A Small Revolution by Jimin Han
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. I owe much to firsthand accounts from family and friends and the many journalists and scholars who have written about Korea (among them Bruce Cumings, author of Korea’s Place in the Sun, and Don Oberdorfer, author of The Two Koreas). The poem “Even the Birds Are Leaving the World” by Hwang Chiu particularly stood out for me in my readings and is mentioned in the novel itself. Any resemblance these characters have to real persons is unintentional. Since the phonetic spelling of Korean words and names has undergone a change since the time in which this novel is set, I’ve tried whenever possible to use the current spelling for the present-day reader.
1
A woman is running in a field of fallen leaves, and a man is running behind her. It’s early enough in the morning for the sky to be gray and the trees to be black, early enough for me to hear only the sound of her breathing and his breathing, except for that moment when he gains on her, makes contact, and tackles her, and she lets out a high-pitched sound cut short as she hits the ground. This is the view I have from my open dorm window into the quadrangle of Weston College in the middle of Pennsylvania.
2
You told me once about a neighbor who had a border collie named Pirate. One day, you were outside early in the morning and saw two wild rabbits in your neighbor’s yard, two small brown ones, and then you heard the back screen door slam and watched Pirate charge across the grass toward those rabbits. One took off for the bushes on the periphery, and Pirate pursued it while the other stayed absolutely still, like a statue, so still you questioned your own eyes. Was it a sculpture of a rabbit in the neighbor’s yard? Pirate trotted out of the bushes, having given up the chase. He had never paid much attention to you before. But you walked toward the dog, calling him by name, rewarding him with long petting strokes, and backed away as slowly as you could, leading him away. When you looked up again, the statue was gone.
3
I remain at the dorm window. I stay, even when I see him stand her up and drag her stumbling by the back of her coat. He turns, retracing his steps, searching the ground, and then picks up something he had dropped earlier. He hoists it up and begins to walk forward again, keeping his other hand on the woman’s coat and yanking her along. I stay, even when I know he is coming for me, even when I can see clearly that it is your friend Lloyd. I stay because the woman is someone I know well, and in his hand is a shotgun.
4
The screams in the hallway launch me toward the phone. I dial 911, and someone on the other end says, “What’s your emergency?”
I think I’m saying, Come now, please, but a voice on the other end says, “Is someone there? I can’t hear you. Can you tell me what’s happening?”
“Yoona!” It’s Daiyu shrieking in the hall. I drop the phone and run to the door and open it.
There are mud splats on her face. Her black hair a squashed nest. Daiyu Chu is a friend of mine from a dorm across campus. There are grass stains on the knees of her pink flannel pajamas. Her blue sweatshirt with the round Weston College logo is smeared with damp patches. Lloyd appears beside her. He’s got a leer on his face, and his hair is wet, as if he has been caught in the rain.
“Yoona, he’s crazy,” Daiyu sobs. I can’t help but step back, and he pushes her into the room. Daiyu scrambles toward the wall by my bed, moving as far from him as she can get, and hides her face in her hands. “What’s—” is the only word I can say as Lloyd turns, still in the doorway, and raises a shotgun into the hall. More screams, and people scatter, and I hear Heather’s voice. “Yoona, you okay?”
Heather Connelly has a room next to mine. Instead of fleeing, she’s coming. “Don’t!” I call out but Lloyd grabs her by the sleeve of her terry-cloth robe, and Heather reaches for Faye Taverson to save herself as if she is falling off a pier, and Faye is caught off guard, and Heather and Faye are reeled into the room.
Lloyd kicks the door closed. And someone pounds on it from the other side. A voice comes through, calling for me. It’s Joanna, the resident adviser.
GO AWAY. I’LL KILL THEM ALL, Lloyd explodes. He shoots the gun. His shoulder jerks back. And it’s as if a grenade went off in the room. I crouch on the floor, my arms over my head. There’s ringing in my ears.
There’s no more pounding on the door after that. I’m aware of Daiyu wailing from the corner behind me and Faye huddled on the bed to my left saying, “Oh my god, oh my god,” over and over again and Heather telling everyone to be quiet from somewhere to my right. I’ve heard gunfire before, but something about this room, this space, is louder than anything I’ve heard.
The sirens, when they come, loop as if they’re fading and then growing louder. Are they coming to rescue us, or is it for someone else?
STOP. Lloyd shouts as if his words are coming out of a body that is itself a gun. STOP. STOP. WHATEVER YOU’RE THINKING, STOP. I’LL MAKE ALL OF YOU STOP.
5
“Wait, Lloyd? My friend Lloyd?” you would say. “What’s Lloyd got to do with this? He wouldn’t have a gun. He wouldn’t do this. I know Lloyd, our Lloyd from Korea? Lloyd, my friend Lloyd?” You wouldn’t believe it. You’d refuse.
And I’d tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
“How’d he get to your college? What’s he doing in your room?” you would say.
I’m trying to tell you.
Listen.
6
My life was simple when I was a child. I walked to school with my older sister. I joined after-school clubs. I went home and did my homework. Some days, after dinner, my father beat my mother. Not often. But there were days when that happened, and in between were the days it was about to.
7
My mother said, “Don’t trust a man, ever.” My sister said, “Don’t trust anyone.” My father said, “No one understands me in this house.”
8
You understood me. You understood Lloyd and me. If you were here in this room, you’d know what to do. What am I forgetting? You said I was good at making lists. To-do lists, to-see lists, to-make-us-remember lists, to-figure-out-how-we-got-here lists. To-tell-you-why-I-could-never-see-you-again lists.
9
The sirens keep coming. Heather holds the palm of her hand to her cheek, and when she takes it away, there’s blood. Behind her in the wall is a four-inch gash as if someone pounded a clawed hammer into it with five circular punctures below it. Buckshot pellets. I know this because my father collects guns.
“Does it hurt?” I say, and she says, “Is it bad?” I remove a pillow from its case and hand it to her. Lloyd is kicking the door in a rhythmic way, shuffling and pacing and kicking, hugging the shotgun to his chest. Is anyone going to come through that door and rescue us?