The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [43]
“If only that was the worst of it.” She slumped and turned away, a hand covering her eyes. “I’m glad my fiancé is dead! The shame!”
Not understanding what she was saying, I was both frightened and thrilled by her rawness. My heartbeats seemed to inch us closer together on the school bench. I wanted to say, How awful! How sad! but the words wouldn’t come out.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I can never marry now. One day you’ll understand. Once a woman’s virtue is stolen, everything is ended for her. If my mother didn’t need me, I would, I would—if only I could!” She gazed blindly toward the window, silent tears wetting her sleeves. She shuddered and pulled a handkerchief from her waistband, wiped her eyes and blew her nose loudly, oblivious of the crude sound. “So you must study hard, learn a good profession and at all costs avoid the police.” She stood and looked at me, appearing almost wholly Yee Sunsaeng-nim again. “Can you promise me you’ll do that?”
I nodded, though I was full of questions. Was having a dead fiancé shameful? What had she been looking for outside the window that might have helped her? My curiosity loosened my tongue at last. “I’m sorry for your brother and future husband, and … my neighbors’ only son is in prison too. They say he’ll be home soon. But when your father returns, won’t he find you another husband?”
“I—I’ve said too much. I haven’t talked to any— I only wanted to impress upon you the importance of your education. I was much like you when I was a girl, always in trouble for talking back to grownups.” Our eyes met. I thought the wetness in her dark irises made them only purer. “Try to take advantage of your willful independence. I know your mother worries about these traits, but you can learn to manage them and advance yourself. You must remember not to deaden your natural instincts, but instead hold them living inside of you like a sword sheathed in your intelligence. Think of what Shakespeare says: ‘How noble in reason; how infinite in capacity!’ You’re smart and capable, very empathetic for a girl so young, and with our lives in turmoil, you’ll need all your talents developed to their fullest in order to sur—” Her word caught on a sob, and she stopped long enough to calm her breathing. “Yes, in order to succeed.”
I was among the advanced students and had just been introduced to Shakespeare, but her reference to him now made him seem like a scholar-god. “Yes, Sunsaeng-nim. You’re sounding like my mother,” I said, hoping she would smile.
“The first bell will ring soon.” She rose, pressed her hands against her temples and smoothed her hair. She seemed smaller, her skin drawn tightly across her cheekbones. “Why don’t you take the books down to the principal’s office? There’s a crate by his desk for them.”
I was reluctant to let go of the private adult moment we’d had, aware that it had made me more special than all of the other girls, and contrary to what I might have expected on any other day, this made me feel bad. I ambled slowly down the hall, shuffling the two books front and back. Confused and feeling helpless, I wondered why her personal tragedy sounded more like a warning than the terribly sad news it was.
WHEN SCHOOL LET out, my classmates gathered as usual to walk down the hill together. They yelled at me to hurry up, but I waved them on, pretending I’d forgotten something. It had been a long day. During class, Sungsaeng-nim had acted mostly normally, sometimes a little sterner than usual, but I was all jumbled inside and needed time to think. I leaned out of sight on the side of the building, the brick hard against my shoulder blades. The coarse surface caught hairs from my braid, which tugged at my scalp. The image of Sunsaeng-nim at her desk, head buried in hands, surfaced. I tried to separate my confusion into subsections—like tackling a complicated sentence, my desire to help my teacher foremost. With eyes shut, a prayer came to my lips. “Father God, please bring Sunsaeng-nim’s father home and make everything the same as before.” But it was more than