Unma says pink plastic telephone has to stay in Korea. Then how am I going to call Minnie Mouse and San Toki? She says they have the same telephones in America. She’ll buy me one. But Unma lies. After she lies, she says, Be quiet! Good girls don’t ask their mothers so many questions. Good girls do what they’re asked quietly.
But she didn’t ask.
American telephones only understand American. I don’t know American. I need Korean telephone.
I ask Opa: What are we going to do in America?
He says: Same thing we do here, stupid. Go to school. But they’re dummies, so it’s going to be easy.
Are you scared?
No.
Did we go to the hospital yesterday?
What’s yesterday? What’s tomorrow? Some word that means Not Now.
I got a bump on my arm from the needle. It’s soft and sore. Opa has one too.
No, Unma says, we went to the hospital last week.
Is tomorrow still tomorrow?
Tomorrow we leave this place, Unma says, looking aroundour small room. Her eyes say goodbye to everything. Goodbye TV that plays Woody Woodpecker, goodbye wall clock that ticks so loud, goodbye small brown table, goodbye green walls that I look at every night, goodbye pool hall, goodbye Pusan, goodbye Korea. She teaches me to say goodbye with my eyes too.
Every day we have to go to somebody else’s house to say goodbye. Some of them live in small rooms in tall buildings and some live in old-time houses. I like the houses better because the floors are warm from underneath. But there is no bathroom, just a room with a hole. At night, it gets dark and the hole gets bigger. If I fall in, who will hear me? At Halmani’s house I never go to the bathroom at night. Even if it hurts.
My Eemo lives in a tall building. She’s younger than Unma and listens to everything she says. Outside the window the color is gray and if you put your forehead against the glass you can look down and see people. It is cold, that glass. I see tiny black-haired legs moving in straight lines. Once I saw a yellow balloon go by.
Will my Eemo come to America?
She laughs. She has happy eyes and a happy mole near her mouth. She covers her mouth when she laughs. Nods. “Of course!” And I will like it there too. (Then I will go there.)
Maybe . . . my dear, she says. She tells Unma that she saw that in a movie. My dear. My dear.
My dear, my dear, my dear, my dear, my dear, my dear, my dear, my, dear, my, dear, my dear my dear my dear my dear my dear my dear my dear my dear my dear my dear my dear my dear
I say it 127 times. I’m going to be American, my dear. My dear. My dear dear. My dear dear dear.
Halmani is there too. In the room with the tall gray windows. She clicks her teeth because they’re not real. Usually she laughs but not today. She is mad at my Abuji for taking us away. She wears pink lipstick that makes a line. Afterward, my Unma says she is really sad.
What is really sad? When a lady cries?
No, Unma says, fanning herself with paper. She sighs. Not always, and not only.
She says this on the bus, looking out the window where the black-haired legs now have bodies.
Abuji taught me to read the clock. The fat needle goes slow because it is fat and the skinny needle runs and gets thin. Before that I used to look outside. On the other side of the window the light goes up and then falls down. It gets colder when the light falls down. When the windows turn black and I see my face, it’s time to go to sleep.
Opa snores in threes.
What happens when bad luck children move to America?
When the fat hand is on three I wake up. I don’t know why.
I go out to the pool hall, which is dark and quiet. Abuji is sitting in a chair and smoking. A cigarette is a small red light with smoke going up.
I ask him what he’s doing. Thinking, he says. He’s looking out the window at the moon.
I sit on the floor next to him and think too.
The moon is big but far away. I can call it from my pink telephone.
Pink telephone, doll with no head, my Eemo saying my dear, bump on my arm, goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye, goodbye, my dear pink telephone. Pink telephone, my dear.
I put Opa’s Mickey Mouse watch under his pillow.
Snore snore snore. Stop. Snore snore snore.
Tick. Tick. Tick. The watch is louder. Tick. Tick. Tick.
When I listen to it, my heart grows bigger.
We take pictures. Everybody comes to the airport. I try to smile with even my eyes. One halmani wears a hanbok, the other one still has a pink line on her face and her arms are crossed. She won’t look at my Abuji. Only the people I don’t know talk. They talk loud and laugh. Opa doesn’t look at anything except the plane. My Eemo is crying. Unma is crying too. The men smoke cigarettes and talk angrily. They’re not mad, they just sound it.
Then we have to go on the plane. Outside the window my cousin runs with his head down and arms out. He thinks he is this plane.
Now we are moving like in a car, only everything is bigger, even the noise.
Now we are up and everybody I used to know are black-haired legs.
Now they are gone.
Now the buildings are gone.
Now Korea is gone.
NOTES
About a decade and a half ago, I found myself going through a serious identity crisis. I kept wondering what my life would have been like had my family decided to stay in Korea. What would the Korean version of me be like? Would I look different? Would I like different things?
