She turned her hands and held mine still. "Thank you. You have a healing touch for such a young girl. Perhaps you'll be a nurse someday."
Warmth from the compliment spread to my neck and ears, and I wanted to give her something back. "Is anything wrong?" I asked shyly.
"I'm going to tell you a secret. You mustn't tell any of the other girls. You're my best student and I have only the highest hopes for you."
I flushed again and lowered my eyes.
"Times are only going to get worse and I may not always be your teacher." I looked at her in alarm. "Not now, but one day, yes," she said. "It doesn't matter who your teacher is. You must never stop learning and asking questions. A woman's life is hard. Without a husband it's nearly impossible. But nowadays, with education, a single woman such as myself can at least be of some help to her family." Her voice broke, her cheeks rivulets of ignored tears. I sat bound by the intensity of my teacher's heightened emotion and inexplicable revelations.
"My brother and my betrothed-both-died this summer. The last time I saw my fiance was more than a year ago, the day before the demonstration. I learned only recently that he died, and for all that time I knew nothing about him. His father wrote to say he'd been badly beaten during the madness in Seoul, and he became like an idiot and lived on, unable to care for himself, more helpless than a deformed newborn, until mercifully he died. My brother also went to Seoul and was taken to Gyeongseong Prison. He died of pneumonia there. They came for my father two weeks ago, and no one can tell us where he is or even if he's alive."
I could think of nothing to say and almost wanted to cover my ears. I wondered about Hansu in prison. Had he been beaten? Was he still alive? I felt crowded on the bench with Yee Sunsaeng-nim, the sides of our skirts touching. What was I supposed to say? I couldn't think of a single lesson from my mother that would apply. But oh! My poor teacher!
"If only that was the worst of it." She slumped and turned away, a hand covering her eyes. "I'm glad my fiance is dead! The shame!"
Not understanding what she was saying, I was both frightened and thrilled by her rawness. My heartbeats seemed to inch us closer together on the school bench. I wanted to say, How awful! How sad! but the words wouldn't come out.
"It doesn't matter," she said. "I can never marry now. One day you'll understand. Once a woman's virtue is stolen, everything is ended for her. If my mother didn't need me, I would, I would-if only I could!" She gazed blindly toward the window, silent tears wetting her sleeves. She shuddered and pulled a handkerchief from her waistband, wiped her eyes and blew her nose loudly, oblivious of the crude sound. "So you must study hard, learn a good profession and at all costs avoid the police." She stood and looked at me, appearing almost wholly Yee Sunsaeng-nim again. "Can you promise me you'll do that?"
I nodded, though I was full of questions. Was having a dead fiance shameful? What had she been looking for outside the window that might have helped her? My curiosity loosened my tongue at last. "I'm sorry for your brother and future husband, and ... my neighbors' only son is in prison too. They say he'll be home soon. But when your father returns, won't he find you another husband?"
"I-I've said too much. I haven't talked to any- I only wanted to impress upon you the importance of your education. I was much like you when I was a girl, always in trouble for talking back to grownups." Our eyes met. I thought the wetness in her dark irises made them only purer. "Try to take advantage of your willful independence. I know your mother worries about these traits, but you can learn to manage them and advance yourself. You must remember not to deaden your natural instincts, but instead hold them living inside of you like a sword sheathed in your intelligence. Think of what Shakespeare says: 'How noble in reason; how infinite in capacity!' You're smart and capable, very empathetic for a girl so young, and with our lives in turmoil, you'll need all your talents developed to their fullest in order to sur-" Her word caught on a sob, and she stopped long enough to calm her breathing. "Yes, in order to succeed."
I was among the advanced students and had just been introduced to Shakespeare, but her reference to him now made him seem like a scholar-god. "Yes, Sunsaeng-nim. You're sounding like my mother," I said, hoping she would smile.
"The first bell will ring soon." She rose, pressed her hands against her temples and smoothed her hair. She seemed smaller, her skin drawn tightly across her cheekbones. "Why don't you take the books down to the principal's office? There's a crate by his desk for them."
I was reluctant to let go of the private adult moment we'd had, aware that it had made me more special than all of the other girls, and contrary to what I might have expected on any other day, this made me feel bad. I ambled slowly down the hall, shuffling the two books front and back. Confused and feeling helpless, I wondered why her personal tragedy sounded more like a warning than the terribly sad news it was.
