The Calligrapher's Daughter (47 page)

It wasn’t as if he didn’t care. In Gaeseong, she’d been the ideal bride and a perfect wife. Father had complimented him on her tasteful and balanced cooking more than once. She was delicate and bony, and compliant in bed. He could easily admit that he loved her, truly, but a man has needs! And now, since there was still no heir, and none likely because of Unsook’s consumption, he knew he was completely justified to go elsewhere. Nuna, an excessive worrier and righteous in her big-sister way, had merely overreacted.

No matter. The criticism Nuna had tried to cast on him withered to nothing during those evenings at the teahouse. The warmth of the memories trembled in his thighs, and he looked again at the shuttered windows from which he faintly heard laughter and singing. This was his favorite teahouse. These ladies boasted lineage to famous courtesans—a status that fit a man of his distinction and talent. He thought it shouldn’t matter that his family’s wealth had dwindled. Life was worse for everyone, yet Koreans still knew what was important, particularly if it was prohibited, such as their given names. The teahouse ladies had certainly fussed and cooed when he explained how he’d come up with the name Kiyamoto. He’d drawn the Chinese ideographs on a scrap of paper with the proprietress’s fountain pen, to show those ignorant girls how
Kiyamoto
meant “deep well” or “deep source,” a fair iteration of
Han
, which meant “ancient dynastic place in time.”

When the edict came that all nationals must choose a Japanese name, Father had accepted Ilsun’s choice of the Japanese surname Kiyamoto, but refused to officially register at the precinct, saying that task was Ilsun’s responsibility as master of the house. It seemed to Ilsun he was master only when it came to dealing with outside affairs. Lately, however, Father
kept his door shut more often than not, carving panels out of cheap pine or reading the same tired books from what little was left of his musty old library.

The name-change ruling outraged many. Spontaneous demonstrations by students ended with spilled blood, more arrests, more prison terms. But it warmed Ilsun to think of the name change, for that was how Meeja had caught his eye. Wine had spilled on the scrap of paper and wine-diluted ink dripped on his lap. A woman he hadn’t noticed before crouched beside him in an instant with a cloth and a cup of water. She grasped his leg and dabbed at it, saying, “We can’t have your prestigious name running down your leg. It will want to go back to the well!” Her wit made him laugh and her touch made him interested. She had coarse hands, the knuckles large and the skin loose, but her fingers were bold yet discreet in exploring where the ink might have fallen. Although her features were unexceptional—eyes too narrow to be alluring and lips too thin to convey ripeness—she had charming ears and a gracefully curved chin. The confidence in her back and neck appealed to him. When she kneeled at his feet, he could smell the perfumed oil in her hair. She wrung the cloth, looking directly at him, and her inviting smile made her eyes darken sensually.

By the lamppost, a chill crept down Ilsun’s collar and made his testicles itch. His woolen suit was useless in the sleet, but it corrected an unflattering line in his shoulders, and Meeja had admired it. He hoped for a glimpse of her. One glance and he swore he’d be satisfied. He willed the door to open, or perhaps a shutter would blow wide and her silhouette would be haloed in yellow light as she searched the road for him. He was convinced that she felt his presence nearby, just as he still felt her firm palms pressing him into her. He pictured her closed-eye little frown, the wink of her tongue as her mouth parted, the soft warmth of her energetic hips rising to meet him. Aroused, he stopped pacing. He had spent hundreds on food, dancing and wine for three days before she had allowed him to lie with her. And she had moaned and thrashed, her breathlessness tantalizing, goading him unlike any woman he’d known. He’d been with her twice and felt bewitched. She was all he could deliciously, painfully think about.

The teahouse rang with laughter. “Damn her!” he said, certain she was
coyly teasing someone else, “She’s just a
gisaeng
—a peasant or bastard’s daughter—nothing!” Yet he could see her beguiling chin turned charmingly toward some other man. He kicked the light-pole and scuffed his ruined shoe.
Shiang!
Tapping ice from his hat brim, he turned from the beckoning windows and trudged home, thinking about Meeja, sex, the burden of secrecy and the boring necessity of work.

STUBBORN ODORS OF GARLIC AND PEPPER CLUNG TO THE WALLS LONG after the dinner hour had passed. I closed the sliding door to the sickroom and removed my facemask. Mother neared in the darkening hallway, hands tucked into jacket sleeves, socks swishing on the floor. “Do you know where your brother is?” she asked.

