"Let's go in," said Hyongbu. "We're the last ones here."

I stooped in after my uncle through the small door in the gate. And for the first time, I saw the beautiful house of the Japanese Colonel.

◊

Mr. Hwang had inherited the house after the war. He renovated it, adding a shed and another room. But because he was a Christian he refused to have a mudang exorcise the war ghosts. There were so many stories and rumors about the house that no one who believed in the old superstitions would rent it. Mr. Hwang assured us that the Japanese Colonel had been a rather quiet and philosophical man who practiced Zen meditation in his garden and had never murdered anyone. He was on good terms with a Catholic priest of the Maryknoll Mission, he said, and if there ever was a problem with ghosts, he would arrange for a Western-style exorcism. At first, my mother had decided not to take the house, but we had little money then, and because the price was so low, she said yes and rented three rooms: one for Emo's family, one for Gannan, and one for us. The owner's family lived in another room, and in the last room lived a couple who had moved back to Korea from Nagasaki. Their son was named Yongsu, but everyone called him Rubberhand. What had been the rock garden during the Japanese Annexation was now overgrown with pine, maple, chestnut, and ginko. In the back of the house by the shed stood a wonderful white Russian birch. Beneath it lay a terraced vegetable garden which my aunt, Emo, soon cultivated each day. The walls around the house, rebuilt to a height of three meters, were newly studded with shards of multicolored glass to keep thieves out.

◊

On warm mornings, a mist would rise from the old rock garden. Before the sun climbed high enough to make the day clear, I would glimpse the mist spirits dancing between the beams of light that shone like revelations through the gaps in the tree branches. One evening, in the rust-colored light just before dark, I stood outside the front door of the house and listened while the owner told me that the sky was endless. I stared up through the branches of my favorite ginko tree at the stars, trying to imagine a darkness that went on forever and forever.

Winter ended and the spring passed quickly. Soon the spring rains became the torrents of the monsoon. One morning I found a sick magpie under the largest chestnut tree. I went out into the rain and brought it inside. I tried to feed it, but it wouldn't eat. When it was dry I took it to the owner's room and asked how to make it well again. "It didn't like the bread," I said. "Owner ajoshi, when will it fly and sing again?"

Mr. Hwang touched the magpie tenderly. He stroked it and lifted its wings, and then he looked at me sadly, the way the ghost of the Japanese Colonel looked. "Keep it warm and dry," he told me. "And we'll pray and hope that God up in the sky will bless it, ungh?"

"What about the Swallow King up in the sky? Will he bless the bird, too?"

"The Swallow King isn't real. All prayers go to God. Shall I teach you one?"

I shook my head and took the magpie back to our part of the house. I made it a small perch and placed different sorts of food in front of it, but the bird still would not eat anything. In the evening when my mother returned, she said to put the bird on the window ledge so it could look outside. I moved the perch and even opened the window the tiniest bit to let in the fresh smell of dirt and rain. The magpie sat very patiently as if it were waiting for something. It would turn its head from side to side, but never moved from its place.

That night, I dreamt of a wide, still river with banks of white pebbles, and when I woke the next morning, the magpie was dead. I trembled when I touched it. I thought I might wake it from a sleep, but it was too cold to be sleeping -- and odd somehow, as if it weren't the same bird I had seen at night sitting so quietly on the perch. I wrapped it in a handkerchief and placed it in the curve between two broken rooftiles. After I buried it under the chestnut tree where I had found it, I whispered a prayer to the Swallow King to take the magpie's spirit to a good place. I even tried to cry, but I could not. Perhaps I had begun to understand at that moment, as I crouched in the rain and heard the whispering ghosts, that the magpie's death would go on and on forever like the endless sky.

My sadness did not want to come out of me.

◊

When I came in, Emo dried my hair with a small towel and gave me a bowl of hot water to warm me. I held the bowl under my chin as I drank, feeling the steam on my face. "Emo," I said, "when will the rain not come anymore?"

"Next month," she said. "Then you can stay outside all day if you want."

I took off my white rubber shoes and stepped up onto the wooden maru floor. Emo wiped my feet. "Now go into the room," she told me. I went and lay on the hot ondol floor where the heat rose up into my body, making my head heavy on the cushion I used as a pillow. I started to sing a bird song that Gannan had taught me.

Magpie, magpie, your new year

Was on yesterday.

Our, our, new year's day

Has arrived today.

I sang the song again and again until my eyes closed and my mouth hung open in sleep. I awoke quietly when I heard Gannan's door sliding shut. She usually brought me Fig Newtons when she came back from the club in ASCOM, the American Army post. I left our room and thumped across the maru to her door and stood there for a moment. A little noise, like the snuffling of a small animal, came out of her room. I slid the door open and slowly poked my head inside. "Nuna, why are you crying?"

