The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [109]
“Yes.” Calvin slid off the rock and crouched before me. I concentrated on the peaches. “Dr. Sherwood said American colleges have different requirements than ours, and that you’d need to enroll in a premedical course of study: biology, chemistry, anatomy, that sort of thing. There’s a women’s college, called Goucher, in Baltimore on the East Coast, that’s hosted émigré students from China. He knows several people there and has written to them on our behalf.” Calvin spoke faster. “I—I’d like to take you to America as my wife. I know it’s sudden and an unusual request of a new bride, but your mother says it’s your dream and I—I couldn’t imagine waiting for my return to marry.”
My hands still, I looked at him at last. His features shone with excitement, his eyes round and earnest. I bowed my head, overcome.
“Please— I don’t mean to give you false ideas.” He leaned forward. “Dr. Sherwood encouraged me heartily in this. He said he was sure it would merely be a matter of a few letters and some minor formalities, particularly since—well, your mother told me you were second in your class, that you minored in nursing and you’ve been practicing midwifery. Will you consider it? We have much to accomplish by the end of the summer and I know it’s sudden but can you, do you—” He stopped and bent his head a moment, as if to slow his tumbling words. “What do you think?”
I clasped the peaches in my lap and looked at him clear-eyed. “Yes, if you please.” My voice, which I’d always heard inside as being low and scratchy, sounded bell-like in clarity.
He exclaimed relief and sat backward, laughing as he caught himself from tumbling off the rock.
I half stood as if to catch him, and instead caught the peaches rolling from my lap. “I never considered, I never really believed it could happen.”
“God is good.”
“Amen.” I studied my ring, which now seemed laden with an enormity of hope I hadn’t known possible. The peaches felt round and full in my hands and I offered him one.
“Wonderful.” He clasped my hand around the peach. His cool palm pressed my fingers against the polished skin of the soft fruit, and I flushed to my toes.
“We have much to do. Can you send me your transcripts and list all the employment you’ve had? Most impressive will be the jobs you’ve had with missionaries. Yes, your mother told me quite a lot about you. You must ask your missionary friends for a recommendation. That’s a letter they write describing your character and work. I know it’s strange, but you must lose all modesty in these matters. It’s important to boast about yourself if you want to be accepted into an American college. Modest pride will not serve you in this endeavor. You’ll have to apply for a passport. I wish I knew someone in Gaeseong— Well, I’ll ask my friend if he can help.”
To answer my puzzled look he said, “I have an old classmate, a Japanese man who works in the police department in Pennamdo in Pyeongyang. He’s been very helpful with my passport application. But we can address that later. Once your college admission is settled, we can set a wedding date for sometime this summer.”
“You’ve done so much.” I kept my head low not knowing where to point my eyes, directed as they were east to America! I saw in the reflection of his shined black shoes that he gripped the peach, but it seemed to spin like a top he’d set whirling with his repeated words—our and we—its wind spreading my life before me in impossibly new ways. What would Jaeyun say!
“I expect the date may change, but at this point, I’m planning to depart on my birthday—the seventeenth day of the ninth month—”
“That’s mine!”
“It isn’t!”
“It is! By the farmer’s calendar in 1910.”
“The same for me, in 1909. Yah, praise God. We were destined.” His chin shook with emotion and he clasped both my hands. The simple gesture, imbued with intimacy, stirred me deep inside, suffusing heat and humiliation that crested in tears.
I pushed him away. “I’m sorry.”
Confusion flickered through