Wake

"Stay close," called my mother. I was already close, my hand held in hers. Yet the ebb and flow of the people surrounding us worried her, so I gripped her fingers tighter, reassuring both of us.

We struggled against the unending stream of commuters hurrying out of the subway station. Most pushed past us without a second glance. However, some stared openly at our American clothing and our tanned skin.

"Mommy, why don't Korean people tan?" I asked, examining my own brown hand.

My mother didn't answer; she was talking to my father. He had my younger sister Clare on his back, piggy-back style. She slept with a thumb in her half-opened mouth, her lips puckered like a fish.

I giggled and was about to point it out to my mother, but she began to move faster, down a long set of stairs riddled with dark gum stains, past orange lights that flickered and cast hulking shadows along the walls.

Once inside the station itself, my father kicked the ticket machine because it spit out the wrong change.

"Honey," my mother said, but her voice was dangerous. "It's only 500 won."

I did not know what won was, but the way my father's shoulders appeared sharp in the dim yellow light of the station made me stare at the floor. He didn't reply to my mother, but let her lead the way toward a green sign that said Train Line 4B, southbound toward Gaesksan in smaller English letters underneath the bigger, more important Korean.

We twirled through the gate and waited on the platform until the train arrived.

The train smelled like sweat and conditioned air. I sat between my mother and father, who held Clare in his lap. She was still sleeping, and a gray drool mark pooled against the black of my father's suit.

I pulled at my own black dress, an itchy velvet contraption, and asked my mother, "Where are we going?"

Her lips tightened. "Maddy, I already explained to you. We are going to halmoni's funeral."

At the sound of English, heads turned toward us, black eyes wide with interest. My cheeks suddenly heated up and I bowed my head. The train chugged along before rattling to a stop. More pale, jostling bodies boarded.

The Koreans interested me. So pale and so slender. All with the same midnight black hair and the same set shoulders, the same slanted eyes and rosy cheeks. I asked again, "Why don't Korean people tan?"

Mother squeezed my fingers. "Don't be silly, Maddy. These people are pale because they never go out in the sun. You're Korean, and you are tan because you play outside every day."

Me, Korean? I frowned. "But Mommy, I live in Virginia, not Korea."

Her hand moved up and stroked my hair, straightening the ribbon. "Yes, dear. But you eat Korean food and go to Korean school."

Was that all it took to be Korean? I thought about my best friend Selene. Selene and I were like twins, except that she had blue eyes and I had brown eyes, and she spoke Spanish and I spoke Korean. It was obvious to us that we were sisters, but no one else believed us. Perhaps Selene could turn Korean, too, if it was that easy, and more people would believe that we were twins.

I laid my head on my mother's shoulder, the gentle rhythm of the train rocking me back and forth, the vibration of the rumbling wheels like a lullaby.

I dreamed about my grandmother, who smelled like ginger and orange spice and who had no teeth. She hugged me tightly and put me on her shoulders, as she did when I was a toddler, and took me into a large room filled with somber people dressed in white. They sat in neat rows on uncomfortable-looking benches, and they all stared straight ahead at a large wooden cross draped in purple cloth. The women in the front row were sobbing into handkerchiefs.

My grandmother was wearing her pink-and-orange hanbok, that beautiful traditional Korean dress. She stood out like a patch of grass pushing its way out of the crumbling schoolyard blacktop.

We walked past the rows of people and up to the long box in the front of the room where an old lady lay sleeping with her eyes closed. The lady wore an ugly purple suit. The lady was my grandmother.

"Don't be afraid, granddaughter." My grandmother took me off her shoulders and cradled me in her arms. She was smiling her toothless smile. "I am here and I am wearing my favorite hanbok. When you come to mourn me, you will remind them that I still watch in dreams. I can speak to you, and you will hear."

I was not afraid, but I was confused. Why were there two grandmothers? I reached up to touch my grandmother's leathery cheek, and she sighed, her wrinkled eyes closing. But as I traced the outline of her face, a fine, powdery dust fell from her skin, as if she was dissolving. Horrified, I snatched my hand away, but it was too late: she smiled and vanished into a pillar of dust and I was falling --

I woke up, frightened and with tears smeared under my eyelids. My mother was humming to herself softly. I did not move, not even to wipe the tears. I did not like dreams, and I especially did not like them when they were like this. I remembered now my mother explaining to me that grandmother had passed away and gone to Heaven, that she had left the earth forever and that this being gone was called dead.

My mother shook my shoulder gently and whispered, "Wake up, Maddy. Wake up, precious."

She took my hand and led me out of the train, where we struggled against the horde of faceless people before emerging into setting sun that cast long red shadows against the skyscrapers.

***

I was not surprised to find myself in a large room filled with somber people dressed in white. But the long box in the front of the room made my throat choke up, and my mother had to take me to the bathroom, where I sat on the toilet for fifteen minutes, my stomach fighting a turbulent battle before finally releasing its contents into the bowl.

I was embarrassed and frightened, but my mother continued to hum that same quiet song and took me back into the large room, where we sat on the uncomfortable benches next to my father and behind the women who sobbed and did not stop, not even when when a bald man in a white robe stood up at the front of the room, and cleared his throat into the microphone several times.

He droned on in words I didn't understand. The sound of the Korean language was like tennis shoes hitting the pavement and the undercurrent of crunching leaves.

Everyone stood up, and I found myself rising to my feet with them. A slow, steady chord came from the organ, and hundreds of wavery voices joined it to sing an unfamiliar tune, the sound echoing in the cavernous room. We stood up, and sat down, and stood up. I did not look at the box, but I didn't like looking at the crying people, either.

Then the bald man took the microphone and gave it to my aunt, who said something in a shaking voice. Then she gave it to my cousin, who began to cry. The cousin passed it to my father, who spoke a few words before handing it to me.

The microphone was black and sweaty and smelled like spit. My mother whispered, "Say something about your grandmother."

My hands grew clammy and I thought about my grandmother turning into dust. My eyes flew toward the long box where the old lady in the purple suit was sleeping, and for a moment, I thought I saw my grandmother in her hanbok, smiling at me and nodding. I smelled ginger and orange spice, and I said, "My grandmother is here with us now. She has never left. She is standing in her favorite orange and pink hanbok. She is smiling at me like she did when she gave me piggy-back rides and I can smell her. I love how she smells. She is happy and she is glad to be with us here in this room. And --" I don't know why I said this, but I did. "And she misses us."

Everyone was crying. My mother was crying, and she was mussing my hair with quick, rapid strokes. My father stood up and translated my words for those who didn't understand, and soon my aunts were holding me and calling me a Dear Girl. I kept watching the box, waiting to see if my grandmother would show up again. But she didn't.

***

My grandmother left us all something. She left my father a smooth calligraphy stone stained in ink. She left my mother a fancy jade brooch and my sister a doll with a painted smile. But she left me the biggest present: a large box filled to the brim with notebooks wrapped in brown paper. She wrote me a note, too. It said:

These are my dream diaries. Perhaps one day they will speak to you as well.