"It's nothing," she said.

"Did somebody hit you?"

"No. It's nothing." She sniffled, and now her shoulders heaved up and down as she put her hands over her face.

"If somebody hit you, then I'll beat that bastard up!" I stepped inside. Gannan tried to smile, but only her cheeks twitched. "It's . . . nothing," she said again. I wanted her to stop crying. Her tears made something inside my chest crinkle and sag. I didn't know what to do.

"Nuna, is it because of your yellow-haired boyfriend? Did he say he didn't want to marry you?"

Gannan gave me a hopeless look and then she hugged me and cried into my belly while I stood helplessly, watching her shoulders heave. "Nuna," I said, patting her dark hair, "let's sing a song. If you sing a song, it makes you happy." Although the corners of my mouth turned downward each time Gannan sobbed, I did not want to cry with her. I started singing the jackrabbit song.

It was much easier after the first verse. I sang it again, loudly, and I heard Gannan's breaking voice join in.

Over the hills, the hills,

All by my self, my self,

Hopping, hopping, leaping so. . . .

And when we had sung the song three times, Gannan wasn't crying any more. My heart felt lighter. Even if the yellow-haired GI didn't marry her, I knew she would get married soon because she was beautiful and her face was like the moon.

When I came back to her room later that afternoon, she was rubbing Vaseline on her face. "Is your face burned?" I asked.

"You stupid, I'm just taking my makeup off." She put the Vaseline jar on top of her note pad.

"Did you bring me some Fig Newtons even though you were sad?" Gannan smiled quietly and pointed towards her handbag. I found the cookies next to a white envelope in her bag and sat in the corner to eat them, crunching the tiny seeds between my teeth. "Go play in your room," said Gannan. "I want to be alone for a while."

"What are you writing?"

"A letter."

"Is it for me?"

"Yes, it's for you. Now go to your room if you want to read it later."

"Too loud!" I said, covering my ears. I went back to our room to play with the hooknosed puppets my grandmother had sent from the German country. My mother came home after the rest of us had eaten dinner. She ate alone from the table Emo brought for her. I sat at her side, taking pieces of kimchi, spinach, and chewy bellflower root to eat with the spoonfuls of rice she offered me.

"Did you win, Mahmi?"

"No. No jackpot today. Maybe I'll take you next time for luck. Didn't you eat enough?"

"Ungh, but I'm hungry again."

"I told you to eat more," said Emo. She sat and smoked a cigarette, looking worried. Or maybe she was just thinking about something. The mole over her right eye made her seem always thoughtful. "Go and see Gannan before you sleep," she said to my mother. "Something must have happened today, again."

"When did she come in?"

"After I came in with the umbrella," I said. "She was crying hard and I --"

My mother gave Emo a tired look. I looked down for a moment at the floor, remembering how Gannan had cried.

"Maybe she should be sent back home," said Emo, watching the dark, wet windowglass behind the magpie perch. I could see our reflections and the bright electric bulb that hung in the middle of the room. It seemed that we were all sitting out in the rain. My mother's reflection turned towards me, and I could see the night through the blacks of her eyes.

"It's no good being a yang saekshi," said Emo. "If she'd stayed in the country with Country Sister . . . "

"There's nothing we can do now," said Mahmi.

"Mahmi," I said, "what's a yang saekshi?"

"You don't have to know that yet. Go play in the other room with Yunhwa and Haesugi."

"I want to stay here."

The window pane rattled in a gust of wind. The trees hissed outside. I could hear the refugee ghosts wailing because they had lost their homes in the war. Then, through the streaks of rain on the window, beyond our reflections, I saw the ghost of the Japanese Colonel watching us with his sad eyes. Why was he always so sad, I wondered. Was it because his ashes had been scattered under the tree roots and he had no way of getting them back? Or was he just lonely? Did he miss the house and want to come back and live here? Now the wailing of the refugee ghosts quieted as it always did when the Japanese Colonel appeared. I could hear rain dripping from the trees, and the faint sound of someone shouting far away. The Japanese Colonel nodded goodbye, then walked toward the garden and was gone.

". . . I even collected the money for her at first," Mahmi was saying. "I can't do more than that."

"If you hadn't introduced her. . . " Emo picked a lump of spilt rice off the floor and stuck it to the rim of the table. Mahmi put her chopsticks down. I took one and tapped on the table next to the rice until she said to stop.

"One for me, too," said Mahmi. Emo took the Salems out of her vest pocket.

