The Book of Dead Birds Page 4

  My sophomore year of college, a man, Dr. Park, came to my ethnomusicology class to give a talk on Korean music. When he got to the section on pansori, I made the mistake of telling the class I play the pansori with my mother. I usually never spoke up in class—the words just popped out of me. My professor was stunned; Dr. Park was even more stunned when I mentioned I use the chang’go.

  “The chang’go isn’t for pansori.” He shook his head at me from across the lecture hall. “You know that, right? The puk is the traditional pansori drum.”

  “I don’t have a puk,” I stammered. I had no idea that I had been using the wrong drum. “My mother taught me on the chang’go.” I didn’t mention she had stolen the chang’go from the massage parlor where she worked at the time. It had been used as an end table there, the deerskin cluttered with plastic bottles of oil.

  “Come up here.” His voice was somewhere between a cajole and a bark.

  I walked to the front of the room, my face burning.

  He pushed a shiny red chang’go against my stomach, a stick into my right hand. “Show me,” he said.

  I looped the strap of the drum over my shoulder and began to tap out a few rhythms. I usually drum in response to my mother’s song; my hands felt awkward, stiff in the quiet classroom.

  “No, no, no.” He watched me closely. “You are supposed to inhale when you strike the kungp’yon, exhale when you strike the yolp’yon.”

  My breath caught in my chest. “This is how my mother taught me,” I told him.

  “Your mother taught you wrong.” He took the chang’go back.

  I shift and the small Crunch bars fall onto the floor of my car. The candy in my mouth suddenly feels cloying, like sweet mucus. It catches in my throat as I try to swallow it down.

  At home, after about five glasses of water, I tell my mother I met a woman she used to work with. She looks suddenly suspended, like she is balanced on a thin wire.

  “What woman?”

  “Her married name is probably Luk. She works at Luk’s Market, near Washington. Short woman, only one eyebrow…”

  My mother wrinkles her face for a moment before her eyes light up. “Anchee?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  She grabs her keys and purse and races out of the apartment.

  When I go into my room, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror over my dresser. My mother’s sad eyes—the same shape, just with more of a lid—stare back at me. Her high, broad cheekbones rise under my skin. Three gulls flap past the window behind me. Their doubles skim across the mirror.

  I bow shakily to myself and assume the Choom Be, the tae kwon do ready stance. I look at my reflection, fists waist high, held tight next to my body, shoulders square, legs wide, feet planted on the carpet. I wonder what in the world I could possibly be ready for.

  SUWON, 1967

  A chicken darted in front of Hye-yang’s feet as she passed through the stone walls that bordered the Folk Village. She stumbled to avoid the bird and pitched forward. The tip of her bow clunked against the ground like a cane; her bag of clothes threatened to come undone, the strap biting deep into her shoulder. The chicken fluffed itself and scurried away.

  Hye-yang remained bent over a moment to catch her breath, amazed by how easily a small bird could knock her over. She readjusted her belongings and headed toward a row of craftspeople who were practicing their arts in front of small farmer’s huts.

  While tourists watched, women spun silk from cocoons roiling in an iron pot; a man swirled his calligraphy brush over a scroll; blacksmiths bent over their anvils; grandmothers tied expert knots, teenagers pounded rice into flour. How strange, thought Hye-yang, that people pay to watch other people work. People pretending they weren’t being watched. Hye-yang felt dizzy—so much movement, so much concentrated staring, all around her.

  She felt even more disoriented when she noticed a small stone house up ahead, built to resemble a home from Cheju-do. It looked just like her family’s house—the same thatched roof held down with ropes and stones, the same volcanic rock fence. It was as if the house had been ferried over from the island with her and dropped onto the village grounds. Hye-yang stood before it, heart knocking wildly; a woman stepped outside the house, wearing a white diver’s outfit. Hye-yang almost expected to see her mother’s face, but the woman was young, around her own age. Hye-yang closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The air smelled like honeycomb and dry grass, not seaweed and wet rocks. She finally realized how far she was from home. She wasn’t sure whether the lightness that filled her head was freedom or fear.

