The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [179]
“To break bread with my wife and her family is a meal that is richness itself,” said Calvin, which both pleased and embarrassed me. During our simple dinner he exclaimed how wonderful it was to eat perfectly cooked rice and told amusing stories about American rice. Then, after inspecting the house and yard, he promised to return the next evening. I walked outside with him, and when we reached the far side of the covered Jeep, hidden from the house, he took both my hands and gazed at me, his face tight with feeling. “Najin,” he said. Overcome, he embraced me fully.
I stiffened, then realized that naturally he’d become even more Westernized. Being outside, I couldn’t relax into his embrace, but he held me long enough for his rough wool coat to itch my cheek, and for me to feel his warmth radiating through his many garments. He released me, his eyes wet once more. After composing himself, he folded my hand around won and American bills that totaled the largest sum of cash I’d touched in years. “Take this,” he said, with such solemnity that I imagined this was how he would administer communion. Unnerved by this sacrilegious image, I kept my eyes to the ground, distressed that everything between us seemed to emphasize differences that would be impossible to overcome. “I’ll bring food tomorrow, some things …” He held my hands again, then climbed into the Jeep.
I watched him drive away until his taillights faded like the eyes of a cat one couldn’t be certain had really been there, slipping into the comforting shadows of night.
THE NEXT EVENING, the Jeep rattled to a stop in front of the house, packed with all manner of goods: tins of foodstuff, cooking pots, winter coats and rubber shoes for each of us, sacks of briquette fuel, soap, salt, toothbrushes, razors for the men, paper, pens, candy, a bottle of aspirin and—an item of wonder that everyone had to try—a coloring book and crayons for Sunok. Since no army accommodations were available for married men, Calvin was given permission to live with us, but he stayed in the barracks for its convenience to his job working meetings of marathon length and translating speeches and piles of documents. He said he expected to move in when things were less urgent at his job, and he added, “Yuhbo, the house is for one family: Dongsaeng’s family. It isn’t proper for us to raise our own family in these rooms. I’ll talk to your brother and see if he’ll agree to an addition.”
Left speechless by his mention of raising a family, I was barely aware of concerns about the cost, inconvenience and propriety of his proposal. I understood, however, that he truly was here to stay, and as I began to see farther ahead than the day’s meals, I also understood how narrow our lives had become during the war. His decision making felt like a respite, and I was pleasantly compliant to anything he proposed, but I was also conscious that my acquiescence came from the novelty of having my husband home, and also that it was my duty as a wife.
During the next few weeks, our lives improved dramatically. Dongsaeng’s advertising and printing connections and Calvin’s military sources produced a lucrative job. Dongsaeng and my father simplified and translated into modern Hangeul the history books written in Chinese and old-style vernacular that my father had carried from Gaeseong. This work would then be printed as textbooks and distributed to schools. Grandfather thanked Calvin for his influence in delivering the true history to the nation’s people, and Grandmother thanked God that Grandfather had the foresight to have chosen to bring with him those texts over all the other classics in his library.
My husband, busy translating for his general, visited one or two evenings a week and on Sunday. I said those two words, my husband, frequently, to get used to their sound and shape in my mouth. Fortunately, the winter was unseasonably mild, and