While they smoked, I remembered proudly that I had been there in the NCO Club when my mother had first introduced Gannan to the yellow-haired GI. He was standing in the lobby under the painting of the coiled dragons, shaking his leg the way my father did when he was impatient. Gannan looked shyly at his shiny black shoes while he looked down at the top of her head. "Hello," said Mahmi, "this is my young daughter of sister. Her name Gannan." "Hi there, baby-san," said the yellow-haired GI. "Olgul chum olyo pa," Mahmi said in Korean to Gannan. "Lift your face and look at him. He's a decent man, considering he is an American soldier." Gannan Iifted her head, and with a half bow, said, "I am happy to meet you." He smiled. "Hey, you talk American good-good," he said. "This kid yours, baby-san?" "My son," said Mahmi. The yellow-haired GI gave me some money before he went to the bar with Gannan. Mahmi played slot machines, so I bought a Coke and ran outside to wait. A few days later the yellow-haired GI came to our house and spent the night in Gannan's room. I saw him the next morning while he was still in bed without a shirt on. He had curly yellow hairs all over his chest just like a monkey, and he smelled even more like an animal than my father did. I jumped on the bed while Gannan made him breakfast in the kitchen. "Hey, baby-san," he said, "let's play a little game. I throw these and we'll see how fast you can pick 'em up, okay?" I nodded eagerly as he picked up a pack of cards and tossed them across the room. I leapt out of the bed and gathered them by the handful, working frantically, scooting this way and that way on the floor, sticking my arm under the cabinet where some had slid. When I breathlessly brought all of the cards back, the yellow-haired GI was sitting dressed on the edge of the rumpled bed, putting his black socks on. "Now you do," I said, holding the cards out. He smiled. I smiled too, and hurled the cards as hard as I could, scattering them across the entire room. But the yellow-haired GI just sat and laughed, especially when Gannan came in with the table and yelled at me for making the mess. He didn't pick up a single card. He laughed harder and harder until my face turned red and I hated him.

". . .before the war we lived well there," said Emo. "If the rice would only grow like it used to, she could stay in the country."

Mahmi nodded and exhaled through her nose. The smoke came out in two plumes that joined into one cloud before it faded. Suddenly, Mahmi looked up at Emo. "What's that noise?"

"What noise?" said Emo.

The rain seemed to get louder and louder as I listened for the noise. In a moment, we could hear it. Hyongbu was outside, singing "The Man in the Yellow Shirt."

Emo sighed and arranged the table to take back out to the kitchen. "He's come over the wall again," she said. "Sometime he's going to hurt himself."

"Yobo, open the door!" cried Hyongbu. "I've returned!" He banged against the doorframe. "Look here, I'm getting wet in this TYPHOON out here! I said OPEN THE DOOR!"

"I'll clear the table," said Mahmi.

Emo went out to open the door. "Where have you been all this while?"

"Shut your mouth," slurred Hyongbu. "Don't meddle in my business."

I listened to the rattle, the loud argument, and the thumping as Hyongbu staggered to his room. In a while I heard muffled noises, then the soft crying of Yunhwa and Haesugi.

My mother cleared the table and put out the bed mats. The soft weeping of the rain, drowning out the noises from Hyongbu's room, lulled us to sleep. I dreamt that I saw Hyongbu standing in the rain, chanting,

He was naked except for his underpants, the way he was when he washed outside, and he danced in the Korean way, waving his arms and taking funny little steps. The chant wasn't at all like "The Man in the Yellow Shirt." It meant Hyongbu's heart was strong and he would live for a very long time. But when I looked again, I saw that his hair was black, not yellow. His pants were white, not yellow. When I said, "Hyongbu, where are your yellow things?" he answered, "Shhhhh. . . ." and pointed up to the sky as if someone were listening.

chanted Hyongbu. "And be quiet. Shhhhh . . . ." Shhhh was the peeing noise. When I awoke in the midst of a comfortable warmth, I found the bedmat soaked. I tried to stay asleep until the bedmat dried. I was ashamed when Mahmi made me get up and help her put the bedmat out in the kitchen near the big stove. Haesugi and Yunhwa laughed at me on their way to school.

"You drew a good map," said Haesugi. "Look, it looks like Australia."

"No," said Yunhwa, rubbing his eyes. "It's Greenland. Insu-ya, are you going out to borrow some salt today?"

"No!" I cried. "I'm not going!" I already knew the trick of sending bed-wetters out to the neighbors for "lots of salt." They would get beaten for peeing, and when they came back home they would get beaten for not bringing salt. As Haesugi and Yunhwa went out with the plastic and bamboo umbrella, I noticed their fresh bruises in the outside light. I looked up at Mahmi. "Mahmi, why does Hyongbu--"

"It's because he gets drunk," said Mahmi. She went in to put on her makeup. While I sat watching the bedmat dry, Emo came into the kitchen with another bedmat that had an even bigger map on it. I heard Mahmi laughing.

