The Calligrapher's Daughter (53 page)
Left speechless by his mention of raising a family, I was barely aware of concerns about the cost, inconvenience and propriety of his proposal. I understood, however, that he truly was here to stay, and as I began to see farther ahead than the day’s meals, I also understood how narrow our lives had become during the war. His decision making felt like a respite, and I was pleasantly compliant to anything he proposed, but I was also conscious that my acquiescence came from the novelty of having my husband home, and also that it was my duty as a wife.
During the next few weeks, our lives improved dramatically. Dongsaeng’s advertising and printing connections and Calvin’s military sources produced a lucrative job. Dongsaeng and my father simplified and translated into modern Hangeul the history books written in Chinese and old-style vernacular that my father had carried from Gaeseong. This work would then be printed as textbooks and distributed to schools. Grandfather thanked Calvin for his influence in delivering the true history to the nation’s people, and Grandmother thanked God that Grandfather had the foresight to have chosen to bring with him those texts over all the other classics in his library.
My husband, busy translating for his general, visited one or two evenings a week and on Sunday. I said those two words,
my husband
, frequently, to get used to their sound and shape in my mouth. Fortunately, the winter was unseasonably mild, and he spent time with the men working on the large addition he had contracted to be built behind the original house, along with the installation of running water, flush toilets, electricity and telephone service. In the shifting, fluid postwar economy, Calvin’s biweekly paycheck in American dollars managed to cover the materials as well as the earnest, plentiful labor.
He met and profusely thanked Neil Forbes. Calvin mentioned that he had once visited a congregation in Fort Lee called Eden Presbyterian, which turned out to be the church of Private Forbes’s youth and marriage.
They spoke rapidly in English with some excitement upon this discovery. Forbes revealed that his trade prior to joining the army had been carpentry, and the two men became close friends as they drew building plans, stretched level strings between stakes, pounded nails and supervised workmen. I watched them talking and working together, awed at Calvin’s ease in English conversation, and how quickly and sincerely he bonded with the American soldier. It reminded me that I knew essential aspects of my husband’s character and could speak unhesitatingly about his true nature, yet I knew very little about him in daily life.
Calvin was careful to discuss the second house with a consideration that allowed my brother no loss of face, and so, with the exception of a few bumps inevitable on such a rapid road to change, harmony and comfortable living came to our family. In a rare moment of camaraderie with Meeja, she said with a teasing smile, “You’re a lucky woman to be lavishly courted by your own husband!” I returned her smile and hid my own thoughts about his generosity. While I was exceptionally grateful for the improvements he brought to our lives, especially the comforts for my parents, the excess of it embarrassed me, though I was also aware that his abundant giving helped to alleviate his profound remorse.
I fed the workmen, found places to store the goods that Calvin and Neil Forbes continued to bring, swept the pervasive sawdust, practiced English and kept a hot meal always ready for my husband, should he show up. My transition to being a wife was made easier by his scruple for separate living quarters. I’d be peeling turnips or washing the floor, and then I’d hear the Jeep and suddenly have a different purpose, one that aimed to serve and please my husband. It gave me a sensation I’d never known. I tried to name it—complacency, obedience? No. Contentment, wholeness, belonging—love? When I dressed in the morning, I dressed for him. I brushed my teeth and wondered if he was shaving at the barracks or showering in hot water, the idea of which, even with the difficult years behind us, seemed immensely wasteful.
He was an active if not everyday presence, and I grew conscious of the pleasure this gave me. At the same time, I held back, as if it were a simulation of happiness that couldn’t be sustained and would end as abruptly as
it had before. This irrationality gave me moments of relief. If he were gone, I’d be released from having to confess my paucity of faith.
He watched me when we were together, and sometimes I was glad for his attention, but other times it made me painfully self-conscious. I was frequently unsure of what he wanted. If he stood to pour himself a cup of water, was it his way of demonstrating how I’d failed to provide for him? Was he deliberately trying to embarrass me in front of my family, or—more likely, but still very strange—was he trying to be helpful? When he insisted that I stay for the men’s talks, was it because he saw how woefully uninformed I was and wanted to educate me? Or did he want me to contribute to these conversations and further embarrass me in front of my family? Did he simply want to have me in his sight? I wished we were writing letters again, for then I could cautiously ask these things and he could explain his manner toward me. I liked it best when he gave me tasks with the new house and when he complimented my cooking, saying how much he had missed Korean food. I knew how to be that kind of wife. I also liked it when I walked him to his Jeep in snow, rain or sunshine and he would turn to me and say, “Yuhbo,” in such a way that both warmed me and made me shiver, and these feelings in turn would ease my discomfort when he touched my fingers, took my hand or stroked my cheek.