WHEN SCHOOL LET out, my classmates gathered as usual to walk down the hill together. They yelled at me to hurry up, but I waved them on, pretending I'd forgotten something. It had been a long day. During class, Sungsaeng-nim had acted mostly normally, sometimes a little sterner than usual, but I was all jumbled inside and needed time to think. I leaned out of sight on the side of the building, the brick hard against my shoulder blades. The coarse surface caught hairs from my braid, which tugged at my scalp. The image of Sunsaeng-nim at her desk, head buried in hands, surfaced. I tried to separate my confusion into subsections-like tackling a complicated sentence, my desire to help my teacher foremost. With eyes shut, a prayer came to my lips. "Father God, please bring Sunsaeng-nim's father home and make everything the same as before." But it was more than that. "Father God, please find Sunsaeng-nim a new fiance and make her father safe. Her mother too." I tried again, feeling increasingly lonely. "Father God, please help Sunsaeng-nim to be happy." Too short, and my eyes had been open that time. "Father God," I began, with hands clasped tightly to my chest, "I promise to be more ladylike and less willful and independent. I promise to study hard and learn all that I can, if you let Sunsaeng-nim marry again and bring her father home. Amen. And make her brother an angel. And let her know that somehow. Amen."
As I walked home, the lengthening shadows seemed darker, their origins unknown. I wondered if it was cheating to make the same promise to God for Yee Sunsaeng-nim as I had for my father. Although Mother would say it wasn't Christian to honor esteemed elders with prayer in the Confucian manner, I decided I'd also say a prayer on my teacher's behalf to Shakespeare. It was all I had to offer.
The smoke of burned trash clung to the alleyways. I dragged my feet, the stones in my path no longer begging to be kicked, fallen brown leaves fluttering aimlessly about my ankles. I didn't notice the vendors packing their goods and rolling up mats, nor did I smell the enticing steam of jajang jajang sauce from the noodle man. But the sideways glance from a policeman patrolling with his partner quickened my step, and then I ran until my family's gate came into view. sauce from the noodle man. But the sideways glance from a policeman patrolling with his partner quickened my step, and then I ran until my family's gate came into view.
I heard a commotion behind the neighbors' wall. Perhaps the Changs had returned! Was Hansu released? Maybe that meant Teacher Yee's father would also be home soon. I remembered my prayers and straightened my shoulders, primly hurrying home. Byungjo opened the gate holding a hand hoe and wearing his beaten straw hat. The gardener was a mere head taller than me and looked much older than his thirty-six years. His wrinkled skin, darkly tanned from spending most of his working hours outdoors, hung from his narrow bones like forgotten rags. I asked if he'd seen the neighbors.
He shrugged. "I see nothing, but your mother had me open their shutters and untangle their courtyard this morning." He walked away, muttering about stubborn overgrowth and the disgraceful state of the Changs' garden.
I kicked off my shoes at the front door. "Umma-nim!" My feet slid on the shiny wood.
In my mother's room, Kira was washing the floor. "Not here. The neighbors are back, and your mother went to bring them food."
"Is Hansu home too?"
"I don't know. She said you could go over there after you wash your face and hands." Kira wrung her floor rag and brushed sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist. She smiled at me, her gold-lined tooth glinting. "You look clean to me, but she'll want you to do as she says."
I splashed so much water on my sleeves that I had to change my blouse before letting myself in through the gate adjoining our properties, which had been left ajar. I was glad to hear laughter. I hadn't been to the neighbors' for a long time, and their house looked shrunken, the gardens raw from Byungjo's work.
"Umma-nim?" Following sounds to the kitchen's back door, I found my mother and Hansu's mother mixing eggs with meal, chopped scallions and squash for pancakes. Dongsaeng sat on the porch just outside the opposite doorway, playing with gourds. From the steaming pot on the stove I smelled bone marrow soup. The Changs' kitchen was half as small as ours with only one stove and no hearth. Most of its few shelves were dusty and bare.
"Yah, here's the thoughtful neighbor girl!" Hansu's mother wiped her palms on her apron and grasped my hands. A tiny woman with gray streaks in her hair, she had the same straight brows and scoop-shaped eyes as her son. "I told your mother about the mysterious gift we received before we left for Seoul, and just as we guessed, she said the comb was yours. You've made your mother proud."
I blushed as she patted my shoulder. Mother smiled, saying, "You'll spoil her." Dongsaeng flapped his arms, and I lifted him and kissed his pudgy hands.
"How is Hansu's father?" I asked politely.
