The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [71]
“Yes. I see you’ve had some of the old training. Well, well.” He exchanged a look with his wife and tucked the card into a book, which he commenced to read. His wife fussed with her baggage and called the porter to dispose of the trash.
His card read, PROFESSOR TOSHIRO SHINOHARA, DEAN OF ADMISSIONS, EWHA PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL. I placed it carefully in my string pouch and removed a length of thread and an unfinished swatch of embroidery. By the time the train reached Gaeseong, I’d completed the square—plum blossoms against a dark branch—and gave it to Mrs. Shinohara. “Thank you for your generous offer to personally apply.” I bowed to them both. I doubted if Mrs. Shinohara would recognize the royal flower of the Yi family and felt a strange bittersweet justice in giving the square to her.
She said, “Such beautiful handiwork! You must apply for the degree in domestic arts.” She bobbed rapidly in the Japanese way. “Don’t forget to write the dean of admissions! Goodbye! Goodbye!” Mr. Shinohara nodded curtly, and I struggled through the compartment door with the heavy suitcase.
I searched the platform, my chest pounding in anticipation of seeing my mother, but no familiar face appeared. Fumes making me nauseous, I dragged the suitcase toward the station and waited as the depot gradually emptied of travelers. A man in tattered clothes lay beside the entrance to the station, begging for a coin, his filthy legs stretched out before him, his brown teeth broken, his stink staining the pavement. I’d never seen such misery and lack of pride and felt ashamed for him, for seeing him, for his sad existence. As the sun sank behind the buildings, I left my suitcase with the stationmaster and walked home, guessing that Mother hadn’t yet received Imo’s letter about my homecoming, or the postal watchdogs had censored it into oblivion.
Vendors in the marketplace shouted last-minute bargains, long shadows mimicking their hurried packing of unsold goods. I walked the beaten earth of the road and passed the noodle shop and bakery that had tempted me with treats after school. A lifetime ago! The market seemed dingy and small, the road home short. I climbed the hill and saw the happy curved roof of my home gate. Tears stinging, I began to run, all my court training lost to emotion.
I reached the gate just as Byungjo came to latch it at sunset. His tanned face lit up when he saw me. “Ahsee! The master’s daughter! She’s home!” I stopped a moment to take in his familiar wrinkles, my smile as wide as his, then I flew to the house where I heard Kira repeating Byungjo’s cries and Dongsaeng’s excited little boy voice from afar, and at last I fell into my mother’s open arms.
IN THE COMFORTING evening light of my bedroom, with Mother off to instruct Joong about my luggage, I washed my neck and face and smoothed my hair. It was time to see Father. I could only guess how angered he’d been at my departure. I regretted each day that my mother had taken the brunt of his fury, and she refused to tell me its extent. I regretted his loss of face with the Chae family. I wondered if their son, now fourteen, had married. If Father only realized how much things had changed!
“He’s waiting,” said Mother from the hall.
With trepidation, I went to his sitting room. It seemed dark and close. I bowed low to the floor, my movement slow and controlled, the bend of my neck graceful. “Honored Father, this person is returned home.”
“So I heard.”
I sneaked a look. The lines by his mouth were deeper and new white hairs edged his beard, still short. He’d kept his hair shorn. His eyes were cast to a book at his side.
“I apologize, Father, for the shame I brought with my departure.”
A noncommittal sound came from his throat. I smelled his tobacco flaring and heard slow puffs. “What did you learn in Seoul?”
“I hope to please you in the coming days with all that I have learned.”
In a lengthening quiet,