The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [72]
Another long pause, then he spoke. “So it’s true what they say about his death.”
I looked at him, startled by this mild questioning as if from one peer to another. He fiddled with his pipe. “Everyone believes it,” I said as humbly as I could. “Dr. Hakugi was most influential.”
“They said apoplexy.”
“Abbuh-nim, if I may.” He nodded, and I continued. “His Majesty was healthy and thin. The maid who served his food is also dead—they say she died of fever. But the servants who found her said she was dressed in her day clothes and had obviously been arranged to appear as if she slept.”
Father nodded and spat bits of tobacco. “How is your imo?”
“She remains at home, awaiting exile or something worse—”
“No, they won’t bother with a widow. After things settle, she’ll have her house and be fine.”
I bowed, grateful for this assurance. I heard him adjust his legs then empty his pipe. The silence grew, and I thought I hadn’t heard such silences as this in all my days in Seoul.
“You’ve grown.”
“Thank you, Abbuh-nim.”
“You may go.”
“Thank you, Abbuh-nim. Goodnight.”
Walking slowly to my room, I let go the breath I hadn’t known I was holding. My nose filled with the pinesap smell of floor polish, and I felt unnamed sadness.
WHEN THE COCK crowed at sunrise, the clean scent of my bedding reminded me I was home. Pale green sunlight swept across the familiar crisscrossed beams on the ceiling. I smiled at the nooks where I had once imagined stockpiling new words and Chinese characters. I quickly dressed, happy to hear waxwings’ shrill whistles in the garden rather than the measured commands of guards on sunrise march. In the kitchen, I presented Cook with a dozen linen hand towels embroidered with images of Seoul’s city gates.
“Your mother will be proud to see how you’ve mastered your needle!” said Cook, grasping my hands.
“Where’s Mother’s rice?” I said, inspecting the four trays Cook had prepared for the family. My mother’s worn brass bowl held millet with barley.
“Rice is dear,” said Cook.
I switched my bowl of white rice with Mother’s and delivered two trays to Father and Dongsaeng, then took ours to the women’s side of the house. Seated in front of a folding mirror, Mother brushed her long hair, now shot with silver. “So wonderful to have you home,” she said. We shared a morning prayer, and she opened her rice bowl. “What’s this?”
“What happened, Umma-nim? Cook says rice is dear.”
“I was hoping to spare you at least one day.” She sighed. “Your father was forced to let go of the farm. Oriental Land Company conscripted the property and sold it to a Japanese man. We received a pittance in the exchange.”
With the steadily increasing censorship, my mother wouldn’t have written this kind of news in her letters, nor was it her habit to send any bad news through the mail. I felt remorse for being angry when Father didn’t send the examination fees for Ewha, and chastised myself for selfishly hoping to attend Ewha at all. “When did this happen? What happened to the family?” Joong’s family, whose loyalty and service to the Han clan went back several generations, had long farmed the property.
“Yah, slow down. Did you already forget everything Imo taught you?”
I blushed until I saw that my mother was gently teasing me. We smiled, and she said, “Imo was very proud of you.” Instantly I was her little girl again and simply, purely happy to be with her.
“They tried to work the farm for another year,” Mother continued, “but the new owner took all their harvest and left them nothing for winter. Some of the peasants stayed, some went to join the resistance, and Joong’s family went north to your grandfather’s in Nah-jin. Joong’s youngest brother decided to find work with Uncle in Manchuria. Your father was quite generous with them and sent them off with all the grain and cloth that wasn’t due for taxes. He told them to sell what they couldn’t carry and take the things they’d need, and not worry about the