Mira Stout - One Thousand Chestnut Trees

By suppertime it was cool outside. My mother closed the papered screen door overlooking the flower garden and lit the dining-room lanterns. We all sat round the low mahogany table keenly looking forward to eating. Jin-ho’s hands, for once, passed inspection, so there was no delay.

My mother ladled out the mandu-guk – dumpling soup – and then we had rice, hot kimchi , steamed bracken stalks with sesame oil, dressed cucumber, radish, spinach and beansprouts, toasted seaweed, and marinated grilled chicken slices dipped in spicy bean sauce and wrapped in fresh lettuce leaves, followed by juicy scarlet strawberries. Our meals were very simple, but delicious, with everything fresh from our farm.

Toward the end of supper, there was a sound outside the door; someone clearing their throat. We all looked up in surprise, and my father got up to slide back the screen. There, accompanied by a maidservant, was Yong-lae’s wife, in tears, black hair loose and flowing. She apologized for interrupting, but said she must speak with us.

Jin-ho and I glanced at each other, electrified with excitement.

‘Of course, of course,’ said my father, standing up. My mother also rose, gently touching her sister-in-law’s forearm and stood before her, shielding her from our inquisitive eyes.

‘Children, go into the library and play, take Myung-hi, and make sure she doesn’t disturb any of your father’s things,’ instructed my mother.

Jin-ho and I bowed obediently, but pouted in our mother’s direction to express our maximum disappointment at this cruel exclusion. I dragged Myung-hi by the arm into the study, leaving the door pointedly open. Jin-ho and I immediately slithered out and regrouped by the dining-room door, which was slightly ajar. Myung-hi sat on her fat bottom in the corridor looking at us quizzically.

Jin-ho stuck his ear to the crack in the door. I shoved him aside to make room for myself, and with a sly tilt to my head, caught a narrow slice of Yong-lae’s wife’s face, twisted in distress. We only rarely saw her. She was very pretty, despite her tears and streaming hair, and wore a sumptuous midnight-blue silk gown edged in white satin. She was unbearably glamorous.

‘… and the groom found him in a ditch, he had been robbed. His pockets were reversed and empty, the horse was nowhere to be seen. Unconscious. The groom had to fetch help from the farmer, and take him on his own horse … He was in Seoul for three days … and there is no more money. Our children are always asking me where he is. What can I do? How shall I manage? … my own family will not give me any money; they know he will just squander it. They say he is making a fool of me,’ said Ok-ja, sobbing into her fine handkerchief.

My mother tried to calm her with soft words, but one could see that the situation was worse than she knew how to cope with. She looked at my father for prompting. My father was silent, his face drawn with worry.

‘Somehow we will help you. Please continue to be brave. For your children too. We will do what we can. I will speak with him, but you must be prepared for him to carry on. You know how he is. But you were right to come to me,’ said Father. My mother handed her a beaker of ginseng tea.

Jin-ho and I looked at each other with coy satisfaction at the quality of entertainment being offered. Then Jin-ho sneezed. My mother rushed to the door hissing admonitions, grabbed our elbows, swooped up Myung-hi, and propelled us into our rooms.

‘Children. You are wrong to listen at doors. Very naughty. You mustn’t repeat to anyone what you have heard, and you must learn to obey your father and me. Where do you learn such habits? This is grown-up business, and that is that. You will soon be old enough to have your own worries, so be glad not knowing.’

‘But I’m not tired, mother, and it’s so interesting ,’ said Jin-ho, smiling his most charming smile. A lock of shiny hair caught in his long, blinking eyelashes. You couldn’t help adoring him. Mother told him to go to bed anyway, and not to be fresh, but her anger had disappeared.

‘I’m not tired either,’ I echoed.

‘Oh, yes you are. You went all the way to market today. And you mustn’t argue, Myung-ja! Your father is not happy with the way you imitate your brother’s bad habits. By the way, get up early tomorrow, Jin-ho. We are going to your grandparents’ for the day. No reading all night in bed. No singing and dancing on the mattress either. Up early, Jin-ho, remember.’

Jin-ho shrugged his shoulders and trudged off to bed without saying good-night to anyone. It was true that he’d been more disobedient than usual of late. Mother stroked my cheek absently, and tucked me in after putting Myung-hi to bed. Myung-hi cried again to remind everyone that she still had a point of view, even lying down. I went to sleep looking forward to tomorrow, and wondering about our aunt in the beautiful gown. What would father be able to do for them? Would uncle go to jail for being such a bad husband?

It was a beautiful, mild morning. Jin-ho and I were terribly excited about going to our grandparents’, not only because of the novelty of their seaside household, which was filled with cousins and other exotica, but because the visit would involve a ride in the estate’s glamorous black Packard, which my father would be borrowing for the day. Grandfather Min was the first in the province to have bought a motorcar.

‘Eat more!’ instructed my mother, urging me to finish the rice in my bowl.

‘But I’m not hungry!’

‘You will be – when we’re halfway there. Have more kimchi.’

I frowned, and forced myself to finish breakfast. Jin-ho was already in the car, sitting behind the steering wheel on my father’s lap. Even on my father’s lap, he could not see much over the wheel, so gigantic was the car’s chassis. Jin-ho was not at all mechanically adept, but liked the flattering image of himself as a motor-racing driver.

Once we were out on the dirt road I pretended to be a princess, making a state visit. The landscape floated by in a dream. I waved to the cherry blossoms, pretending they were loving subjects, and bowed my head modestly to the ginko tree courtiers and bracken ladies-in-waiting. Sadly, we were only going six miles.

We drove very slowly up a winding hill encircled by tall pines and zigzagged blue peaks, and there, on a breathtaking clifftop lay my mother’s family estate. Jin-ho and I cheered with excitement, and Myung-hi imitated us, her joy causing a strand of saliva to hang from her chin.

Father drove around to the stables at the back of the house, and parked next to one of the traps. We burst out of the car, and patted the warm muzzles of the horses. The air smelt delicious; sharp and briny from the sea, and fragrant with acacia-blossom. My mother gave Jin-ho a basket of honeyed rice cakes to offer to our grandmother. As we approached the stone steps, Jin-ho pinched off a corner from one of the cakes and ate it with provocative gusto. Father frowned, and meant it.

The house was far less grand than our grandfather Min’s, which had many wings for servants, tutors, guests, and visiting family, courtyards, pavilions, a temple, outbuildings and stables, and serfs’ cottages in separate enclosures. Although simple, our grandfather Kang’s home had the most unforgettable garden and position looking out to sea.

The Kangs were landowning gentry. Unlike Grandfather Min, Grandfather Kang had no burdensome title, and had never been obliged to perform the grinding administrative duties incumbent on men of the Mins’ rank. Kang’s sunny, youthful demeanor reflected the fact that he spent most of his time engaged in his greatest pleasures: gardening, fishing, and eating.

When we arrived, plump, balding Grandfather Kang was out on one of the terraces in his elegant grey linen jugori and white paji trousers fingering the leaf of an azalea bush with rapt consideration. He smiled and waved us down to show us a new addition to his exotic specimens.