I carefully phrased my answer to avoid lying. “He said Father told him that Elder Kim was interested in a scroll to commemorate his grandson’s naming ceremony. He said he would visit Elder Kim to ask what he might want.”

Mother’s eyes crinkled in approval and I turned quickly. Who could tell what Dongsaeng did on his evenings out? I knew he’d squandered the
money from the topaz, but there were no new silk socks or factory-made shirts. I had my suspicions. I’d been doing his laundry ever since my sister-in-law had taken ill, and took precautions to protect Unsook and Mother from learning about his behavior. His clothes reeked with tobacco and drink, and I scrubbed face powder and lipstick stains with fury.

Mother raised an eyebrow toward the sickroom and I held my fingers to my lips. In the kitchen and out of earshot of the sickroom, I said, “She feels cold so I’ll stoke the fire. I’m making herb tea and soup.” We didn’t know when or where Unsook had contracted tuberculosis, but it flowered after she’d caught a cold that Mother said had all the children at the Gaeseong orphanage sniffling during the Christmas play. After that, Unsook’s little cough receded and we were preoccupied with moving. Almost three seasons later, two months after autumn equinox, Dongsaeng told us that Unsook was pregnant at last. But this jubilant news was quickly dashed when the doctor reported that she was also chronically ill. Our first doleful Christmas and New Year’s in Seoul were further shadowed by Unsook’s steady decline.

“Not much coughing today,” said Mother.

“Not much blood in her phlegm, either. The new medicine seems to be helping. A better day.”

“Thank God. I’ll wait up for your brother. He’ll be hungry when he gets home. Father’s annoyed he had to eat alone again.” Her phrasing made me smile. Both of us had eaten supper with Father, but we maintained the pretense of certain traditions. The women’s partition had been dispensed with after we moved. The house, a right angle, lined two sides of a large courtyard and a grassy yard, which we turned into a vegetable garden. The sole sitting room took the corner and part of the north-south wing. Then came a tiny anteroom studio followed by Ilsun’s room, Unsook’s sickroom and an indoor toilet that drained to a side alley sewer. The east-west wing started with the kitchen, then my room, Mother’s room, a storage room and Father’s rooms, followed by the entryway beside the sitting room. Some of the rooms, like Unsook’s, were only big enough for one pallet, while the sitting room could sleep three, and all were close with low, exposed roof beams, traditional
ondol
floors with built-in flues for heating, and paper walls.

Initially, it was difficult for everyone to eat together—Mother could
barely part her lips for fear my father would glimpse the inside of her mouth—but it was both practical and economical, and after ensuring that the men had plenty and started before us, we were able to eat with them without too much embarrassment. However, it would be impolite to speak of it.

Mother took a pillowslip and went to join Father. She looked shrunken, but her back was still straight, narrow and graceful, and her silvery hair framed only the tiniest of wrinkles on her oval face. I pictured Father reading, the lines of his long face stern. He would be cross-legged on the mat and stroking his white goatee, his sharp angles still clothed in his old-fashioned vests. He was thin, as we all were, but his health was now stable, recovered from a dangerous and painful ulcer he’d suffered during the first several months in Seoul. I had found a good pharmacist two tram rides downtown, and while discussing treatment options, discovered he had classical training and a wealth of traditional remedies. But one night not long ago, probably because of his relationships with Chinese herbalists, the pharmacist disappeared. His shop was taken over by a cranky suspicious man who asked too many questions. I felt safer buying the rare plants and powders I needed from Dongsaeng’s clandestine and expensive contacts.