Then he’d be gone again, and I would miss him with a fierceness that I hadn’t known for all the years of our separation. I missed his eyes following me when I crossed the room. I missed hearing his voice as he solved a problem with the workmen, his gentle and diplomatic persuasion when they disagreed on how to approach a task. I missed the flat way he wielded his chopsticks, the questions he asked about the years apart, the foreign stiffness when he sat or stood, the stories he told about colleges and America, the woolly smell of his army sweater, his breath mixing with mine in the same house.
At night I crawled into bed in the room that Grandmother, Sunok and I shared in the winter. I awaited sleep, exhausted, and the image of my husband behind my closed eyes gradually changed as the days since his homecoming grew in number. I envisioned his charming smile, how his shoulders rolled and his hands moved, the smart way his cap accented his chin, the handsome cut of his coat when he belted it, the interesting line of
his three-quarter profile. But the last two thoughts I had were always the same. First was the mortifying anticipation of sharing his bed, and any nervous or pleasurable thrill I felt was always quashed by my second thought: that I must tell my husband the truth about having lost my battle of faith. It brought a frown to my brow that stayed until morning.
A WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, INCHES OF POWDERY SNOW COVERED THE entire city, and the workmen left until spring thaw. The front of the new house needed carpentry—trim, doors and windows installed—but the back was ready to live in. Calvin said he’d move in Friday evening. I laid planks to bypass the unfinished front rooms and tested the floor heating and the rear chimney’s draw. Although the house was wired, electricity had yet to reach our street. Similarly, the bathroom had a working toilet but lacked running water. I thought the house waited for an uncertain future, much like myself, and fretted over the effort and expense it was taking to build. I filled kerosene lanterns Calvin had provided, swept sawdust and arranged a cistern and washbasin in the bathroom.
Three rooms were livable in the new wing—bedroom, sitting room and bathroom—and knowing I would have privacy with my husband for the first time since the hotel in Manchuria, I gladly cleaned them to counter my nervousness. Wiping the porcelain surfaces, I recalled being that young newlywed. It wasn’t the memory of my innocent bride’s optimism that struck me now, but the realization that I’d been consumed with scraping meals together for so long that I had truly banished all the dreams of those days. I refused to consider them now because too much was in flux, both with the return of my husband and the return of independence to our country. I also believed I was undeserving, and I had yet to confess the dismal condition of my soul. I couldn’t think a moment beyond that.
With a wet rag and soap from the PX, I scrubbed the walls and yellow ondol floors of the new house, hoping the perfumed lather would lessen the noxious new flooring and lacquer smells. It brought to mind how I’d washed all the surfaces of my in-laws’ house as a way to accept responsibility for the leaky hut, but I had been a slave there and not a family member. I would never tell my husband about the misery of those years.
Friday morning brought a steady light snow, but not enough to prevent the Jeep from reaching the house. I immediately expunged this disgraceful thought and focused instead on the preparations for my husband’s formal return and our move into the new house. After a tepid and bland breakfast prepared by Meeja, I sat for a time with Grandmother during her morning ritual. In the odd gray light of muffling snowfall, I bent my head, and as sometimes happened when praying with my mother, I felt my will release itself into the stillness that I thought was all that remained of God in my spirit.
I donned a navy blue wool coat and a headscarf of white magnolia blossoms on a dark green background, both gifts from Calvin. Wearing two pairs of socks for warmth and the rubber shoes he’d bought, I walked to the market, stopping now and then to appreciate the tiny sprockets of fat snowflakes on my dark sleeves. I bought pork bones with rib meat, an impressive fresh flounder, flattened dried squid, precious dried mushrooms and lotus root, and onions, potatoes, carrots and rice wine. There were no greens, not even winter kale, but Calvin had given us cans of green beans, peas and peaches—the latter a concoction so sweet it gave
me a headache. I shooed Meeja from the kitchen and spent the remainder of the day cooking a welcome-home feast.
