The Beloved Daughter (27 page)

With Kwan gone, there was nothing for me to do but rest and play with Mrs. Cho’s rescued children. Even with my young compatriots vying for my attention, I fretted about Kwan for whole hours at a time. “You need to stop worrying,” Mrs. Cho admonished. “Your baby knows when you’re anxious.” Mrs. Cho worked as a midwife before she started the orphanage. She promised Kwan that she would care for me with utmost skill and competence while he was away.

A month after his departure, Kwan wrote to tell me that he wouldn’t be home by September as he first planned. In addition to training leaders for the Sanhe church, Kwan was asked to teach in an underground seminary for the entire border region of Jilin Province. He spent October and November out of phone contact. During that time I received one letter to assure me that he was still safe. In December, Kwan tried to return to Seoul, but by then his paperwork was expired, and he had to wait until he could come up with the appropriate bribe money to return home.

My first real contractions began on the second Thursday in January. Kwan sent me an international calling card so I could let him know when the time came, but Mrs. Cho guessed that the labor would be prolonged. She didn’t want me to call my husband right away. When I finally gave birth on Saturday morning, Mrs. Cho cut the umbilical cord and held up a slimy, flailing little girl. After wrapping her in a small blanket, Mrs. Cho handed me my baby and walked toward the phone on the far side of the room. “And now you can call your husband.”

Mrs. Cho found the calling card from Kwan and dialed the numbers. “It’s connecting,” she announced. My daughter began to turn her mouth toward me. As eager as I was to hear my husband’s voice and tell him about our precious baby girl, I also wished Mrs. Cho would show me what I was supposed to do with a hungry newborn.

After nearly a minute, Mrs. Cho hung up the phone. “No answer.” When she saw my daughter rubbing her cheek against my chest, she laughed. “A healthy appetite!” After several failed attempts, Mrs. Cho finally succeeded in attaching my baby to my breast.

“Are those tears of happiness or sorrow?” Mrs. Cho asked as I nursed my daughter for the first time.

I couldn’t explain to my elderly benefactress the emotions I was experiencing. I was exhausted from my three-day labor and surprised that my daughter didn’t look anything like the other infants I cared for. I never saw a baby so fresh from the womb before. I didn’t expect my daughter to have such a skeletal frame or pointed skull, and I could only wonder why her skin was covered with a fine layer of soft gray fuzz.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. The joy of new life was clouded with overwhelming anxiety. I ached to present our firstborn to my husband, to smile as I watched Kwan hold her for the first time. Instead I wrapped my arms even more tightly around my daughter.

Mrs. Cho patted my head. “You should rest now,” she instructed, leaving me alone to wonder if my child would ever meet her father face to face.

Mrs. Cho tried several more times that day and the next to call Kwan at the pastor’s house in Sanhe. She never got through.

“Well,” suggested Mrs. Cho after three days of silence, “perhaps they are so busy getting your husband’s paperwork in order that they have no time for phone calls.” She smiled at me. I clung to my daughter, staring into her eyes which looked so much like Kwan’s.

“Father will be here soon,” I whispered in her ear.

“What will you name her?”

Kwan and I never discussed baby names; we both assumed he would return home to Seoul months before the birth. I was about to beg for more time so Kwan could help me decide, but as our daughter stared at me with alert, black eyes, I knew what name to choose. “Ae-Cha,” I declared, “so that everyone will know that she is our beloved daughter.”

Mrs. Cho nodded in approval.

Days turned to weeks, and there was still no word from Kwan. I mailed him letters, even pictures of our growing child. Day and night I prayed for my husband’s safety. When Ae-Cha was awake, I folded her hands together as if she were also asking God for her father’s protection.

Mrs. Cho continued to bustle around the orphanage, letting me sleep in late, keeping the other children quiet so I could nap with Ae-Cha in the afternoons. In all respects, I was more like a boarder than a hired help. I was still weak from the delivery, and even though Ae-Cha slept well at night, I could barely find the strength for swaddling or diaper changing during the day.

I was resting with Ae-Cha in bed with me one afternoon when Mrs. Cho came in. “A letter,” she announced. Her voice trembled. “From Sanhe.”

I didn’t recognize the handwriting on the envelope. Before opening it, I bundled up my sleeping daughter in her blanket and held her close against me. Her hair was thick and black. A good omen, I liked to think. I opened the letter and glanced at the signature. It was from the pastor’s son in Sanhe.

