The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [23]
“Well then,” said Father, and everyone bowed heads for his prayer and blessing. My mother and I stood to escort our guest out. Surprisingly, Father also stood and bowed. Hansu’s eyes opened wide at this honor from an elder, and he bowed low, backing out the door.
I heard the next day from Kira that Hansu had distributed the packages throughout the night, then left with two other men at first light.
The Secret of Water
WINTER, END OF FEBRUARY 1919
LOUNGING ON MY BEDROOM FLOOR IN THE LONG LIGHT OF YELLOW sunset, I lazily copied sentences. Kira stuck her head in. “Quick, Ahsee! Your mother calls—her time has come!”
I flew to my mother’s room. A wrinkled woman with slits for eyes and a downturned mouth pointed her finger and barked. “No children! I’m a midwife, not a nursemaid.”
“She’s old enough,” said Mother. “Her hands are strong. She can help and learn, and maybe she’ll be more prepared when she becomes a woman than I was.” My eyes widened at her forceful words and cross tone toward the lower-class woman. Scowling, the midwife tossed me a rag to tie around my hair.
The floor had been cleared of its mats. Cloths were piled neatly next to three containers of water and a large empty pan. Kira whispered to me importantly that it was her job to keep one bucket filled with hot, another with cold, and the urn with lukewarm water to bathe the new baby. My mother’s table and chest had been moved to the hallway to make more room, but with the four of us moving about, the space was crowded and stuffy. I sat beside a bed pallet made of old quilts where my mother, in a cotton slip and old blouse, alternately rested and squatted, breathing sharply with tight lips when contractions came. Between those fearful episodes, she explained what would happen, but nothing she said could truly prepare me for the coming ferocity of birth. The midwife timed the spasms and instructed me to keep Mother’s neck and brow cool with wrung cloths.
Mother squinted, her face white and sweating, and suppressed the cries that claimed her throat. Despite her earlier assurances, I was certain she was dying, and scared tears ran down my cheeks. I gripped her arm, wanting to keep her in this life. When the pain passed, my mother exhaled and relaxed. “Don’t be frightened, Najin-ah.” Her eyes were ardent, bright and peaceful. “This is a woman’s natural act—a great gift from God—and though hard for the body, it’s nothing to fear.” After the next contraction, my mother said it was the same as when I was born, and look at the goodness that had come from such pain. I wanted to, but couldn’t smile. I brushed aside the sodden hair clinging to her cheeks and burning forehead. The corners of the room seemed to approach; grasping shadows that clawed at the bubble of safety created by my mother’s rhythmic breathing.
The labor pains intensified, and she clenched her teeth with such severity that saliva wet her chin. The midwife thrust a twisted cloth into my mother’s mouth. Between her bouts of rapid breathing, I saw her face contort to a fierceness I’d never seen before. Petrified, I wanted to scream, and the same spirit that had entered my mother’s body sealed my throat. It seemed obvious that screaming would help, but my mother was in a trance, her eyes pinpoints, her neck and shoulders sinewy and glistening, lips blue and stretched taut around teeth clamped on the wad of cloth. Then she groaned—a low and long animal sound, curiously soft, that seemed to emanate not from her mouth but from deep within her body—and her belly rippled like the spiraling wake of a rock tossed in a pond. She gasped for breath, and veins I’d never known existed pulsed like snakes on her temples. She curled her back and pressed downward, her face fiery red. I cried out in fear. The midwife stooped low in front of my mother and caught the baby’s bloody wet head. He was ugly and alarming, but all my fear left when I saw his flattened human ear. “Umma-nim, look!” I