"He's very well; sitting with our son as if he were still a little baby. And yes," she said, seeing the question on my lips, "he is well. Weakened, and grown in ways we prayed that God might have spared him ..." She turned to the stove and wiped her eyes with her apron. "We're making healthy soup. Go and see him! In the front room."
Hansu's father, a gaunt and lanky man, had a long face topped with thick hair that stood straight up, reminding me of carrot greens. He seemed to be dozing, sitting against pillows that obscured my view of a makeshift bed. I bowed and said softly, "It's the neighbors' daughter."
"Najin!" said Hansu. His feet stirred beneath the quilt.
"Don't get up, son," said Hansu's father. "Come in, young lady, and visit a while. I've things to do." He patted my shoulder as he left.
Hansu, pale and shockingly thin, beckoned me to sit on his father's vacated cushion. Something was wrong with his other hand, which rested outside the blanket. The last three fingers were crooked and bent, zigzagged at wrong angles. I looked at him in pity and gasped at a shiny red scar tracing his hairline down to his ear.
"Just a little cut," he said.
"Your hand-"
"Still works." He wiggled the fingers. "I'm used to them already. But mother's had to give up her dream of me playing the gayageum," gayageum," he joked, referring to the stringed instrument women entertainers played. he joked, referring to the stringed instrument women entertainers played.
I settled next to him and soberly held his good hand. "I missed you, Oppa." It made me feel warm and content to call him Elder Brother.
"It's good to be home."
"Are you- Was it bad?"
His eyes narrowed. "It's past. But I met many patriots! Men from Pyeongyang and Seoul. I wouldn't have survived without them."
"How was- Do you mind me asking?"
"It was hard, little one. Nothing you need to hear about. But God was with me, and for that reason I was meant to be there. I'm certain of that."
"But you're so good! Why would he want to punish you?"
"No, it wasn't God's punishment." He closed his eyes, and I saw a new frown line cut deep in his brow, which reminded me of Sunsaeng-nim. "It was the Japanese who arrested us, but it's far more complex than that. One of the good things that happened was I now have an opportunity to go to college in Pyeongyang. A man I met-a famous intellectual, known throughout Pyeongyang!-he offered to sponsor me, even if I decide not to study theology."
I remembered on our walks home from school, Hansu's resignation when he spoke of what his future held: the unwanted possibility of a clerical job with his father or the slim chance of an academic scholarship to Yonsei University. Without position, contacts or cash, and with less than stellar grades, the latter option was more of a dream than a hope.
I patted his arm to show him my genuine happiness, and he smiled. "You would have laughed to see how we managed to communicate."
"What do you mean?"
"Talking wasn't allowed, so we wrote in the dust with our fingers. It was months before I heard my mentor speak a single word." His smile faded. As curious as I was about his experiences, I wanted him to not remember bad things.
"Will you still marry?" I said, thinking of my teacher.
"That also is a blessing. She still waits and agrees that more education is a good idea. Otherwise I'd be stuck like my father, working half-pay to fill out papers for the government." I hadn't realized that Hansu's father worked for the Japanese. It must have been helpful when Hansu's father was arrested. I'd seen him trudge the sidewalks at sunup and sundown, to and from some place of business that I'd never thought about before. It would be rude to ask more about his job. Self-censorship won over my curiosity and kept me silent. I twisted a corner of his blanket, thinking how strange it felt to be tongue-tied with Hansu.
"How's school? What's your favorite subject?"
"I love words the best!"
"Ah! There's a new subject in school, is there? Words?"
"Father studies words!"
"I'm teasing, silly girl."
I punched his shoulder playfully. "I like reading and writing. We just learned about Shakespeare and I learned something new I can teach you."
"Teach me."
"Listen." I took a breath and said carefully in English, "Whe-la eesu bus-u stop-u tow-tow-nuh?"
"Wonderful! What does it mean?"
"Where can I catch the bus going downtown?"
His smiled warmed the room. He had me repeat it and then tried it himself. "There are buses in Seoul, and trams, trucks, automobiles, rickshaws, dozens of carts, hundreds of shops. So many things you would have loved to see."
"Maybe one day," I said, my eyes down.
"You would've loved our parade of patriots! So many men-and nearly as many women-shouting and marching together. I'll never forget that. A sea of people, and I was swimming among them." He closed his eyes, his lips peaceful.
"We had marchers too. Not as many as yours, I'm sure. We saw Father marching."
"You have much to be proud of. Another great patriot."
I had never before considered my father as someone to be proud of. I remembered my fear on the night of his arrest, then felt shame. Although he'd been beaten, he was home after sixteen days, while Hansu and others, like Teacher Yee's poor family, had suffered much more. "But others fared worse. You've been gone a long time ..."
