The Calligrapher's Daughter (52 page)

During our recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, I remembered our years-ago conversation about the Protestants and self-determinism, and excitement sparked when I thought that discussions barely begun could be continued. Then I quaked, for he was not some fellow student to bandy intellectual ideas about, but my husband—now obviously a man of God—and I, his wife, a Christian hypocrite! Shame and anxiety surfaced for a moment but were easily lost in the excitement of his being here. The ritual of prayer gave me time to gather my spinning feelings.

“Amen,” said Grandfather. “Thank you, Calvin, you’ve completed your minister education, I see!”

Warmed by the gentility Calvin’s formal intonation had restored in rooms that had long missed such civility, my blood soon became a tranquil current calming my pulse and thawing my heart. “Yuhbo,” I said, the familiar address feeling as foreign on my tongue as his sitting across from me. “How is it that you came here in this American military uniform?”

“It’s impossible to think it mere coincidence.” Calvin looked directly into my eyes.

“It was amazing!” said Dongsaeng. Grandfather cautioned him to silence with a glance.

“I flew into Gimpo this morning and had just checked in with Army
Headquarters at the Bando Hotel. I requisitioned a Jeep right away and set out to find this house.” He reached into his breast pocket. “Yuhbo, I received your letter two days before I left New York.”

“Thanks to the American!” said Dongsaeng.

“
Ajeosi
Neil?” said Sunok boldly to this new elder. “Is Uncle Neil your soldier-friend too?”

“Hush, child. You mustn’t interrupt the long-lost husband,” said Grandmother.

“Go on,” said Grandfather, giving Sunok another cookie to ease Grandmother’s mild rebuke.

“Ajeosi Neil is indeed a kind soldier-friend, child.” His inclusion of Sunok in the conversation impressed me. He was much the same yet completely different somehow. Even the way he sat on the floor seemed foreign. I wondered what changes he saw in me and lamented my gaunt cheeks and farmer’s hands—hands that had cracked and bled during the years at his father’s house in Pyeongyang, which now, with him sitting there almost a stranger, didn’t seem to matter in the slightest.

“How wise to write me in care of the Presbytery! Your handwriting alone … I cannot express to you the joy … your letter …” He paused again to collect himself. “Thanks to you, I had your address, but I can barely remember the roads in Seoul, much less recognize the city at all …” He would never be able to tell his story if every suggestion of his absence choked him to silence. We waited quietly—Dongsaeng with eagerness, like a child being good in anticipation of a treat, my parents with compassion, Meeja with inquisitiveness, and me with the patience born of eleven years. I listened to Sunok’s crunching of cookies and neglected sounds from outdoors: leaves blowing in the wind and acorns falling from our last oak tree. Their hollow plops in the courtyard reminded me of the bitter acorn porridge we ate last winter and how our fingers blistered from shelling the dry and frozen meat.

Calvin mopped his eyes, cleared his throat, looked straight at me and said, “My apologies.”

I mouthed, “None needed,” and we smiled at this small exchange between us.

He continued with a restored strong voice, “My next wish was to find
someone who could give me directions. Since getting off the plane, I couldn’t help but search every Korean face, not necessarily to see if I could recognize anyone, but because I was among my countrymen and welcomed seeing so many Korean faces. It was as if I was home and not-home at the same time, a very strange sensation. Upon leaving the hotel, I tried to spot a local person of whom I could ask directions. That’s when I noticed a man staring at me. He looked familiar, and I thought he might be a former schoolmate. As we neared,” Calvin said, smiling at Dongsaeng, “he raised his arms and cried out. I wondered if he thought I was going to arrest him, he was that excited.”

“That was me!” said Dongsaeng, unable to contain himself. “I could hardly believe my eyes. I’m walking home and see this strange sight: a man who has a Korean-looking face dressed like an American G.I. Such a curious thing, and I stare like a peasant! And when he comes closer, I think I recognize him, I see
Cho
on his coat—see it, there!— and all the hairs on my head jump up and down, and I can’t help but cry out. There’s your picture, always with us.” He pointed to our wedding portrait hanging on the wall. Dongsaeng’s enthusiasm was infectious, but it was the chance meeting downtown that made all our eyes widen.

