The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [64]
AND SO NEARLY two years passed. I wrote home frequently and received as many letters from Mother, who reminded me always to be considerate of my aunt, respectful to the royalty, kind to the servants, and to read my Bible and study hard. As the seasons changed, she described which bushes had blossomed, when the maple tree turned red then brown, and how much snow filled the courtyards. She kept me updated on Dongsaeng’s progress with his tutor, and when Ilsun came of age and was required to attend public school, that Father had enrolled him in the missionaries’ lower school for boys. She mentioned how proud my father was of Dongsaeng’s calligraphy, and told me consistent good news about Father’s health. I didn’t expect that she would say more, but wondered how angry he was with me, and if he was still angry with her.
During my stay with Imo I saw the emperor more than a dozen times, on holy days and festivals, and he always remembered me and was consistently kind. Because of Imo’s companionship with the empress, I saw Empress Yun more often, and she was most attentive and affectionate. In those years I finished upper school and helped Princess Deokhye with homework from her tutors, particularly the sciences that she found boring, but which fascinated me. Someone was always nearby, even when she slept, which made the hours we spent together, playing, studying or sewing, formal. Only rarely did we find a chance to speak intimately.
One such opportunity came late in April 1926 on a sultry afternoon. Princess Deokhye and her retinue, including Madame Bongnyeong, her mother, were going to the large pond in Biwon Garden to see the cherry blossoms. We had visited the garden weekly to enjoy the various stages of bloom, and the flowers were now in final decline, a stage considered by many to be the finest. Servants had gone ahead to prepare the south pavilion with mats, pillows and refreshments. Two Japanese guards accompanied us: one in front near the princess being carried piggyback by a maid, and the other trailing me at the rear. The princess wasn’t allowed to leave Sugang Hall without protection, and these two guards were often in our company. In a basket I carried bamboo propellers to toss and paper to make flowers. We all walked slowly in single file enjoying the petals, windblown like snowflakes and coating the path with pink. I smelled the cherry blossoms’ delicate perfume and idly twirled a propeller in my hand. A broken flagstone made me trip, my hands flailing. I caught my balance, but somehow the propeller flew from my fingers and hit the face of the guard behind me. “Ow!” He stopped and covered his right eye.
“I’m so sorry!” I said, alarmed that I’d struck a Japanese guard. He grimaced, and my manners automatically surfaced. “Sir, are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing.” He picked up the propeller and gave it to me, and I studied his face for damage. Tears streamed from his reddened eye. He smiled. “You’ve made me cry.”
“I’m sorry!” Startled, I turned back to the path. The ladies ahead were around a corner and out of sight. My glimpse of him registered a teasing, youthful smile and handsomely hollowed cheeks. I stopped to look at him again, to be sure I’d understood him correctly. Had it been a painful or furious grimace? His expressive eyebrows, one up and one down, clearly showed a mix of pain and joviality. “Don’t rub it! You’ll make it worse.” It must’ve been because he reminded me of Hansu that I spoke to him with such familiarity—and then gave him my handkerchief.
He blotted his eye, then stiffened, his hand midair, caught between using my handkerchief again and returning it. “My apologies. I shouldn’t have used it.”
First teasing, then politeness! His tears continued and he winced rapidly, so I knew I’d scratched his eye. “No, it’s completely my fault. Please keep it.” A vision of Imo’s alarmed-and-dismayed expression at this enormously inappropriate