  A sudden burst of gong and drumbeat fractured the air. The steady stream of visitors turned and headed toward the music. Hye-yang let herself get carried along. As the crowd parted to let the musicians through, she noticed they were part of a wedding procession. A priest walked behind the chang’go player, holding a wooden goose on a small tray, two ribbons tied around its neck. The groom walked solemnly behind him. Hye-yang’s heart lifted when she realized that her friend Sun, the weekend “bride,” was probably inside the elaborately carved wooden box carried on the shoulders of four men who followed the groom.

  The men set the box—a wooden bird perched on each corner—onto the ground. Two women attendants in pink hanboks helped the bride out. Even though her head was bent traditionally down, her face hidden behind her sleeves as the attendants led her to the proper place, Sun’s forehead, the back of her neck were unmistakable. Hye-yang would know them anywhere. She pushed through the crowd to the front as the two women lowered Sun to her knees. The priest placed the wooden goose by her feet, then bent to the north and bowed twice.

  Sun’s face was covered for most of the ceremony, even during the several times the ceremonial cup was brought to her lips. When she finally raised her face above her sleeves, Hye-yang could see small pink circles painted on her cheeks. Without realizing what she was doing, Hye-yang began to wave frantically. Sun, who had looked so radiantly solemn, glanced over.

  “Hye-yang!” she cried, a smile bursting across her face. Hye-yang waved harder.

  The priest bent down and whispered fiercely to Sun. She nodded and the ceremony resumed, but Hye-yang could see Sun’s shoulders quaking with laughter under her hanbok.

  Hye-yang waited for Sun by the empty platform after the wedding was over. Sun came out soon in a plainer hanbok, the bright circles rubbed off her cheeks, her hair loose.

  “I can’t believe you’re here!” Sun cried. “Are you staying? I can get you a job!”

  “That’s why I came,” said Hye-yang.

  “Come on.” Sun grabbed Hye-yang’s hand.

  Before the day was out, Hye-yang was an employee of the Folk Village, slated to sell cuttlefish at a stand the following morning, slated to room with Sun in the village dormitory that night.

  The two of them stayed up late, catching up on island life, village life, sharing smuggled bottles of OB beer. Around five in the morning, unable to sleep, Sun pulled Hye-yang outside. They hopped a couple of low stone fences and ended up in the area where Sun performed seesaw demonstrations. The moon, full as a grapefruit, bathed the field in a pale, pulpy light.

  “How high can you go?” asked Hye-yang.

  “I’ll show you.” Sun led her to the wooden plank. Hye-yang stepped onto the end of it.

  Hye-yang watched, a bit nervous, Sun walk pretty far away before she turned, ran toward the seesaw, and jumped onto the other end.

  A giddy, weightless feeling opened in Hye-yang’s chest. She tilted her head back, spread her arms out wide, and let the night embrace her whole body as she rose into the air. If she opened her mouth, she thought, the moon would slide right in.

  “What can you see?” Sun called up to her.

  “I think I can see the whole world!” yelled Hye-yang, before she hit the ground and toppled over on her side.

  Sun ran over to her. “Are you okay?”

  Hye-yang nodded her head and started to laugh. She yanked Sun’s leg until she
crashed down next to her.

  “Let’s do it again.” Hye-yang grabbed Sun’s face.

  They ran back to the seesaw.

  “What can you see?” they yelled, as they flung each other into the air as high as they could.

  “I can see the governor’s palace!”

  “I can see Hollywood, California!”

  “I can see Cheju-do like a pebble in the ocean!”

  “I can see the stars spell out my name!”

  Dawn began to leak over the horizon. Hye-yang rose and rose with the spreading light.

