and disappeared in the smoke-stained ceiling beams. Fabric and blankets tumbled from a linen chest, its woven grass lining lifted sideways to expose a false bottom. In this hiding place, bright scraps of cloth in familiar shapes lay in neat piles. I picked up red and blue half circles with yin and yang curves and fitted them together. “Taegeukgi , the flag.”
“So you haven’t forgotten. And you know it’s forbidden. A secret, agreed? You hem. We have fifteen more to finish in less than a week.”
“So many!” I whispered. “What for?” Sitting on the floor, I inspected her invisible stitches on the corner trigrams—heaven, earth, fire and water—and bent to her instructions to join the completed flag rectangles back-to-back.
“You’re old enough to know about certain things,” she said. “You’re not to speak of it at school or even at home, to anyone. It’s impossible to tell who’s friendly to whom.” She clipped a thread between her teeth and deftly tucked the edge of a cut form onto the background.
I thought of the Japanese merchants I saw at the market on my way to school, and the shouting men performing calisthenics every morning in the police station yard, but I’d rarely said more than a few words to a Japanese person and couldn’t imagine anyone I knew being friends with the people my father called “heathens.”
“What about my teacher?” I asked.
“Not even her, though I’m certain she’s a patriot. We prevent trouble by keeping this secret in this room.” She sighed. “Why must you always ask questions? Obedience.”
“Yes, Umma-nim.” I disliked the fussy exactness of sewing, but the warm floor and my mother’s humming made the task almost pleasant. I assumed she withheld an explanation about the flags because of my questioning and tried to be patient, but my curiosity about their number and secrecy only grew. I worked to match the precision and speed of my mother’s handiwork with little success. “So slow! How can we make that many? Abbuh-nim’s right. I’m too clumsy”—one of my father’s standard criticisms.
“Your work is beautiful when you attend to it. Don’t worry, I’ve already made forty. It’s been months.”
“I’ve never seen you—”
“When you’re asleep.”
“Oh.” A surging inquisitiveness, which I often felt at school, made me both circumspect and eager. What did she do in those hours that burned her oil lamp dry? What else didn’t I know about the world of my mother? I knew I’d get in trouble, but out it came like water from a broken gourd. “Where does Abbuh-nim go at night?”
“It’s not for you to question your elders!”
Questions burst through the limp walls of my propriety. “Why is everyone whispering so much? Why do we need so many flags? I hear him go out, but where?”
“Hush! Even the stones in the road can hear you. A child of mine would never talk back to her mother!”
I poked at my flag through frustrated tears. In the long quiet that followed, I managed to placate the spirits of curiosity by concentrating on evenly spaced, barely visible stitches.
Mother said, “Here’s another one. You’re working quickly.” Our eyes met briefly, mine grateful and apologetic, hers forgiving and kind. “He goes to church at night.”
A dozen more questions struggled to break through the newly installed guard at my voicebox, and one slipped through. “Is the minister a patriot-friend?”
Mother abruptly shouted for Kira, then louder for Joong, and I jumped. When no one answered, she gestured me closer. Lifting her sewing close to her face, like a cowl, she spoke very softly. “If I explain, perhaps you’ll understand the danger and respect it properly. You’re smart enough, and your curiosity and recklessness could jeopardize us all. I tell you this because I have faith you’ll understand how everyone’s safety depends on your ability to keep it secret.”
Relieved I wouldn’t be punished and subdued by
“So you haven’t forgotten. And you know it’s forbidden. A secret, agreed? You hem. We have fifteen more to finish in less than a week.”
“So many!” I whispered. “What for?” Sitting on the floor, I inspected her invisible stitches on the corner trigrams—heaven, earth, fire and water—and bent to her instructions to join the completed flag rectangles back-to-back.
“You’re old enough to know about certain things,” she said. “You’re not to speak of it at school or even at home, to anyone. It’s impossible to tell who’s friendly to whom.” She clipped a thread between her teeth and deftly tucked the edge of a cut form onto the background.
I thought of the Japanese merchants I saw at the market on my way to school, and the shouting men performing calisthenics every morning in the police station yard, but I’d rarely said more than a few words to a Japanese person and couldn’t imagine anyone I knew being friends with the people my father called “heathens.”
“What about my teacher?” I asked.
“Not even her, though I’m certain she’s a patriot. We prevent trouble by keeping this secret in this room.” She sighed. “Why must you always ask questions? Obedience.”
“Yes, Umma-nim.” I disliked the fussy exactness of sewing, but the warm floor and my mother’s humming made the task almost pleasant. I assumed she withheld an explanation about the flags because of my questioning and tried to be patient, but my curiosity about their number and secrecy only grew. I worked to match the precision and speed of my mother’s handiwork with little success. “So slow! How can we make that many? Abbuh-nim’s right. I’m too clumsy”—one of my father’s standard criticisms.
“Your work is beautiful when you attend to it. Don’t worry, I’ve already made forty. It’s been months.”
“I’ve never seen you—”
“When you’re asleep.”
“Oh.” A surging inquisitiveness, which I often felt at school, made me both circumspect and eager. What did she do in those hours that burned her oil lamp dry? What else didn’t I know about the world of my mother? I knew I’d get in trouble, but out it came like water from a broken gourd. “Where does Abbuh-nim go at night?”
“It’s not for you to question your elders!”
Questions burst through the limp walls of my propriety. “Why is everyone whispering so much? Why do we need so many flags? I hear him go out, but where?”
“Hush! Even the stones in the road can hear you. A child of mine would never talk back to her mother!”
I poked at my flag through frustrated tears. In the long quiet that followed, I managed to placate the spirits of curiosity by concentrating on evenly spaced, barely visible stitches.
Mother said, “Here’s another one. You’re working quickly.” Our eyes met briefly, mine grateful and apologetic, hers forgiving and kind. “He goes to church at night.”
A dozen more questions struggled to break through the newly installed guard at my voicebox, and one slipped through. “Is the minister a patriot-friend?”
Mother abruptly shouted for Kira, then louder for Joong, and I jumped. When no one answered, she gestured me closer. Lifting her sewing close to her face, like a cowl, she spoke very softly. “If I explain, perhaps you’ll understand the danger and respect it properly. You’re smart enough, and your curiosity and recklessness could jeopardize us all. I tell you this because I have faith you’ll understand how everyone’s safety depends on your ability to keep it secret.”
Relieved I wouldn’t be punished and subdued by
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