The Calligrapher's Daughter (24 page)

I avoided joining friendship circles, averse to the meanness of gossip, but found diversion with a few friends. My classmates welcomed me when I accompanied them for an afternoon of hiking or swimming in the summer and ice skating or snowball fights in the winter. I declined most sightseeing excursions—too sad to be reminded of places I’d been with Imo, and people like the princess, her strong maid and even that Japanese guard, whose lives were far more restricted and controlled than mine would ever be, and whom I would never see again. It didn’t matter. My reticence about those years and the refinement of my manners were mistaken for aloofness, and such invitations dwindled over time.

Happily, a renewed friendship with Jaeyun, who would soon graduate, offered occasional companionship at a restaurant or a walk in a park. It was Jaeyun who told me the story about Dean Shinohara. For hoarding an illegal personal library of Korean poetry and Chinese classics, he’d been relocated from Ewha to a rural boys’ school. He wasn’t fired, though, until his week’s “vacation” in the country had come to a close and he was packing to return to Seoul. I deduced that when I’d met the Shinoharas on the train, they were unknowingly on their way to exile. Although he was a Japanese supremacist, the girls at Ewha considered him a quasi hero because it was his love of the classics and Korean poetry that had led to losing his plum job.

I visited my beloved aunt once a month and during school breaks. A gasoline train that ran between Ewha and downtown, where I would pick up Ilsun, shortened the long walk from one side of the city to the other. My dongsaeng grew so rapidly that every season I sacrificed precious study hours to make him a new school uniform. One icy winter day I waited thirty minutes outside of his dormitory before he finally rushed through the vestibule. Shaking with cold, I said, “We’ll have to hurry now. Imo-nim is waiting.”

“Give me my money.” His voiced scratched with teenage change, and he made to grab my string purse.

“What are you doing?” I pushed him away.

“I need my allowance now!”

I retrieved a handful of won—savings from tutoring jobs that I portioned to Dongsaeng monthly. “Why? It’s supposed to last you all month.”

“Nuna, you said we had to hurry!” He snatched the cash and ran off.

Wrapping my coat tightly, I followed him to the doorway and leaned in. “That’s only half,” said a boy’s deep voice. “You better get the rest by tomorrow.” A door slammed. I stepped outside and headed toward Imo’s without looking back. Dongsaeng joined me and soon caught his breath. I could sense his agitation beside me, but I refused to break the silence. Our shoes crunched on frosty dirt pathways.

“Cold,” Dongsaeng said, his shoulders hunched, his hands buried in armpits.

“Where’s your coat?”

“Don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lost it.”

I clutched my collar around my neck, glad that I was too angry to give him my coat, something I would have typically done.

We walked half an hour more, Dongsaeng blowing on his fingers occasionally. “Hey, Nuna, I got first place in my history examination last week.”

“Good.”

The sun set in a gentle fade of brilliance. I’d read somewhere that fishermen predicted weather by the color of the evening skies, and wondered what they’d say about the dark high clouds glowing with silvery trim, the far sky deepening blue, the treetops frosted with ice. Perhaps snow. I remembered at home how I’d rouse Dongsaeng to wide-eyed wakefulness on mornings when the yard was transformed by magical new snowfall. I breathed the blue-cold smell of winter and sighed.

Dongsaeng looked at me hopefully. “I wonder what Imo-nim will have for dinner.”

“Just be happy with whatever she serves and refuse seconds. Do you hear?” He shrugged. “Times are hard, Dongsaeng! I think she goes without in order to feed us.”

“But I’m famished!”

“Why do you owe that boy money?”

“None of your business.”

“Your business is my concern.” Except for the sharpness of my tone, I realized I sounded like Mother. “Especially when it comes to money, especially when it’s
my
money. You’re lucky to have even a few jeon. If Father knew what I gave you, don’t you think he’d want to know what you do with it?”

“Give me next month’s, won’t you?—or I’ll get in trouble.”

“Why do you owe that boy?”

“We had a bet, and I lost.”

“You’ve been gambling, haven’t you? Dice!”

“It’s just games. Who cares? He cheats, and besides, that’s not what it’s for.”

“Oh, Dongsaeng!” Frustrated and angry, I walked fast. He burst forward to keep up. “What will happen if you don’t pay?”

“His gang will beat me up.” He sounded too smug and my anger swelled.

“Why must you gamble? Why can’t you just study hard?”

“Like you? Boring old you? At least I’m having fun!”

“Where did you learn to talk like that? Think about what your parents sacrificed so you could come to this school. Think of how hard Mother worked! And what would Father say?”

“Well he’s not here, so I don’t care. But you’re so stingy it’s as if he were right here! I thought you were supposed to help me.”

I counted twenty terse crunching steps before speaking. I no longer felt the cold. Imo’s house was not far ahead. “I’ll help you, but you must tell me honestly why you need the money. There shouldn’t be secrets between us. It’s just the two of us here, and I’m your nuna.”

“If I tell you, will you give it to me?”

“How much?”

“Ten won.”

“That’s as much as two weeks’ pay! What have you done?”

“I didn’t do anything! I just went along when they—”

How distasteful his whining sounded. What had happened to my
sweet baby brother? I thought back and wondered if he’d always been this self-centered and inconsiderate. He typically talked back, but I had likened that to my own streak of childhood stubborn independence and thought he’d grow out of it as I had. With Imo’s gate in sight, I stopped to look fully at my brother. He stared at his feet and kicked icy mud clods. I saw with surprise that he was now slightly taller than me. Under his cap his shorn head made his face seem rounder and whiter than usual. Pink dots of cold, or agitation, colored the flat of his cheeks. “Look at me,” I said. I recognized in him the familiar fullness of my mother’s lips, his chin dimpled with pouting. “Where did you go?”

The pout flattened to a smirk. “They took me to a teahouse.”

“You’re just a boy! How could they do such a mean thing?”

“It wasn’t mean at all. I liked it! People were really nice to me. That’s why—I borrowed from— She wanted me to buy— I went back— I mean, that’s why I need the money.”

Scarlet spread down my neck. I pulled him into an enclave beside a lone oak tree out of sight of Imo’s gate. “You borrowed money to visit teahouse girls? And you sold your coat, didn’t you?”

“Don’t tell, okay?”

“At least you know it’s wrong!”

“It’s not wrong. It’s fun! There’s nothing else to do, and they’re nice to me!”

“For money! They’re only nice to you because they want your money. How can you be so stupid!”

“I’m not stupid!” His eyes met mine. In the graying evening, I could only see their blackness. “I’m lonely and bored.”

Remorse overcame me as quickly as the anger had risen, and I took his hand. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I should be a better nuna to you. I get caught up with studying and forget about friends and having fun. We could do things together on Sundays. When it’s warmer we can tour the old temples.”

“Can you give me the ten?”

“We’ll see. Next Sunday let’s go to the big Methodist church around the corner from you. You must promise me you won’t go to those places again. Think of how angry Father would be if he knew.”

“There’s plenty of church at school already.” He gave me a boyish smile. “Let’s do something fun instead. There’s a cinema. Have you seen any films?”

“After church, we can do something. Not too expensive, though. Agreed?”

He nodded.

“No more teahouses?”

He turned toward Imo’s and mumbled something. A breeze rattled the dead leaves clinging to the oak, and he said, “I promise. Thanks, Nuna.” Or at least that’s what I thought he said.