The Calligrapher's Daughter (50 page)

Yes, it had all worked out well. As for Meeja, he knew she’d be happy with the wedding ring he meant to give her when she came to him that night.

MORNING LIGHT STREAMED THROUGH THE PAPER SCREENS AND LIT the baby’s cheeks with soft rose pink. I hummed and cooed to welcome her from the dreams of her clean, pure world. The baby’s bones felt as delicate as her mother’s, her skin as pliant, her scent a whisper of summer. One hundred days ago, her mother’s suffering had ended, and I had lifted the baby from her wasted body. Being a Han daughter, nothing had been planned for her one hundredth day. I doubted that Dongsaeng had any idea how many days old his firstborn was. I saw him rarely and spoke to him even less, ever since that woman, my brother’s concubine, had moved in. I was glad that it was proper enough to call her Dongsaeng’s Wife, so
I’d never have to feel her name on my tongue, nor would I have to sully Unsook’s memory by calling her Sister-in-law.

At the end of last winter, with war spilling from one continent to another, Korea had become fully incorporated into Japan and we were now considered Japanese citizens. Ration stamps and new Japanese identifications were distributed. They had erected Shinto shrines inside the churches and, last month, had deported all the missionaries. So on this Sunday, no one prepared for church. It was just as well. Father didn’t have to face the emperor’s portrait at the altar, and Mother didn’t have to face the gossips.

Because the police monitored the church services, we had never grown friendly with our fellow parishioners in Seoul beyond acquaintances with a few men like Elder Kim, whom my father knew from the resistance. It was likely that my family’s old-fashioned manners made the others uneasy, or the mere fact that we were newcomers made them look at us askance, and after Unsook’s funeral—and the sudden appearance of Dongsaeng’s new wife without the benefit of a Christian wedding—even fewer churchfolk took the trouble to greet us. And now, since Shinto worship was required on the numerous Japanese festival days and for all public gatherings, we abandoned going to church altogether, choosing instead to attend the required neighborhood ceremonies, which were shorter and where our attendance could be noted.

I fed baby Sunok millet and soybean broth mixed with precious drops of honey. Like her mother, Sunok couldn’t tolerate milk, and even if she could have, milk wasn’t to be found, neither fresh, nor canned nor powdered. I quickly dressed, changed Sunok’s diaper and took the baby to Mother’s room, eager to take advantage of the spare morning minutes before the men woke looking for breakfast.

My mother—who was now called
Halmeonim
, Grandmother— looked tiny beside the window as she combed her hair, her legs tucked beneath her skirt. I explained my idea and she readily agreed. We unsealed the false bottom of Mother’s linen chest and dressed Sunok in clothes she’d saved there for thirty years: the blue-peaked cap edged with a gold geometric pattern and the finely woven shirt with striped colorful sleeves. Seeing those sleeves made me remember Dongsaeng at his One Hundredth Day naming ceremony, and how his pudgy fist had grabbed
the sorghum ball that fell into his lap. I recalled Mother’s worried look and my unvoiced question about the symbolism of that first item—did it foretell a pattern of self-gratification? And then he chose the king’s signet, and the men at the party had lauded my father’s legacy. It seemed both predictions had come true. Sighing, I cleared my mother’s tabletop and arranged the objects gathered the day before. In a semicircle, I placed an abacus, a twist of thread, the king’s bronze signet, an old inkbrush I’d found on a dusty shelf in Dongsaeng’s studio, and a pencil stub. I added my mother’s wooden crucifix and a sliver of wormwood for nurse or doctor, and covered the table with muslin.

My mother said a prayer with Sunok on her lap. The baby touched her waxen finger to my mother’s murmuring lips, and the air grew sweet with the child’s movement, the scent of her perfect skin and the muted hues of dawn. I lifted the cloth with a flourish. “What will it be, little one?”

Without hesitation Sunok grasped the old inkbrush and swept it across the table, strewing everything else to the floor. Her laughter was so delightful, we laughed too.

“A scholar-artist, then,” said my mother. “Just like your father and grandfather.” She cuddled Sunok and stroked her temple. The baby waved the inkbrush close to her eyes, and my mother took it from her. She exhaled with wonder. “Najin-ah, where did you find this?”

