chilled Chang’s heart before gunfire cracked. He knew not to cry, not to draw attention, so he sat in silence like a cornered rabbit, his cheeks shaking involuntarily.
His mother bobbed her head in frantic but silent prayer, holding in her hands an incandescent silver cross, two skinny, intersecting bars just a few centimeters long on the end of a thin chain-link of silver. Chang’s father bought the cross as a fifth anniversary gift in a jewelry store in Seoul, after his wife had convinced the whole family to convert to Christianity despite warnings from the other villagers that Communists would tear out their eyes and fill them with sawdust for worshipping an American God.
As the Communists combed the hills for more survivors, Chang heard the vibrant whir of propeller planes, a sound he’d heard many times before when his village looked skyward, amazed at invincible American machines soaring overhead. The Communists scattered like rodents fleeing a wildcat. Seconds later, deep-rooted pine trees that seemed unshakeable in the wildest typhoons were shattered by foreign bombs. Boiling air seared Chang’s lungs and explosions thundered around him so loudly he thought he was inside a storm cloud.
As soon as the bombs started to fall, Chang’s mother dove on him, and they lay clenched together, their fingernails cutting into each other’s skin through mudcaked clothing. After the bombs stopped, they remained hidden in diffident silence, until hours later they heard the arrogant sha-la-la of American English. Her prayers seemingly answered, his mother grabbed Chang and rose out of the lilac bush. Emerging, Chang saw that much of the lush forest had been transformed into the ashen innards of a fireplace. Several meters away, ten or so Americans were scouting the devastated landscape and looked baffled at the only two signs of life before them.
His mother ran at the largest of the soldiers, a man who looked to Chang like a giant out of legends, so large he would’ve had to bend down and scrunch his shoulders to fit through a Korean front door.
“Ji Gez Su,” his mom screamed showcasing her silver cross in front of the blonde American’s broad, confused face. “Jeez…ush…uh.”
“Oh. Jesus.” The large soldier smiled broadly and nodded slowly,
“Jeeeeeee….suuuuussssss.” “Yes. Ji..gesh. Ji…gesh.” she said, imitating his intonations as best she could.
When Chang walked into Yoon’s church, she eyed him askance, tensed like an antelope ready to flee. He tried to sit near her, but she moved all the way to the back of the church without acknowledging him.
“Yoon,” he whispered after her, but a smattering of prim faces turned and admonished him “shhhhhh” as the minister was about to begin.
He sat patiently during the service, singing along with the hymns and reciting the scriptures, each ritual reminding him of the unflinching demands of his Christian childhood. He wanted a drink so badly that he bit his lower lip to stop it from shaking. During each prayer, he looked back and saw Yoon intently mouthing the words spoken by the minister.
They reached the Lord’s Prayer towards the end of the service. “Forgive us our trespasses,” she mouthed, her eyes closed so tightly in concentration that wrinkles formed around her 32-year-old eyes. “As we forgive those who trespass against us…” she should’ve mouthed next, but instead, she pursed her lips shut in deliberate defiance. She would forsake her God, risk damnation and hellfire, just to spite her idiot husband.
Published April 2008