The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [164]
Yes, Han had expected too much of the man before him. He had done what he believed was right, what had been left available to him, to make him the man of character he had once prided himself as being. Here was the embodiment of his failure. Like his mother nation, he had failed stupendously. Before him was the proof of his inability to shape the future of his family—and by extension his country—in the right way, the Confucian way, the way that had always guided his life, the only way he knew. Without self-discipline, how could his son master his own household? Without the strength of his family behind him, how could he lead his countrymen? Instead, here was a careless, confused man, born a decade after the annexation, who thought little about the meaning of the world except what it might offer him. It seemed that the Japanese had succeeded in conquering this most basic principle of a father handing tradition to his son.
“It’s impossible that you frequent those places. Who sees you enter and leave? Who else visits there? Not only do you put yourself and your family at risk, you’ve sullied your character. It cannot be.”
“But there’s Meeja. She’s—” His voice was ugly with desperation.
“Have I finished speaking?” So the worst had happened: Ilsun had actually become attached to a whore. Han realized he should have paid more attention to the missed meals, late hours and moping about. A petulant curl spoiled the defined curves of Ilsun’s full lips and strong chin—two of the recognizable features that had reappeared over generations of his family line. But he was still his firstborn son, his only son, and a man with the potential to be among the finest calligraphers in Korea. And was it not his own generation—and he, himself—who had lost stewardship of the world they had been charged to tend for Ilsun and all the world’s sons?
Han settled further into his cushion, his spine sagging. As to the problem at hand, there was no help for it except that Ilsun must finish the thing or be ruined by it. That his son frequently walked the dark streets of unsavory neighborhoods put him at enormous risk for conscription or any number of police troubles. An arrangement must be made, and it would be costly. Ilsun would have to work as never before. Once the arrangement was discovered, Han knew he would suffer the household’s silent uproar, but more was at stake than the sensitivities of women.
“You can have her,” Han said. Ilsun showed his surprise by staring directly at him, his reddened eyes incredulous.
Han then understood that acquiescence and his acceptance of Ilsun’s whore had two other wholly selfish motivations, but with a slow blink he managed to rationalize them as having Confucian virtue. First was the possibility of an heir. The law had changed to allow sons of concubines to inherit, and besides, should a son be born, he could be officially adopted. It wasn’t possible for the woman to be accepted into the household as in the olden days. Her lowly profession forbade it, not to mention Ilsun’s Christian vows. Han blinked again, and the sad and delicate face of Ilsun’s sickly wife faded from his mind. As for his second motivation for allowing Ilsun his teahouse lover: his sanction of the expensive affair would stimulate his son to work, to develop his artistry despite his persistent laziness. He reached for his pipe, though it had been years since it held tobacco, and the customary motion sealed his resolve. “You’re not to go to her again. She must come to you and only in secret. The neighborhood association is full of busybodies and traitors. No one must see her. No one. Do you understand?”
Han saw Ilsun’s fingers shake as he bowed and pressed his hands to the floor. The house shivered in the winter wind and a shutter slapped open and closed. Cold fresh air cleared Han’s head, but an old man’s weariness blanketed his spirit. Trying to remember the writer who coined the phrase—was it, ironically,