"You mustn't think like that. Your father is an important scholar, well known in Gaeseong. They couldn't keep him locked up the way they could a marginal student who was merely one of hundreds, could they?"
"But you're not a marginal student!"
"Maybe not marginal, but still one of many. I'm blessed to be back in my own home, my parents strong, my betrothed still willing, my purpose renewed, my dongsaeng, little sister, beside me." He clasped my hand.
He seemed older and wiser, and I knew exactly what it meant to feel blessed-to have him as my honorary oppa. I gripped his hand. He was someone I could tell anything to, and it wasn't long before I opened my mouth, then frowned, then acted as if nothing had happened.
"What is it? You've grown-very pretty, I might add ..."
"Don't say that!" I blushed. "My nose is huge."
"Yah, you're right about that. Big as a stubborn boar's." He laughed, and I slapped his arm. "I know you too well," he said. "You're thinking about something you're afraid to ask. Ask away! I've nothing to hide."
"I heard something today I don't understand, but it's a secret."
The outer edges of his eyes curled with familiar mischievousness. "Can you go outside the secret part and tell me generally?"
"Well ... if a woman is to be married but her future husband suddenly dies, can she not get married at all?"
"Is this your way of telling me you're betrothed, little one?"
"Me? Never! Oh, you're teasing again."
"I'm sorry. How does the future husband die?"
"Um, an accident, or illness, or maybe in prison, like you were. Does that matter?"
He studied me gravely. "None of the causes you name matter. Especially the last. Maybe the woman says she won't marry again because she is suffering a broken heart."
"Is that the same as broken virtue?"
His eyebrows flew up.
"What's wrong?" I saw his neck then his ears turn to flame. "Please excuse me! Did I say something rude?"
"Not quite the same, Najin." He averted his eyes. "These are quite grown-up questions for a-um-young lady. These are subjects a girl might discuss with her mother."
"Oh!" Understanding by his response what I'd asked, I blushed just as deeply as he. "Oh!" I covered my mouth.
"Never mind. I'm your oppa, right? No secrets between us."
I was so humiliated that I said an abrupt goodbye, stammering that I had homework and I hoped he felt better soon. I ran from the room, trying to keep the image of his indulgent smile foremost, anything to mask my embarrassment at broaching such an unbelievably crude subject- with a man!
It was only a little later in my room that I began to suspect the appalling thing that had happened to Yee Sungsaeng-nim. I was distressed at the horror of it and frustrated by my ignorance and that I had no one to ask.
I USUALLY WALKED to and from school with Mun Jaeyun, with whom I shared a desk. She was the only child of the doctor who had stitched up my father's forehead on March First. Their house was halfway to school, and when I called at the gate, my friend would come running. We held hands and chatted about other girls and the allegiances and rivalries that seemed to come and go with every classroom period. We also talked about Yee Sunsaeng-nim, who seemed fine during the several weeks after our private conversation-even cheerful sometimes-despite her pallid complexion. But one morning in early October when we entered our classroom, we saw Principal Shin sitting at Sunsaeng-nim's desk, leafing through the day's lessons. I dropped my copybook and Jaeyun jostled into me. Frowning at the commotion, the principal told us to sit until all the other girls arrived. The ten-minute wait was an eternity. I held Jaeyun's sweaty hand under the desk, my own palm bloodless and cold. Everything seemed enlarged: the intake of breaths as one then another girl came in and saw Principal Shin in the teacher's chair, a bench scuffing, the sweet-sour smell of men's hair oil that now filled the front of the room, the chalk screeching as he wrote the day's schedule on the blackboard. I thought I heard my heart beating. All the girls had long been seated, and if he didn't say something soon, I felt I'd explode.
Principal Shin closed the door, faced the classroom and clasped his hands behind him. "Attention, girls," he said in a voice as soft as water. He cleared his throat and found his usual authoritative tone, "Attention, girls! I have bad news. Yee Sunsaeng-nim has died." Some girls cried out. Jaeyun put her head on the desk and her shoulders shook with sobs. I struck the desktop once with my fists as tears fell unnoticed on my books. In a corner of my mind, I thought how odd it was that we all knew something terrible had happened, and yet it still felt like a blow when Principal Shin finally said the words. I wanted to raise my hand to ask Yee Sunsaeng-nim about this curious power of words, and then I felt the loss, and buried my head in my hands.
