The Calligrapher's Daughter (3 page)

Except for the kitchen, most of the spaces ranged from two to ten paces wide. The house sat on a tall foundation of brick, stone and cement, which contained flues that heated the floors in the winter and held coolness in the summer. Elevated porches surrounded both sides of the house, and an inside hallway lined the inner porch. Made of wood and mortar with paper windows and doors, the main buildings had tile roofs, and some of the sheds had thatch. Byungjo’s expert care kept the grounds neatly
cultivated and made the gardens flourish year-round, an aesthetic we enjoyed and systematically exclaimed over each time we visited the graveyard.

The walkway to the cemetery had been carefully planned to unite the heart, mind and body in proper Confucian contemplation. It began in the inner courtyard and curved through an arc of fruit trees. It circled vegetable and flower gardens, a still lotus pond surrounded by willows, and a bamboo forest so dense it had crumbled the walls it straddled. The path inclined sharply through a tall fir wood and met a brittle passageway hewn between granite boulders. Weighty slabs formed steps on the mountainous trail where the way clawed too steeply for men’s feet, then the path leveled beside a trickling crystalline brook. And, at last, a shady circle of pines and lush grass welcomed us—the tired family who had climbed an hour to reach the sacred grove.

My eyes closed to Mother’s lulling refrain of our written history. “The cemetery has seen many feasts and gatherings—sad, solemn and joyous—and the ink that deepens the letters on its stone markers must never be allowed to fade. But more often than not, the tranquil glade is vacant of human life, and it is then that God whispers the ancestors awake from their burial mounds to watch over the lives in the house below.” I heard these words fade as I entered the land of dreams and saw the shadow shapes of my ancestors witnessing the change that clamored at our gate. And then I sat beside them, enveloped in the smoky breath of their ancient wisdom, and I saw how the wind blew their sighs of sorrow, the rain scattered their tears, and snow spread their icy dismay as Western thought, Japan and Bleak Future crossed our unwilling, hermit’s threshold.

IN SEPTEMBER OUR church used a deacon’s ordination as an excuse to quietly celebrate Jungyang-jeol, the banned autumn festival of art and nature. Japan’s efforts to assimilate Korea included decrees against many cultural traditions, and though these rules were rarely enforced, it was best not to flaunt our celebration. Parishioners nibbled rice cakes and sipped cold barley tea in the church’s backyard. I stayed near the women and played in lively patterns of color and light speckling the shade cast by maples tipped in yellow and red. My hands reached to catch sunshine poking between the leaves, and my feet traced the maze of shadows that I
pretended would lead to a cave of glories and awe. The American woman missionary, Miss Gordon, walked among us, greeting one congregant and exchanging polite words with another. And then she was in front of me, bending her long limbs and stooping to meet my eyes. “What pretty and colorful clothes. And what pretty little girl.”

I blushed, bowed and looked for signals on how to properly behave with the towering ghost-eyed woman, but my mother was across the lawn talking to the minister’s wife.

“Now then, the name of yours is being what?” Miss Gordon said in her funny accent and mixed-up syntax. Flustered by the presence of such an important foreigner, and reminded about my namelessness, I covered my lips with my fingers to hold nervousness inside.

Mrs. Hwang, the chatty wife of the newly appointed deacon, overheard and quickly intervened. “She’s the yangban calligrapher’s daughter. And her mother is the woman from Nah-jin.”

“Forgive me, my Korean is such still an embarrassment,” said Miss Gordon. “Did you say Najin?”

We nodded.

“Well, Najin, that’s a very pretty name,” and Miss Gordon rose and patted the top of my head. So it was thus, with the missionary’s dry baptism and Mrs. Hwang’s glibness, that my mother’s wintry hometown became my name.

As time passed, I clearly understood that Father’s decisions could never be questioned, especially about a subject that only I seemed to care about. Like so many unspoken questions which, unanswered, eventually submerge into the deepest recesses of memory, the state of not knowing became normal, like a forgotten scar, and over time my curiosity about having no formally given name seemed to die; or at least I forgot the intensity of wanting to know. Like the locust that sleeps for seventeen years then bores out of the earth whirring, leaving behind an empty hole, I would wonder on certain occasions in the years to come why he hadn’t named me something other than Najin, which had no meaning. I came to believe the reason was somehow related to that terrifying day, the thick smell of lilacs, those new words that had introduced me to apprehension.

