The Calligrapher's Daughter (11 page)

UNCEASING GRIM NEWS OF THE FAILED MOVEMENT BLANKETED THE city. A solemn household and intermittent rains during three days of preparations for the baby’s One Hundredth Day naming ceremony chastened my anticipation of the occasion. Earlier, I’d heard my parents discussing the propriety of hosting such a party at all, but Father said, “It’s in such times as these that we must rely on our traditions and continue to observe them.”

“I worry that we appear to feast when others have suffered much more than we,” said Mother.

“We aren’t feasting, Yuhbo,” he said after a characteristic long pause.
“We’re flaunting our way. They cannot suppress forty-five centuries of a people in one season of violence.”

I had felt renewed purpose then in my search for the tokens that were needed to forecast the baby’s future. When Mother had enlisted me to gather the items, she said our paths were carved by God, not fate or folklore, but this was tradition and harmless. After the naming, the gathered objects would be spread on a table in front of the baby, concealed by a cloth. The cloth would be lifted, and the item the baby chose would foretell his professional destiny. If he grasped the brush in his chubby fist, he would be a scholar. The abacus meant businessman; the brick, a mason; the pen, a clerk; the nail, a carpenter; the coin, a man of wealth; and if he chose the skein of thread, he’d be guaranteed a long life. Mother had added to the list of items a wooden crucifix for pastor, and Father would place on the table a small gift that the Daewongun, Emperor Gojong’s father, had given to my grandfather: a polished bronze signet to commemorate his scholarship, painting and calligraphy. This token was what Father himself had chosen on his own One Hundredth Day.

I cleaned the objects, found a suitable length of pale green silk to cover them, and wondered what I would have reached for if Han girls were allowed a One Hundredth Day celebration. Before I delivered the items to Mother, I arranged them on my study desk and tried to spontaneously pick one with my eyes closed. But no manner of turning the table or shuffling the objects blindly in an attempt to fool myself gave authenticity to my choice of the pencil I’d added to symbolize teaching, and I gave up with a sigh.

WHEN THE SUN reached its zenith on the day of the celebration, it melted a haze of cloud and fog. Soon, warm breezes from the south dried the rain-soaked flagstones in the courtyards. Streaks of water evaporated and puddles swirled with wind. The guests arrived. I helped arrange tables and mats, and carried platters from the kitchen. The elders gathered in the rarely used audience room for the naming ceremony, and to witness the forecasting.

I squeezed between the women in the courtyard, who hovered around the younger men on the porch, who in turn jostled for position around
the wide-open doors and windows to watch. Seated inside, knee to knee, were men who were fathers, brothers, uncles and grandfathers of victims of Sam-il—the failed March First movement. Many of the older men were dressed in the straw sandals of mourning, their pristine white hanbok a somber backdrop to the food tables stacked with delicacies. Oranges, apples, plums and buns stuffed with sweet bean paste or dates towered in neat columns among platters piled with rice cakes that had been rolled in green, red or beige pulverized peas and powdered grain. Displays of pure white rice cakes the guests would take home were positioned like guards by the doorways and gate. It may have been sinful, but I felt proud when I heard the murmured exclamations over the lavish party food; the men impressed with the cost, the women impressed with the artistry.

Plump as a dumpling, my baby brother sat propped on pillows in silken finery behind a broad lacquer table. His transparent blue peaked silk cap, edged with a gold geometric pattern, bobbed beside vertical piles of pastries, and his rainbow-striped sleeves brushed precariously against carefully arranged fruit. People smiled and slapped their fans open and shut, seeing hope in the boy’s puffy cheeks, and as wine was poured, more laughter was heard.

Father asked for a prayer from Reverend Ahn, who appeared weakened from his time in jail. But when he asked God to bless this new son of our beloved nation, his voice rang clear and true, and with sound and word he delivered a message of pride, strength and perseverance to all who could hear. Old men and women wept. Young men straightened their shoulders, their eyes fierce. Then Father stood with Dongsaeng in his arms and ceremoniously uttered his first son’s name:
Ilsun.
People clapped and called out approvingly. Mother positioned Dongsaeng—as was proper, I would always call him
Dongsaeng
, Younger Sibling—in front of the forecasting table. Father swept aside the cloth covering the objects, and a corner of the silk flicked a nearby plate of sorghum balls, tossing one directly into Dongsaeng’s lap. Everyone laughed as the baby raised it to his mouth, so no one but I noticed the fleeting change in Mother’s expression. Did she think the sweet was Dongsaeng’s choice? What did it mean?

