In the kitchen, Cook stirred a boiling pot with long chopsticks at the stove, her back now slightly hunched at the shoulders. “I told Mother not to disturb you,” I said, clasping Cook’s hands, warm with steam. Although her eyes were as fiery as always, she looked tiny, her wrinkles deeper.
“What could I do?” said Mother, slicing gimchi at the table. “As soon as she heard you had crossed the threshold, she was stoking the fire.”
“Aigu! How did you grow so tall? And didn’t anyone feed you?” Cook fished buckwheat noodles from the pot into a bamboo strainer. “Sadly, here we have only poor man’s food.”
“What you’re cooking smells wonderful. Even the finest city restaurants with the best ingredients can’t match your skill.”
Cook’s lips spread wide, showing a new gold tooth at the edge of her smile. It made me notice that her neck was bare of the fine hair chain she had always worn, from which had hung a gold cross. When I was little, Cook had often told me the story of the little cross, her eyes sparkling.
From a poor peasant family, at the age of nine she had joined my maternal grandmother’s household in Nah-jin, originally taken in as a nanny for my mother, who had just been born. It was soon apparent that her skills were more suited to the kitchen than to child care, which required a patient, persistent personality, and one not so prone to outspokenness. She was trained in diet and food preparation to become a competent cook in Mother’s future household. “You should see your grandfather’s house,” Cook used to say. “Sixty-six rooms and land the size of a village. Four kitchens and every winter a straw pantry twice bigger than this kitchen! Your grandmother treated me and all her servants with kindness and generosity, and I wondered how I came to be part of such goodness.” Cook would finger the cross and wipe it with her apron. “Your grandmother taught me about God and Jesus, and then I understood
where her goodness came from. She allowed me to be baptized when I was fifteen and gave me this cross, the first gift I ever received.” She would show me tiny indentations on both sides. “See that? I couldn’t believe it was real gold, so I bit it! Oh, she was generous! And your mother is exactly the same as her mother, so you are a doubly blessed child.”
I silently vowed to replace the cross and wondered why my mother hadn’t provided for the dental work. It seemed things were worse than I’d suspected. “I learned a lot doing midwifery, and have many new remedies to add,” I told Cook, who had a memorized catalog of several hundred recipes to create a healthy, balanced diet according to the old way.
“Anything for peptic ulcer?” said Mother, as Cook shot me a pointed look.
So, Father had lost his gastric battle. “There’re quite a few things. We can visit the pharmacist tomorrow.”
“You should hear that man complain about business,” said Mother.
“Isn’t he still the best in town?” I wandered through the kitchen handling familiar pots, utensils, bowls and cups, noting empty pegs where sacks of meal and grain should’ve hung. True, it had been a long winter and our pantry would likely be replenished soon, but I could feel my ribs protruding. Children had come to class with nothing to eat since the day before when I’d fed them. We bartered books, pencils and paper for noodles and barley.
“He says his access to suppliers is limited ever since Manchuria,” said Mother about the herbalist. Her pursed lips signaled me to wait for further discussion. Brightly, she complimented the earthy pepper blends in the gimchi.
“Kira’s first crop of cabbage, not my handiwork,” said Cook.
“True, she and Byungjo perform miracles in the garden,” said Mother, “but it’s you who mixes everything perfectly.”
“Your recipe!” said Cook, blushing.
“Your touch!” We all laughed.
“Let’s eat. I was waiting for you, Daughter.” She arranged two sets of bowls on trays, and when Cook went outside to retrieve spiced anchovies from a cold-storage urn, Mother laid out another set. “Now she’ll have to eat something tonight.” She lowered her voice. “You see how she’s shrunken. She pretends to have no appetite, thinking to save food.”
My expression was so full of questions that Mother whispered, “It’s not as bad as that. She just thinks so. Later—”
Cook returned, her fingers red with spice and fish oil, and placed the anchovies on young lettuce leaves. She sprinkled steamed bean sprouts with vinegar and soy sauce. Mother portioned the food into threes as Cook quickly chopped scallions and sprinkled sesame and pepper on the noodles, ignoring the third setting. With the trays apportioned, she cracked raw eggs into our noodle bowls. “I saved these for you from this morning,” she said, beaming.