“In Dongsaeng’s room when I cleaned yesterday, on his top shelf.”

She handed me the baby and held the brush to the sunlight. “Your father thought he lost this many years ago, long before the move. He has its case still—but how wonderful that you found it! See on the handle that it’s engraved?”

“It looks like an old brush. What does it say?” I was absorbed in Sunok’s musical giggles from our game of tickling.

“This was a gift to your father from his teacher.”

It took me a moment to understand what my mother was saying. “Scholar Chang’s brush?”

My mother nodded and we smiled at each other knowingly. “Korea’s Royal Treasure,” I said, and kissed the baby’s wiggling, agile fingers.

DURING THE NEXT several years our lives seemed to shrink in a tightening spiral focused on food, money and fuel. Thankfully, contrary to
Sunok’s delicate appearance, she had Dongsaeng’s sturdy constitution, and while not robust she managed to avoid illness. My mother sold some of our garden yield at market, and over time, having gradually cut down three of our trees for fuel, my father sold his woodcarving tools. I had gained a reputation as a competent midwife, but no one had a gourd of grain to spare or even a yard of muslin for my services. Instead, I received vegetable seeds folded in a scrap of newspaper, a cool drink of water or words of gratitude and blessing. Even if I had wanted to teach, schools for Korean children—who could barely speak their native tongue—were closed. With my arrest record, I couldn’t work for a Japanese employer, and nearly all enterprise was Japanese-owned.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan heightened already-stringent controls on rationing and patriotic duty, which usually meant donating more things to the cause and showing up for endless rallies. Americans soon rimmed the Pacific with warships, and it seemed the entire world was at war. All forms of Korean and Chinese culture and expression were banned. Occasionally one of Dongsaeng’s former buyers would remember him, and he’d receive a referral to paint a sign or a banner in Japanese, but as the war escalated it became too dangerous for Dongsaeng to leave the house. We eventually sold all his art materials save a few brushes and sticks of ink.

I overheard Dongsaeng’s wife complain about his inability to feed his own daughter, with whom she’d grown attached—a relationship I mistrusted until I happened to see Meeja giving Sunok half of her porridge when she thought I wasn’t looking. Meeja, who had not yet conceived, proved to be a dreadful cook and a lazy housekeeper, but she sang all manner of songs to Sunok and found countless ways to amuse her, and anything that could distract the child from her hunger was a blessing.

Then came the worrisome realization that we had nothing left to sell. The false bottom of my mother’s linen chest had long been empty of the precious ceremonial clothes that two infants had worn to be named, and the chest itself had been sold. The neighborhood association had even collected Sunok’s rubber ball for the war.

Since I was truly the most able-bodied person in the household who could work a steady paying job, I finally found a position—thanks to Elder Kim—at a Methodist-built orphanage run by Korean nationals in
rural Suwon, a day’s journey from Seoul. I hated to leave Sunok as well as my mother, who would have to rely on Meeja to help manage the household, but with hunger clawing at our doorstep, my responsibility to my family was clear.

Tending to the needs of more than one hundred children made my years at the orphanage pass quickly, and I was thankful that the money I sent home every month helped sustain my family and allowed Sunok to grow and thrive. I rarely thought about my husband, except in the summers when the children searched the streams for crayfish, an endeavor which mimicked how Calvin’s mudworms forestalled starvation. Then, the day after Sollal in 1944, in the middle of a bright snowy day, all the orphans over the age of twelve—about forty youngsters—were taken away by truck. It was the first time I’d seen a truck powered by coal-fire rigging, and because it hinted that Japan’s resources were nearing depletion, it was the first time I dared to imagine that the war might finally end. We were told the boys would become soldiers, and the girls, comfort nurses. The orphanage would receive no further government funding, and my job ended that afternoon.

On the journey home, the train nearly empty and the roadsides crowded with beggars, I thought that my father’s presentiment of a bleak future had come to pass a thousand times over, and I wept for those children I’d taught, fed and slept beside, who now had a future of hardship and misery, if they had one at all.

I reached home safely, was lovingly welcomed, and felt gladdened to see our dear Korean Royal Treasure—almost four years old—proudly and beautifully writing her name on a slate with a brush dipped in water. And when I examined Sunok closely for signs of malnutrition, I was gratified to see she had healthy pink gums and displayed plenty of energy when she gave me a shy but solid hug.

