Outrage erased my fear. "It's Her Highness! Sister to the grand prince and princess, she must-"
"It is forbidden!" The guards seemed to expand with severity. I saw the red-eyed guard behind the two in front. He looked straight ahead with the same iron face as the others. I stared at him until I felt my eyes had struck him as sharply as that silly toy had the day before, a lifetime before, but he remained impassive, hateful and impassive.
"Come, Your Highness," said a lady-in-waiting. "Best that we rest."
We returned to her sitting room where we remained until night fell. The women lamented loudly, a sound that sometimes helped release into tears the grief held within our bodies, and also sometimes seemed pointless and irritating. I wanted to shout, "Let her mourn in peace! Let her pray for her brother, her family, and let her voice her fears." She did not have Jesus in her vocabulary, but she could appeal to Heaven to reward the soul of the emperor, and for the merciful future of her vanquished family.
The servants had more mobility than we did, and so desperate were we for news that we relied on them to pass messages through the kitchen. At lunch came word that my aunt, who'd come from church to walk me home, was with the empress. When we asked for fresh water, we learned that the minister of rites and certain Japanese officials had visited the empress to speak of funeral preparations. At dinner the death of the tasting maid was confirmed, and at bedtime snack came news that the emperor's cause of death was ascribed to apoplexy. I remembered the spider-knobbed hands of Dr. Hakugi when in the past he'd examined the princess, who often had headaches. I could envision his spindly face and wiry mouth attesting to the emperor's cerebral hemorrhage, apoplexy, with the professional confidence of a longtime falsifier.
I stayed with Princess Deokhye that night, sitting by her bedside with the strong maid, the eunuch posted outside her door. I dozed until the princess woke with sad tears or nightmares. I felt my mother's spirit and her dream of water, of women's resilience, with me, and regardless of propriety or prohibition, I softly sang hymns to help the princess fall asleep again, to bring something pure and good to the room. There was no way to know if news of the emperor's death had yet reached outside the palace.
We were detained at Sugang Hall for nine days. I sent word to Imo and the empress through the servants that we were unharmed, and received similar reassurances from Imo. On the tenth day, Imo was released and allowed to stop in at the princess's house for a short while before taking me to her house. She told us what she knew about the days ahead. My imo looked determined and strong, if somewhat tired, and I was relieved to have her near. I hadn't realized my degree of fear until I felt the safety of her presence, the comfort of her flower and citrus smell. Then I felt guilty because Princess Deokhye could not share this relief.
By then, news of the emperor's death had reached the city and had quickly spread throughout the country. While spontaneous demonstrations of outrage and sadness, and cries for independence clogged the town squares and city plazas, rumors about the cause of his death and about his mental health continued to propagate. To mollify the people, a formal state funeral was slated for several weeks later, June 10, which would bestow the proper Confucian burial rites to the last emperor of Korea. In the meantime, Imo would send me home to Gaeseong for my safety, while she would continue to do what little she could to support the few survivors of the once-great Yi royal family.
Imo said it was time to leave the palace. Although I had been waiting for this moment all the past nine days, it felt too abrupt. I thought it was similar to the fate that had shadowed the palace and the royal family for decades. The Yunghui emperor's unnatural death had always been feared, and imminent, and yet its occurrence felt sudden and unexpected. I said my goodbyes to the staff and bowed low to the princess, saying all the formalities of honorable thanks and farewell in the special language reserved for royalty. My eyes were wet, but my voice was as steady and sure as the training I had received. I did not look up as I left the room, though I knew I would never again see the princess. I heard her tearful voice saying goodbye, and, softly, "You are my friend."
Imo and I walked across the courtyards that had become as familiar to me as my father's front yard. We passed beneath the top-heavy south gate where our papers were checked and checked again, and went home on roads empty except for policemen or mounted soldiers who guarded every turn.
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER, long after the failed second national demonstration on June 10, the emperor's funeral day, we heard through the underground that seven thousand additional troops had been dispatched specifically to suppress the uprising the Japanese had anticipated for this last emperor's funeral. Bamboo rakes, sticks, pitchforks and raised fists were no match for swords, guns and military precision. Not long after the funeral, the princess and the royal family and some of their staff were taken to Tokyo. Rumor had it that the strong maid carried the princess on her back as they left Changdeok Palace, which was soon emptied of all but peeling gilt and ghosts of a glorious dynasty that had lasted five hundred years.
PART II.
Higher Education
Riding the Bicycle
SPRING 1926 SUMMER 1928
TRAVELING HOME ON THE TRAIN, I LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW AND noticed that my line of sight now reached above the center bar, proving how much I'd grown in the two years since leaving Gaeseong. I recalled that sad yet exciting journey, which seemed so long ago, and smiled inwardly, remembering how Imo had called me Monsoon Wind. The train lumbered to the outskirts of the capital. Having grown accustomed to swept courtyards and pruned gardens, I saw squalor all around me, even in the first-class compartment. On the other side of the car a middle-aged Japanese couple in Western clothes ate lunch in their armchairs, the man's newspaper strewn on the floor, the woman's painted lips shiny with oily fish. They whispered to each other and sent occasional curious glances my way.
