The Calligrapher's Daughter (7 page)

I didn’t really grasp what it meant, but her passion and the fact of everybody doing the same thing in a single moment intrigued me. Remembering my teacher’s advice to go to the root of a problem to solve it, I said, “I think I understand, but how did it happen?”

“What a good question,” she said. At that proud moment, I doubly appreciated my wise teacher and generous mother. “Our leaders were inspired by a speech given by America’s President Wilson, called Fourteen Points. Your father says that President Wilson wants to help small nations who are dominated by stronger nations. And also, America supports self-determination, our right as a people to choose to be an independent and free country.”

I kept to my sewing, questions bubbling in my throat. I didn’t clearly understand what Mother meant by self-determination, but was pleased that she spoke to me almost as if I were grown. Was the American president stronger than the Taisho Emperor? How would he help?

Mother smoothed a finished flag in her lap. “Think of it! If all the ministers are involved, many countrymen will participate. We have much to be grateful for in our patriot leaders. Some are in Europe right now trying to make other nations see how unjust the treaties were. Did you also learn about this?”

I tried to merge Teacher Yee’s lessons with this information. I recalled
that my mother had once taught me about a European trip taken by Emperor Gojong’s men, who, having failed in their mission to garner support for Korea, had all committed suicide. She’d spelled the strange-sounding place,
The Hague
, and I remembered how she quickly scratched the letterforms with a needle on a starched sleeve, and as quickly rubbed them away. But that Hague business had occurred long before I was born. I frowned.

“I suppose not.” She sighed.

“Do you mean the foreign treaties that gave Korea to the Japanese without asking the emperor?” At least I could prove that I’d indeed paid attention to the lessons spoken over needlework in the evening hours with my mother.

“Yes,” she said with a rewarding smile. “And not just the emperor but all the Korean people, who should determine for themselves what nation they are.”

So that’s what
self-determination
meant. Thinking about how hard it was to always behave properly, I wondered if people could also have personal self-determination—if they could decide for themselves what kind of person they were. In my quest to be demure, hadn’t I finally learned to cover my mouth when I laughed? I supposed if one was determined enough, it could happen. I liked the word and decided I would strive to become self-determined.

“Let’s see what you’ve done.”

I pinched the corners and displayed the three flags I’d hemmed.

“When I give these to your father to hide, I’ll point out your fine work. You’ve listened well and worked well. Remember that to speak of this and of your father’s comings and goings is to put your family in the greatest of danger. Your father could be arrested again, or worse.” She took my hand and pressed it on her pregnant stomach. “I’m counting on you to be secretive for the sake of your sibling.”

“My brother,” I said firmly. I’d informally measured the growth of my mother’s middle when we bathed together, imagining I could see the baby swimming beneath the skin. “See how he lies?” she’d say as she poured gourdfuls of heated rinse water and the soapsuds trailed in rivulets around her mounded belly. “That means he’s a boy.” But my mother had known about the baby’s sex much earlier, as early as when she first told
me about her pregnancy, and I wondered again how she could have known.

I helped put away the fabric scraps in the false bottom of the linen chest, repacked the spilled towels and bowed goodnight. In bed I listened for the click and latch of the outer gate, thinking so intently about all I’d learned that I fell hard into sleep and missed hearing my father tiredly climb the porch stairs to head toward his side of the house.

PATCHES OF ICE-CRUSTED snow melted quickly in the increased hours of sunlight during those promising days, and hardy crocus poked striped shafts through frozen clods of earth. Early shoots, leaf buds and eager insects thrived in a current of warm afternoons, before returning to dormancy on the last waves of wintry nights. Several days before the funeral parade in Seoul, we fixed dozens of meals for the men’s foot journey. Father had unearthed the finished flags from a secret pantry beneath the floor of his study. Some smelled of tobacco, some of chilies and others of dried persimmons, according to where they’d been stored. Still in my school skirt but with a “home clothes” muslin blouse, I rolled the flags tightly, amazed at their number and proud to see that only close inspection revealed which hems I’d sewn.

