The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [2]
“Still, it’s unusual for such a prominent scholar,” said the arched-eyebrow woman, “don’t you think?”
“Unusual?”
“Well, yes. Granted, she’s a girl,” and she turned her head theatrically to hold every eye in the room, “but isn’t it odd for a man whose lifelong pursuit is art, literature and scholarship—the study of words!—that such a man would neglect naming his own daughter?”
The ladies chimed in with yah and geulsae and similar sounds of agreement, and the woman waved me away.
I left for the kitchen, frowning, and though I don’t like to admit it, pouting as well. Cook and Kira were helping my mother prepare platters of fancy rice cakes, decoratively sliced plums and cups of cool water. Before reaching the door I heard my mother say, “Where is that Myunghee?” I stopped to eavesdrop, surprised at her obvious irritation. She regularly cautioned me to never speak crossly to or about the servants. Myunghee was notorious for disappearing when work called, and now had pushed my mother—who hardly ever raised her voice—into impatience. Remembering my tender thighs, I gloated a little.
“Is that you?” Mother said.
“It’s me, Umma-nim.” I remembered my quest. “They say I don’t have—”
“See if you can find your nanny. No, wait. Ask the gardener if he found more plums. Hurry.”
Beyond the courtyard, skinny Byungjo peered into a fruit tree with a bamboo pole in hand and a half basket of plums at his feet. He said he’d take the fruit to the kitchen, so my task was done. I roamed around to the front yard, and not seeing Myunghee or anyone else nearby, I crawled into a little natural arbor I’d found beneath the lilac bushes near the front gate.
Though I wasn’t sure what not being named meant, it was obviously something bad enough to make those snake-mouthed women find fault with me and, alarmingly, with my father. Since I had heard the year of my birth, 1910, mentioned many times by the men, I wondered if my lack of name was linked to their urgent discussion. I wanted even more to know those words, but my mother was the only one I could ask. I hugged my knees and drew stick figures of the elders’ wives in the dirt. I pretended they were nameless too, an easy game since I called them each Respected Aunt and knew none of their given names.
The lilac’s clotted perfume suffused the enclosed arbor, and my eyes grew heavy. I nodded sleepily and it seemed the vines shivered, scattering purple petals like a shaking wet dog.
The gate slammed open to Japanese shouts, and uniformed men crashed through the yard. Sunlight refracted from their scabbards and danced on the walls, trees, shrubs, the earth. Father’s manservant, Joong, came out the front door with his arms opened as if to gather the six men in a giant embrace. “Master, the police!” he cried. A policeman punched Joong in the neck. He fell, gasping. I heard my father say, “You have no right—” and then rough indecipherable commands. Blows, scuffle, an animalistic cry. Women screamed. Something splintered. My hands unknowingly covered my ears, every muscle in my body clenched with terror.
Two policemen came from the house with sabers bared. They shoved three stumbling elders, who held their hands high and heads bent. The remaining police pushed the other men as they staggered across the yard, my father trying to support a friend who groaned as his arm hung crazily from his gashed shoulder. All the men were forced through the gate, which banged twice against the lintel, and then they were gone. A stark silence filled the yard, then came a high-pitched wail like that of a professional mourner, and then my mother’s cry, “Daughter! My child!”
Through the shroud of vines I saw her run down the side porch followed by another woman, their eyes hunting the corners. They seemed small, like straw-stuffed dolls on a wooden stage. Joong struggled to stand and the woman rushed to help him. He gestured that he hadn’t seen me. My mother opened shutters,