Chapter 2
Amber nervously twined her fingers around the turquoise bear pendant. The lighthouse was in a small wood-plank plaza, surrounded on three sides by the crashing ocean. Sturdy iron rails protected the selfie-taking tourists from tumbling down into the cold water. The early autumn sun streamed golden across the scene and a distant part of her mind told her that the image was stunningly beautiful.
But the adrenaline pumping through her system had her focusing on only one thing.
Charles Atene was alive.
Amber had been immersed in her father’s obsession for so many years that the figures had taken on mythical proportions. Her grandfather, Shash Hayou. His best friend, Charles Atene. The two boys had been inseparable in their youth, growing up wild on a dust-swept reservation amongst tin shacks and staggering poverty. When the call went out for Navajo to join the Korean War, and use their code-talking skills to help the West triumph over yet another war, Charles saw his way out. Shash would not let his friend venture to the other side of the world alone. The two had signed up.
Neither man had ever returned.
And the families had waited … waited …
Amber looked down at her smartphone. She stared at the image there of Shash and Charles the day they had left. Their long, thick hair had not yet been shaven short. Their dark eyes gleamed with bright excitement.
She wondered what those eyes had seen once they reached this foreign land.
A raspy voice sounded before her. “Constance?”
She glanced up in surprise.
He had aged.
She knew he would, of course. Sixty-four years had passed since the two best friends had embarked on their grand adventure. Charles would be eighty-six now, and the deep creases in his tan skin showed that passing of time. But the eyes were the same. The broad features. The oval birthmark on his chin. The comforting, traditional Navajo face in a sea of Korean other-worldliness.
His gaze watered as he took her in. He said again, “Constance?”
She gave him a reassuring smile. “Constance was my grandmother,” she said gently. “I am Amber Hayou. John Hayou’s daughter.”
He shook his head as if to clear away foggy memories, his eyes focusing in awareness. He ran a shaking hand through sparse, gray hair. “Of course, of course. It’s just, you look so much like her. Her thick, auburn hair. Her green eyes.”
Amber reddened. She had been teased her entire life for the way she looked. She had been reminded at every turn that she was a mixed-breed. That her grandmother was an Irish Catholic missionary – an intrusion to their traditional Navajo culture. And that her grandfather was gone, gone, gone …
Charles put out a hand. “It is nice to meet you, Amber.”
Amber folded her hand into his. His skin was leathery and rough, like a jacket forgotten on the rocks and found years later.
He glanced up at the lighthouse behind her. “It’s fake, you know.”
She turned to follow his gaze.
The lighthouse was about twenty feet tall – a white cylinder with sea-green round glass clocks pointing in each cardinal direction. The top sported glass panels and then a half-dome of grey metal. It was quite pretty.
The corner of his mouth turned up. “They call it a lighthouse. And everyone comes to take pictures of it. But it’s a fake. Just a pile of concrete and metal. It couldn’t save you if your life depended on it.”
He waved a hand back toward the forest of trees at their back, with its thin road leading off to civilization. “Just like this Dong Baek Island isn’t an island any more. It was once, of course. But things around here change. The sea washed in enough dirt and silt that the island became connected to the land. Now it’s simply a promontory in the larger landscape of Busin. But you know how these things are. Change comes hard.”
Amber knew it. Her father had not changed one thing about his childhood house over the years. He wanted everything to be just right for when his father finally returned. At some point the ancient stove finally refused to light. Her father had searched long and hard and finally replaced it with as similar a model as he could find.
They had lived in a decaying museum dedicated to a life which was – even to her father – a distant memory.
She looked around and spotted a sturdy iron bench. She waved a hand toward it. “Shall we sit?”
Charles nodded, and she walked slowly at his side as he made his way over to the bench. He took his time, but his feet were still steady beneath him. At last he eased himself down onto the seat with a sigh. He looked up at Amber. “It’s hard getting old. Nothing is as easy as it once was.”
Amber nodded, holding in the flood of questions which jostled within her. She knew from her years of helping at-risk teens that patience was crucial. Charles had information she desperately needed to know. And for some reason he had stayed hidden all these years. If she wanted to learn anything at all, she couldn’t spook him. She had to let him share at his own pace, in his own time.
As if he could sense her inner thoughts, Charles turned to her with curious eyes. “I didn’t think anybody back home knew where I was. How did you find me?”
She gave a wry smile. “My parents were never good with the Internet. But when my father passed away, and I realized I was coming to Korea, I thought I’d give it one last shot. I spent a weekend searching for your name. And at last, pages and pages down on a search, I found a tiny mention of you. A young Korean boy had posted a genealogy project for his school and you were listed as his great-grandfather. I couldn’t read most of it, but I could see your name and your birthdate.”
She shrugged. “I contacted the school and they passed my information along to the boy’s father. Your grandson?”
Charles nodded, a shine of pride coming to his face. “Yes, Bo-Seon is my grandson who received that request. And little Gi-Nam is quite the pupil.” His eyes glowed. “He’s top of his class, you know.”