Sister Chung-Cha,

I deeply regret that I must give you this difficult news. When your husband came to help me carry out my father’s work in Sanhe, he knew that it was dangerous. It was nearly three weeks ago when I returned home and found the inside of my house ransacked. Your husband was home alone that day. I do not know where he is, although I am trying to find out. I would have written sooner, but your husband informed me of your condition and told me that if anything happened to him, I was not to contact you until well after your delivery date. I will write more as soon as I receive news.

Your servant,

Tong Dae-Jung

Mrs. Cho didn’t have to read the letter to guess its nature. I buried my face in my daughter’s silky hair and rocked her back and forth as I prayed for the man I had grown to love, the man I would never see again on this side of heaven.

Omen

“From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” Psalm 22:10

“It’s your milk.” Mrs. Cho repositioned her glasses on the knobby bridge of her nose. “Your supply has dried up.”

I stroked Ae-Cha’s cheek, murky from tear stains. She gazed up at me, her eyes swollen from crying and darkened by sleeplessness. Ae-Cha had been awake since midnight, kicking her legs and wailing while she pounded my breasts with tiny clenched fists.

“Already?” I exclaimed. “Why so soon?” I noticed that Ae-Cha’s arms and legs remained bone-thin, but since her father was so skinny I didn’t worry. When I couldn’t console Ae-Cha after two hours of incessant screaming and dozens of failed attempts to nurse, I wrapped her in her blanket and took her across the hall to Mrs. Cho’s bedroom.

“You’ve been too nervous.” Mrs. Cho smacked her lips in Ae-Cha’s face to distract my daughter from her hunger pains. I thought back to my childhood in Hasambong, when the empty ache of starvation robbed me of sleep on so many countless nights.

“How could I stop worrying?” What was I to do? Kwan disappeared nearly two months ago. I hadn’t received any word from him, or the pastor’s son, or anyone else in Sanhe since I first learned he was missing. I didn’t know if my husband was dead or alive, healthy or broken. I clung to our daughter with zealous affection, but had no energy left to nourish her physical body.

I forced myself to believe that my love alone could shield Ae-Cha from whatever future lay ahead of us. Realizing that she might never meet her father, I vowed to love my daughter with the devotion and fervor of two parents. I slept with Ae-Cha by my side and carried her nearly every moment of the day, refusing to let even Mrs. Cho hold her. Feeling Ae-Cha’s velvety skin against mine, her tiny fingers caressing my face as she explored her world, I was certain that I could live through one more day without giving in to panic or despair.

There was nothing I could do for Kwan from where I was, and so I wrapped Ae-Cha up within the four walls of my maternal adoration, vowing to do everything in my power to keep my daughter healthy and safe. I never let the other children play around her, terrified that they would pass on some horrific disease, or trip and crush her skull, or say something unkind that would scar her subconscious forever.

Whenever I nursed Ae-Cha, I felt my love and energy flow into her being. Mrs. Cho told me that a healthy baby only eats every four or five hours, but during the day Ae-Cha didn’t let even an hour go by before turning her head to me with an irresistible expression. I loved the way Ae-Cha gazed at me while she nursed. With Ae-Cha at my breast, it seemed easier to believe that God truly did hear my prayers for Kwan and would bring him home to us.

Unfortunately, that peaceful bond I shared with Ae-Cha wasn’t destined to last. With a sympathetic nod, Mrs. Cho handed me a bottle of formula that she prepared for my daughter. I held it up to Ae-Cha’s eager lips. She began sucking loudly, occasionally letting out contented coos while warm, synthetic milk oozed out of the corners of her mouth.

I looked away. My husband was either locked in a Chinese jail cell, or his body was decaying in some make-shift grave. And all I wanted to do was cry because I could no longer nurse our child.

Nightmare

“Anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10:37

I never expected to find myself back in Sanhe again. Desperate to find my husband, I traveled back to Jilin Province with Ae-Cha slung up on my back in search for news about Kwan.

I went to Pastor Tong’s home, wondering if his son was still free in Sanhe or if he was imprisoned like his father. I only saw their home once before when Kwan and I tarried too far on one of our evening walks. Standing on the front porch under the cover of nightfall, I lifted my hand. I felt the heavy weight of Ae-Cha’s sleeping form on my back and was comforted by her tranquil breathing. Mustering some remnant courage, I tapped once on the door. It opened before I could knock a second time.