  The inside of the windshield is hot as an electric blanket against my palm. It’s easily over a hundred degrees outside the car. I click the air conditioner up a notch and begin to navigate another 168-mile loop around the Salton Sea, my third continuous circle in the past six hours: Highway 86 until it curves into the 195 near Oasis, until it curves into the 111 near Mecca, until it curves, at Brawley, back into the 86 again.

  The sea glints beyond scrubby, cracked acres of desert. I see it out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t quite convince myself to drive any closer. As long as I keep circling, I haven’t committed to anything—my car is just following the pull of gravity, a small planet orbiting a wet oblong star.

  Splintered telephone poles line the road, forked open by lightning or wind. Dust devils spiral lazily over empty fields. Farmland turns into trailer park turns into citrus grove turns into date farm turns into vast expanse of sand and grit and nothing, the whole valley ringed with dark mountain ranges, looming brown parentheses of earth. I had thought this was a resort town, but there is not a golf course or fancy spa anywhere in sight. Maybe they’re hiding somewhere between the highway and the water. Maybe they’ve evaporated in the desert heat.

  I find myself anticipating certain landmarks I’ve already passed twice—the ancient liquor shop near Bombay Beach, the rusted-out motorboat in a field by Salton City, the soldier rows of date trees near 100 Palms. I begin to predict the name of the next passage of sand and gravel that will course beneath the road—Alki Wash, Bee Wash, Cedar, Frink, Butter Wash, Wister, Sand, Signal Wash, Polo, Skee, Salt Wash, Gravel, Bug, Cattail Wash. Near the horizon, the road wavers—the asphalt, the land around it smearing into oily waves of vapor. I feel slightly dizzy, like my own edges are blurring out into the desert air, coagulating into dark distant hills.

  I didn’t say good-bye to my mother before I left. I didn’t have a chance—she wasn’t home when I woke up. I waited around longer than I planned to, but she never came back. I was worried I wouldn’t go at all if I didn’t go soon, so I wrote a quick note and left it on the counter by the robin’s egg shoebox. As I loaded my chang’go into the car, a small slip of paper tumbled out from beneath the strings. Four lines of poetry were written there, in my mother’s hand:

  That fall the wild geese flew so far south

  they took the sky with them.

  Stay just as far away as you can;

  time will keep or lead you back.

  I recognized the lines from a library book I had once checked out, a collection of Korean courtesan poems from the Chosun dynasty. She must’ve looked at the book, must have copied some of the poems down, without me knowing. The thought of her reading those poems, poems written by kisaeng, women who had been used and ostracized by society six, seven centuries ago, was almost too much to handle. I put the poem in my pocket, loaded up the car, and pointed it, eyes brimming, toward the Salton Sea.

  I have no idea how long I’ll be gone—one week? A month? Long enough to try to set things right—whatever that means—if only I can bring myself close enough to the birds in the first place. The sea sparkles in my peripheral vision like a mirage. I know I can’t keep circling like this, but for now it’s all I can do.

  Parakeet, Blue (Name: Lee Lee)

  Ava, daughter, 13. Kill bird.

  Forget to close cage after clean.

  Lee Lee fly out window, into sky. Good bird,

  like to eat seed in my mouth.

  Songs in morning. No words.

  Find him on patio, smack himself

  dead on glass to get back in.

  [birdseed captured under cellophane tape]

  [pale blue feathers]

  [bit of soiled Korean language newspaper]

  2/11/84

  Highway 111, as I come to know it, seems appropriately numbered—a row of three thin digits, each one almost invisible, spare and pale as the landscape it cuts through. Scattered patches of white—salt, I guess—gleam dully from the dirt like snow. Even the sky seems white, as if the blue had been taken by geese flying south, or, more likely, burned blank by the relentless sun.