Sunlight sparkled on the surface of the king’s signet, and the baby picked it up. Shouts and clapping filled the room. Startled by the noise, Dongsaeng cried. Father grabbed him and swung him high, nodding and smiling to the cheers of the men calling, “Yah—just like his father and his father’s father. The emperor’s loyal artists, the king’s favored calligraphers!”

ALTHOUGH IT GALLED HAN THAT SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS HIS daughter’s walk to school could threaten his family, he warned Najin to give the police station wide berth. During his walks to town, he noted the increased number of Japanese “businessmen”—who, ridiculously, all wore black trench coats and gray fedoras—meaning the ranks of Thought Police in Gaeseong had multiplied. New spirals of barbed wire, glittering in the sun, topped the fortified concrete walls of the police station, behind which he heard trucks rumbling and the unison shouts of troops exercising.

In the marketplace, posters seeking certain men fluttered in the fall wind. He strode to the bookseller, his outer vest flapping, his head
wrapped with a headband and topped with a horsehair hat despite their odd appearance on his shorn hair. A gnarled street sweeper crossed his path, causing him to wonder how such a man of low birth could feed himself since the price of rice had doubled. It made him consider his younger brother’s choice with less rancor.

Han’s only brother, Chungduk, had married the sole child of a logging family in Manchuria; wealthy landowners, yes, but commoners all the same. Chungduk had taken the position of eldest son in that family and declared that his wife’s family was as honorable as the Hans, who owned similar Manchurian forestlands. He claimed his status exactly matched that of the Han uncle who managed those lands. Chungduk added, scornfully, that at least someone in the family would be making real money.

Years before, after their father had died, just as Chungduk began his studies in Seoul with an old tutor from the closed Confucian Academy, it fell to Han to find his younger brother a wife. Han assumed that Chungduk would be married shortly after his studies, and hoped that a few seasons at home together would redefine their boyhood camaraderie on a scholarly level. He couldn’t have guessed how much change would occur in the three years of Chungduk’s absence, including dissolution of the yangban class, rise of a new intelligentsia spurred by multifarious newspapers and patriotic clubs, and Chungduk’s decision to attend the Methodist college. As soon as Han had adjusted to his head-of-household responsibilities, his new wife and her Christian religion, his mother died. At that time Han understood the Japanese at court coveted his paintings, but he believed that only the highest ministers, or the king himself, had authorized the commissions for his work. He continued to study the old texts, painting and writing calligraphy in classic style, refusing to see that the outside world encroached like wind and rain lapping at sandstone, eroding the once-solid ground that generations of Han men had stood upon to guide their lives.

Han ambled across the market square, passing a row of shops that included a photographer’s studio. He recalled the day Chungduk returned from Seoul, waving a photograph of a young woman. Han had greeted his brother warmly, taken aback by Chungduk’s height and strong features shed of adolescent ambiguity. But the familiar dimple appeared on
Chungduk’s right cheek when he flashed the same broad smile, his eyes as mischievous as ever.

“Hyung-nim
, Elder Brother,” Chungduk had said, flapping the photo. “I’ve decided to spare you the headache of finding me a wife. Wait until you meet her. She’s completely perfect!” He mentioned the woman’s family name and described their business in Manchuria.

Shock and disappointment had erased the joy of seeing Chungduk. “You couldn’t wait for me to find you a suitable wife. Instead you choose to dishonor this family by lowering yourself!”

And now, even as he felt a breeze penetrating his Western-barbered hair, Han refused to regret his decision. He could acknowledge, however, that it had been conceived in anger, particularly since his brother had said, “Better a commoner who can feed his family than a yangban with no position, dwindling funds and no future. Tell me what your old-fashioned education is doing for you now!”

“How dare you speak to me thus!” he’d said to this rebellious stranger in Chungduk’s body.

“Hyung-nim, it’s 1907! I have the right to choose my own wife.”

