The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [48]
But I also believed that my teacher’s spirit was now free, and that God would never turn away someone as good as Yee Sunsaeng-nim. I remembered what my mother had said about self-determination, and that I had understood it to mean I could decide things for myself. I raised my eyes to the treetops, to the swelling gray clouds and pure blue sky beyond. I would do as I had promised my teacher. I would be strong and become educated. And I would choose to believe what felt most true, that Yee Sunsaeng-nim was at peace, and that she would always be my teacher, looking down from heaven.
THAT NIGHT, THROUGH my bedroom window, the full moon cast faint silvery shadows until storm clouds hid its unmoving features. In bed, I smelled the tangy smoke of goldenrod and marigold flowers my mother burned in her brazier to chase mosquitoes from our quarters. When I told her about Sunsaeng-nim’s death, she had cried out, then filled the afternoon with deep sighs and prayer. I said nothing about secrets or suicide. Mother told me that Sunsaeng-nim, a devout Christian, was in heaven. She read to me “in my Father’s house are many mansions …” and the beautiful words made me cry. The tears also came from my confusion at feeling both comforted and guilty, because my mother’s assurances were misinformed. I longed to speak with her honestly. Praying with her had given me solace, but now alone in bed, these feelings troubled me. And I understood fully that my beloved teacher was not here and would never be again, and I grieved.
Wind rattled the shutters and the roof tiles hummed with rain. I wiped my face and rolled off the bedding onto the cool floor. As I closed my eyes, I saw images of my teacher drowned in a river, her body broken at the bottom of a ravine, her belly slashed with a dagger in the way I’d heard the Japanese committed seppuku to save honor. I saw her in a dark forest in the rain picking poisonous roots to boil into a deathly broth, her hair wet tendrils dripping tears down her agonized face. Was this her ghost come to haunt me? I shut my eyes tighter to pray, but only a promise to study hard came to mind. I repeated that promise again and again to the rhythm of the rain, until at last the graceful curve of Sunsaengnim’s body moved across my vision and I saw her walking by the blackboard, in her hand a piece of chalk dancing like a spring blossom in a breeze, bowing gracefully to the tempo of the morning’s recitations.
The Royal Seal
SPRING 1924
THE SCHOLAR-ARTIST HAN DECIDED THAT NAJIN SHOULD BE married. That would be his response to yesterday’s letter of inquiry from an old acquaintance as to the availability of his daughter. On this fine morning, he would write his consent. Temperate breezes brought scents of apple and plum blossom through the fully opened door leading to the outer porch and garden. Cardinals and sparrows called and sang early mating songs, inspiring him to flowery salutations, while a mockingbird mother squawked irritably at a squirrel too close to her nest. As Han glimpsed the swoops of her tail, it seemed to write in the air the symbol for many sons—her prayer for a nest full of boys. All of nature was aligned with his purpose on this day! At his writing table, he sat comfortably on a soft mat of double woven grass, and tied his sleeves above his wrists. He wrote elegantly on sheaves of whitest paper, using Chinese to reflect the formal solemnity of his response, and quick brushstrokes to hint urgency.
He thought that at age fourteen Najin was woman enough. She’d graduate from the girls’ school when the term ended in three months, and what better time than soon after that? A providential harvest moon wedding! And since such a decision was beyond his wife’s role, it mattered little that she would be opposed. The Kabo Reforms said women couldn’t be married until sixteen, men until twenty, but this unenforceable law was generally ignored.
Han considered it his personal responsibility to challenge Japan’s attempts to suppress