  I feel incredibly conspicuous in my shiny green car. The only other color along this stretch of the road comes from the occasional string of boxcars stopped on the Southern Pacific railway. The trains are pretty muted, too—dusty wine, dirty mustard, black sandstormed down to gray. The few cars I pass are equally eroded—pickup trucks painted with primer, twenty-year-old weather-faded sedans, eyes trained on me from inside, loaded with curiosity and threat. If I don’t make some sort of decision soon, I worry that my own car, my own face might get sanded down to dust.

  I crank the steering wheel and veer off the highway onto Desert Beach Drive.

  The water spreads out before me, miles of flat shimmer. It looks refreshing, but as soon as I get out of the car, the heat and stench almost knock me over. An overpowering smell of bird and fish decay mixes in the air with something equally rank and environmental. I grab a piece of ginger to try to mask the scent, but the odor molecules still find a way to seep inside.

  What planet have I landed on? I stomp a sleeping foot against the pavement, slap some life into my face, look around to make sure no cars have pulled into the lot behind me. The area is completely deserted. An empty fifties-style motel sits on the other end of the parking lot, all of its doors open, the rooms bare. The building is so utterly abandoned, no one has even bothered to vandalize it. Dusty tufts of overgrown bougainvillea seem incongruous against the walls, random bursts of fuchsia life.

  A marina up ahead, partly underwater and long deserted, touts sandwiches and live bait from its sun-bleached awning. An old yacht club, shaped like a ship with broken porthole windows and faded nautical flags painted around the border, silently faces the water. It looks like no one has dined or danced there in decades. What happened here? What happened?

  Holding my breath, I walk toward the sweeping span of water. As I get closer, the sea begins to looks less sparkly—it is the color of tea, the color of mud. The beach is not a sandy one, either, as it had seemed from the parking lot. The ground is completely heaped with barnacles, small white tubes that crunch beneath my sandals, making me shiver even in the intense heat. I remember reading somewhere that barnacles had been introduced to the area by WWII aircraft that used the sea for dive bomb practice. I feel like I’m walking across a bone yard.

  Every few steps, I come across dead fish in various stages of decomposition—some still silver and wet with missing eyes, some dry and brown like the cuttlefish my mother buys in Koreatown, some dissolved down to bone, bleached white as the barnacles beneath them. Pale-green bird droppings offer the only other color on the ground. I walk up to an old swing set and steady myself against one of its hot metal legs. The end of a small slide disappears into a mass of barnacles nearby.

  What am I doing here? I wonder, queasy from the rotten air. Then I see the jetty up ahead, covered with dead and dying pelicans.

  The birds, dozens of them, are heaped against each other, a seething clump of beige and brown, long beaks jutting out like cactus spines. Some pelicans convulse violently, others have already started to decompose, their speckled breasts caved, split open. My eyes feel seared. Bile rises in my throat. I don’t know what I expected—some ballet of languid wings, something remotely beautiful. Anything but this.

  One bird lets out a horrible screech. Its head lifts briefly off the ground, then colla
pses, its beak wide open. I bend over and retch a small splash of orange onto the barnacles and fish bones, my contribution of color to the landscape.

  I stumble back to the Sonata and blast the cold scent of Freon into my nose. My throat, my eyes are raw. I pop another sugary clump of ginger into my mouth, lean my head against the steering wheel, and take some deep breaths. It would be so easy to go home, so easy to hit the road and never look back. It would be so easy, but when I pull back onto the 111, I can’t seem to drive toward San Diego. I find myself pulling off the highway again onto a street not far down the road, one I’ve passed three times already, a driveway with a sign that reads VISITOR’S CENTER.

  I avoid the stuffed-animal displays inside the deeply air-conditioned building—my stomach feels wrung out like a rag; the glassy eye of a barn owl could easily twist me dry. A short, stocky woman behind the information counter, her face deeply creased by years of sun, looks up as she straightens a display of maps that look like they were printed at least three decades before.

  “Can I help you?” Her voice is gravelly, cigarette-thick. She stares at me suspiciously.