THE SCHOLAR HAN’S BREAKFAST LAY COLD AND UNEATEN ON A TRAY beside him. A note listing several classic poems and an open Bible were centered on his writing table in preparation for the words he’d speak at his son’s wedding. Beside his elbow were the household accounts he’d soon relinquish to Ilsun as master of the family. And at his feet two Seoul newspapers,
Dongah Ilbo
and
Kidok Shinmun
, bore headlines of another student protest in Seoul, this one spurred by the imprisonment of each newspaper’s editors for superimposing an image of the Korean flag over the Rising Sun in the victory photograph of the winning Olympic marathoner, a Korean national. Rumors that the papers would soon be shut down concerned him as much as reports of the foreboding policies
of the new governor-general, Minami Jiro. Among them was the required recitation of the Imperial Oath and Pledge at any public gathering and in the schools.
Endless brainwashing!
thought Han. It was the subtlety of the smallest-seeming acts that proved to be the most coercive. On one of his recent walks, he’d heard a gaggle of young schoolchildren speaking Japanese, and when he addressed them in Korean, they looked at him uncomprehending. He rationalized that they were peasant children or Japanized orphans, but it needled him.
“Abbuh-nim, would you like your soup reheated?” There was his daughter, two months home from her failed marriage. He waved her away, not wanting to deal with the unanswered question of her procuring a job.
A bad example for the new wife
, he thought as he scanned the list of poems. He was trying to remember a sijo about marriage written by a poet, a former military commander, who had famously commemorated the end of the Japanese invasions at the close of the sixteenth century. It was bad enough that he couldn’t recite the poem, and now, was it possible that he’d forgotten the poet?
His stomach growled and he called for Najin. “You can reheat.”
“Yes, Abbuh-nim.”
He sensed her lean form as she bent for the tray and regretted that her husband had gone to America before providing a real chance for a grandson. He would remember to ask for that blessing during his son’s wedding. Preparing his message, he culled from the Confucian theologian Zhu Xi, early Joseon Dynasty poets and the Bible. His wife had once accused him of being so old-fashioned as to be unable to see beyond the woods of his ancestors’ cemetery. He could now concede to this, feeling reassured that Ilsun’s classical training had prepared his son to have a foot in both yesterday and today. This made Han frown, knowing that more often than he liked to admit, Ilsun had both feet planted firmly in the present without regard for the past whatsoever.
Well
, he thought,
marriage will cure that
. When one’s seed sprouts beneath one’s roof, what was, and what will be, take on new meaning.
Najin returned quietly, startling him. “Here is chamomile tea with peppermint,” she said, pouring. “Please drink this first.”
He smelled its restful steam and nodded, pleased with her herbalist skills.
Najin’s eyelids flickered with a faint smile, and he suppressed his pleasure at finding a rare moment when they understood each other. She bowed and left.
He sipped the tea and soup and his stomach calmed. Then he remembered Pak Il-lo as the poet and knew that the words he sought referred to the primacy of the spousal relationship. He also remembered that Pak’s sijo and his “Song of Peace” were in a bundle buried beneath the floor of the hidden pantry. Too much trouble to dig it up, and he didn’t want to hear Joong’s grumbling if put to the task. He thought that the bookseller, Mr. Pahk, would have recalled the poem word for word, and regretted that the bookstore had gone under during the Depression. Father wondered if his old friend had survived the long journey to Nanking where he had relatives. Tension between Japan and China was as taut as a hangman’s rope, and unfortunately, Han believed the prevailing news of an imminent and full-blown Sino-Japanese war. Already the Mongols had aligned with the Russians—what was it they now called themselves? yes, the Soviets—against further Japanese aggression. China was preoccupied with its own conflicts between the Kuomintang and Mao’s Red Army. Mao’s policies of violent revolution were also erupting in skirmishes in northeast Korea, and while Han believed any resistance against the Japanese was a good thing, the poorly armed and disorderly “justice fighters”—peasants led by peasants—seemed doomed to failure. Things were stewing with Western nations too. There was civil war in Spain, and the Showa Emperor had pulled out of naval treaty talks in London with the British and the Americans. It seemed the world was rife with controversy and foment. Han knew he wasn’t so old yet as to be forgetful, but he was feeling overwhelmed by the many things he heard and read in the papers that he knew little about: Rhineland, Tunisia, Mussolini, the Nazis, and the Showa Emperor’s talks with Hitler.
His eyes swept over his desk. What had he been looking for just then?
The sijo, of course
, he thought, relieved to be in the familiar if momentarily forgotten territory of Korean literature. Perhaps Reverend Ahn, a classically educated man, would know the poem. Han also wanted to ask the minister about Bible passages used in traditional Christian weddings. He decided to visit the church and called Joong for his coat.
The street smelled crisply of leaves and fall debris. Han clasped his
hands behind him and walked slowly, the sun warm on his neck. Some families had pasted banners written with harvest thanks and blessings outside their walls. Han wondered that thanks could be offered at all these days. Yes, the Depression was over and food was more plentiful, but the change was a by-product of the industry of war. He felt that preservation of the Korean way had become an afterthought. Instead, the northern insurgents and the youth, who had grown more vocal, were calling for a new paradigm that had little to do with the proven traditions, little to do with Korea’s long history. How had Russia managed to spread its Bolshevik ideals? He felt a disquieting inner conflict, because the Japanese agreed with his distaste for communism.