Dongsaeng continued, “I said to him, ‘I am Han Ilsun. Could it be you, Brother-in-law?’ and he said, ‘Dear God!’ and then I knew it was him!” Everyone laughed and Sunok clapped her hands.

“To say I was surprised is an understatement,” said Calvin. “It’s God’s work that you would be there at that very moment. It was meant to be.” He addressed the family, “Once he identified himself, I got the Jeep and he showed me the way. He’s told me something of your years of difficulties, and I was very sorry to hear these things, very sorry. I must ask, again, your forgiveness—” He stopped.

As he gathered himself, Grandmother said, “There is only God’s will, and we are among the truly blessed to be reunited.”

“There is no blame, and so no need for forgiveness,” said Grandfather. His eyes met mine for a flick of a moment, less than a glance, but I understood with the convincing truth of tears that my father had spoken to both my husband and me. Combined with Calvin’s presence, my father’s
words released a weight that had crowded my soul since leaving Gaeseong. This physical sensation and my enormous gratitude untethered me to an emotion so rich I felt that if I were to lift my eyes to see my husband and family in this room all around me, I’d fly into the heavens, soaring with light.

Grandmother echoed Grandfather’s statement with a firm “Amen.”

My eyes met Calvin’s and I saw that his showed an unnamed determination. My features relaxed, and I hoped he could read from my expression the limitless measure of acceptance that poured from my heart.

Sunok said, “Harabeoji, how can he be a G.I.? Only Americans are G.I.s, aren’t they?”

“Yes, child,” said Grandfather. “It’s a good question.”

“The letter took more than a month to find you,” I said. “So yes, how did you become an American soldier?” while others chimed in, “Tell us about your studies. Is your family well? What’s New York like?”

“Start at the beginning,” I said. Meeja refreshed the water and I passed the cookies. We settled in beside the sputtering brazier to hear Calvin’s story, while outside, the sun seeped through the clouds and slowly arched across the sky.

“Four years ago, I finished a course of study at New York Biblical Seminary. Before then, I’d attended three other seminaries and wasn’t sure what I should next pursue. My studies thus far were seen as unusual, and I was advised to pursue a bachelor’s degree in sociology, then a master’s in philosophy of education, which I did. At that point, I had studied theology and Western culture to such a degree that I believed it would be best if I returned to the Bible; hence, the Biblical Seminary. But after Pearl Harbor, I knew I had to contribute somehow, and found a clerking job in the New York Office of Censorship. From there I was hired by the OSS—that was the American intelligence organization during the war—to translate various Japanese and Chinese communications, until the OSS was disbanded early last spring.”

This startling news made me quickly calculate and compare the years, and with irony and relief, I concluded that Major Yoshida’s accusation was wrong by three or four years prior.

“I briefly worked at the
Herald Tribune
newspaper in the classifieds department, a simple job that barely managed to pay for a room and
a bowl of soup. A friend found work for me on the weekends cleaning houses, cooking and serving at parties. I know, odd work for a man, but I was grateful for the wages and learned a great deal about the American way of life.”

I recalled from an early letter that he had been a houseboy at times, but I hardly knew what to do with this additional information about his domestic jobs. Had I been with him, I gladly would have worked those jobs in his place.

“Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the New York Presbytery ordained me as a postwar missionary. I hadn’t yet been ordained because I needed to be sponsored by a local church. Naturally I attended church, but as part of my studies it was one church or another, which left me without a church to support me as copastor or even assistant pastor. The Presbytery chose to ordain me as a missionary, thinking ahead to when the war would end and the potential need for an indigenous missionary. But after V-J Day,” he defined the Americanism and went on, “I appealed to the Presbytery to send me home, and was told that an American missionary had just returned from Korea and had reported that the people were not yet prepared to receive an indigenous Korean as an American missionary. I was greatly disappointed.

“Several years ago, a group of friends and I had formed a society to publish a journal called the
Korea Economic Digest.
Since very few Americans know about Korea, our aim was to educate and publicize the political situation. Then two years ago, when we learned that the Cairo Declarations said Korea would eventually have independence, we wanted to propagate discussion on what Korea was like and what it should become after the war. Somehow, we managed to raise enough money to distribute the journal, not only to subscribers but also to libraries, government offices and influential people in Washington. On August 15, I was with this group of friends in our makeshift office at a boardinghouse, and we all stayed up through the night listening to the radio, until finally we heard Hirohito’s surrender. One of my fellow editors was so overcome he fell to the floor and burst into tears. Soon we were all crying with him.”