“Lovely!”
Mother said to Cook, “Pour the tea, won’t you?” Using her body as a shield, Mother quickly switched her bowl with Cook’s, while the old woman poured roasted barley tea.
In her sitting room, Mother and I settled in behind our table trays. She chuckled. “See how I have to trick her? She’ll be mad when she sees the egg, but she can’t let it go to waste now.”
I gave Mother half the vegetables and egg in my bowl, and we ate, the thick noodles rolling deliciously on my tongue, fiery with gimchi and smoky with anchovies. She said things really weren’t that bad. They’d met Dongsaeng’s tuition for high school with cocoon income, my contributions and the amount received from Oriental Land for the forestlands. She told me that shortly after Japan annexed Manchuria, jewelry and silverware were given to Father, as well as the best of the jade, and were buried. “That was foresight on your father’s part, because a few days later a Japanese tax official visited us.” She frowned. “Well,
visit
isn’t exactly the correct word. He demanded entry to inventory the household.”
“He was here? Counting things? How dare they!”
“Anger is pointless, Najin-ah. Laws are made to match their desires, it seems. They’ve even started ‘clean house’ inspections, so they can come in at will.” She blew into the barley tea, showing calmness, but I heard the tremor in her voice. She continued, “This man expressed interest in purchasing some paintings, but your father wouldn’t hear of it.” Father would remain firm in the Confucian sentiment that to sell a scroll would taint it with mercenary concerns, reducing its true artistry. “The worst of it was he threatened Dongsaeng’s student status. ‘A stroke of the pen one way or the other’ were his words. It seemed for a moment that
our intention to bring Dongsaeng home from Seoul specifically to protect him from conscription was in vain.”
Tiny anchovy bones scratched deep in my throat. “But students are supposed to be exempt from labor conscription!”
“Yes, and thankfully, Dongsaeng is still underage. Your father took additional steps to prevent him from being drafted. He remembered meeting this man years ago when he had to register your school enrollment, and knows how to satisfy him with occasional gifts—a jade pin or a vase particularly admired during inventory.” Mother looked rueful. “I’m sorry to tell you about this. I didn’t want you to worry. You should know that your dowry will be simple. Cook traded some raw silk for a bolt of cotton for you. Use it for your dowry, which I’m sorry to say will only be what you can sew for your future children and husband in the time that you’re home.”
The words spoken, I could do nothing but hold myself very still. I wanted to insist that marriage would be a waste of my education, that I could be more helpful to the family by working. The light wobbled and the dark blush under Mother’s eyes deepened. I noticed her lax cheeks and faint worry lines crossing her forehead. Outlined in moonlight, the room’s spare furnishings and clean simplicity reflected the rare sense of peace and wholeness I felt in her presence. At that moment, I wanted only to please her. I hid a sigh. “So then, Chang Hansu’s friend …”
Mother’s worry lines disappeared. “A son of Minister Cho from Pyeongyang. Even your father is impressed with Reverend Cho’s involvement on March First, at least enough to ignore his woeful bloodline.” She added quietly, “Perhaps your father finally realizes the old ways are ending.” This gave me pause, and I noted it to ponder later.
Mother said that the eldest Cho son was already an ordained minister, an encouraging sign that the second son—the one in question—would follow those footsteps. My stomach knotted, and not from a plentiful supper in a shrunken belly.
“And he’s pursuing advanced theological education in America. Who knows?” she said, her eyes curved with warmth. “Isn’t it natural if two people dream the same dream, their paths will flow together?”
Hearing
two people
and
together
made me speechless with dread.
“We’ll learn more tomorrow from Hansu. Your future lies ahead of
you in ways only God can say,” she said, looking at me closely. “I fear you haven’t been talking enough to God. You must trust in his plan. And get a good night’s sleep.”
“Yes, Umma-nim.” We said goodnight and I returned the trays to the kitchen. Cook was gone, the stoves banked and tidied for the night. I washed the dishes with a crock of water thoughtfully left by Cook, still warm. Heaviness tugged at my thoughts as I dried and put the bowls away. On the shelf I found my childhood brass rice bowl, kept polished and shiny. I laid its coolness against my cheek, and as tears wet the brass surface, I rolled the cold metal on my skin, trying to replace the tightness in my chest at my impending loss of freedom with the joy of being home.
