The Calligrapher's Daughter (18 page)
My needle went in and out, in and out, and now, knowing where her story was heading, I felt sorry and incompetent. I tried fruitlessly to think what my mother would do or say in the coming moment.
“Lady Om, Emperor Gojong’s third consort, knew my husband’s family was completely loyal to the emperor, and since we were both young mothers, I became her companion. My son played and studied with Lady Om’s son, Prince Yi Un, who was just a little older. By then, the crown
prince—the present Emperor Sunjong—was married, and his wife, Lady Yun, also asked for my companionship. So I was blessed to have the affection of these sage personages. It was around that time that the crown prince’s coffee was poisoned, and he and the tasting eunuch nearly died. After that, because it’s easier to find blame than to uncover truth, many thought this illness had spoiled his intellect and made him weak—and yes, his body was weakened and he was rendered impotent—but he proved his piety to his father and his kingdom by fighting death, by remaining alive. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She asked this with surprising severity, so I took time to think. Before meeting Imo, I had wondered about her widowhood. I’d read that in the old days, a yangban widow—unmarriageable, with a childless future, and a burden to the family—was considered supremely virtuous if, when her husband died, she committed suicide. I had questioned Yee Sunsaengnim’s death as being an honor suicide, and understanding what she’d suffered, thought that in a way it was. It angered and saddened me anew that her unbearable shame caused her to kill herself, especially since she was blameless. Across the room the lamplight touched my aunt like moonlight reflecting on the surface of a well. She was deeply beautiful in that moment.
I knew that many people blamed Emperor Gojong and now his son, Emperor Sunjong, for Japan’s dominance, and that several ministers and court officials had committed suicide after the Protectorate Treaty of 1905, and again after the annexation in 1910. That my schoolmates had spread rumors about Emperor Sunjong’s idiocy showed the degree of disrespect with which he and the monarchy had come to be regarded. Even my father said that nowadays only traitors and collaborators received high appointments in court. Emperor Sunjong hadn’t chosen to be wedged in the impossible situation between royal responsibility to his bloodline and accepting blame—and shame—for the annexation. I was too confused to clearly say what these thoughts meant, but concluded that casting blame was far easier than learning more and thinking deeper about the whole story, the whole person—like Imo and my beloved Teacher Yee—and to die because of it was horrendous, and wrong.
I put my sewing down and looked at my aunt. “Yes, Imo-nim, I understand.” She nodded as gravely as I had spoken.
“So then,” she said slowly, placing cards face down in a careful pyramid, “years later, Deoksu Palace was where Emperor Gojong died, as did Lady Om. Neither was sick, yet both died in their sleep.” She collapsed her unfinished game and gathered the cards. “My husband the prime minister and our five-year-old son also died there.”
I felt terrible for my imo-nim but could think of nothing correct or helpful to say. All the words I knew seemed pointless. We sat quietly performing our activities, our backs straight and fingers steady. My needle worked the silk almost automatically, its thread a gossamer shadow in the lamplight. I realized that the high manners and the virtue of decorum permitted and encouraged this silence, and I was somewhat comforted in knowing that it was proper to leave so much unsaid. But it made me feel helpless, uncaring and young, and I felt a frustrated spark of rebellion nudging me toward anger, but I subdued it. After that evening, Imo never again mentioned her husband or son, or anything at all from those years, nor did I ask.
AT LAST, IMO decided I was presentable and sent a note to First Marquis Yun, who was also the empress’s father. An invitation soon came from the palace. Monsoon season had come and gone, washing the city of pollen and the yellow dust from spring’s southwest winds. Bright colors burst from gardens and flowerboxes, and trees grew heavy with birds singing on supple young branches bright with new leaves. I rose at dawn, ate porridge and studied the usual three hours to keep pace with schoolwork. After I bathed, Imo tamed my hair with oil and braided it tightly, added augmenting hairpieces and wound it like a thick halo around my head. She patted powder on my cheeks and clipped white jade yin-yang shapes on my ears. We ate the midmorning meal, then she helped me dress and colored my lips. Wearing the rose-pink skirt with a sheer linen blouse, new socks and gloves, I sat in the entryway and waited for her to dress. The earrings pinched, giving me a headache and adding to my nervousness. I breathed deeply and folded my hands in my lap. The appearance of calm will generate calm, Imo had said.
