The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [176]
“Amen,” said Grandfather. “Thank you, Calvin, you’ve completed your minister education, I see!”
Warmed by the gentility Calvin’s formal intonation had restored in rooms that had long missed such civility, my blood soon became a tranquil current calming my pulse and thawing my heart. “Yuhbo,” I said, the familiar address feeling as foreign on my tongue as his sitting across from me. “How is it that you came here in this American military uniform?”
“It’s impossible to think it mere coincidence.” Calvin looked directly into my eyes.
“It was amazing!” said Dongsaeng. Grandfather cautioned him to silence with a glance.
“I flew into Gimpo this morning and had just checked in with Army Headquarters at the Bando Hotel. I requisitioned a Jeep right away and set out to find this house.” He reached into his breast pocket. “Yuhbo, I received your letter two days before I left New York.”
“Thanks to the American!” said Dongsaeng.
“ Ajeosi Neil?” said Sunok boldly to this new elder. “Is Uncle Neil your soldier-friend too?”
“Hush, child. You mustn’t interrupt the long-lost husband,” said Grandmother.
“Go on,” said Grandfather, giving Sunok another cookie to ease Grandmother’s mild rebuke.
“Ajeosi Neil is indeed a kind soldier-friend, child.” His inclusion of Sunok in the conversation impressed me. He was much the same yet completely different somehow. Even the way he sat on the floor seemed foreign. I wondered what changes he saw in me and lamented my gaunt cheeks and farmer’s hands—hands that had cracked and bled during the years at his father’s house in Pyeongyang, which now, with him sitting there almost a stranger, didn’t seem to matter in the slightest.
“How wise to write me in care of the Presbytery! Your handwriting alone … I cannot express to you the joy … your letter …” He paused again to collect himself. “Thanks to you, I had your address, but I can barely remember the roads in Seoul, much less recognize the city at all …” He would never be able to tell his story if every suggestion of his absence choked him to silence. We waited quietly—Dongsaeng with eagerness, like a child being good in anticipation of a treat, my parents with compassion, Meeja with inquisitiveness, and me with the patience born of eleven years. I listened to Sunok’s crunching of cookies and neglected sounds from outdoors: leaves blowing in the wind and acorns falling from our last oak tree. Their hollow plops in the courtyard reminded me of the bitter acorn porridge we ate last winter and how our fingers blistered from shelling the dry and frozen meat.
Calvin mopped his eyes, cleared his throat, looked straight at me and said, “My apologies.”
I mouthed, “None needed,” and we smiled at this small exchange between us.
He continued with a restored strong voice, “My next wish was to find someone who could give me directions. Since getting off the plane, I couldn’t help but search every Korean face, not necessarily to see if I could recognize anyone, but because I was among my countrymen and welcomed seeing so many Korean faces. It was as if I was home and not-home at the same time, a very strange sensation. Upon leaving the hotel, I tried to spot a local person of whom I could ask directions. That’s when I noticed a man staring at me. He looked familiar, and I thought he might be a former schoolmate. As we neared,” Calvin said, smiling at Dongsaeng, “he raised his arms and cried out. I wondered if he thought I was going to arrest him, he was that excited.”
“That was me!” said Dongsaeng, unable to contain himself. “I could hardly believe my eyes. I’m walking home and see this strange sight: a man who has a Korean-looking face dressed like an American G.I. Such a curious thing, and I stare like a peasant! And when he comes