Once the Shore by Paul Yoon Read Free Book Online

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    “Bey,” she said. “I will be fine.” She lifted her hand and waved. He pushed the door and watched whatever light was down there close like a shell. She was still waving. He replaced the mat. He looked about the cabin once more. He checked the closet that held his son’s spare fishing gear, which he had never used. With the cup he took some of the barley tea and poured it over the net and the pole.
    The engine he heard was much louder than his trawler; it sounded as if a crowd were clapping, sharp and rapid. He stepped out onto the deck.
    The patrol boat was American. He noticed the colors and the design of the small flag folding in the wind. The boat, still rumbling, slowed as it approached the trawler. A soldier sat astern on a chair. In front of him was a long barreled rifle on a stand which the soldier panned, back and forth, across the length of the trawler, until it settled on Bey. Another gun stood at the bow, manned by a boy, it seemed, the chair larger than the width of his shoulders and chest. Bey counted the visible men: six.
    He cut the engine. He placed his hands on the rails, where they could be seen. The patrol boat turned so that its port side ran parallel to Bey’s starboard. There were words painted white onto the side. The two boats were five, six meters within each other. He could see the men’s faces now, their flushed skin, their thick forearms. One of the men, however, was a mainlander, young, perhaps in his thirties. Through a megaphone
he spoke in their language, translating the Americans’ words.
    They wanted to know where he resided. What his purpose was in the seas. His destination. How long he expected to be out here.
    Bey ran his fingers through his beard. Where his bare feet touched the deck seemed fragile, unstable, as though the floor would soon collapse. He concentrated on Soni’s silence, willed it, and wondered whether her eyes were open or shut. He looked down to see that he was on his toes, straining. He answered them with brevity, attempting to mask his island’s dialect as much as he could.
    He told them he lived in Udo. He was fishing. For leisure. “And the boat?” the translator said, his voice hollow through the speaker. “That’s your boat?”
    “Yes.”
    The man lowered the speaker and spoke to whom Bey assumed was the captain. The others continued to aim their guns at him.
    The translator and two soldiers were going to board. The boat floated closer and the three of them hiked their legs up over the rails and stepped onto the trawler’s deck. They wore black boots, laced up. He had never seen boots before. And the men: they were tall and their skin was peeling around the bridge of their noses; their eyes appeared bored, although their hands were alert, gripping their weapons.

    The translator approached Bey. “There are smugglers,” he said. “From the mainland to Solla. Do you know anything about this?”
    Bey shook his head. He lived in Udo, he repeated, not Solla.
    “Yes, you’ve said that.”
    The Americans searched the boat. They wanted to know where his fishing equipment was. In the cabin, he said, in the closet. He took a step forward but was pulled back by a hand. The translator’s fingers were warm and he felt each finger against his skin. He hadn’t started yet, he called to the men now searching the cabin. He hadn’t caught anything. He heard the clinking of tin.
    “You’re heading east,” the translator said. “Toward Japan.”
    “Not that far,” Bey said. “Far enough for quiet.”
    He heard steps, a shifting. The rattle of their weapons clanging. He felt the breath of the mainlander behind him and judged the distance between his own body and the man’s rifle. He thought: if he heard the groans of a door he would go for the gun. He concentrated on how he would move his arms and his hands. He would use his elbow on the man first. He did not think of the men with the weapons as large as swordfish. He thought of a single man and