We walked to Changdeok Palace, where Emperor Sunjong’s Yunghui reign had begun after his father was forced to abdicate in 1907. We regarded him as our emperor, but Imo had taught me that we were to
officially address him as His Imperial Highness the Grand Prince, and the empress similarly. That this was clearly a demotion of title was among the many things that remained unsaid during my time with Imo. At the main gate, our papers were checked and a phone call was made. I had never seen a telephone used before, nor had I been near so many Japanese guards. All I saw were pocket flaps, belts, buttons and leather boots. Two guards escorted us across the broad first plaza past a smaller but equally colorful and as heavily guarded gate, through which I could see the abandoned, expansive royal courtyard where all the cabinet ministers and court dignitaries had once stood, ceremoniously facing the audience hall further on, all its doors now shuttered. We walked sedately to avoid raising dust in the immaculately leveled courtyards, and passed the emperor’s residence far to our left, where a fancy automobile sat in a semicircular driveway and more guards stood by the doors.
Another turn to the right and we saw the empress’s residence of plain mortar and unpainted wood nestled serenely in trees, a scene which made me yearn for home. At the third house of this complex we were shown into a broad sitting room, where the princess was playing cat’s cradle with a middle-aged lady-in-waiting. After bows, formalities and giving her the gift of the embroidered blue silk, I murmured, “Your Imperial Highness, this person gives sincere thanks for your kind invitation.”
“What fun. How sweetly spoken! Please come and sit with me. How thin you are. Look at your wrists compared to mine!” Her tiny voice was measured and lyrical, and she grasped my hands. Surprised at such casual touching from royalty, I almost withdrew. Her wrists were rounded and soft like Imo’s, and her skin’s delicate whiteness recalled my father’s description of me as being dark as a peasant. She wore a sheer white silk top and pale green skirt of exquisite quality, and her hair was styled in elaborately wrapped braids. She draped the cat’s cradle cord around my fingers. “Do you know how to play?”
How graciously she had put me at ease! “Your Imperial Highness is too kind to allow this person to sit beside you.” She looked smaller than me but acted with far more refinement than one would expect from a twelve-year-old.
“Yes, of course. Let’s play. You start.”
With Imo watching, I knotted patterns that would be easy for the
princess to refigure. I was careful to position my hands to avoid touching hers. Her rice-cake cheeks and the simplicity in her straight-line eyes gave her an indolent air, as if an easy summer’s day had begun its descent into dusk. I kept the game going until I sensed she was losing interest, then pretended to fumble and lost the figure.
“Oh no!” she cried with obvious pleasure. “We must try again.” After a few turns, Imo bowed to the princess, gave me an approving look and left to spend the morning with Empress Yun. The princess and I played for hours. Naturally, I had played all sorts of games with Dongsaeng many times, but never for as long as I played with the princess. I greatly enjoyed the leisure and won and lost just the right amount to keep her amused. Her playthings, most foreign and still in unopened boxes, filled two cabinets that I longed to explore, but she was only interested in simple games. I found it easy to be both deferential and inventive with her toys. Kaleidoscopes became telescopes. Each turn of the glass showed another aspect of her magic kingdom, which we described to each other, back and forth, until she said it was perfect. We made her wind-up tin toys waddle and roll across the floor, then gave them all names and roles in her magic kingdom. Of the characters I made up, she wanted to know more about the
jajangmyeon
man—the vendor who ladled a sweet black-bean sauce over a steaming bowl of noodles—the sandal peddler, mermaid, missionary, and neighbor girls who walked arm in arm to school. She made her tin characters into changing guards, chamberlain, nephew of the lord steward—to whom I knew she was secretly betrothed—duke, ladies-in-waiting and eunuch. I was curious to know more about the chauffeurs and how it felt to ride in the Daimler or the Cadillac, wanted to hear more about the fourth and fifth wives, and what it was like to have a tasting servant, but didn’t ask.