"Who peed?" I said, pointing at the stain.

"You peed. You couldn't just pee on your bedmat, you had to come and wet ours, too."

"I didn't do it!"

The day's rain hadn't yet begun. I went outside to look at the magpie's grave where the night's rain dripped slowly, in large drops, making a fresh patting sound against the earth. I wondered how many drops were in the sky waiting to fall, and why it always had to be cloudy and dim during the monsoon. Why couldn't the rain drop from a bright and sunny sky? I would ask the owner. If the sky was endless then how far did the raindrops have to fall? I crouched under the chestnut tree and checked around the roots to make sure the magpie's grave was safe. I had put another rooftile over the grave to keep it dry because I knew that although they liked to splash in the summer, the birds didn't like to get too wet. "Magpie, Magpie," I sang.

"Insu-ya!"

I turned around.

"Magpie's or ours -- New Year won't come for a long time," said Hyongbu through the window bars. "Come inside and eat. Then I'll tell you a story."

"I'll come in after I pee," I said.

Hyongbu laughed loudly. "All that and you have some left? Hurry and pee before the rain comes. There was a fool once who started to piss just when the rain started. He thought the rain sound was the sound of his pissing and he stayed there all afternoon and evening holding his pepper until the rain stopped. 'Must have drunk quite a lot,' he said when he finally pulled up his pants."

"What a stupid. Is it true, Hyongbu?"

"Of course it's true. The fool was a country relative of mine."

I looked up at the sky, then peed hurriedly and went back into the house. Hyongbu chuckled from the window. After breakfast, he led me down the hall to his room. "Gannan's been doing bad things again," he said. "Hasn't caught a husband yet. You and I are going to talk like men while your Mahmi and Emo scold her."

"Gannan will marry a good man," I said.

"She should just marry one of those black bastards who're glad to get anything with skin whiter than theirs."

"Why? Why do they want people with whiter color skin?"

Hyongbu sat cross-legged on the floor and lit a Salem he had stolen from my mother. Betwen puffs, he scratched his blue-black hair. "Later, when you grow up, you tell me, ungh? You can stick it in some white women, yellow women, and black women. You tell me which ones you like best, all right? And with those American women, remember they have lots of different hair colors." He made a ring with his thumb and forefinger, then stuck the cigarette through it. "You stick it right in, just like this."

"Stick what in?"

Hyongbu laughed loudly, exhaling a huge cloud of smoke. "I'll tell you in a few years when you're old enough to know."

"Why can't you tell now? I can do that, too." I imitated him, using my finger instead of a cigarette. "Look here -- stick it in, just like this."

"You learn fast," said Hyongbu, "but now I'll tell you a story. You want to hear a story?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then get me one of your mother's American cigarettes and a cup of coffee.".

I went back to our room, where my mother, Emo and Gannan were talking in quiet voices. They had all been crying about something. "Mahmi," I said, "Hyongbu wants some cigarettes and coffee."

She pointed at the Salems which lay under a handkerchief smudged with makeup. "I'll talk to someone I know at the 121st Army Hospital," she said to Gannan. "Maybe he can do it."

"I'm afraid," said Gannan. She looked towards me and began to cry again. I heard a sound like the tinkling of tiny bells. Emo was stirring the Maxwell House coffee with a tiny sugar spoon.

"Here," said Emo. "Take this coffee and go to Hyongbu. And not so many cigarettes."

I put back three of the five I had taken from the pack and, carefully lifting the coffee on its saucer, I went out the door. Emo closed it behind me. I felt like sitting down and crying, but even with the heavy sadness in my stomach, I managed to take the coffee to Hyongbu without spilling a single drop. "Hyongbu, Gannan is sick," I said. "Mahmi said something about the 121 Hospital."

"That's right. She's sick all right. She's been careless and now she's got something growing in her belly. I suppose they want to take it out." He smiled as he tucked the two Salems into his own cigarette pack.

She must have swallowed too many seeds, I thought. "Hyongbu, what if she eats the terrible medicine and throws up? Will that get it out?"

"It's too far down inside. Now let's see about the coffee, ungh?" He took a small sip and said, "Ah, it's good. Shall I tell a story?"

"No."