The snow stopped and low clouds opened to a blazing gold and purple sunset. Calvin arrived in the Jeep with a footlocker containing his belongings and two boxes of books and papers. These items were moved into the new house. Everyone joined Grandfather in his sitting room for the lavish dinner. The talk centered on the delicacy and variety of dishes, and it was easy for everyone to pretend that Calvin’s presence was as natural as if he’d been living with us for months. After the meal, however, Grandfather cleared his throat several times and said, “Rice wine?” which Calvin steadily refused.
Grandmother asked for a prayer from Calvin, signaled Sunok and Meeja to join her, and said goodnight a little earlier than she might have on a typical evening. Her nonchalant departure gave me the courage to also say goodnight. It was understood that my husband would come later. The men had the usual news and politics to discuss, especially Calvin’s inside information about the resurging civil war in China, tensions with the Russians about the temporary border dividing north and south, a disturbing rehiring of Japanese collaborators in many government jobs, sweeping reforms in education, and the guidance of the American military government toward democratic elections.
I added fuel bricks to the banked firepit of the new house and fanned its embers until they blossomed into flame, taking pleasure in the cold on my cheeks contrasting with heat on my hands. In the vestibule, I tucked my shoes on a plank step by the unfinished doorway, which I had draped with an old blanket. Inside, I fired a brazier to heat water for the washbasin, rolled out our bedding and lit kerosene lanterns, turning them low. Regretting that I’d left my sewing in Grandmother’s room, I opened my husband’s footlocker and proceeded to unfold and refold all of his clothes, marveling when I discovered the elastic waistbands of his undershorts. The brazier flared and the room grew hot, making the floor coating emit a fusty resinous smell. I opened the window fully and dampened the fire. Still warm, I removed my jacket and sat with chin on knees, waiting with—for the first time in as long as I could remember—idle hands.
The waning moon rose, a not-quite circular disk of mother-of-pearl, small and shining. Through the open window, I caught its mystical smile
above the trees. It seemed to invite me to say nothing to Calvin. Since the mask I wore was almost fully integrated into my being, it would be little different than what the days before had been. Nights were for secrets, an easy hour for things best hidden. I thought of the royalty murdered at night, Unsook’s demons, the tortured men, the selfish desires I’d stowed in the night shadows of the rafters that had all turned to dust. No, there was no hiding. Instead, recalling the dream I shared with my mother when Ilsun was born, I would be like water and pour forth my shameful truth around the feet of my husband.
All these years I had been waiting for this moment. I knew he would be disappointed in me—how could he not be?—but I remembered our first walk by the pond and his letters. He had welcomed my questions and my confessions, unjudging, and had even asked for more.
In the dimly lit room, the flickering lamplight danced smokily against the walls. The winter moon gleamed and cast a faint square of light on the floor. It brought the memory of prison and how I had clung to hope because of my mother’s visits, her loving encouragement delivered in a folded paper at the bottom of my rice bowl. As I waited for Calvin in this silent sitting room, I saw that I had also kept faith in a certain reunion with my husband, this man who might hear me, understand me, know me. I had believed that being with him again would one day bring to light some larger reason, some just cause, that would explain the suffering we had witnessed and lived through.
It seemed I had waited long enough, for there he was, not forty steps away, talking about the reformation of our nation with my father and younger brother. Korea, too, had waited long for the liberation that had ended many hardships and had also brought new questions and challenges. I thought of how quickly the people had struck down the Shinto torii and opened wide the doors of churches and temples, the men I’d seen being released from Seodaemun Prison, who fell sobbing to kiss the dirt road, the jubilation that met the first American soldiers parading through the streets, the pride of the old shopkeepers to speak freely in Korean, the spontaneous fires in the squares fueled by the hated identification papers with our required Japanese names. In shared oppression, the people of this beloved land had grown strongly united in their hope for freedom and, like my father’s books buried in the unreachable secret
pantry of the lost Gaeseong house, had harbored their Korean identity through all those years of waiting.
