The Calligrapher's Daughter (21 page)

“There, you see?” said the woman. “Not a farm girl. I told you her clothes are too richly made.”

I lowered my eyes, annoyed at being the subject of their guessing game. My blouse and skirt were traditional white, plain, but the linen was finely combed, the stitching tight and invisible, my collar newly sewn in that morning. I thought of the colorful silks and brocades that Imo had insisted I take home, packed in a large old suitcase of hers now on the baggage rack at the end of the car, sure I’d never wear such showy clothes again.

“You see,” said the woman, her voice light and friendly. “You look the same age as his students, yet here you are during examinations traveling alone in first class. And most of his students have the most horrid Japanese. We’ve wondered if Korean girls are capable of speaking properly at all! So you’ve piqued our curiosity.”

The woman’s rudeness made it possible to ask my own questions. “Pardon me, sir, but are you a teacher?”

“At one time, yes,” he said. “Literature and history.”

His wife broke in, “Most recently, dean of admissions at Ewha!”

“How prestigious!” I said to flatter and supplement the woman’s crows of pride. “I’ve wanted to attend—”

“And why not?” The woman clutched her husband’s arm. “Give her your card, won’t you? Such a pretty thing and well spoken! Think how it would be if all the girls were as civilized as she.”

I had often seen this attitude from my schoolteachers and was practiced at hiding my reactions.

“Have you a certificate from secondary school?” The man dug in his chest pocket.

“I graduated this year while visiting my aunt in Seoul. I—I took the Ewha entrance examinations last month.” Imo had urged me to take the exams, saying, “Sown soybeans, reaped soybeans!” She’d given me a box of lead pencils for the occasion as well as the examination fees, which Father had neglected—or refused—to send.

“Good! And did you do well?”

“Yes, sir.” Modesty required silence about my first-place score.

The man watched me carefully. “Very well. I’ll look it up.” He handed me a fountain pen and two little cards. “Give me your name and that of your upper school, then apply as soon as you can. We’re considering applications now.”

I’d seen such pens used, but had never handled one. I opened it, heavy and cold with gold trim, and formally wrote my name in Chinese characters on one of his cards. I relished the pen’s easy flow of ink, and by the third syllable of my name, had mastered its ability to replicate the departure of brush from paper in a delicate swash, despite the bumpiness of the train. I returned the pen and extended the wet card between my fingertips. The man wiped the pen and scrubbed his palms with his handkerchief. “Han Najin,” he said professorially. “Beautifully done, but why don’t you write in Japanese?”

My cheeks flushed. They would be narrow enough to diminish the most ancient and elegant of letterforms in all of Asia, but Japan had perennial—and lately, escalating—problems with China. I remembered the proverb “The lower stream runs as clear as the upper stream,” and swallowed. Besides, it seemed this man—who thoroughly wiped his pen after I had touched it—had no official capacity to do me harm, and could be quite helpful should I ever find the opportunity to apply to Ewha. “My apologies, sir! I have much to learn.”

“Yes. I see you’ve had some of the old training. Well, well.” He exchanged a look with his wife and tucked the card into a book, which he commenced to read. His wife fussed with her baggage and called the porter to dispose of the trash.

His card read, PROFESSOR TOSHIRO SHINOHARA, DEAN OF ADMISSIONS, EWHA PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL. I placed it carefully in my string pouch and removed a length of thread and an unfinished swatch of embroidery. By the time the train reached Gaeseong, I’d completed the square—plum blossoms against a dark branch—and gave it to Mrs. Shinohara. “Thank you for your generous offer to personally apply.” I bowed to them both. I doubted if Mrs. Shinohara would recognize the royal flower of the Yi family and felt a strange bittersweet justice in giving the square to her.

She said, “Such beautiful handiwork! You must apply for the degree in domestic arts.” She bobbed rapidly in the Japanese way. “Don’t forget to write the dean of admissions! Goodbye! Goodbye!” Mr. Shinohara nodded curtly, and I struggled through the compartment door with the heavy suitcase.