In the outside kitchen—a porchlike extension of the main kitchen— my mother walked to and fro awkwardly, her billowing skirt barely masking her pregnancy, her hands agile as she added the flags to tidy muslin packages of rice balls and strips of dried fish. Standing beside me at a narrow worktable, Cook and Kira formed rice into balls and rolled them in crushed sesame or red bean powder. They chided each other good-naturedly on the finer points of their work. Cook explained in exasperating detail how to guarantee the perfect consistency of rice for molding into balls, while Kira insisted that the source of the water was the most important factor. My mother diplomatically praised and admired their combined results. Immersed in this activity with busy hands all around, I thought there couldn’t be a happier moment.

After sunset, our neighbor’s son, Hansu, called greetings outside the kitchen door and appeared with two empty sacks slung over a shoulder, looking very grown up framed in the small doorway.

“Oppa
, Elder Brother!” I could barely wait for him to remove his shoes
before grabbing his hand to show off the fifty packets neatly piled on the worktable. The men from church who were going to Seoul planned to stagger their departures in small groups beginning at dawn.

Hansu, sixteen and recently betrothed, had been acting stuffy in recent years—too mature to pay me any mind—but my enthusiasm in packing his sacks brought out his boyish laughter. He tugged a pigtail. “Will you miss me, little one?”

“You haven’t been around one bit this entire winter, so there’s no one for me to miss!” I tossed my head and my long braids slapped his forearm.

“What! Such disrespect! Here I am, on the verge of a great adventure and not even one sad tear to see me off?” Hansu tied the ends of a filled burlap sack and hefted it to test its weight.

“I’ll be sad only if you promise that when you come back, you’ll help me again.” I missed the afternoons our paths converged when we both walked home—he from Japanese upper school and me from the mission school. I practiced Chinese characters and Japanese language with him, and he learned the English alphabet from me. He had graduated months ago, and I had rarely seen him since then.

“Haven’t you heard? I’ve got a fiancée!”

“I did hear.” I fingered the rough knot of the bag. “You’ll still be my honorary brother, won’t you?”

Hansu carried the sacks to the back porch. “From what I’ve observed,” he said, lowering his voice as if it were bad luck to talk about a baby before being born, “you’re going to have your own brother soon enough.”

“Even Abbuh-nim says it’s a boy,” I whispered back. The previous evening, when Mother had false contractions, Father visited her to ensure all was well. I glimpsed their profiles outlined in lamplight, their heads bent with noses nearly touching. He spoke as if in prayer, and I leaned closer to hear. “This child shall surely be my heir, for none other than a son could be born on the eve of our independence.” I had never before heard him speak so emotionally and with such tenderness. It made me think of him in a new way, a way I couldn’t quite describe that seemed to relieve a degree of my general state of fear around him.

“I have to see your father now,” said Hansu. “Will you tell him I’m here?”

Going down the dim hallway to the front of the house, I privately
admired Hansu’s prominent cheekbones and the wiry peaks and valleys of his Western-shorn hair. “You’ll remember everything about your adventure and tell me all about Seoul?”

“Shh! Not a word—you know it’s a secret.” He pinched my ear and smiled. “Of course. You’re the only sister I’ll ever have. Now show me in, will you?”

I held his hand until we neared Father’s sitting room, then cleared my throat to announce us and bowed in the doorway. “Abbuh-nim, the son of our neighbor is here.”

My mother sat across from my father, sewing a clean collar onto a laundered shirt. The room felt snug and overly warm, the air tinged with smoke and lamp oil. Mother indicated that I should fill and light Father’s pipe and sit beside her.

Hansu bowed from the waist. “Good evening, sir. I received the gifts of your kitchen, and now if you’ll allow me a great honor, may I receive your blessing?”

“Enter, my boy. Sit for a moment.” Father’s long sleeve brushed his lap as he gestured Hansu to the pillows beside his reading table. He asked about Hansu’s family’s health and reviewed the logistics for the journey. He noted that places to sleep would be plentiful; the travelers merely had to ask at any village church to be referred to a welcoming household or a dry shed. In a growing silence, I noticed in Hansu’s bunched trousers that his calves contracted at regular intervals, as if he were already marching on what I imagined were the wide paved avenues of the capital city. The punk-punk sound of Mother’s needle into the starched collar was like a steady drumbeat of victory.

