The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [115]
He laughed. “They didn’t. But that’s not really it. Everyone was mean! Hitting and hollering, making us march around for nothing, shouting slogans and waving flags, and nobody cared about my calligraphy. After all that work with the classics and all those damned hours painting, none of it matters. What’s the point? I can’t earn anything if I can’t sell my work. Why bother?”
Poor Dongsaeng! Caught between two worlds, like Jaeyun and her doctor. But his obvious lack of respect for Father wasn’t acceptable. “You know it’s Abbuh-nim’s way, and one that’s been correct for hundreds of years. You can’t expect him to change. Instead, you have to find a way to live two lives.” As soon as I said this, I realized, disturbed, that I was advising my brother to live a duplicitous life, an idea that had obviously come from my own life. “I don’t mean that. I mean you have to find a way to adapt to how things are.”
“But things are impossible, and now he wants to find me a wife!”
“You still like going out to eat, don’t you? And cinemas? Is that why you never have enough money?”
He didn’t answer, and I guessed that he still visited teahouses. “Perhaps if you obey and study hard, Abbuh-nim will allow you to have some say in your marriage. There are some things he can’t stop from changing.” I heard my insolence and felt ashamed, but I wanted to encourage my brother. “I never thought he’d acquiesce for me, but you see that he did. You never really know what might happen.”
He spat. “I doubt it. He told me today that he’s been looking for years for a suitable wife, and also that tired story about how his brother refused to obey him.”
“See how deeply he’s concerned about your welfare?”
“Not my welfare! The family name!” He kicked a loose piece of shale down the steps.
“It’s both, Dongsaeng. You’re his favorite—his heir. Of course you know that.” I ignored his pout and sing-songed a familiar refrain from our childhood years, “Remember the story of when you were born?”
He didn’t answer, but he seemed to soften.
“I hid outside Mother’s room and saw him carrying you for the first time. In the lamplight his face glowed when he looked at you. I’ve never seen it so lit up.”
“Like a candle?” he said faintly, caught up in the recitation despite himself.
“No.”
“Like an oil lamp?”
“No.”
“An electric light?”
“No.”
“Like fire!”
“No. Like the sun.” Our eyes met and connected in an old and comforting closeness.
I turned up the path and whacked the scythe at overgrowth blocking our way. “Let’s go see the fathers of that family name, then. Perhaps they’ll have some wisdom for us.”
“Let me do that.” He took the scythe. I beamed at this small consideration, and when he hacked away wildly, I ignored the unsightly gashes he cut in the weeds.
Nearing the cemetery, as the daylight danced among the stones and pebbles and made the spongy moss look cool and inviting, I thought of how many hundreds of ancestors had trod the rocky path. And when the mounds appeared before us, speckled with shade and light, I felt the same quiet reverence of family history and longevity that I imagined all those who had walked the path before must have felt. Dongsaeng, too, seemed becalmed, his cheeks relaxed into their fullness, his eyes at rest.
“Cut those and I’ll fetch water.” I pointed at gangly grasses clumped around the tall stone markers. On the far side of the burial ground, I filled the bucket from a trickling stream and stood a moment. I heard wood thrushes whistle and chitter, and my brother’s thwacking scythe. Dipping my hand in the bucket, I drank the fresh water and wet my face. My neck felt sticky, my forehead cool, and I smelled a pleasantly sharp pine tar. In the cemetery I gathered armfuls of grass cuttings and tossed them in the woods. When Dongsaeng finished, red and sweating, I offered the bucket for him to drink and splash himself, after which he retreated to the shade. As I washed the grave markers, I pictured the ancient bones lying within the mounds and silently spoke to the souls once housed in the earth-bound remains below.