Echoes of the White Giraffe Read Free Page B

get rid of the fine mist of red dust that had settled on me. Then, I hurriedly took off my grimy sneakers.
    Just then, I heard someone whistling a familiar tune. I turned and saw Inchun, looking cool and collected. His dark hair was neatly combed in place, his white shirt was crisp and fresh, and his city shoes shone. He looked as if he had just stepped out of one of the houses on the city street.
    â€œI saw you dawdling and watching the women at the water line,” he teased. “You didn’t even see me speed past you, did you?”
    I glared at him, annoyed at his composure while I was still busily emptying the pebbles from my sneakers. Despite what he had said earlier about not wanting to be seen with me, he had been waiting for me.
    While I put my city walking shoes on, he said, “Hurry up! Father Lee is waiting for me. I have to help him break in a new altar boy, since I am getting too tall and too busy with my science classes these days.” I gave him another sour look for bragging about his height. I looked so short walking next to him.
    Under the warm morning sun, we walked toward the church in silence. I swung my shoebag, and was happy as I rushed to keep up with my younger brother’s long strides. When Inchun, Father Lee, and the other boys from Inchun’s school were helping us to build Ewha, Inchun and I always walked home together. But now we did not get to be with each other often, since he went to the all-boys’ school and I went to Ewha, the all-girls’ school, and after classes, we were both busy with our school projects. Now Inchun spent most of his afternoons and even weekends with his favorite teacher, the one who taught science.
    I often wished that he would join the choir, for that was the one thing that we might be able to do together. But I think Inchun was tone deaf. It was a strange phenomenon that I did not understand. He whistled beautifully; the melody and rhythm were perfect, and he whistled with such feeling, eliciting just the right emotion. But when he sang, he was somehow always miserably out of tune. I once laughed at him, thinking he did it on purpose. But after I laughed, I never heard him sing again.
    I wondered if I should ask him to sing a song for me now, just to see if anything had changed. But I decided to keep him company in silence. I knew Inchun better: he probably tested himself often in private to see if he could sing. If there were any change, he would surprise me with a beautiful song in perfect tune, and would smile deeply as I looked at him with awe.

Chapter Three
    The choir members stood at attention in the back of our one-room church. When Haerin, the conductor, waved her baton, our choir practice began. As I followed the exaggerated movements of her baton, the words of the Shouting Poet kept ringing in my ears. “Good morning, refugees ... refugees ... refugees.” It resonated so sweetly through the mountains. The word “refugee” rang as melodiously as all the other words, not sounding as cold and ugly as it had the first time I heard it, the first time I met Haerin. My mind raced back to that unforgettable day, our first day in Pusan.
    We had escaped the bombing in Seoul just three days before and had spent an entire day walking in the bitter cold all the way to Inchon harbor. From there, a small rowboat carried us out to a large ship. In the ship’s bowels, we rode for hours until we reached Pusan. Famished, frostbitten, and dirty, we made our way to the base of the refugee mountain. In our tattered, filthy clothes, we stared up at the steep, jagged, red-brown mountain looming above us. Exhausted and overwhelmed, we did not know what to do.
    I looked over at a brick house at the foot of the mountain. Shaded by leafy persimmon and apricot trees, and enclosed by a low brick wall covered with morning glories, it looked safe and comfortable. The shiny brass door knockers on the big wooden door shimmered in the sunlight,