I knelt on the floor, clasped my hands and squeezed my eyes shut. I tried to do as Mother said, but my head was filled with confusion and angry questions, my body anxious with fears that prayerful words couldn’t assuage. The mat felt rough against my ankles, and I wondered if my father’s prison cell had flooring. Was he alone or with others? I hoped his stomach wasn’t bothering him as it did when he was upset with me. I promised God that I’d be respectful to my father forever and would always be ladylike, someone who’d never be a bother to him again. I’d never forget he needed elegance and beauty around him, and I’d do all I could to provide that. I would eliminate my gangly manners and unruly ways, if only he would come home safely. The more promises I made, the more I felt alone and incompetent. I knew it was bad to think that God didn’t really care about my family or me, but it seemed an easy truth.
The remainder of the day passed with unusual quiet. Joong came and went once more with letters, and Mother kept to her room with the baby, praying. I sat for awhile inside my open doorway and listened. My mother’s murmured prayers seeped down the hall and reached my hungry ears, the unintelligible sounds giving me more assurance than any prayer I could voice. When the hallway grew silent, I tried to study for an arithmetic test and eventually fell asleep on papers carelessly scrawled with long division—homework from a time when homework mattered.
SEVEN DAYS PASSED, the house somber with the relentless strain of not knowing and waiting. A quick look out the gate showed dozens of posters fluttering from tree trunks and fence posts. They pronounced a curfew and listed names of agitators. I almost stuck my entire head out to see more, until I saw two soldiers come out of the near alley dragging something across the street. I withdrew and quickly, quietly latched the gate, my chest pounding with what I’d seen.
Mother and I sewed and prayed together for many hours, which simultaneously irritated me, gave me calm and left me sleepy. Sewing was an endless chore. Skirts, pants and tops were deconstructed before laundering so the fabric would fold perfectly flat and we could beat out the wrinkles with two smooth sticks. Stitch after stitch, threading one needle after another, I grew resentful of the necessity for Confucian perfection in dress. With Mother’s help, I had begun studying the Four Books for Women. Though written in Korean, the vernacular was archaic and difficult, and many proper nouns were in Chinese characters. Schoolwork in Japanese and Korean had taken precedence over home studies, which left me weak in Chinese writing. I had recently read that a virtuous woman ensured that every member of the household was impeccably and properly clothed according to class and family position. As my neck cramped over the exacting work, my head was abuzz with resentment. Who cared about impeccable shirts and virtuous dress when my father was in prison?
Among unnamed errands that made my mother venture daily beyond the gate with Joong, she took as much food as she could carry to the prison. When she returned, her face was always gray, her eyes dark, their expression hidden. There was no way to know if the rice was actually delivered to any of the prisoners. The unusually temperate days and the sweet smells of spring were an affront to our vigil. Playing with Dongsaeng was a distracting, guilty relief. On Monday Mother said the authorities had announced that all businesses must reopen, and children were required to return to school. She refused to let me go. She herself did not visit the market, and we ate dried fish left over from winter storage. I wasn’t allowed to leave the estate, and I assumed that Mother was too afraid to have me outside our walls. In the meantime, we waited for news about Father.
On the seventeenth night after his arrest, I woke to scratching sounds at the front gate. My eyes snapped
The remainder of the day passed with unusual quiet. Joong came and went once more with letters, and Mother kept to her room with the baby, praying. I sat for awhile inside my open doorway and listened. My mother’s murmured prayers seeped down the hall and reached my hungry ears, the unintelligible sounds giving me more assurance than any prayer I could voice. When the hallway grew silent, I tried to study for an arithmetic test and eventually fell asleep on papers carelessly scrawled with long division—homework from a time when homework mattered.
SEVEN DAYS PASSED, the house somber with the relentless strain of not knowing and waiting. A quick look out the gate showed dozens of posters fluttering from tree trunks and fence posts. They pronounced a curfew and listed names of agitators. I almost stuck my entire head out to see more, until I saw two soldiers come out of the near alley dragging something across the street. I withdrew and quickly, quietly latched the gate, my chest pounding with what I’d seen.
Mother and I sewed and prayed together for many hours, which simultaneously irritated me, gave me calm and left me sleepy. Sewing was an endless chore. Skirts, pants and tops were deconstructed before laundering so the fabric would fold perfectly flat and we could beat out the wrinkles with two smooth sticks. Stitch after stitch, threading one needle after another, I grew resentful of the necessity for Confucian perfection in dress. With Mother’s help, I had begun studying the Four Books for Women. Though written in Korean, the vernacular was archaic and difficult, and many proper nouns were in Chinese characters. Schoolwork in Japanese and Korean had taken precedence over home studies, which left me weak in Chinese writing. I had recently read that a virtuous woman ensured that every member of the household was impeccably and properly clothed according to class and family position. As my neck cramped over the exacting work, my head was abuzz with resentment. Who cared about impeccable shirts and virtuous dress when my father was in prison?
Among unnamed errands that made my mother venture daily beyond the gate with Joong, she took as much food as she could carry to the prison. When she returned, her face was always gray, her eyes dark, their expression hidden. There was no way to know if the rice was actually delivered to any of the prisoners. The unusually temperate days and the sweet smells of spring were an affront to our vigil. Playing with Dongsaeng was a distracting, guilty relief. On Monday Mother said the authorities had announced that all businesses must reopen, and children were required to return to school. She refused to let me go. She herself did not visit the market, and we ate dried fish left over from winter storage. I wasn’t allowed to leave the estate, and I assumed that Mother was too afraid to have me outside our walls. In the meantime, we waited for news about Father.
On the seventeenth night after his arrest, I woke to scratching sounds at the front gate. My eyes snapped
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