I was presented to Empress Yun in Nakson Hall late in the afternoon. Spare furnishings enhanced the harmony of the spacious rooms trimmed with intricate shell inlay and carved wood. I could tell that Imo was pleased with my bow and greeting. The empress was tall, with heightened hair that made her look even more imposing. She wore a deep pink-and-white hanbok with delicate gold borders. Her straight eyes had brows that pointed slightly downward to an elegant nose, making her gaze appear sharply intelligent. Her full bottom lip underlined an impression of
resolve. She nodded to a folding screen spread behind her that was made of eight separate but related paintings of the Four Gentlemanly Plants— plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo—with dramatic mountains and valley in the background, each section showing changes of season. On the fully opened screen they comprised a complete and stunning panorama of fore- and background subjects. “Do you see how skillfully the artist has used the writing as its own element in the composition?” she said, indicating how the expressive calligraphy of four poems, songs to the seasons, was strikingly positioned to enhance both images and poetry. “And see there—” She pointed to the signature, and I recognized my father’s chop.
Of course I knew my father was a literati painter of some renown, and that our ancestors had a long history of royal patronage, but to see his work in the sitting room of the empress made me both understand his talent and respect him in a different, larger way. I bowed deeply. “This insignificant person is honored and indebted that Her Imperial Highness has generously allowed recognition of her father’s art.”
“She’s quite charming,” Empress Yun said to Imo. “There’s another screen that’s even more impressive in Huijongdang. Perhaps we’ll arrange for you to see it one day.” Huijongdang was the emperor’s residence, so I knew I would never see it. It was enough to know that my father’s art lived daily among the royal family. It made me quite breathless.
The empress received a message and smiled at me. “It seems the princess also finds your niece charming,” she said to Imo. They discussed a schedule, and my aunt thoughtfully requested that allowances be made for me to attend upper school.
It was decided that I’d go to school six days of the week and attend to Princess Deokhye in the afternoons until an hour before sunset. Then Pang would come to escort me, or I’d walk home with Imo if she were there. The palace had electric lighting generated by an on-site powerhouse built in 1886, which allowed us to study and play late into the day and long after sunset, even in the winter. Because of the electric lights, and because my school was closer to the palace than to Imo’s house, during the week I began spending nights in a room vacated by a lady-in-waiting at Sugang Hall, the princess’s house. In the beginning I was so self-conscious to be an overnight guest that I could barely sleep, but it
wasn’t too long before the princess’s retinue referred to the room I slept in as mine. This was a relaxation in protocol that was just another wave in the ebbing tide of royal glory.
I MET THE emperor on Chuseok, the Harvest Moon Festival, that year. It was also the Japanese holiday Shubun no hi, Autumn Equinox Day, so this most important Korean holiday continued to be celebrated under a different name. It brought the court together for the first time since I’d been there. I woke sad that morning, missing Dongsaeng and my mother on the holiday, but the colorful preparations for high ceremony soon chased my homesickness away.
At the palace, we watched Japanese military officers and guards on horses lead a procession of palanquins carrying the royal family and dignitaries down the road to Jongmyo Shrine, which held the memorial tablets of Joseon Dynasty kings and queens. The day was crisp and clear, making the traditional dress of the royalty and ministers brilliant with jeweltones and sheen. Then came rows of men in dark uniforms festooned with ribbons, gold bullion fringe and sashes. A few of these ministers and court officials were Japanese; the others probably were—as my father would disgustedly say—collaborators. We were among the guests following on foot with a rear guard, after which a number of invited spectators joined the parade. The streets were closed to traffic and the route lined with guards, behind which ordinary people thronged to watch the rituals. Since I had never seen a Confucian ceremony, I hadn’t expected the religious solemnity throughout the morning—from the ceremonial march, to the bows, prayers and offerings to the ancestors. Imo told me later that the order of worship had been drastically shortened, and she didn’t mention the obvious, that it had also been altered to include references to Japanese imperial ancestors.
We went back to the palace to line up in the courtyard and wait our turn to bow to the emperor and empress—Imo with her group of the empress’s courtiers, and me with the princess’s retinue. My feet ached from stiff cotton dress shoes, but the pain was forgotten once I reached the steps of Sungjong-jun, the airy hall where, in the olden days, administrative matters were dealt with. That the throne room wasn’t being used for this ceremony joined the things that no one mentioned.