I sat erect, my hands calmly folded as if to straighten with my posture the riot of wires barring my view of the sky. I stole peeks at the woman's skin-colored stockings and high-heeled shoes buckled tidily across the arch, and at the light fabric of the woman's peach-colored dress clinging to her curves.
The train shuddered as it turned on an overlook of the Han River, and engine smoke blew through the compartment. I coughed and covered my nose with a handkerchief. In its folds I smelled the jasmine incense that Imo had constantly burned in her brazier to mask the sewer odors from the street. My eyes blurred with tears. No one knew what fate awaited Imo. Forbidden to leave the city and fearful of her unknown future, she had quickly arranged for my traveling permits and ticket home, spoiling me once again with her generous insistence on the best ticket. When we parted on the station platform, I wept to express my gratitude and love, for words were inadequate. She held my hands tightly and murmured uncharacteristic praise, calling me Beloved Daughter. Neither of us said when we might meet again.
The Japanese man shut the window with a loud snap. "I'll open it again when the fumes aren't blowing in." I lowered my head in courtesy. He bent, then twisted to arrest his bow to me, and returned to his seat frowning. He told his wife to gather the scattered newspaper and wrap the fish bones. Conscious of his stare, I kept my eyes averted.
"Going to Gaeseong?" He crossed a leg, his foot in the outer rim of my vision.
I nodded, noticing a darned patch on the back of his sock.
"Might I ask why?"
Startled by the polite tone he used, I looked at him. His dark eyes crinkled with warmth.
"My home is there, sir."
"Why, she speaks perfectly!" the woman said, and they both smiled at me. "How did you learn to speak so well?" She folded the trash in a neat package and wiped her mouth and hands on a train towel. She opened her pocketbook and applied lipstick-a crude display of vanity, I thought.
My Japanese had grown refined at the palace, but I wouldn't say so. "In public school, sir." I'd completed the required two years of upper school and was just then missing the graduation ceremony. I had hoped to apply to Ewha Professional School, but that hope faded with the same smoke that now put Seoul behind me. The school's original name had been Ewha Women's College, but as with many other places and positions in Korea, its status had been demoted by the Japanese, who attempted to limit Korean women to vocational training, or believed we weren't capable or worthy of academic achievement. Ewha was built by the American missionaries in 1886 as Korea's first girls' school, and over the years had grown in size and stature as Korea's only women's college. It maintained its prestige despite its loss of academic labeling, and though most of the school's administrators were Japanese, nearly all the teachers were Korean. I longed to attend.
"There, you see?" said the woman. "Not a farm girl. I told you her clothes are too richly made."
I lowered my eyes, annoyed at being the subject of their guessing game. My blouse and skirt were traditional white, plain, but the linen was finely combed, the stitching tight and invisible, my collar newly sewn in that morning. I thought of the colorful silks and brocades that Imo had insisted I take home, packed in a large old suitcase of hers now on the baggage rack at the end of the car, sure I'd never wear such showy clothes again.
"You see," said the woman, her voice light and friendly. "You look the same age as his students, yet here you are during examinations traveling alone in first class. And most of his students have the most horrid Japanese. We've wondered if Korean girls are capable of speaking properly at all! So you've piqued our curiosity."
The woman's rudeness made it possible to ask my own questions. "Pardon me, sir, but are you a teacher?"
"At one time, yes," he said. "Literature and history."
His wife broke in, "Most recently, dean of admissions at Ewha!"
"How prestigious!" I said to flatter and supplement the woman's crows of pride. "I've wanted to attend-"
"And why not?" The woman clutched her husband's arm. "Give her your card, won't you? Such a pretty thing and well spoken! Think how it would be if all the girls were as civilized as she."
I had often seen this attitude from my schoolteachers and was practiced at hiding my reactions.
"Have you a certificate from secondary school?" The man dug in his chest pocket.
"I graduated this year while visiting my aunt in Seoul. I-I took the Ewha entrance examinations last month." Imo had urged me to take the exams, saying, "Sown soybeans, reaped soybeans!" She'd given me a box of lead pencils for the occasion as well as the examination fees, which Father had neglected-or refused-to send.
"Good! And did you do well?"
"Yes, sir." Modesty required silence about my first-place score.
The man watched me carefully. "Very well. I'll look it up." He handed me a fountain pen and two little cards. "Give me your name and that of your upper school, then apply as soon as you can. We're considering applications now."