Soon, Mahmi and Gannan left for ASCOM. Emo cleaned up the breakfast tables out in the kitchen and Hyongbu got dressed to go out. Since the rain had not started and the day looked clear, I asked Emo if I could go outside to play. "Go ahead, go out and play," she said, sniffing as she washed the rice for dinner. "Don't go too far." I watched her for a while from behind the kitchen door. Every few moments, she would stop her work and look far away beyond the walls of the kitchen. Her puffy eyes would brim with tears, her breasts would heave; and then, squeezing her eyes so the tears beaded out of the corners, she would go back to her work, saying to herself in a mourning voice, "Aigo, uri Gannan-ah, aigo uri Gannan-ah. . . . "

This sadness made my heart feel heavy. I promised to myself that when I grew up and became a dark-haired GI, I would make lots of money and buy everyone everything they wanted so they would be happy always. We would have servants so Emo wouldn’t have to work in the kitchen; Mahmi could stop going to the PX to buy things for other people; Hyongbu would have his American cigarettes and whiskey. And my father, by then, would surely be a great general with white hair and a beard instead of only his short yellow hair. He would tell me wise things and we would kill many badguys together. Since they said I was growing each day, all I had to do was eat plenty of food and wait patiently until I was big enough. Then they would give me a uniform and a cap -- I would be a GI. I could go to America to see the many, many PX's, NCO Clubs, and all the tall people in green with their sharp, pulled-out noses.

But I had forgotten Gannan. No, I had saved her for last because she was special and deserved the most special things like the American dresses which had colors I couldn't name, the fancy shoes with heels as thin as bird legs, and the most fashionable handbags, the kind that glittered like fish scales when the light shone just so. Gannan had worked hard in the rice paddies and now she worked hard here in Pupyong, waiting outside the ASCOM gate each day until a GI took her through, getting searched each evening on the way out unless her special MP friend was working.

I wandered aimlessly around the house for a while, thinking about this and that, sometimes trying to remember a word or a sound with the insides of my ears, sometimes seeing memories in the darkness behind my eyes. Today I even tried to find pictures or words for the feelings beneath my heart, but it was too hard to do. Those feelings had no words or pictures for them, only darkness and a noise like the sound of rain. I went down to the rice paddies beyond the thatched houses and watched the farmers repairing their paddy dikes.

◊

I ran out of the room, nearly crashing through the door. Gannan had arrived with a bag full of wonderful things: bananas, oranges, apples, rice cakes, even two bottles of Johnny Walker. While Yunhwa and I pushed and pulled at each other to get to the fruit first, Haesugi selected the best ones.

"Where did you get all this?" asked Mahmi. "It's from the Army post, isn't it?"

Gannan nodded. I couldn't hear what she said, but Mahmi smiled and took one of the rice cakes.

Soon Emo, Hyongbu, and Mr. Hwang's family came out to share the things. Hyongbu and Mr. Hwang drank together and talked more and more loudly while Emo and Mahmi helped Gannan peel the apples and oranges. Everyone was very happy because something good must have happened for Gannan to bring home such expensive presents, but Gannan never told us what had happened. She just said it was nothing, even when Emo asked if the yellow-haired GI had changed his mind and promised to marry her.

Gannan looked at each of us and gave us each a piece of fruit she had peeled and cut, but she didn't eat any herself. "Here, Insu-ya, eat this." She gave me a crescent piece of white apple, and I just held it dumbly in my hand until she said again, "Eat it."

I ate it, and a piece of orange, too. Gannan took some fruit and rice cakes out to the room where Yongsu lived. Emo followed her, and after a few moments the two of them returned with Yongsu's father.

"Yongsu's father! Come in!" called Hyongbu. "Drink a bit with us. It's precious stuff!"

"Have you all been well?" asked Yongsu's father, half bowing.

Mr. Hwang gave him a glass of whiskey even before he had taken his shoes off. Yongsu's father sat with them, and they began to sing loudly about the rainy park of Chang Ch'un Tang. To help them, I cracked the chopsticks against the table and joined in the jjajajang-ch'ang parts. It was just like a party.

Soon Yongsu and his mother came and joined us on the maru under the glare of the fluorescent light. While the older people drank and sang around the table, Yunhwa and I had fun throwing pieces of fruit at Yongsu and watching him try to clasp it between his hands. Yongsu had had been born with no bones in his right hand. He had no knuckles or even creases on his palms, just a rubbery hand that looked like a half-inflated hospital glove. When he ran or got excited, he would flap the hand like a flipper and laugh wildly. Now he clasped an orange so tightly that his rubber hand bent and the fruit fell on the maru with a thump.

"Ya, Rubberhand, watch this!" Yunhwa flapped both of his hands until Yongsu imitated him. We all laughed together when the boneless hand started to slap against Yongsu's arm.