THE MAGICAL LEAFLETS DROPPED BY B-29S THAT HAD ANNOUNCED Japan’s unconditional surrender could still be found scattered throughout the city—caught in a treetop, composting in a gutter, happily displayed in a store window next to the flyer from the first drop, which transcribed Hirohito’s unprecedented radio capitulation. I went outside often to eagerly scan the heavens for those sweet silver birds whose high mechanical roars had heralded freedom. Rumors about the terrible bombs were confirmed. We feared the worst for Hansu and his family in Nagasaki, not because of the bombs but for being Korean in a defeated Japan. We had no idea about the vast fields of death and annihilation those single bombs sowed.

In Seoul, food was as scarce as before liberation, although American rations, cigarettes and amazing foreign sweets at exorbitant prices began to appear in the black market. What had been criminal was now patriotic, and the red linear stamps on identification papers became marks of pride. Collaborators who hadn’t joined the Japanese exodus were rooted out, tried and imprisoned, or murdered, and squatters quickly moved into homes hastily abandoned by Japanese nationals. Hunger was everywhere, but there was talk of free food coming soon from the Russians and Americans.

I walked downtown to pick up newspapers for Dongsaeng and my father, whom we now called Harabeoji, Grandfather, and who, after liberation, was most eager to read the news again. And though we had no money, I wanted to see if rice had become available and at what price. The sun burned as hot as midsummer, and I walked slowly to stay cool and to preserve the crumbling grass sandals Grandfather had crafted last year.

Since this day was our birthday, I wondered about my husband. Thoughts of Calvin had grown along with the optimism that everyone was feeling as vividly as the fresh colors painted on impromptu flags hanging everywhere. After the monsoons, when I first saw those silver planes soaring high against dramatic receding storm clouds, I wasn’t afraid like others were. They called my soul to open and to believe again in possibility—possibilities that were once as remote as Japan’s defeat, as war ending, as the rebirth of our independence, as being reunited with my husband.

Calvin would know nothing of our move to Seoul or even if we were alive. Years had passed since I’d communicated with his parents, so they wouldn’t know we’d left Gaeseong, and then as the war intensified, mail delivery declined to near nonexistence. The few thoughts I had about the Cho family came from a wifely sense of obligation that diminished over the decade of our separation, and were mostly worries about Mrs. Cho’s health. I considered that the remote chance of Calvin returning in the near future and finding me might mean I’d have to live with him and his family. But too much had changed and everything remained unstable. He probably wouldn’t come back for a long while, and his parents might not have survived the past few years of hardship.
I
certainly had changed and
could refuse to live with them. In any case, as my mother used to say, it was pointless to worry about problems I didn’t yet have.

I could only assume that Calvin was still in America. Thinking of the packet of letters that Major Yoshida had taunted me with years ago, I felt sure my husband would attempt to find me. His earlier letters I had saved were long gone—they’d been stuffed into holes in the rafters or wadded as shoe lining—but I could still visualize that packet of unread letters at my feet, the New York return address in his strong handwriting, and inside all those envelopes, sheaves of words that said a thousand things I would never know.

I had resumed studying English when those planes flew triumphantly over the city dropping food packages and the leaflets, as well as handkerchiefs with a similar message printed in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and languages I’d never heard of or seen before. Walking to town, I reviewed the morning’s English lesson, mumbling, “I should like to call on you someday. Come whenever you like. I shall be delighted to see you. Are you free this evening? Yes, I shall be quite free this evening.”

Nearing a checkpoint that American soldiers now occupied, I noticed a G.I. leaning against the stone archway, smoking a cigarette, his eyes closed to the sun. He had similar coloring to the Gaeseong missionary Christine Gordon, with freckles and sand-hued hair. He’d stripped to his undershirt and I modestly looked away, but something he wore glinted in the sunlight. A gold cross, just like Cook’s cross—except surely without the teeth marks—dangled on top of his dog tags. Curious about a G.I. wearing a cross, I stopped and overcame my shyness in favor of practicing English. Perhaps he’d know when the missionaries would return. I blurted, “Esscoos me, herro,” laughing and frowning simultaneously at what was certainly frightful pronunciation.