Once the Shore by Paul Yoon Read Free Book Online Page A

a single weapon and shut his eyes. He waited for the door. He thought he would never know whether their son had survived, and he bit his lip and
tasted the blood and breathed through his nose and convinced himself that he was forty years younger, with the strength of a bull. He formed a question and repeated it in his mind: What are these things you drop from the sky?
    No sound came; the door remained shut. The soldiers returned to the deck, carrying a small tin box, which reflected the sun. They opened it, revealing the remaining squid.
    “They want to know whether they can have one,” the translator said.
    “Of course,” Bey said.
    “Protein,” the translator said. “They’re lacking.”
    The two soldiers lifted a squid and raised it like a flag so that the others on the boat could see. Then they climbed back over to their boat. The translator followed them, but with one leg over the rails, he paused to look at Bey. He seemed amused. He said, “Old man, you are far away from home.”
    And then, as fast as they had appeared on the horizon, the patrol boat departed, leaving a wake that caused Bey’s trawler to tilt. He steadied himself against the outside of the cabin wall. They sped away and the guns swiveled and angled up toward the sky. In the distance, under the light of the sun, he watched them tear the flesh of the squid and open their mouths and taste. One of them shook his head and spat a tentacle overboard. What remained uneaten the men tossed as well, flinging their arms, and the limp pieces arced up into air and fell and then vanished.

    Although it seemed like less, it had been two years since Bey and his son had walked to the river to repaint the boat. It was the end of the war and Karo had returned bearing gifts in the form of unopened paint canisters. He had found them in a trash receptacle on the docks of a port on an eastern island, where he had spent the majority of the years, imprisoned. He had refused to fight for Japan. In a cave they took their time, inserting splinters underneath his fingernails, letting him bleed.
    When he was set free and the prison camp abandoned, he took the canisters of paint, unaware of the color it contained. Altogether they had six tins, each carrying about two liters of paint, and they placed them on a wheelbarrow and pushed them along the trail that led to the river.
    The Americans had by then occupied the island although in their village their presence remained unfelt, save for the occasional MPs that passed through in their Jeeps. They kept their distance, however, and it was as though there were two villages within one, brushing against each other on occasion. There were reports of violence in the central areas of the island but here the villagers’ lives remained unchanged.
    It was morning. The day was fine and the winds were slow. The trawler lay up on the riverbank, the same as when they saw it last. They had waited weeks to make sure no one took it. Far from the ocean it looked ancient and awkward, its paint dull and faded, chipped in some places to reveal rust. It had been
his son’s idea to claim it. They would take trips. They would take his mother.
    With a knife they pried open the tins, anxious and eager to see the mysterious color. They had agreed that whatever it was they would use it. White, Karo had guessed. Green, his father said. Like the leaves. They bet a jug of wine. They squatted and huddled over the tins.
    What they saw was white, a pool of milk. Bey was not surprised. He reached for his son and patted his arm. He said, “Sailor, you were correct,” and he loved him and saw how much he had physically changed: his thinness, his eyes deeper and heavier; his fingers, the nails discolored, some of them still re-growing.
    Karo never spoke of it. “We’ve missed years,” was all he said. “But no longer.” And Bey accepted this, as he accepted the seasons.
    His son rolled up his shirt sleeve and, with his hand formed in a fist, dipped his arm