Now all the adults, even Gannan, had joined in song. Haesugi fed slices of apple to Mr. Hwang's little boy who had just grown his first teeth. The fluorescent light began to swing back and forth on the chain as a cool wind blew in from the garden. The fruit smelled even more sweet and delicious; the sound of the song grew hushed just as rain began crackling in the trees. Suddenly, Yongsu's mother started singing alone in a raspy voice that came from her sadness deep inside. As she sang, tears rolled down her face and her voice crackled, but she kept singing until the song was done. All the women cried, especially Gannan. The men looked down at the wooden maru floor, hiding the wetness in their eyes. The rain and the trees sighed on. Everyone sat quietly while the crying stopped, and then they all told Yongsu's mother what a wonderful singer she was.

"Nuna," I said to Gannan. "Will you read me the letter you wrote me now?"

Gannan's face had swollen from the crying. She rubbed her eyes once more. "You don't have to hear the letter now, Insu-ya. I'll tell you a big secret, instead, ungh?"

"All right," I said, "but only if it's better than the letter."

"It's much better. And more important."

"What is it?"

Gannan bit her lip for a moment. I thought she would cry again, but she said in a very calm voice, "When you're grown up, you must have compassion. Good things and bad things will happen, but you must remember this always, ungh? You must have injong."

I frowned. I would much rather have heard the letter she had written to me, but now there was this big secret that didn't make any sense. "What does that talk, injong, mean?"

"It means you have to be a kind person and think of others. Will you remember that word injong? It means compassion."

"Ungh."

"You won't forget?"

I nodded. The word for compassion was easy enough. I mumbled it a few times to myself: "Injong, injong, injong." Maybe the yellow-haired GI had suddenly gotten some of this injong and agreed to marry Gannan after all. I hoped it wasn't true because I hated him -- I didn't want him to be a good person. But what else could it be? Where could Gannan get all the money to buy the expensive things for the party?

"You really won't forget, Insu-ya?"

"I won't forget!" I said loudly. "Will you read me the letter now?"

"You'll have plenty of time to read the letter some other time." Gannan turned away from me. Her skin looked very white under the fluorescent light. Her arms and shoulders, even her fingers, glowed the way things glow under the big moon. I could tell she had been to the bathhouse that day. I was annoyed. If Gannan wouldn't read it to me, I would learn how to read it by myself. I went to our room and found one of Haesugi's old reading books and opened it to the beginning. I already knew the stories in it. I had memorized every word, and all I had to do was to remember what mark went with which word. Then I would look at the marks on Gannan's letter and know what it said. But the noise from the maru bothered me and all the marks in the book looked the same. Many of them seemed to be the same mark put sideways or upside down. If the number seven mark made a sound like ka like Haesugi had explained, then how could you make that sound upside down? I turned the book this way and that way, and finally put it away.

I went back out to the maru where they were singing and dancing. Mahmi told me to put out a mat and sleep with Yongsu. His parents would take him home later. Yunhwa and Haesugi had already gone to bed and Mr. Hwang's son slept soundly in his mother's lap. Yongsu helped me get the blankets out of the cabinet and lay them out on the ondol floor. We lay down, curled against each other under the bright, dangling bulb, and listening to the singing, the rain, and the rustling trees, we fell asleep.

Sometime late in the night, I awoke with a start in the dark and silent room. The rain had stopped. Rubberhand had gone, and in his place Mahmi lay at my side. She had turned her head the other way. I couldn't hear her breathing. It was too quiet, and I was afraid. I lay still, afraid even to close my eyes, hoping that Mahmi would turn in her sleep or a tree would move or the wind would blow to make the silence go away. For the longest time, the silence drew on and on; but then, just as I prepared to cry out for Mahmi, the moon came out and its light streamed in through the wet window pane. I heard a gentle creaking sound, and in the moonlight, I saw Gannan, dressed in white, waving to me from under the branches of the chestnut tree. I smiled and fell, unafraid, into a deep sleep.

Shortly after dawn, Emo's loud wailing woke everyone but Gannan.

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On the morning after the funeral, my mother's eldest brother, Big Uncle, who had had much experience with ghosts and evil demons, sawed down the thick branch from which Gannan had hanged herself. He split the wood into small pieces and arranged them into a rectangular pile. Here were placed all of Gannan's clothes and personal possessions. Gannan's mother, Country Aunt, wept as she brought the things out of Gannan's room; and she laid them in the pile gently, as if they were Gannan's body. Before Big Uncle poured kerosene over the pile, Country Aunt held one of Gannan's blouses against her cheek and looked longingly up at the sky.