AFTER WORSHIP SERVICE, HAEJUNG, THE SCHOLAR HAN’S WIFE, SAT contentedly in a front pew on the women’s side, waiting while her husband greeted his contemporaries and caught up on news. Midday light filled the apse and illuminated her fine, radiant skin as if giving truth to her name, which meant “noble grace.” A center part in her shining hair began at a peak that defined the heart shape of her cheeks and chin, and ended in a neat bun secured with a simple jade pin. Her nose might have been considered too distinct for classic beauty, but her features were pleasingly balanced. Her greatest physical virtue lay in her bearing. Though small-boned and short, her posture gave her length, and she held her head neither too high nor too low, executing every movement with a
subtlety that conveyed elegance and strength. She bowed her head for prayer but was interrupted by Deacon Hwang’s wife sliding into the pew, eyes gleaming and hands aflutter with news of the new public school, two
li
south of the church. “Even though all the teachers are Japanese,” said the chubby-faced Mrs. Hwang, “we’ll send our second son there.”

Haejung’s hidden annoyance with Mrs. Hwang’s bustling presence subsided. “Really? Do they only teach Japanese subjects?”

“They say they’ll teach them
Hangeul
, Korean, even if they cover Japanese grammar first. We think any learning is better than none. Our oldest was lucky to have some classical education before—well, you know.”

Haejung nodded. She wouldn’t have to say much; the deacon’s wife enjoyed talking more than listening.

“My husband tried to teach our boy, but he can’t help being too soft on his son! And now he’s already twelve and although he’s quite smart, he likes to get in trouble and bother his father so much that my husband complains to me to control him somehow, always laughing inside, though, I can tell. I worry about those teachers, they can be very strict, and why must they wear swords? He’s such a happy and free spirit! My husband says our son needs to be disciplined before he’s completely lost. He’s joking of course. He’ll see how it is with Number Two before we think about sending Number One to high school. Yes indeed! They say they’ll have a new upper school in a year or so, and if he does well enough maybe he’ll follow his father’s footsteps for college in Pyeongyang. And, well, don’t worry—you’ll have a chance for your daughter too! I hear they’ll open a girls’ school very soon, perhaps even next month.”

“A girls’ school—”

“—isn’t far behind! There’s some change in the government, I don’t know. That kind of talk is— You know what I mean. And think when the time comes how you and I can compare the girls’ and boys’ schools! Oh, there he is looking for me. I must run, but I thought you’d like to hear the news!”

“Yes, thank you—”

“Goodbye, goodbye, and I’ll be sure to tell you as soon as I hear anything more!” She sidled down the pew and hurried to the door, where the deacon and her two sons were showing impatient frowns.

“Goodbye,” Haejung said faintly. Then silently, “Thank you, Heavenly
Father, for this possibility,” and her lips grew firm with concentration as she tried to sort through the battle of obedience versus desire being waged within her. Typically, obedience, weighted by fidelity and virtue, gained the upper hand. She walked home holding her daughter’s hand, following a few steps behind her husband. Absorbed in her thoughts, she wasn’t aware of her husband’s stiff back showing disapproval of Najin’s aimless singing and intermittent skips and hops. Haejung barely smelled the sweet green of pear blossoms in the breeze that breathed fragrance on her neck, but the scent stroked the surface of her buried passions. A gentle exhale confirmed her surrender to desire on her daughter’s behalf, and then she smelled the flowers fully and smiled. She considered how best to approach her husband. Certainly he’d have very pronounced ideas about the Japanese schools, but Mrs. Hwang’s chatter had awakened memories of her own girlhood longing and unbecoming jealousy when her brothers had begun their lessons.

