The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [79]
“Her new house is quite far from Ewha, Umma-nim. I’m told that dormitory housing or even a room in the school valley is quite cheap. Plus, if I’m nearby, I can more easily watch over Dongsaeng while he’s at boarding school. He’s still such a baby.”
“I’ll wait to finish my letter to Imo.” I knew by the pleased smile delivered with this phrase that she would speak to Father, and that the consideration of Dongsaeng’s well-being added a positive angle to the plan.
The summer drew to a close. I was diligently working and full of anticipation as plans for Ewha solidified, although Father had not yet approved. Each day, after I tended the garden and then practiced an hour on the organ, I crossed the churchyard and entered the back gate to the director’s house. Both children had mirror-blue eyes and pudgy faces edged in white-blond curls. It was impossible not to think of them as the boiled potatoes they frequently ate. Harlan Jr., a slender and quiet twelve-year-old drawn to books, was a cooperative if sullen student. He disliked being cooped up for the two hours of tutoring, and I let him ride his bicycle prior to their lessons “to get the wiggles out,” as they’d say in English. Christine said repeatedly that I was the prettiest Oriental girl she’d ever met. Since she was only seven years old, the inappropriate compliment was considered charming. She invited me to practice English with them. They were bright and gangly, these foreign jewels, and as the months progressed and their conversational Japanese improved, the Gordons kept me on less as a tutor than a companion.
During our lessons, the children corrected my pronunciation of memorized sentences from the Chinese-English phrasebook. I learned how to drop the last syllable from English words that ended on hard consonants: book instead of book-uh. Our sessions were merry, and I was proud of my conversational English. They laughed at my never-ending confusion with Rs and Ls in frock, flock, and the subtlety of Bs and Ps in crab, clap, bright, plight.
At last their lessons came to an end. I’d been accepted at Ewha, although Father refused to consider it. Harlan Jr. would soon leave Korea for a boarding school in upstate New York, already on the path to become a Far East missionary. After a hundred thank-yous and sad goodbyes, the Gordons gave me Harlan’s bicycle, which they thought might be useful in Seoul. The children had taught me how to ride in the school lot, and though I’d seen no other woman on such an ignoble contraption, I delighted in its trundling speed. As I walked the bicycle home, the temptation to ride it overcame my concern about the propriety of cycling. Sure enough, catcalls and jeers followed me as I pedaled through the market, but the breeze blew coolly down my neck and I pedaled on, reveling in downhill coasts, dignity restored when I pushed the heavy machine uphill.
Word soon reached Father that I’d been seen riding the bicycle. His displeasure was distinct. From across the courtyard I heard him yell, “Will she never cease to shame us? Going around like a man in a skirt!” My mother responded with something I couldn’t hear. “Good for nothing but shaming the family name,” I heard him say. Mother again, then, “Send her to Ewha then. Better to have her out of this house!” This permission born out of anger wasn’t ideal, but it would do.
The bicycle became Dongsaeng’s, to be sent ahead to Seoul for his use during school. I rode it one last time around the yard while Mother laughed at the sight of my skirts and braid flying as freely as the ancient spirits that roamed our ancestral compound.
Nuna Means “Elder Sister”
AUTUMN 1928
I OBSESSED OVER SMALL THINGS—STROKES OF LETTERFORMS, CREASES in the sleeves of dark school dresses, the compact arrangement of my few possessions in my locker—my concern with minutiae analogous to my focus on learning. I shared a high-ceilinged room with twenty other girls in the Truth wing of the dormitory, which I thought was more ironically appropriate for me than the other two wings: Beauty