Enraged that tradition would be sacrificed so quickly for so little, Han had spoken the last words he would utter to Chungduk. He had stood and turned aside. “No brother of mine would ever consider such a thing.” But now, as he climbed the few steps to the bookstore, Han saw that his heart believed otherwise, for his mind’s eye was full of the laughing dimpled boy he’d taught to swim in the back pond. Perhaps their ancestors or fate—or God—would intervene.

In the bookstore, Mr. Pahk removed his spectacles and greeted him cordially. Han breathed in the comfortable mustiness of aging paper and ink. The dust held the light as if it were filtered through old trees in a forest glen. “Have a seat,” said the bookseller. He produced a stool from behind a narrow counter and slid aside piles of magazines and newspapers. He shook his head, his thick lips gloomy. “I’m afraid more are gone.” He made a striking-match gesture.

Han’s stomach turned acidic. He said nothing for a time, then swallowed. “Yah, I wondered when they’d find your mother lode.”

“They warned me that I must carry only authorized periodicals and books.” Pahk wiped his glasses on his sleeve and rewound them around
his fleshy ears. “I know I was lucky for too long.” His eyes appeared enlarged through the lenses as he peered at Han. “Now it’s up to you.”

The two men stroked their beards. Han shuffled through the newspapers and magazines on the counter, then sat upright to examine a slim bound journal printed in Korean. “What’s this?”

“Hmpf. ‘New cultural policy,’ they say. A ‘literary’ magazine delivered from Seoul this morning. Propaganda written in Korean to fool us.” Pahk spat.

Han quickly scanned the bylines. “I’ve heard of this man. He’s an intellectual, and him, too.” He shuffled through the pages. “These are all patriots! Have you read any of this?”

Pahk snatched a copy from the counter and pored through it. “I didn’t believe the rumors, but it’s true. And there’s the government stamp. New cultural policy! So that explains all those Korean Christian newspapers from Seoul.”

“Rumors?”

The bookseller leaned forward, his eyes on the front door. “They say Admiral Makoto is a moderate. They say that his replacement of Governor-General Hasegawa signals a new era—one that is culturally directed. It’s their reaction to international pressure about March First. There’s even talk of a women’s journal, but I’ll believe that when I see it!” He cackled, making a crude gesture about women.

Han reached inside his pouch, but Pahk waggled his ears and waved him away. “First issue, free to you!”

Someone entered the store. “Yes,” said Han loudly, switching to Japanese. “Fine, then. I’ll check back next week to see if you’ve got those translations.” He pivoted away from the arriving customer and exited, taking note of the man’s black cuffed trousers and shined leather shoes. He avoided his urge to examine the man further. There was little he could do at the moment if the bookseller was in trouble.

He walked slowly through the busy market street, arms clasped behind his back, the journal tucked comfortably beneath his vest, the sun warm on his shoulders. In the afternoon, he read the new journal in his study. His restful reading was disrupted by an impolite call, “Abbuhnim!” and his daughter entered abruptly. Always this child managed to find ways to irritate him!

“I hope your message is lighter than your footsteps. Heavy as iron!”

Najin bowed and said, chastened, “Excuse me, Abbuh-nim.” She sat to his nod and waited to be acknowledged.

He tried to ignore her rustles and breathiness, and attempted to finish reading his paragraph, an impossibility. “What is it?”

“Yee Sunsaeng-nim said they have new Japanese maps and teaching guides, and I must return all of my books, even the old ones from first term.”

Though the news interested him, he wondered why she bothered him with it. “Show me the new lessons.” What further lies would they teach now? Those heathens with their mere hundreds of years of existence knew nothing of history and culture.

“There aren’t any books yet. We copy from the blackboard.”

He frowned impatiently.

“Abbuh-nim, it’s the books they want us to return. Must I?”

“Bring them.”

She dipped and rushed to her room.

“Yeh-yah!”

Her footsteps slowed to a more ladylike pace. She returned and presented three booklets: a Korean children’s primer, an annotated chart of world history and a pocket volume titled in Chinese,
A Complete Guide to English Conversation with Tone Symbols.

“Who gave this to you?” He thumbed through the phrase guide for tourists.