“Yah,” said Father with a regretful sigh. “If only it was a different day …”

Mother shifted her legs, and I wondered if her brows were knit with discomfort from the baby or the knowledge that her pregnancy was the reason that Father would not participate in the demonstration in Seoul. Or perhaps he remained in Gaeseong because of his arrest record. I wished I could ask.

Hansu cleared his throat. “Sir, since I probably won’t be here when the baby comes, please excuse my early congratulations. My family offers their blessings and prayers for a healthy baby boy.”

Father made his face stern, but his pursed lips held visible satisfaction. Mother’s eyes twinkled at Hansu and I smiled outright.

“Well then,” said Father, and everyone bowed heads for his prayer and blessing. My mother and I stood to escort our guest out. Surprisingly, Father also stood and bowed. Hansu’s eyes opened wide at this honor from an elder, and he bowed low, backing out the door.

I heard the next day from Kira that Hansu had distributed the packages throughout the night, then left with two other men at first light.

LOUNGING ON MY BEDROOM FLOOR IN THE LONG LIGHT OF YELLOW sunset, I lazily copied sentences. Kira stuck her head in. “Quick, Ahsee! Your mother calls—her time has come!”

I flew to my mother’s room. A wrinkled woman with slits for eyes and a downturned mouth pointed her finger and barked. “No children! I’m a midwife, not a nursemaid.”

“She’s old enough,” said Mother. “Her hands are strong. She can help and learn, and maybe she’ll be more prepared when she becomes a woman than I was.” My eyes widened at her forceful words and cross tone toward the lower-class woman. Scowling, the midwife tossed me a rag to tie around my hair.

The floor had been cleared of its mats. Cloths were piled neatly next to three containers of water and a large empty pan. Kira whispered to me importantly that it was her job to keep one bucket filled with hot, another with cold, and the urn with lukewarm water to bathe the new baby. My mother’s table and chest had been moved to the hallway to make more room, but with the four of us moving about, the space was crowded and stuffy. I sat beside a bed pallet made of old quilts where my mother, in a cotton slip and old blouse, alternately rested and squatted, breathing sharply with tight lips when contractions came. Between those fearful episodes, she explained what would happen, but nothing she said could truly prepare me for the coming ferocity of birth. The midwife timed the spasms and instructed me to keep Mother’s neck and brow cool with wrung cloths.

Mother squinted, her face white and sweating, and suppressed the cries that claimed her throat. Despite her earlier assurances, I was certain she was dying, and scared tears ran down my cheeks. I gripped her arm, wanting to keep her in this life. When the pain passed, my mother exhaled and relaxed. “Don’t be frightened, Najin-ah.” Her eyes were ardent, bright and peaceful. “This is a woman’s natural act—a great gift from God—and though hard for the body, it’s nothing to fear.” After the next contraction, my mother said it was the same as when I was born, and look at the goodness that had come from such pain. I wanted to, but couldn’t smile. I brushed aside the sodden hair clinging to her cheeks and burning forehead. The corners of the room seemed to approach; grasping shadows that clawed at the bubble of safety created by my mother’s rhythmic breathing.

The labor pains intensified, and she clenched her teeth with such severity that saliva wet her chin. The midwife thrust a twisted cloth into my mother’s mouth. Between her bouts of rapid breathing, I saw her face contort to a fierceness I’d never seen before. Petrified, I wanted to scream, and the same spirit that had entered my mother’s body sealed my throat. It seemed obvious that screaming would help, but my mother was in a trance, her eyes pinpoints, her neck and shoulders sinewy and glistening, lips blue and stretched taut around teeth clamped on the wad of cloth. Then she groaned—a low and long animal sound, curiously soft, that seemed to emanate not from her mouth but from deep within her
body—and her belly rippled like the spiraling wake of a rock tossed in a pond. She gasped for breath, and veins I’d never known existed pulsed like snakes on her temples. She curled her back and pressed downward, her face fiery red. I cried out in fear. The midwife stooped low in front of my mother and caught the baby’s bloody wet head. He was ugly and alarming, but all my fear left when I saw his flattened human ear. “Umma-nim, look!” I shouted.