Mahmi, Emo, and all the other women stood on one side while the men stood on the other. When Country Aunt finally put the blouse down, Big Uncle nodded to Hyongbu who struck a match and tossed it into the kerosene-soaked pyre. The flames began almost invisibly with a tiny wooshing sound. It was quiet at first, but in a matter of moments the fire began to roar, and though there had been no wind, the flames began to blow in every direction. Old Uncle chanted something in a soft and powerful voice. Country Aunt keened loudly, almost singing a t'aryong. Hyongbu lit American cigarettes and passed them out among the men who smoked them thoughtfully in silence.

The green chestnut wood sizzled and crackled now. I watched Gannan's clothes turn black and crumble into ash. Her high-heeled shoes burned with a smelly black smoke; her thin nylon things puffed and shrivelled into tiny puddles that looked like melted sugar. As the heat beat against my face, I suddenly remembered she had told me something very important to remember. It was a word, a very easy one, that meant to be a good person, and yet, even though I knew how easy it was, I could not remember it no matter how hard I tried. I scratched my head, closed my eyes, and began reciting, one by one, every word I knew, beginning with "fire," which I felt against my face. "Fire hot wood smoke wind mountain tree bird fly cloud rain cry water river ocean. . . ." The fire crackled and I went on and on until I forgot the words I had already listed. I had begun to repeat myself. I knew now that I could name easily only the words that had pictures or funny sounds. When I needed a word that was just an empty spot in my mind, I hesitated and was filled instead by a memory of something I did not want. Soon, I felt as if I were spinning in darkness the way I did when I was sick with fever. I saw picture after picture of Gannan, and now when I remembered she was dead forever and forever just like the magpie, I began to sniff and sob. I tried not to cry, but a moan came out through my throat, growing louder and louder until someone heard and said, "Insu-ya, don't cry. Don't cry, don't cry. Gannan has gone to the Heavenly Kingdom."

Later, when the fire had died down and all the relatives had gone in to eat before their trip back to the country, Big Uncle gathered some ash from the fire and rubbed it into the stump of the chestnut tree branch. He and I were the only ones left outside.

"Big Uncle," I said. "Will Gannan be a ghost and come back?"

Big Uncle cleared his throat and looked up at the chestnut tree, mumbling something to himself. "Let's you and I pray she doesn't come back," he said at last. "She's left this unhappy life behind. Why would she want to come back?" He said these last words quietly.

Mahmi had told me that when he was younger, Big Uncle had been bewitched by a ghost while he was walking home at night. Something had struck him in the back of the head, and he had run as fast as he could down the narrow mountain trail. But the ghost had caught him and tied him up to a treetrunk until morning. When he woke up he found that he had been tied up by nothing but some strands of long grass. Since then, Big Uncle had learned all about ghosts, and now he often helped in exorcisms.

"Big Uncle, do you think Gannan's spirit is unhappy?"

Big Uncle made a sort of humming noise. He looked down at me with his tired eyes and shook his gray head. "Don't worry and go have fun, ungh? It's too early for you to be worrying about things like that." He led me to the place that was once the rock garden, and while I watched, he whittled me a guardian post out of a piece of fallen branch. "Whenever you're afraid of a ghost, you take this and stick it where the ghost will see it, ungh? Then everything will be fine."

I took the fresh, white guardian post and carefully touched its frightening face. "It's a scary one," I said.

Big Uncle smiled, showing his stained teeth. "Now let's go in and eat."

I paused for a moment and stuck the guardian post into the soft earth at the foot of the chestnut tree where it belonged. I knew already that Gannan would never come back as a bad ghost, but if this was such a sad world like Big Uncle said, I thought it would be better if she didn't come back at all.

Big Uncle and all the other relatives except Country Aunt left early the next morning after staying up all night. When they were all gone, the house seemed too quiet. The sadness that they had kept out with all their voices came into the house and filled it completely full. Now, even when Hyongbu talked with his deep, loud voice, it sounded as if he were far away. The sad silence was so heavy that any noise, even the sound of a sliding door or the buzz of a fly, made me feel better. I spent the next days outside, taking food down to the old farmer's pig and playing with Rubberhand when his mother let him out.

But any time when I wasn't doing something, my thoughts would return to Gannan, and I would feel a great emptiness. I would cry, but the crying did not help, and after a time I would sit and stare dumbly up at the green hills. Now that Gannan was gone Haesugi and Yunhwa fought more and more. Hyongbu drank more often, and Mahmi and Emo had less to talk and be hopeful about. There was no one, now, to bring me Fig Newtons, or play American games with me, or tell me stories about all the strange things the GI's did.