I'd seen such pens used, but had never handled one. I opened it, heavy and cold with gold trim, and formally wrote my name in Chinese characters on one of his cards. I relished the pen's easy flow of ink, and by the third syllable of my name, had mastered its ability to replicate the departure of brush from paper in a delicate swash, despite the bumpiness of the train. I returned the pen and extended the wet card between my fingertips. The man wiped the pen and scrubbed his palms with his handkerchief. "Han Najin," he said professorially. "Beautifully done, but why don't you write in Japanese?"
My cheeks flushed. They would be narrow enough to diminish the most ancient and elegant of letterforms in all of Asia, but Japan had perennial-and lately, escalating-problems with China. I remembered the proverb "The lower stream runs as clear as the upper stream," and swallowed. Besides, it seemed this man-who thoroughly wiped his pen after I had touched it-had no official capacity to do me harm, and could be quite helpful should I ever find the opportunity to apply to Ewha. "My apologies, sir! I have much to learn."
"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, I added, "I was honored to see Father's screens in the palace." Long pause. "Imo-nim sends greetings and blessings for good health."
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 repercussions. We were fined for the missing goods and tools, but Father said it was the least we could do."
That Mother imparted these kinds of details to me proved I had indeed grown up, and beneath my worry for Joong and our family's situation, it made me feel proud. I swore I'd be worthy of her acceptance of me as a young woman.
"It happened about a year ago," said Mother. "There were so many refugees here after Kanto, they had to give them land or businesses to work. So the laws changed again, and another land reform ..." She was referring to the Great Kanto Earthquake, which had completely devastated Tokyo, killing thousands and causing hundreds of thousands to flee to Korea for the many new opportunities the government had carved out for earthquake victims. I'd seen Japanese in all jobs and styles of life in Seoul but thought it had always been that way in the capital since the annexation. I now realized it was probably as much of a new influx of Japanese citizens as my mother was describing, a condition that might have contributed to the empire's last breath.
"Much has changed." Mother's lips set and she put the rice bowl aside. "Save this for the men's porridge tomorrow."
In the kitchen I exchanged the rice for millet, then returned. "Joong must be missing his family."
"We thought he might join them, but it seems that he and Kira are betrothed." She beamed. "Their own choice. I don't know why I didn't see it, especially since now their happiness seems to fill the house! Your father is agreeable."
We talked quietly through breakfast. I described the last few weeks at the palace, without mentioning my fears for Imo. Nor did I mention that seeing Mother now made me realize how deeply I had missed her, how essentially I loved and needed her, how grateful I was that she'd sent me to Seoul. She relayed outrageous market prices and news of church families, without mentioning how much she'd missed me, how proud she was of me, how happy she was that I was home, and safe. I had learned to read the meanings behind the politeness of things not said, and for this I was also grateful. And finally, I didn't mention Dean Shinohara's card, which I'd tucked into the Chinese-English phrasebook still hidden in my room. Hearing about the farm prevented me from raising the subject.
Mother said Hansu's parents were well, pleased with his excellent marks from Soongsil Academy in Pyeongyang. With a sideways glance, she said that my old friend Jaeyun had enrolled in the nursing program at Ewha for the coming term. My face remained impassive, but my stomach turned with envy. She also said the public upper schools were now entirely Japanese, and Father planned to send Dongsaeng to a private school in Seoul, following his graduation in two years. I filed this information into the beginnings of a plan. My mother started to take the tray, but I told her I was home now and she could go back to her morning reading. We reviewed the household and gardening schedule, and I made her agree to let me do the heaviest work.
After unpacking my trunk, which Joong had delivered, I spent the morning with Dongsaeng. At seven years old, he'd grown up to my hanbok ties, his hair closely shaved in the required schoolboy cut. I marveled at all he showed me: his favorite rooster in the pen by the kitchen garden, the rock he fell on by the pond that caused the dragon-shaped scar on his knee, bamboo canes he saved for sword fights with schoolmates. I noticed a larger chicken coop and counted numerous hens. I also saw that the azalea, peony and iris gardens had been demolished in favor of cucumbers, squash, beans, peppers, potatoes and cabbage. Dongsaeng led me to his study to examine his schoolwork. "And see!" He handed me a crumpled sheet. "I wrote you a sijo."
The crying bird that flew away, took breath and light and laughs that day.No toys to share, my games are hung, my clapping songs are halfway sung.More suns, more moons, and yet I play. The bird, I know, for me she prays.
These lines moved me to the same gratitude I'd felt with Mother, and I was astounded by their sensitivity from one so young. "Wonderful! How beautifully you write." I crouched by his desk. "I'm sorry you were sad. I'll keep the poem forever. Thank you, Dongsaeng."
He shrugged. "Who cares?"
I tweaked his ear. "Such talk! Are you studying for entrance exams?"