The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [22]
“You haven’t been around one bit this entire winter, so there’s no one for me to miss!” I tossed my head and my long braids slapped his forearm.
“What! Such disrespect! Here I am, on the verge of a great adventure and not even one sad tear to see me off?” Hansu tied the ends of a filled burlap sack and hefted it to test its weight.
“I’ll be sad only if you promise that when you come back, you’ll help me again.” I missed the afternoons our paths converged when we both walked home—he from Japanese upper school and me from the mission school. I practiced Chinese characters and Japanese language with him, and he learned the English alphabet from me. He had graduated months ago, and I had rarely seen him since then.
“Haven’t you heard? I’ve got a fiancée!”
“I did hear.” I fingered the rough knot of the bag. “You’ll still be my honorary brother, won’t you?”
Hansu carried the sacks to the back porch. “From what I’ve observed,” he said, lowering his voice as if it were bad luck to talk about a baby before being born, “you’re going to have your own brother soon enough.”
“Even Abbuh-nim says it’s a boy,” I whispered back. The previous evening, when Mother had false contractions, Father visited her to ensure all was well. I glimpsed their profiles outlined in lamplight, their heads bent with noses nearly touching. He spoke as if in prayer, and I leaned closer to hear. “This child shall surely be my heir, for none other than a son could be born on the eve of our independence.” I had never before heard him speak so emotionally and with such tenderness. It made me think of him in a new way, a way I couldn’t quite describe that seemed to relieve a degree of my general state of fear around him.
“I have to see your father now,” said Hansu. “Will you tell him I’m here?”
Going down the dim hallway to the front of the house, I privately admired Hansu’s prominent cheekbones and the wiry peaks and valleys of his Western-shorn hair. “You’ll remember everything about your adventure and tell me all about Seoul?”
“Shh! Not a word—you know it’s a secret.” He pinched my ear and smiled. “Of course. You’re the only sister I’ll ever have. Now show me in, will you?”
I held his hand until we neared Father’s sitting room, then cleared my throat to announce us and bowed in the doorway. “Abbuh-nim, the son of our neighbor is here.”
My mother sat across from my father, sewing a clean collar onto a laundered shirt. The room felt snug and overly warm, the air tinged with smoke and lamp oil. Mother indicated that I should fill and light Father’s pipe and sit beside her.
Hansu bowed from the waist. “Good evening, sir. I received the gifts of your kitchen, and now if you’ll allow me a great honor, may I receive your blessing?”
“Enter, my boy. Sit for a moment.” Father’s long sleeve brushed his lap as he gestured Hansu to the pillows beside his reading table. He asked about Hansu’s family’s health and reviewed the logistics for the journey. He noted that places to sleep would be plentiful; the travelers merely had to ask at any village church to be referred to a welcoming household or a dry shed. In a growing silence, I noticed in Hansu’s bunched trousers that his calves contracted at regular intervals, as if he were already marching on what I imagined were the wide paved avenues of the capital city. The punk-punk sound of Mother’s needle into the starched collar was like a steady drumbeat of victory.
“Yah,” said Father with a regretful sigh. “If only it was a different day …”
Mother shifted her legs, and I wondered if her brows were knit with discomfort from the baby or the knowledge that her pregnancy was the reason that Father would not participate in the demonstration in Seoul. Or perhaps he remained in Gaeseong because of his arrest record. I wished I could ask.
Hansu cleared his throat. “Sir, since I probably won’t be here when the baby comes, please excuse my early congratulations. My family offers their blessings and prayers for a healthy baby boy.”
Father