“Maybe they’ll tell us something when we’re older,” Michelle had said after one of those times when we begged Mom and Father to tell us stories about Korea. “If there’s some reason they don’t want to tell us, I’ll respect it.”
I’ve always been the bad daughter, I guess. “Forgive me,” I say out loud to the ghosts of Father’s ancestors, in case they are watching.
In the small file cabinet near his desk, I find a file labeled michelle, and I pull it out. Inside are a bunch of report cards (all As ), a picture of Michelle receiving a national math prize, and acceptance letters from MIT and Yale. In a separate folder in the file lies the crisp parchment of her Harvard acceptance certificate. We are proud to announce that michelle sung has been accepted to the Class of . . . Imagine, Harvard people think their school is so great that they feel you deserve a certificate just for getting in. I’m surprised it’s sitting in here and is not displayed on the wall—or in a museum.
Of course, next to Michelle’s file is mine. I’m not even sure I want to look. It’s about as thick as hers, but I can’t imagine what could be in it. I pull it out and start digging through it.
The same report cards, but with a few Bs in math contaminating them, a picture from the Tribune of me with the gymnastics team—I had no idea Father even noticed that in the paper—and college catalogs from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and MIT. Now, why would he be sending away for this college stuff when it’s supposedly me who’s deciding where I’m going to school? And MIT? Doesn’t he know his own daughter well enough to know that she hates math? What would he say if I went to a small school like Carleton or didn’t go at all? Jessie doesn’t think she’s going to college, and she doesn’t seem too worried about it. I cram the folder back into its place.
I then slide out the skinny middle drawer of the desk; I’ve saved it for last because I always keep my important things in there, and I thought Father might, too. Inside are more paper clips, a letter opener, and a few silver dollars.
There has to be more. Why else would he have a lock on the door? Sniffing like a pack rat, I start to paw around, looking in all the unlikely places I can think of: behind books, under the desk, even behind the medical certificates.
For some reason, I burrow behind his stack of classical records. At first, my hand passes through a gossamer cloud of cobwebs. Then it touches something flat and smooth—a book cover, perhaps. I stick my arm in farther to see if I can get a grip on it.
I pull out two thin scrapbooks, one on top of the other. Underneath the coating of dust, the leather covers are embossed with gold leaf.
I creak open the top one. The first page has a black-and-white photo neatly attached to the yellowing paper with small paste-on photo corners. It’s of a bunch of doctors and nurses standing on the steps of a hospital, Santa Rosa Hospital, according to the sign. As I look more closely, I spot Father right away: he’s the shortest and the only Oriental person. If I take him out of the picture, this could be a snapshot of a sitcom called Surfing Doctors, or something like that. Everyone looks so carefree, and those scrub suits could be surfer jams and the women in the cat-eyed glasses could be the bopping girlfriends in bikinis. Then there’s Father, off to the side in his spectacles and his somber look, as if he’s on the wrong set.
I remember Father mentioning that he briefly interned at a hospital in Southern California. This must be the one.
When I turn to the next page, a folded newspaper clipping slips out. I have to keep my fingers as light as feathers to unfold the sepia-toned paper without ripping it to shreds.
Young Korean Émigré Finds New Life in the US, reads the headline.
Dr. Victor Sung almost had his life ended in the war—before he ever set foot on American soil.
My eyes bulge as I read. This is Father? And what war?
A young intern originally from Pyongyang, North Korea, Sung was hit by shrapnel from a bomb dropped near the barracks.
“Yes, I was very lucky,” said Sung, displaying the cross-shaped scar on his forehead. According to the surgeon who operated on him, the wound would have killed Sung had it been even as little as half an inch deeper.
Shrapnel? Killed? Father never mentioned anything about being in a war. And I never noticed any war wounds, although his forehead is already a map of wrinkles and crevices.
As I read on, the article details how Father, and presumably Mom, emigrated to the US and how Father landed an internship at Santa Rosa Hospital in California. The article goes on about Father’s “outstanding” work in surgical research. Why did he give it up, I wonder, for some small-town practice?
I turn to the next page of the album and find a very worn picture that looks almost as if it has gone through the wash: it’s been creased and wrinkled so many times that it feels soft, like cloth. It is of a pretty Korean woman in a striped gown—which I’m sure was all sorts of vivid colors—holding a moonfaced boy, and there are a few solemn-looking men, also in costume, with funny T-shaped hats, in the background. No one is smiling—Father’s expression. Maybe these are Father’s relatives.
Another picture is of Mom in her wedding gown. She looks so young! Like a schoolgirl in a simple white dress. Is it possible that she had a crush on Father the way I have a crush on Tomper? But Mom and Father are so reserved that I can’t imagine it.
Caught in the binding of that page is a glossy square of paper about as big as my palm; it looks as if it’s been stuck in the binding for I don’t know how long. On one side, it’s just a patch of pink. On the other side, it has a picture of a lady in an old-fashioned pointy bra; she is holding a pack of cigarettes, and the words Smoke___, it’s nicer rise in a bubble from her mouth. The scrap falls out of my hands, and for a minute I consider letting it remain on the floor, but I notice that it’s torn out in a nice, neat square. I carefully tuck it back into place.
That’s the first book.
I open the second one to find a cache of airmail letters, all in Korean, wedged inside the cover. I unfold the crisp aerograms and just stare at them. It’s such a hex not knowing Korean—a whole part of me is not there.
I remember that when I was younger, I found some Korean children’s books that had colorful pictures of butterflies and Korean kids in pigtails. The book was chock-full of Korean writing, so I copied some of the squashed-bug symbols and showed them to Mom. “‘I want to go home, I want to go home.’” She’d laughed, reading my handwriting. Excitedly, I copied more and more and kept bringing them to her. Finally, she said, “No, Ellen. English is your language.” And she wouldn’t tell me about the squashed-bug symbols anymore. I still took the books into the closet and read them by flashlight—staring and staring at the symbols until they burned themselves into my retina. But the meanings never came.
Light is now streaming through the windows in Father’s study, and I feel exposed, like a criminal, a vampire. I carefully replace the albums where I found them, and walk out of the room backward, making sure that it looks the same as before I entered. It does.