The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [3]
I wanted to leap into her strong arms but couldn’t move. “Ummanim,” escaped from my throat, then I felt my tears and cried aloud. She dashed to the lilacs and tore at the curtain of vines. I fell into my mother’s hard embrace, freed from the honeyed, cloying flowers, scared to be patted and squeezed all over by her searching hands. She held me tight and rocked me in the garden dirt until we both could breathe without sobbing.
DURING THE NEXT four days our minister came and went. I was too afraid to leave the women’s quarters and keenly felt my mother’s absence while she greeted Reverend Ahn in my father’s empty rooms. Watchful for her return, I saw that she gave the minister thickly folded papers each time he left. The fourth afternoon, they stood in the open courtyard with heads bowed, and he prayed. I could only hear when his voice swelled with impassioned pleas for the men who stood tall and the country they stood up for.
My father came home that night, filthy and limping, his face a monster’s mask, swollen purple and yellow, his eyes black slits. A week passed before I glimpsed his face again and saw it recognizable.
I silently noted the absence of Myunghee, whose name was never again mentioned. Her few possessions were burned, and her room adjacent to mine was washed with caustic soap by Kira and cured with sage smoke. It eventually became a closet for broken shutters and torn mats. Byungjo repaired the main gate with dense oak boards and thick iron hardware, fortified with an interior drop bar. I thought we’d be safe then forever, but I was just a child.
MONTHS LATER ON a still, hot evening, the house normalized with Father healed, I sat in the sewing room with my mother to practice stitching. Focusing on straight seams to make an underskirt helped to pacify my restlessness. Insects thudded against the windows and added their chorus to the crickets singing in the courtyard. A welcome breeze cooled the still room, and the lamp sputtered and smoked. My eyes smarted and I looked up, blinking, to the open window. A thin curved moon hung high in the night sky, reminding me of the woman’s painted arched eyebrows and that day, and a sliver of fear as sharp as my needle made me stop sewing. “Umma-nim, will they come back?”
Mother’s face showed surprise, which swiftly changed to reassurance. “No, little one, that business is finished. Don’t worry, they won’t come back.”
I pushed my needle in and pulled the thread taut.
“Not too tight. A little smaller. Good, that’s right.”
“Was that war, what they did? Is that what it means to say ‘Europe,’ ‘torture’ and ‘bleakfuture?’” I couldn’t remember the other words.
She frowned into her embroidery and explained the words to me. She added, “These are problems men have made, which other men like your father and the minister are trying to solve, or at least help change. If you behave properly and speak only to those you know, you need not worry about such things. You’re safe with your family, and you know that God watches over children especially.”
“Is that why—”
“And child,” said Mother. “You must never again eavesdrop on your abbuh-nim, your father, or on anyone for that matter. Not only is it disobedient, it’s disrespectful. And further, it’s not wise for your young ears to hear things you cannot understand.”
I nodded, mad that I’d stupidly exposed my secret. I sewed rebellious crooked stitches, outwardly contrite, inwardly vexed. Then, horrified by the thought that the police had come because God knew I’d been bad, I gently ripped out my seam and sewed it straight. When I knotted the end, Mother checked and praised my work with such kindness that it freed me to say, “Did they come because of—because I wasn’t being good?”
She put her sewing down, sighed and touched my cheek. “No, child. God doesn’t punish the innocent. Your disobedience is harmful only to yourself.” She held my arms and peered into my eyes. “You are my blood and my bones. It’s as if your body is my body. Whatever is harmful to you is also to me, and also to your