The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim Page A

happened?”
    “Do as I say!” She went out the porch to the courtyard, and I was alarmed to see her cut through the garden to reach Father’s rooms, where the lamps burned brightly.
    I cuddled Dongsaeng, humming until he quieted. I bent and held him on my back with one hand, and clumsily wound the binding cloth around my torso, tying it tightly until he felt snug against my spine. I gathered the dirty clothes and saw dark stains on the collar. Unbunching what I recognized was my father’s shirt, I smelled earth and metal before I saw that the garment was soaked with blood. I hugged the clothes and ran to the kitchen.
    “Is Father all right?” I showed Cook the bloodied shirt. “What happened?”
    “What did your mother say?” Cook stoked coals beneath a cauldron of steaming water.
    “Nothing!” I almost stamped my foot, impatient for information, and afraid. I remembered my mother’s instructions and took a breath. “She said to bring hot water and clean rags.”
    Cook shoved a block of wood into the stove and fetched a large ceramic bowl. Moving with speed, she rolled her sleeves down her wiry arms. “And what else?” She kicked a stool over to a cabinet, climbed up and grabbed a handful of folded cloths from a high shelf.
    “That Kira should wash these clothes. There’s blood—”
    “I see that. Do as your mother says. Kira’s out back.”
    “But is Father—”
    Cook carefully ladled boiling water into the crock. “Your father is hurt. Just above his eye, thank God. It’s messy but not deep. Joong went for the surgeon, who’s in with him now.” The spry woman tucked the ragsbeneath her arm and cradled the steaming crock in a towel. “Maybe you can help Kira wash those clothes.”
    I hurried outside. When she saw Father’s shirt Kira said, “Aigu!” and clucked her tongue. Frightened childish tears wet my cheeks.
    “Now then, Ahsee. You’ll wake the baby. See how nicely he’s sleeping? He must like riding on your back the best. Don’t worry. We can get the blood out. Look, I’ll show you how.”
    I wiped my nose and followed Kira, who plunked a tub on the washing platform near the drain ditch. The youthful water girl energetically filled the tub with a bucket from the cisterns. She crouched beside the tub, threw in a handful of salt and splashed cold water on the bloody clothes. “Ahsee, sit here.” She patted a dry spot beside her on the planks. “I’ll tell you what I saw and heard.”
    I squatted next to her, rocking from one foot to the other to keep the baby asleep. While Kira swished water through the clothes and patiently rubbed the stain with a worn bar of ashy soap, she spoke. She’d been filling the cisterns on Father’s side of the house when he came through the gate. “He walked normally, but he was holding this very sleeve against his head. I could see something was wrong and I said, ‘Master, how can I help?’ He told me to get Madam and Joong, and some towels. I did that, and when I brought the towels in, he was sitting on the porch saying he didn’t want to bloody the mats. He sent Joong for the doctor, and Madam tried to clean his wound. A lot of blood came from his head still.” Kira wrung the shirt and changed buckets.
    “I saw tears in your mother’s eyes,” she said with a kindly look to me. “But her hands were steady and calm. She said Cook should boil water and I should get fresh water and some clean clothes for the master. When I got back, I heard him talking. I waited a little apart before I went in. See how it’s almost gone?” She plunged the shirt in a second bucket and soaped it again. “Your father said that when they got to the police station no one knew what to do. They decided to go back to the church, but some of the young men disagreed. Then your mother saw me and said to put the clothes down and take the baby, but he was sleeping so peacefully, she changed her mind and told me to go.”
    Kira tipped the washtub and poured bloodied water