Amber smiled encouragingly. “You must be quite proud of him. Of both of them.”
Charles glanced nervously toward the entrance of the plaza. “I am. It’s why this is all so … delicate.”
Amber followed his gaze.
A Korean man was standing at the entryway to the plaza, perhaps in his early thirties, lean, handsome, even, with dark hair cut short. He wore a black polo top and dark slacks. His brow creased in concern as he saw Charles looking at him.
Charles waved a hand to reassure him and looked back at Amber. “That’s Bo-Seon. He drove me over. I haven’t driven since I crashed my Kia in that grocery store parking lot. The family took away my keys. This getting old stuff … it’s not fun.”
Amber nodded, inwardly pleading with herself to be patient.
Charles dug a hand into his pants pocket and drew out a folded piece of paper. He offered it to Amber. “Here.”
Amber took it from him and opened it up. It was a snapshot – the square kind which came from older cameras. The image was grainy, faded, and had a deeply worn crease from where the fold nearly split it. It showed a pair of young Korean women in their early twenties in simple dresses which could have been from any time between 1920 and 1970. Their dark hair hung long and straight. Their features were alike enough that clearly the two were related.
Amber looked up. “Sisters?”
Charlie nodded. His gaze moved with fondness to the woman on the left. “That one is my beloved In-Na. We raised five children together and now there are sixteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.”
His eyes welled with tears.
Amber looked down at the image. “I’m so sorry. Has she passed on?”
He nodded. “Last year. It’s … it’s part of why I agreed to meet with you, when Bo-Seon told me about your message.”
Amber folded her hands into her lap, willing herself to focus on his eyes. To wait.
He looked up at the lighthouse and then let out a long breath. “You see, well, it’s complicated. When Shash and I left Arizona, we thought
it would be like World War II. Clear objectives. Clear enemies.”
He waved a hand at the similar-looking faces around them. “But the Korean War was something altogether different. There weren’t clear-cut advances and strategies. Here, we were on one tiny peninsula with nowhere to go and chaos on all sides. The north side of North Korea was China and a tiny sliver of Russia. All around us was water.”
He gave a wry smile. “In World War II it had been simple. The Japs. The Krauts. But here, everyone was Korean. You never knew who to trust. Who was a friend and who might be preparing to shoot you in the back.”
Amber murmured, “That must have been a challenge. I’m afraid I don’t know much about the Korean War. Just that it was brother fighting brother, much like our own Civil War. Did it come about because of World War II?”
His gaze drifted out over the ocean. “In a way – but it began long before then. By the end of World War II, the Koreans had already endured thirty-five years of Japanese occupation. With the Japanese defeated, the Koreans had bright hopes for a free and independent future.”
He gave a hoarse laugh. “But instead, the victorious Allies sliced up the land as if dividing an apple pie. The US took the bottom half and the Soviets took the top. It was supposed to be temporary. But of course the Cold War started up and neither side wanted to give up their power. Both wanted control over the whole peninsula.”
His shoulders slumped. “And, once again, it was the Korean people who suffered the burden. It was not much of a surprise when the Russians and the North finally invaded the South in an attempt to take over the entire area by force.”
His eyes grew distant. “June 25, 1950. That’s how we remember the day here, you know. As six-two-five. That was the day that everything changed.”
Amber’s hand went to the pendant at her breast.
Charlie’s gaze followed her movement, and his eyes sharpened in surprise. “Shash had a pendant like that. He never took it off.”
Amber nodded. “When my grandfather was preparing to leave for Korea, he purchased two pendants – one for himself and one for John. John wore his every day of his life. He kept hoping that someday Shash would come back to him.”
Her gaze hollowed. “Even though the Marines eventually listed Shash as missing in action, my father never gave up hope. John would set an extra plate at every meaningful celebration. Thanksgiving. Christmas. His birthday. You know … just in case.”
Color flared on Charlie’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. It must have been hard on the kid, to grow up like that.”
Amber leaned forward, her desire to know getting the better of her. “Mister Atene, what really happened to my grandfather? The Marines only gave us the faintest of details. He was on a mission of some sort. He was never heard from again. But what was the mission? Why couldn’t he be found?”
Charlie’s lips pressed into a line. He looked down again at the photograph.
Amber held her breath, willing herself to wait … to wait …
At last he nodded.
He pointed a shaking finger at the photograph.
His voice was low, almost a whisper. “You see, Amber, Shash wasn’t on an official mission for the Marines that night he went missing. It was different. He was looking for …”
His gaze became misty, and he wiped at his face.
He pointed at the second woman in the photo.
His voice was barely audible. “He was looking for her.”
Amber blinked in surprise and stared at Charlie. “I don’t understand. My grandfather went missing because he was searching for a Korean woman?”
Charlie’s eyes flared. “Not just any woman,” he countered. “That was Jinju.”
Amber stared at him blankly.
He leaned forward, his gaze holding hers. “Jinju. His wife.”