I heated broth and tea for Unsook, then went to the outbuilding to fill the scuttle. The Seoul house and a stable full of coal had been gifts from Imo. By the time of my release from prison, it was clear that all of Korea’s and Manchuria’s resources were being siphoned to feed Japan’s war with China. Another new law mobilized hundreds of young Korean men and women to fill a void in manpower caused by the war. They called it voluntary, but I’d heard of missing sons and daughters, and few youths dared to loiter on city streets. Being married and having been recently arrested made me ineligible for “government service.” Though I would never forget my imprisonment, I understood it was merely a kink in a tightening noose of government wariness and suspicion. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to make myself feel less guilty, but once we’d moved outside of our Gaeseong walls, I saw how fortunate we were to have kept our estate for as long as we did. As we packed and sold furniture, we learned that many other landowners had suffered a similar fate. Downtown, Gaesong’s main thoroughfare had become a noisy stream of trucks shuttling troops to
China, pushcarts jammed with contents of homes, and foot traffic as thousands of people migrated either forcibly or for safety. We tended the graves a last time and bid painful goodbyes to Kira, Joong, Byungjo and Cook, who would venture north to Nah-jin or farther, if necessary. We prayed we’d meet again, but by now, a year later, I realized there was little hope of that. On our day of departure the Japanese soldiers came, immediately knocked down the gate to widen the entrance for vehicles and razed the front gardens for parking. We left quickly and no one looked back.

In Seoul we fought our way through a train depot filled with people and confusion, blasts of steam and the clamor of trains coming and going, the squalor of refugees and beggars of all ages in pitiful condition. My mother, taking the fifth journey of her life, was admirably fearless and mainly concerned with Father, who could barely walk for the pain of his ulcer. After hiring carts for our possessions, we found Imo’s house occupied by a few pieces of heavy furniture, gourds, some crockery and kettles, and an old man from Imo’s church who guarded the vacated property. He delivered a letter from Imo, in which she explained her decision to finally leave the capital, fearing that her adopted son, who had recently graduated from college, was vulnerable to the labor draft. She had moved to Busan and purchased a house on the outskirts of the city, away from hubbub and scrutiny. “And so,” she wrote, “what a blessing that you have decided to come to Seoul, eliminating for me the headache of trying to sell this house, which is much too large for just us.”

It was when she read this letter that I saw Mother cry for the first time since the Gaeseong house was lost. I understood that her tears were for the shame of having to accept Imo’s thoughtful generosity, and I felt so undeserving of my own tears of remorse that they remained deeply buried.

I bent to scoop from the diminishing pile of coal and thought about Unsook. The costly orchid infusion had worked well, opening her breathing passages. I didn’t dwell on Dongsaeng’s folly with the topaz, knowing that my last length of silk would bring a good price. The skirt with embroidered chrysanthemums was one of the few things I hadn’t sold when living with Calvin’s parents. I had once hoped to wear it crossing the Pacific, but it was pointless to even allow those old memories to surface. The deep green silk would’ve flattered Unsook’s fair complexion,
and I had set it aside as a future gift for her, but I had to recognize that Unsook was only getting worse. If Dongsaeng sold the silk, I could also buy powdered milk, kelp and rice for a new mother whose twin boys I had delivered. I wanted to see them thrive. There were rumors about hundreds of male Korean infants being taken from their mothers to be adopted and raised as Japanese. With the mother’s grateful permission, I had registered the twins’ birth certificates, reporting them as girls.

It was a shame that Unsook couldn’t tolerate milk, which might help to strengthen her. I hurried to replenish the firepit that heated the sickroom. At the doorstep I looked to the sky and saw through departing snow clouds the far night blackness speckled with stars. I said to the darkness, to the wonderment of stars, “Thank you for this coal, and please help her gain strength.” I lamented that my obstetrics training had done little to prepare me for the slow devastation of consumption. When I first learned about Unsook’s baby, something forgotten within me had stirred, and I felt Calvin’s absence in a vivid physical way I hadn’t ever before. But it quickly dissipated in the crisis of Unsook’s illness and the fear of what could only become a tragic pregnancy. I had put thoughts of my husband far behind me, as far away as Gaeseong. I never spoke of him and thought less and less about our reunion. And now the war had spread. There seemed to be no end to Japan’s oppressive power and growing strength.

Thoughts of Calvin, of Unsook’s baby, of any future at all, were always accompanied by the echoes of my mother’s and Calvin’s faithful declaration to trust God. In prison, I thought simplistically that God’s wisdom would feel unquestionable to me, that my faith would grow resolute. But the refrain that now persisted was the reductive question: how could all of my family’s loss be the price for one Japanese major’s spotty education about Jesus? And I couldn’t reconcile martyrdom and human suffering as models for redemption. Here was Unsook, so lovely that her every movement said beauty. Her body had once held great promise—still held promise—and her faith was so sincere that she accepted illness without complaint, yet she faced a slow and painful death. The price for her was high, too high, and unfair.