The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [116]
Watch over the ones I leave behind: Mother, Father and Dongsaeng. Imo and Jaeyun. Younger Uncle and Grand Uncle, wherever they may be. Yee Sunsaeng-nim. Kira and Joong, Cook, Byungjo. If your spirit can cross the oceans, help me to honor your names as I journey far from this place. I felt an unexpected swell of tears and gazed at the sky—pale blue stretched high and striated white with cirrus, the heavens seeming to blow an eastbound pattern.
Dongsaeng reclined on a bed of pine needles at the edge of the glen and chewed a grass stem. I sat beside him in the shade. “I’ll miss you, Dongsaeng, more than I can express.”
“Me too, Nuna.” He smiled. “Maybe I’ll see you in Los Angeles one day.”
I doubted Father would allow him to leave Gaeseong. “When I get a job, I’ll send you money.”
He threw his grass stalk into the woods. “You wouldn’t have to if I could’ve kept what I made today. I sold a scroll for twenty won!”
Twenty won could buy several weeks of food. Few Koreans had that kind of money readily available. “He’s probably saving it for your new school.”
“No. He embarrassed me terribly! I had to return the money and let that bastard keep the scroll!”
“Who?”
“Watanabe. That pig-faced stewpot bastard!”
Watanabe was the tax officer assigned to our neighborhood. So this was what Mother had started to tell me when the men came home. How foolish of Dongsaeng to approach this man. “Tell me what happened. How did Abbuh-nim find out?”
“That pig bastard told him! Summoned him to the office and told him everything.”
“Oh Dongsaeng, what a mistake.” I spread my arm wide toward the graves. “Do you think they would have done what you did?”
“They were once young men with fathers—so, yes.”
“But now Watanabe-san knows you want money—enough to disobey your father. This gives him more power over us, especially your future. He can have you drafted.”
“But he’s been paid for that!”
“You would trust a money-hungry tax collector over your own father? I’m sure he was only too happy to buy your scroll.”
“I’m not that stupid! I didn’t accept his loan and I could have—just by grabbing the bigger stack of bills.”
“Don’t you see? That’s exactly the power he wants over you. You mustn’t seek him out again, ever.”
“Yah, now you sound like Father!” He scrambled up and shook his trousers free of needles.
“You know I’m going overseas. How can I leave knowing you’ll be reckless? You know better than I how hard it’s been at home. Why do you think there’s no pocket money? Father needs medicine! Kira does too. Cook starves herself so you can eat. Mother has sold all her jewelry and silver to send you to school. She boils cocoons and feeds worms—like a farmer—to feed you!” I stood and clenched hands that wanted to slap the selfishness out of him.
“They’re parents! It’s their duty.”
“It’s your duty to take care of them. You’re grown now. A man!”
His lip curled. “Man enough to do whatever I want.”
“No, Dongsaeng. Man enough to understand your obligation to the family, especially to your parents.”
“He’ll never relinquish his authority. Even if he finds a wife for me, he’ll hold the purse strings always!” He walked toward the graves, his shoulders tight.
I wanted to shake him, shout at him, even knowing that yelling was fruitless. I walked among the stone posts painted with the solidity of my father’s considerable talent, the talent he had passed on to a son who could find no moral virtue in having it. To my ancestors, I said quietly, “How can I leave?” And as I walked in the old silence surrounding their mounds, the tart smell of cut grass scenting the air heavily