The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [59]
Imo shuffled cards and played solitaire, while coals smoldered in the iron brazier. I embroidered a floral edging on several meters of heavy blue silk that would be a gift to the princess. The rain fell and fell.
“They tried to suppress the news for as long as possible, and held the king at the palace, as if under house arrest. A few months later he managed to escape, hidden in a palanquin. He fled to the Russian legation where he stayed for almost a year. As you can imagine, this was an extremely difficult time for the royal family, for the whole country. The Japanese had taken control of Gyeongbuk Palace entirely. The king had no alternative but to move into Deoksu Palace—back then it was called Gyeongun Palace. He tried to consolidate power and strengthen the monarchy during that time. He made Korea an empire and initiated many laws that changed the old ways. But he had no army, no palace guard, and the Japanese had maneuvered Korean ministers favorable to their cause into his cabinet. The government was in chaos, and the people were angry because the queen had been murdered and nothing was being done. They had a trial in Tokyo for the assassin, Miura, but everyone knew it was a sham.” She stopped speaking for a while. Her cards clacked against each other, the silk in my lap rustled and the wooden embroidery frame creaked. The sound of rainfall on the roof tiles gently thinned.
Captivated by this tragic story, and remembering that Imo said she would’ve been about my age when the queen was murdered, I felt very close to my aunt. I sewed and waited for her to continue.
“Yah, I won.” She displayed all forty-eight cards face up and perfectly arranged.
“Lucky!” I said.
She admired the cards and swept them together to shuffle. Her features and posture remained unchanged, but her words sounded deliberately casual. “Yes, lucky. I was married in 1900 because it was supposed to be a lucky year. Indeed, good luck came soon. I bore a son, and soon after that, my husband was appointed prime minister.”
My needle went in and out, in and out, and now, knowing where her story was heading, I felt sorry and incompetent. I tried fruitlessly to think what my mother would do or say in the coming moment.
“Lady Om, Emperor Gojong’s third consort, knew my husband’s family was completely loyal to the emperor, and since we were both young mothers, I became her companion. My son played and studied with Lady Om’s son, Prince Yi Un, who was just a little older. By then, the crown prince—the present Emperor Sunjong—was married, and his wife, Lady Yun, also asked for my companionship. So I was blessed to have the affection of these sage personages. It was around that time that the crown prince’s coffee was poisoned, and he and the tasting eunuch nearly died. After that, because it’s easier to find blame than to uncover truth, many thought this illness had spoiled his intellect and made him weak—and yes, his body was weakened and he was rendered impotent—but he proved his piety to his father and his kingdom by fighting death, by remaining alive. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She asked this with surprising severity, so I took time to think. Before meeting Imo, I had wondered about her widowhood. I’d read that in the old days, a yangban widow—unmarriageable, with a childless future, and a burden to the family—was considered supremely virtuous if, when her husband died, she committed suicide. I had questioned Yee Sunsaengnim’s death as being an honor suicide, and understanding what she’d suffered, thought that in a way it was. It angered and saddened me anew that her unbearable shame caused her to kill herself, especially since she was blameless. Across the room the lamplight touched my aunt like moonlight reflecting on the surface of a well. She was deeply beautiful in that moment.
I knew that many people blamed Emperor Gojong and now his son, Emperor Sunjong, for Japan’s dominance, and that several ministers and court officials had committed suicide after the Protectorate