The Calligrapher's Daughter (16 page)

She bowed stiffly, her face white.

“It’s decided!” He waved her away.

She rose, her blouse stained with disregarded tears as if she’d been caught in a rainstorm. She said at the doorway, so softly he barely heard her, “We shall see.”

He wanted to fly at her and smash her stubborn will. Instead, he stomped furiously on the ember scorching the mat. “The house could’ve burned down! I won’t have it!” His cries rang hollowly in the courtyard.

He paced, every step sending pain to his back. The church’s Western influence was obviously at the root of her disrespect for him. When other men complained about their bickering wives, he had easily, proudly, kept his mouth shut. Now that he understood their grousing, it irked him all the more.

From the other side of the house he heard Najin cry, “No!” then her shouts, rough with tears. His mouth hardened and he yelled for Joong to get his coat, before remembering that he’d sent him out on the very task that had caused this unacceptable uproar. Tying on his hat, he shoved his feet into shoes and strode out the gate.

The downhill slope propelled him toward the market, and the high afternoon’s brilliant freshness soothed his pounding temples. His lunch jostled loudly in his stomach, but his nose soon cleared to the faint scent of plum blossoms swaying high above the slab walls bordering the roadway.
They may have chased me from my home today
, he thought.
They may cry day into night, but they can do nothing to counter my decision.
He headed purposefully to the marketplace to engage in civil conversation with the bookseller.

IN THE FOLLOWING days Najin was not to be seen, though he heard her coming and going to school and her occasional donkey laughter or reprimands to his son. His wife appeared only as necessary and spoke perfunctorily, her shoulders stiff and her expression closed. Han quelled his wish to call her to his bed, aware that it was his body’s base need to control her. He felt sure her higher sense of duty and obedience would soon prevail.

Indeed, as the rainy season came and went, his wife’s arms seemed less rigid in her ministrations toward him. He could relax in her presence, and soon he breathed in quiet relief that she had accepted his decision. Sometimes in the gardens and on the outskirts of his awareness, he heard his children playing as before. He assumed a few more weeks would restore everyone to complacency.

One Sunday in May, as the family walked to church, Han felt a cool but nervous detachment from his wife and daughter walking behind him, and for once he was glad to suffer Ilsun’s continuous nonsensical chatter as he ran about his knees: “Abbuh-nim, after church can we go to the bakery and get cakes? Abbuh-nim, look at how funny I can dance. Watch me kick this rock. See how far? Abbuh-nim, see how fast I can run circles around you!” Irritating as it was, it was better than the icicles at his back.

As a result of an injunction that cited modernization, the partitions dividing the church by gender had been removed last year. Everyone knew that the collaborators in the congregation wanted to watch both sides of the aisles. Han could now see his family across the aisle and a little ahead of him: Najin’s unruly braids, his wife’s small taps on Ilsun’s head to quiet him, her perfectly tucked hair bun, her neck curve when she bowed for prayer. He recalled his wife’s accusations about the wedding vows they’d made in this very church. He was certain that accepting God and Jesus as his Lord and Savior didn’t conflict with his Confucian beliefs. Furthermore, four hundred years
before
the Bethlehem star heralded Jesus’s birth, the Christian story and the practice of universal love had been expounded by the philosopher Mo Zi.

The sermon ended and everyone stood for a hymn and benediction. He glimpsed the dark suits of yet more new congregants and despaired. Not long after last autumn’s terrible earthquake in Tokyo, Gaeseong was flooded with Japanese citizens, many of whom superstitiously believed
that Koreans had both contributed to the devastation and taken advantage of it. Police reacted quickly and impartially to many street clashes— eruptions of pent-up resentments and imagined slights. The more the Japanese came and stayed, the more they usurped, compounding the difficulty in fighting complacency. He wished his wife could join him in seeing his daughter’s marriage as a deterrent to stasis, an act of defiance against Japanese-instigated modernism.

Outside, Han bowed to Reverend Ahn, greeted others, had a few private words with Deacon Hwang, then walked home, his family a few steps behind. The rains had left a thin veil of moist air on a rapidly warming day. He remembered from his childhood the deep, cool dampness of the tall pines of the family’s forests in Manchuria where they summered annually. Thinking of childhood and Manchuria naturally led his thoughts to Chungduk. A wedding celebration would present an opportunity to reconcile with his brother. His step quickened and he thought he’d take some time in the afternoon to consider this possibility. How would he find him?

Once home, his wife and daughter went to their rooms with Ilsun. It struck him as odd that they hadn’t headed immediately to the kitchen as they normally would this hour on a Sunday. A bit later he heard the side gate open and saw his wife and daughter carrying a bundle to the Changs. Han settled into his study, his desk neatly spread with brushes, a carved inkstone, a celadon-glazed turtle with a small
o
for a mouth—his grandfather’s water dropper—and sheaves of paper. He composed a letter to the future groom’s father, whose last correspondence had welcomed the match and lauded the virtues of the bride. Chae had also mentioned in code his dissatisfaction with both the Shanghai and Hawaii provisional governments, and conveyed news that Kim Il-sung’s guerrilla army had ransacked a Japanese copper-mining operation in the north. Han had whispered this news to Deacon Hwang.

He was surprised to see his son following Cook when she brought the midday meal, Ilsun asking to eat with him. He consented, and she left to bring Ilsun’s table. He washed his son’s hands with his at the basin, cautioning him against splashing. When Cook returned, she acted so jittery he was tempted to ask for his wife’s whereabouts, but it wouldn’t do for Ilsun to see his father begging information from a servant. It wasn’t a
market day and many shops were closed on Sundays—a testament to how much Christianity had made inroads into their daily lives. Well, the soup was hot and Ilsun’s table manners required supervision. This mystery would unfold soon enough. He told Ilsun to pray and they ate.