"It's a very sudden ... a sudden illness that ... moreover, a tragedy for us all. You must pray for her soul. Let us pray." Amid weeping and sniffling, Principal Shin bowed his head. "Heavenly Father, give us comfort as we learn of this sudden loss of our honored teacher. Please help the young ones to understand this-so sudden, and that Sunsaeng-nim rests peacefully in heaven, well, and that Sunsaeng-nim ... And, moreover, with your great mercy, these students will only remember her with the greatest kindness, as we all do, and help us to study hard to honor our teacher's memory, and-" He cleared his throat and ended hastily.
The remainder of the day passed somehow. My head pounded and I couldn't stop crying. I blew my nose and remembered Yee Sunsaeng-nim loudly blowing her nose on the morning of our talk, and I cried again. By midday, a cold hardness settled inside me, and I felt empty and exhausted. Principal Shin tried to motivate us by saying that Yee Sunsaeng-nim would want us all to continue as before. "Think of how you can prove to everyone what a fine teacher she was! Moreover," he said, "your new teacher-yes, a new teacher will come soon-must see how well she taught you." He plowed through our lessons, visibly agitated by our unceasing tears, but not once did he lose his temper.
By the end of that long school day, I was sad and confused, yet also strangely alert. Jaeyun and I walked wordlessly to her house and clasped hands tightly before parting at her gate. I hugged my book bundle to my chest and headed home, the familiar roadway feeling as foreign and insignificant as the classroom was without Yee Sunsaeng-nim. What had really happened to her? I thought about the conversation we'd shared, and ached for her and what she must have endured. I didn't want to believe my heart, which told me she had ended her suffering herself. God didn't let victims of suicide enter heaven. I remembered the special sermon once given at church to condemn this method of preserving pride, made popular by tales of family betrayal and dishonorable love. I worried that her ghost would never rest, that she'd mourn her tragedies forever in the shadows of the classroom.
But I also believed that my teacher's spirit was now free, and that God would never turn away someone as good as Yee Sunsaeng-nim. I remembered what my mother had said about self-determination, and that I had understood it to mean I could decide things for myself. I raised my eyes to the treetops, to the swelling gray clouds and pure blue sky beyond. I would do as I had promised my teacher. I would be strong and become educated. And I would choose to believe what felt most true, that Yee Sunsaeng-nim was at peace, and that she would always be my teacher, looking down from heaven.
THAT NIGHT, THROUGH my bedroom window, the full moon cast faint silvery shadows until storm clouds hid its unmoving features. In bed, I smelled the tangy smoke of goldenrod and marigold flowers my mother burned in her brazier to chase mosquitoes from our quarters. When I told her about Sunsaeng-nim's death, she had cried out, then filled the afternoon with deep sighs and prayer. I said nothing about secrets or suicide. Mother told me that Sunsaeng-nim, a devout Christian, was in heaven. She read to me "in my Father's house are many mansions ..." and the beautiful words made me cry. The tears also came from my confusion at feeling both comforted and guilty, because my mother's assurances were misinformed. I longed to speak with her honestly. Praying with her had given me solace, but now alone in bed, these feelings troubled me. And I understood fully that my beloved teacher was not here and would never be again, and I grieved.
Wind rattled the shutters and the roof tiles hummed with rain. I wiped my face and rolled off the bedding onto the cool floor. As I closed my eyes, I saw images of my teacher drowned in a river, her body broken at the bottom of a ravine, her belly slashed with a dagger in the way I'd heard the Japanese committed seppuku seppuku to save honor. I saw her in a dark forest in the rain picking poisonous roots to boil into a deathly broth, her hair wet tendrils dripping tears down her agonized face. Was this her ghost come to haunt me? I shut my eyes tighter to pray, but only a promise to study hard came to mind. I repeated that promise again and again to the rhythm of the rain, until at last the graceful curve of Sunsaengnim's body moved across my vision and I saw her walking by the blackboard, in her hand a piece of chalk dancing like a spring blossom in a breeze, bowing gracefully to the tempo of the morning's recitations. to save honor. I saw her in a dark forest in the rain picking poisonous roots to boil into a deathly broth, her hair wet tendrils dripping tears down her agonized face. Was this her ghost come to haunt me? I shut my eyes tighter to pray, but only a promise to study hard came to mind. I repeated that promise again and again to the rhythm of the rain, until at last the graceful curve of Sunsaengnim's body moved across my vision and I saw her walking by the blackboard, in her hand a piece of chalk dancing like a spring blossom in a breeze, bowing gracefully to the tempo of the morning's recitations.