All that remained in Gannan's room now that everything had been burned and buried were a white folding screen, a white-clothed table, a black-banded portrait, and an incense urn with several sticks of hyang beside it. A few days after the funeral, I opened the door a crack and carefully peeked inside. I could feel the heavy silence and emptiness that seemed to leak out into the rest of the house, flowing thickly over my feet. This silence and emptiness was warm, and it made the large room very bright. The light that shone in through the rice paper panels rippled each time the wind blew outside and shifted the shadows of the tree branches. I could still smell the thick odor of hyang which had soaked into the room in the past days.

As I stood there with the door slightly open, I began to remember things about the room: where the yellow-haired GI had tossed the cards; where Gannan had sat, wiping the makeup from her face; where we had kneeled to throw dice against the wall to play the GI number seven game. In that corner near the window, Gannan had set up a stage for a puppet show which we performed with the ugly German puppets; there, in the other corner, she had sat while making things disappear by magic. I slowly closed the door and went back to the other room where it was cooler and less silent. I took a nap full of the tiredness I had gathered in the past days.

More days passed, and I grew used to the silence of Gannan's absence, but for a while I still awaited the sound of her voice in the late evening, and when I woke in the middle of the night I would imagine I heard her moan or giggle from her room the way she had when her boyfriends visited.

One morning when I had returned from the pig feeding and was sitting in front of the gate, a shadow fell over me. I looked up into the shy, smiling face of the yellow-haired GI.

"Boy-san, is your mama-san home?" he asked, nodding towards the house.

I shook my head.

"When she be back? You know?"

I shook my head again, more slowly. I felt as if I should be doing something -- crying, shouting, or beating him -- but I felt too hopeless to even move.

"Boy-san, you aroh GI talk?" he asked anxiously.

This time I nodded yes.

The yellow-haired GI smiled briefly, then squatted down to make his face level with mine. "Me and my buddies -- you aroh 'buddies'? Ch'ingu --you know that, right? Friends. Me and my GI friends so so sad Gannan dead. We likee her number one. She number one friend." He paused a moment to look through the gate into the house. "We so so sad." He pretended to wipe tears from his eyes. "We want to help out Gannan's mama-san, understand? We got all this money for her." Now he unbottoned the shirt pocket of his uniform and pulled out a thick stack of MPC dollars. "You make sure you give this to mama-san, understand? This t'aksan money. You go give it to mama-san and say Gannan's GI friends brought it, okay?"

"Okay." I took the money he gave me in both hands, wishing that what I held were his entrails and that he would die in the most terrible way.

"Now you run inside and give that to Gannan's mama-san. This is for you." He pulled a pack of Juicy Fruit gum from his pocket and put it into mine.

I put all the money on my belly and folded my shirt up over it. "You wait," I said.

"Huh?"

"I got for you somesing."

"What?"

"You wait here." I ran as quickly as I could through the gate and to the place where Big Uncle had buried the ashes from the fire. I dug with a stick until I saw ashes, then I poked around until I found some tiny scraps of burnt cloth. I took these back to the yellow-haired GI and placed all of them in his hand except one, which I saved.

"What's this?" he said.

"Gannan dress," I said. "When Gannan die, we burn."

The yellow-haired GI frowned, then suddenly jumped and slapped the burnt cloth scraps from his palm, shouting, "What the fuck!" His fear made me very happy.

"Not Gannan," I explained. "Just Gannan dress." When the yellow-haired GI turned to go, I quickly put the last scrap of cloth into his back pocket.

"What do you want now?"

I hoped he hadn't noticed. "You got gum, Hello?" I said.

"I already gave you some, you little motherfucker. Now you just get your ass in the house and take that money to mama-san, hear?"

"Okay, Hello. I got gum. Okay."

"Better be fuckin' okay. Now get your ass in the house!" He pointed to where I should go, as if I were a dog. I hoped Gannan's ghost would come and punish him now that she knew where he was. When she wore that dress in the Heavenly Kingdom, she would see that part of it was missing because it hadn't all burned in the fire. She would have to come back and get the missing part. Then she would surely punish the yellow-haired GI.

"Hwuking okay!" I shouted, stepping through the gate as Emo came out of the garden to look. "So long, Hello, I give okay money mama-san."

"I'll be seeing you, boy-san."

As he left, I made an evil gesture at his back.

Emo took the money, and that evening she and Mahmi had a big argument, but they decided to keep the money and give it to Country Aunt because she had no money at home. Now that Gannan was dead, things would be much harder in the country. Country Aunt worried that they might have to sell the mountain where the ancestors were buried. Emo and Mahmi said they would do anything to keep the gravesites. Mahmi would sell more on the black market and Emo would do sewing at home. To my father, they would say nothing.

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From Memories of My Ghost Brother