Sleepless in bed, I recalled what Mother said: that perhaps Father finally realized the days of bloodlines and class distinctions had ended. Had he really given up fighting? I realized how important it was that he be as much of a stickler for the old ways as he used to be. I’d previously regarded his stubborn adherence to tradition as a limitation, but the thought that he might have given up made me see otherwise—it wasn’t stubbornness but strength of conviction. When I read in Mother’s letter that he’d stopped painting because he believed a proper audience for his art no longer existed, it seemed a prideful conceit. I now began to see the magnitude of what he had lost as he put aside each part of all he had known. Whether by force of law or by social pressure, all the insidious change maneuvered by the occupation in each passing day was irrevocable. Could this laxity in my father’s defense of tradition be indicative of the state of our country? I hoped not. With these thoughts, and because it was right to obey my father, I would acquiesce with all the grace I could muster to his choice of a husband for me, though this decision made me cry.
I searched the beams for words that might inspire a peaceful resolution to my warring sense of duty and hard-earned freedoms. Where once the simple memory of a pattern of stars would trace words for me, now nothing came. I thought I should pray, but when I tried, I remembered instead the vision shared with my mother after Dongsaeng’s birth. Like water, flowing around, beneath and through rooted trees, we would always flow. I said a small prayer then, with thanks for my mother, for
Dongsaeng’s safety, for my father’s continued stubbornness, for a husband with kindness.
BY MIDMORNING THE clouds had dropped and a wet fog hid treetops and gardens. I ran fingertips fondly over the hammered hinges of the folding screen outside Father’s sitting room, where he and I would wait for Hansu. Straightening, I went in. My father sat at his desk, his hands idly turning pages of a well-worn book. “Thank you for asking me to join you, Father. I’m relieved to see you’re looking well.” He looked drawn and hollow, his skin chalky.
His eyes caught mine, and I was surprised and touched to feel their warmth. He quoted slowly in Chinese, “The way home is a thousand li …”
My mind was far from classic poetry. I looked at him blankly, trying to remember the stanza and discern his meaning.
He frowned, a teacher prompting a young student, and continued, “… an autumn night is even longer.”
I remembered the poem, and my eyes flooded with love and gratitude for his paternalistic formal welcome and his scholar’s insight, as I finished it, “Ten times already I have been home, but the cock has not yet crowed.”
He looked pleased, turned his eyes aside and mentioned the nineteenth-century poet Yi Yangyeon, in a tone that said
well done
.
Overcome by the intimacy of the moment, I sat quietly, feeling pride and a different kind of closeness than I had ever felt before with my father. He had never instructed me on classic poetry, yet rightly assumed that with the training from my mother and from Imo, I would know this poem. It was the closest he had ever come to acknowledging me as an intelligent and educated person, separate from our bond as father and daughter. Perhaps it was his way of recognizing my academic achievements, even if I’d ended my career selling pencils for millet. I thought about the poem itself, and my heart swelled again. His selection demonstrated that he had spent some time thinking of the world through my eyes, and what better way could love be expressed? The last line was perfectly appropriate to the hour of learning about one’s prospective husband. It could also be inferred that it comprised a gentle apology, but the
idea that a father would offer an apology to his daughter was too disrespectful, and the thought disappeared from my consciousness as quickly as it had surfaced.
We sat together in comfortable silence, and the cloudy light filtered through the shuttered window in muted hues. After a while I asked if I could open his shutters to freshen the room, and he nodded. Soon, we heard the side gate creak open and shut and Hansu being met by my mother at the front door. I stood aside as he greeted my father with bows and a proper exchange of conversation about the weather and everyone’s health. Then Hansu and I bowed and he vigorously shook my hand. “It’s wonderful to see you, Dongsaeng! I’ve counted thirteen years since we last met.”
Although my eyes stayed low, they shone with pleasure. “It’s also good to see you again, Oppapps.”
“I’ve been hearing about your wonderful accomplishments in Seoul and Yoju.”
I reddened with his enthusiastic praise and glanced at Father, who fondled his pipe, long empty of tobacco. “Someone’s been making up stories,” I said lightly.