I searched the platform, my chest pounding in anticipation of seeing my mother, but no familiar face appeared. Fumes making me nauseous, I dragged the suitcase toward the station and waited as the depot gradually emptied of travelers. A man in tattered clothes lay beside the entrance to the station, begging for a coin, his filthy legs stretched out before him, his brown teeth broken, his stink staining the pavement. I’d never seen such misery and lack of pride and felt ashamed for him, for seeing him, for his sad existence. As the sun sank behind the buildings, I left my suitcase with the stationmaster and walked home, guessing that Mother hadn’t yet received Imo’s letter about my homecoming, or the postal watchdogs had censored it into oblivion.

Vendors in the marketplace shouted last-minute bargains, long shadows mimicking their hurried packing of unsold goods. I walked the beaten earth of the road and passed the noodle shop and bakery that had tempted me with treats after school. A lifetime ago! The market seemed dingy and small, the road home short. I climbed the hill and saw the happy curved roof of my home gate. Tears stinging, I began to run, all my court training lost to emotion.

I reached the gate just as Byungjo came to latch it at sunset. His tanned face lit up when he saw me. “Ahsee! The master’s daughter! She’s home!” I stopped a moment to take in his familiar wrinkles, my smile as wide as his, then I flew to the house where I heard Kira repeating Byungjo’s cries
and Dongsaeng’s excited little boy voice from afar, and at last I fell into my mother’s open arms.

IN THE COMFORTING evening light of my bedroom, with Mother off to instruct Joong about my luggage, I washed my neck and face and smoothed my hair. It was time to see Father. I could only guess how angered he’d been at my departure. I regretted each day that my mother had taken the brunt of his fury, and she refused to tell me its extent. I regretted his loss of face with the Chae family. I wondered if their son, now fourteen, had married. If Father only realized how much things had changed!

“He’s waiting,” said Mother from the hall.

With trepidation, I went to his sitting room. It seemed dark and close. I bowed low to the floor, my movement slow and controlled, the bend of my neck graceful. “Honored Father, this person is returned home.”

“So I heard.”

I sneaked a look. The lines by his mouth were deeper and new white hairs edged his beard, still short. He’d kept his hair shorn. His eyes were cast to a book at his side.

“I apologize, Father, for the shame I brought with my departure.”

A noncommittal sound came from his throat. I smelled his tobacco flaring and heard slow puffs. “What did you learn in Seoul?”

“I hope to please you in the coming days with all that I have learned.”

In a lengthening quiet, I added, “I was honored to see Father’s screens in the palace.” Long pause. “Imo-nim sends greetings and blessings for good health.”

Another long pause, then he spoke. “So it’s true what they say about his death.”

I looked at him, startled by this mild questioning as if from one peer to another. He fiddled with his pipe. “Everyone believes it,” I said as humbly as I could. “Dr. Hakugi was most influential.”

“They said apoplexy.”

“Abbuh-nim, if I may.” He nodded, and I continued. “His Majesty was healthy and thin. The maid who served his food is also dead—they say she died of fever. But the servants who found her said she was dressed in her day clothes and had obviously been arranged to appear as if she slept.”

Father nodded and spat bits of tobacco. “How is your imo?”

“She remains at home, awaiting exile or something worse—”

“No, they won’t bother with a widow. After things settle, she’ll have her house and be fine.”

I bowed, grateful for this assurance. I heard him adjust his legs then empty his pipe. The silence grew, and I thought I hadn’t heard such silences as this in all my days in Seoul.

“You’ve grown.”

“Thank you, Abbuh-nim.”

“You may go.”

“Thank you, Abbuh-nim. Goodnight.”

Walking slowly to my room, I let go the breath I hadn’t known I was holding. My nose filled with the pinesap smell of floor polish, and I felt unnamed sadness.

WHEN THE COCK crowed at sunrise, the clean scent of my bedding reminded me I was home. Pale green sunlight swept across the familiar crisscrossed beams on the ceiling. I smiled at the nooks where I had once imagined stockpiling new words and Chinese characters. I quickly dressed, happy to hear waxwings’ shrill whistles in the garden rather than the measured commands of guards on sunrise march. In the kitchen, I presented Cook with a dozen linen hand towels embroidered with images of Seoul’s city gates.

“Your mother will be proud to see how you’ve mastered your needle!” said Cook, grasping my hands.

“Where’s Mother’s rice?” I said, inspecting the four trays Cook had prepared for the family. My mother’s worn brass bowl held millet with barley.