When he heard his wife call “I’m home!” from the foyer, he took note of the long shadows cast by the fruit trees—an hour past the conclusion of his meal with Ilsun. He put his book aside and waited.

She entered and without a word handed him a letter. He felt his neck tighten even before looking at it. He refused to ask where she’d been, angered that she hadn’t offered this information, which was obviously wanting. She sat composed in front of him and seemed subdued, although still distant. He deferred his attention to the letter.

He flushed when his fingers fell upon a torn royal seal. “You’ve read this!” he said before seeing that it was addressed to her. “Ah, your cousin writes. But why does she use such formalities?” Naturally, his wife and her cousin in Seoul wrote each other occasionally, but never had his wife received a document with an official seal. She remained silent and bowed. He opened the letter. The covering once seemed to have held something thicker than the single sheet it contained. It was dated two weeks before. Pressure mounted in his temples as he began to understand the depth of her betrayal.

The letter shook in Han’s fingers as he returned it to her. She raised both hands to receive it, and the graceful female gesture unleashed his rage. He dropped the letter and struck her fully on the cheek. She grunted and fell sideways to the floor. Blood trickled from her nose. She clutched the letter and struggled to sit up. Her hair came undone. He struck her again and she fell. He stood to deliver a blow to the back of her head but glimpsed his shadow on the wall, his arm raised high over the lump of her fallen body. He saw that he was no better than the prison guards who had hung him by his thumbs and beaten him senseless. With a cry, he fell to his knees. She shrank from him until she saw him sobbing. She held his head in her lap and laid her cheek to his, mixing blood and tears, crying out how sorry she was—not for sending Najin away—but for having to defy him.

I CRIED MOST OF THE WAY TO SEOUL, MUCH TO THE DISTRESS OF THE handmaid and her husband, who were sent by Imo, my aunt, to chaperone me. I was upset to be leaving home, anxious about what lay ahead and fearful of my father’s reaction to my mother’s deceit. Mother told me he wouldn’t call me home, since the invitation had come from the palace. It showed how carefully she had planned my escape from marriage, and how deeply she had betrayed my father. My tears were for her sacrifice of her principles of duty and honor to Father because of me. I was overwhelmed with new understanding of her love, only to be saddened at having to part from her.

If I hadn’t been so emotional, the train ride would have been wonderful.
Speed and noise, coal smoke, the massive quantity of steel that made trains possible, the passing countryside, soft armchairs in first class, people of all sorts in all manner of dress, the very act of traveling—in my misery I missed the excitement of all these things. I marveled at it in memory after I grew accustomed to sleeping in my little room down the hall from Imo.

Her house was traditional and tidy, with an inner square surrounded by twelve rooms, and a smaller courtyard that was flanked by the servants’ quarters. Many homes lined her street, so foot traffic beyond her walls was steady. In addition to my travel chaperones—the handmaid Kyungmee and her husband, Pang, who was gardener and guard—Imo had a cook, a water girl and a housemaid. My bedding was fine, rather plush in fact, but the unfamiliar light patterns, the room’s strange angles and noise from the street made it difficult to fall asleep. At first I mourned and wept a little, missing my mother’s nighttime voice, but after that pain eased, I could fall asleep by forming the street-cast shadows into mystical words, and by trying to glean the secret messages whispered among the foreign noises.

With no men in the house to cook and sew for, Imo was eager to lavish her time on me. I didn’t know what was planned beyond the vague directive of “court training,” and only hoped to attend upper school. After a day of rest and a few days of sightseeing, Imo took me to her sewing room and showed me a chest full of beautiful fabrics. “You’ll need new hanbok,” she said, tossing bolts of linen and sheer silks on muslin she’d spread on the floor.

“For what?”

“Yah, you need to wait and listen to everything spoken to you before you start asking questions.” She said this kindly, but I was embarrassed.

“Excuse me, Imo—”

“You see? Like a monsoon wind! Everything inside comes wildly out of your mouth. When sightseeing you didn’t talk much, but I doubt you’re aware of your many exclamations and sighs. Monsoon wind!”

I bowed my head silently, my ears feeling as if they were screaming red.

“Much better!” She patted my knee and smiled. “Well, you do sit
perfectly and I’ve watched you walk. Your mother shaped your posture well. That’s to your advantage.” I kept my mouth shut and peeked at her face. Her wave-curved eyes showed warmth, but her closed-lip smile had a pronounced artifice. The smile tightened her jaw, accentuating her cheekbones and incrementally raising her carefully drawn eyebrows. I wondered if I would learn that smile.

Imo was a little taller than my mother and not fat, but pillowlike, soft and round in all possible ways: her nearly white skin and hands, full lips, tiny rounded nose, curved elbows and even her earlobes. She looked pliable and receptive, as if you could toss anything at her and it would make a dent, then settle in, but her austere elegance permitted only respect. She wore a scent that brought to mind lilies and oranges, and her artful use of cosmetics required close examination to see the painted lines and feathery powder. The few marks of age on her face only appeared when she frowned. Because she was a widow, she wore her hair in a simple bun, and this, too, was soft and round. Every gesture seemed practiced to perfection. With my pointy elbows, gawky legs, bony hips, wiry hair and scratchy voice, I was like an explosion of needles compared to her. She was right—thanks to my mother, my spine was straight—but I was of an age when all the other bones and muscles didn’t quite know when and how to behave. Apparently, my tongue was in that same league.