The first tutor had come to the house in Nah-jin twenty years ago when Haejung was seven, and at this moment she felt as if she were seven still, sitting outside her brothers’ classroom window, fuming with envy. Her mother had already taught her to read, and she was versed in Korean vernacular with a respectable command of Chinese writing, which was used for Korean formal writings and official documents. Even though her books were then limited to tales of virtuous women and filial daughters, she’d been amazed to discover new vistas in internal worlds, vivid histories and a living past, and her excitement only grew over the endless possibilities that lay within books. And later, it stunned her to think that the Bible itself was a book—and oh! such a book! In addition to changing her family’s life, it had shown her a quiet yet rich way to live peacefully within the natural confines of womanhood. The Confucian morality tales were filled with selfless and irreproachable noble women, but the courageous and persevering biblical women provided a higher purpose and a model of living she had admired; a model that was, with faith, easily internalized. She had longed to study the history of the Bible, the history of its writing, to see how these mere words had come to mean so much to so many. Without question, her duty to her husband and family prevented such study, and besides, in her day there were only dreams of formal schooling for females. Unlike now.

Haejung couldn’t avoid supplanting her desire for learning in her daughter, though she knew her husband’s opposition to the Japanese schools and his staunch traditionalism made the probability slim. The intensity of her longing led to an irrational belief that the rapidly changing times might suggest to her husband the value of a daughter’s education. On the walk home from church, she laid a plan to make him receptive to the idea.

For the next several days she worked with Cook to prepare especially pleasing meals, choosing costly dishes that were less likely to cause another bout of his chronic indigestion. She made up the expense by forgoing a linen purchase to sew him a needed summer suit of clothes, knowing she had the skill to refashion last summer’s clothes so cleverly he wouldn’t notice. Her daughter had been learning how to serve meals, but such delicate service wasn’t natural to her. Broth spilled and peas rolled off the table, provoking irritable grunts and stern reprimands. Haejung decided to serve him herself.

She sent Joong, her husband’s manservant, to buy the superior grade of rice wine and tobacco that he preferred yet denied himself in consideration of her. He enjoyed his evening wine and pipe too much to sacrifice it completely, but because he had accepted Jesus, he imbibed a lesser quality to acknowledge it as a Christian vice.

Haejung’s father, former governor of the Hamgyeong Province and an esteemed Confucian scholar in the town of Nah-jin, had converted to Christianity when she was a child. At that time the religion was spreading rapidly, albeit cautiously, throughout Korea, partly because Christianity’s emphasis on ritual, its high moral standards and doctrine of responsibility toward social justice were analogous to Confucianism, making it easy to adopt.

The governor raised his children to be devout believers, and when Haejung grew to a marriageable age, he sought a Christian husband for her. And so, the yangban scholar Han, in order to join with a family as auspicious as his own lineage, had willingly converted. He had even learned to pray with the same fervor as Reverend Ahn, and being an artist, sometimes his prayers were more poetic than the minister’s. Nevertheless, Han carefully referred to all church business as “hers.” Like the token of
the lesser quality wine and tobacco, Haejung knew it was his way of maintaining a semblance of Confucian orthodoxy.

Luckily there were no catastrophes in the news that week, no unsettling property conscriptions, no acquaintances accosted by the police, and mercifully, Najin for once had obeyed and behaved like a young lady around her father. On Friday evening Haejung went to her husband’s sitting room with sewing in hand. The slight shift in his features, as if the lamp had flared, showed his pleasure with her company, and she found his mood to be jovial. He smoked and read, and they talked off and on about the expanded train service, the increasingly reliable mail and this church member’s new grandson, that one’s sick wife. He said their farm had met the government’s first quota, and that it might be time to increase timber production from their forestlands in Manchuria. He would write to his uncle who oversaw the vast property that had long been in his family. By nearly shutting down production more than a decade ago during the Russian occupation of Manchuria, and with bribes, his family had held on to the timber forests.

Haejung showed him a mild questioning look, and he responded, “No, we’re fine, but there’s the building fund at your church.”

“Thank you,” she said. Her quiet tone belied the warmth of feeling this news brought. She never needed to ask for anything from her generous and considerate husband. They were like-minded—except, perhaps, regarding their daughter. She prayed for the right words to raise the subject of schooling for Najin, and instantly knew God must have heard her, because her husband said, “Hansu’s father is letting him go to that new school.” Chang Hansu, the neighbor’s son, was a few years older than Najin. The two sometimes played together in the gardens and by the pond.