“Rice is dear,” said Cook.

I switched my bowl of white rice with Mother’s and delivered two trays to Father and Dongsaeng, then took ours to the women’s side of the house. Seated in front of a folding mirror, Mother brushed her long hair, now shot with silver. “So wonderful to have you home,” she said. We shared a morning prayer, and she opened her rice bowl. “What’s this?”

“What happened, Umma-nim? Cook says rice is dear.”

“I was hoping to spare you at least one day.” She sighed. “Your father
was forced to let go of the farm. Oriental Land Company conscripted the property and sold it to a Japanese man. We received a pittance in the exchange.”

With the steadily increasing censorship, my mother wouldn’t have written this kind of news in her letters, nor was it her habit to send any bad news through the mail. I felt remorse for being angry when Father didn’t send the examination fees for Ewha, and chastised myself for selfishly hoping to attend Ewha at all. “When did this happen? What happened to the family?” Joong’s family, whose loyalty and service to the Han clan went back several generations, had long farmed the property.

“Yah, slow down. Did you already forget everything Imo taught you?”

I blushed until I saw that my mother was gently teasing me. We smiled, and she said, “Imo was very proud of you.” Instantly I was her little girl again and simply, purely happy to be with her.

“They tried to work the farm for another year,” Mother continued, “but the new owner took all their harvest and left them nothing for winter. Some of the peasants stayed, some went to join the resistance, and Joong’s family went north to your grandfather’s in Nah-jin. Joong’s youngest brother decided to find work with Uncle in Manchuria. Your father was quite generous with them and sent them off with all the grain and cloth that wasn’t due for taxes. He told them to sell what they couldn’t carry and take the things they’d need, and not worry about the repercussions. We were fined for the missing goods and tools, but Father said it was the least we could do.”

That Mother imparted these kinds of details to me proved I had indeed grown up, and beneath my worry for Joong and our family’s situation, it made me feel proud. I swore I’d be worthy of her acceptance of me as a young woman.

“It happened about a year ago,” said Mother. “There were so many refugees here after Kanto, they had to give them land or businesses to work. So the laws changed again, and another land reform …” She was referring to the Great Kanto Earthquake, which had completely devastated Tokyo, killing thousands and causing hundreds of thousands to flee to Korea for the many new opportunities the government had carved out for earthquake victims. I’d seen Japanese in all jobs and styles of life in Seoul but thought it had always been that way in the capital since the
annexation. I now realized it was probably as much of a new influx of Japanese citizens as my mother was describing, a condition that might have contributed to the empire’s last breath.

“Much has changed.” Mother’s lips set and she put the rice bowl aside. “Save this for the men’s porridge tomorrow.”

In the kitchen I exchanged the rice for millet, then returned. “Joong must be missing his family.”

“We thought he might join them, but it seems that he and Kira are betrothed.” She beamed. “Their own choice. I don’t know why I didn’t see it, especially since now their happiness seems to fill the house! Your father is agreeable.”

We talked quietly through breakfast. I described the last few weeks at the palace, without mentioning my fears for Imo. Nor did I mention that seeing Mother now made me realize how deeply I had missed her, how essentially I loved and needed her, how grateful I was that she’d sent me to Seoul. She relayed outrageous market prices and news of church families, without mentioning how much she’d missed me, how proud she was of me, how happy she was that I was home, and safe. I had learned to read the meanings behind the politeness of things not said, and for this I was also grateful. And finally, I didn’t mention Dean Shinohara’s card, which I’d tucked into the Chinese-English phrasebook still hidden in my room. Hearing about the farm prevented me from raising the subject.

Mother said Hansu’s parents were well, pleased with his excellent marks from Soongsil Academy in Pyeongyang. With a sideways glance, she said that my old friend Jaeyun had enrolled in the nursing program at Ewha for the coming term. My face remained impassive, but my stomach turned with envy. She also said the public upper schools were now entirely Japanese, and Father planned to send Dongsaeng to a private school in Seoul, following his graduation in two years. I filed this information into the beginnings of a plan. My mother started to take the tray, but I told her I was home now and she could go back to her morning reading. We reviewed the household and gardening schedule, and I made her agree to let me do the heaviest work.