“I hope to hear that radio broadcast one day,” said Dongsaeng.

“I’m certain you will,” said Calvin, “since it’s the first time a Japanese
emperor, their god figure, spoke publicly in this way.” The men talked more about the radio broadcast and Japanese ethos, then he returned to his story.

“Our journal had become a contact point between Koreans and Americans, and the society received word that the army needed interpreters. That very day I had also received a phone call asking me to become an interpreter for the military. They particularly needed men who were fluent in Korean, Japanese and English, and the government knew about me from the OSS. That I could also read Chinese made them quite pleased, and I was immediately hired as a civilian employee and given the rank of field officer. I was trained briefly in army protocol and what to expect of the U.S. military government installed here. I flew on army transport and arrived this morning.”

Everyone exclaimed, and Sunok smiled with the happiness that filled the room. Calvin’s experiences were far different from anything I could have ever imagined, and I marveled at both his accomplishments and perseverance.

Calvin looked at me and said, “It is eleven years since I left this land. During that time I heard only sporadically from my father. Not long after you saw them last, my parents moved to Manchuria in self-exile. My father believed religious persecution would only increase as the China War escalated, and he was correct. I have not heard from him since then but believe they’ll return to Pyeongyang if they haven’t already. I worry that my mother is in fragile health and hope to gain permission to visit my parents. I know that wherever they are, they’re living the word of God and are at peace. Too many families have suffered.”

We murmured agreement, and some time passed in spontaneous silence, prayer and remembrance for the countless lost.

“What news of your families?” asked Calvin. Relatives and politics were discussed, and a sad lunch of rice and cabbage prepared, served and eaten. The afternoon waned. Rain came and left, as Calvin, Ilsun and Grandfather each tried to compress the decade into words. Grandmother took Meeja and Sunok to the kitchen to prepare as much of a supper as they could muster, insisting that I stay with my husband. As the sun set and cold seeped into the sitting room, I lit lamps and kept the brazier
blazing using a three-day supply of fuel. Meeja set the table and my mother said, “I’m afraid we have only poor food to offer.”

“To break bread with my wife and her family is a meal that is richness itself,” said Calvin, which both pleased and embarrassed me. During our simple dinner he exclaimed how wonderful it was to eat perfectly cooked rice and told amusing stories about American rice. Then, after inspecting the house and yard, he promised to return the next evening. I walked outside with him, and when we reached the far side of the covered Jeep, hidden from the house, he took both my hands and gazed at me, his face tight with feeling. “Najin,” he said. Overcome, he embraced me fully.

I stiffened, then realized that naturally he’d become even more Westernized. Being outside, I couldn’t relax into his embrace, but he held me long enough for his rough wool coat to itch my cheek, and for me to feel his warmth radiating through his many garments. He released me, his eyes wet once more. After composing himself, he folded my hand around won and American bills that totaled the largest sum of cash I’d touched in years. “Take this,” he said, with such solemnity that I imagined this was how he would administer communion. Unnerved by this sacrilegious image, I kept my eyes to the ground, distressed that everything between us seemed to emphasize differences that would be impossible to overcome. “I’ll bring food tomorrow, some things …” He held my hands again, then climbed into the Jeep.

I watched him drive away until his taillights faded like the eyes of a cat one couldn’t be certain had really been there, slipping into the comforting shadows of night.

THE NEXT EVENING, the Jeep rattled to a stop in front of the house, packed with all manner of goods: tins of foodstuff, cooking pots, winter coats and rubber shoes for each of us, sacks of briquette fuel, soap, salt, toothbrushes, razors for the men, paper, pens, candy, a bottle of aspirin and—an item of wonder that everyone had to try—a coloring book and crayons for Sunok. Since no army accommodations were available for married men, Calvin was given permission to live with us, but he stayed in the barracks for its convenience to his job working meetings of
marathon length and translating speeches and piles of documents. He said he expected to move in when things were less urgent at his job, and he added, “Yuhbo, the house is for one family: Dongsaeng’s family. It isn’t proper for us to raise our own family in these rooms. I’ll talk to your brother and see if he’ll agree to an addition.”