“Yes, that would be tremendously helpful, thank you,” he said with a smile in his bright blue eyes, which had stayed young even as his red hair climbed higher on his forehead and his body took on the pendulous hints of middle age. As he was searching for a way to bring their meeting to a close, someone knocked quietly on the door.
“Come in,” the principal said in English. But her face showed surprise when a beautiful young Korean woman walked in, blushing brightly from nerves.
“May I ask what this is regarding?” The principal switched to an unexpectedly firm and flexible Korean that she’d acquired in the past two decades. The young woman looked shocked at hearing her language come out of a white person’s mouth.
“I’m Hesook’s mother,” the woman said in Korean, then added in English, “I am here to talk about her.”
“Oh, yes, of course! I am sorry, now I remember,” the principal said in a mixture of Korean and English. She rose from her chair in greeting and Curtice followed, giving a slight nod of the head in the woman’s direction. “I should get going,” he indicated with his eyes to his host. But she signaled that he should sit and wait for this short, unimportant meeting to finish, and he obeyed.
“Please sit down,” the principal told the new guest, who shyly slid between a chair and the coffee table and settled down, resting her white hands on her lavender skirt. As sometimes happens when meeting a stranger who is either unquestionably good-looking or ugly, the principal and Curtice were startled by the woman, who was remarkably pretty. Out of their good breeding, however, they both behaved as if they hadn’t noticed. Curtice looked out the window to show that he didn’t wish to intrude on their meeting. A warm breeze was coming in from the courtyard, causing the white linen curtains to flap around.
“I teach only the senior girls myself, so I don’t know Hesook well,” the principal said in English. “But from what her teacher tells me, Hesook is a very bright girl.”
“Thank you,” the woman said quietly with a bow.
“She’s never caused any trouble before, so we were surprised when she got into a fight with a few of the other girls. It appears that those girls were taunting Hesook, but she was the one who started kicking and punching. Do you understand?” the principal said in a stern voice that she used indiscriminately on troublesome students, faculty, and visitors alike.
“Yes, I do,” the woman said meekly, studying her lap.
“Those girls were making fun of Hesook for not having a father, which is a terrible thing, but I can’t have anyone who acts violently at the school.”
“You mean, you’re expelling Hesook?” The woman became agitated and looked straight into the principal’s eyes. “No, she is just a young girl. She made a mistake . . .” She switched to Korean and appeared to beg for forgiveness. Still seated awkwardly at the table, Curtice resisted the urge to intervene and say to the principal, Why not just let this one go?
“I know that Hesook is young, which is why this time it’s only a warning,” the principal said. “But please, have a talk with her about not fighting. I won’t be so lenient next time.”
“Thank you, thank you so much,” the woman said in English, bowing deeply at the waist.
Having overheard snatches of the conversation, Curtice wondered to himself who this stranger could possibly be. She looked young enough to be a student at the school, and it was also curious that she spoke English. Soon, his curiosity was partially satisfied: when the principal asked her where she had learned the language, the woman explained that she’d been taught by her aunt, who had been a student at this school.
After the visitor left, the principal turned to Curtice and said, “I’m sorry about that. She could have waited for us to finish, but . . .”
“No, it was no trouble, I didn’t mind at all,” Curtice said. “Who is she?”
“Just the mother of one of our students,” the principal replied.
“She looks much too young to be a mother.” The deputy consul raised his eyebrows, not bothering to conceal his thoughts. “She speaks English. You don’t think a married woman could possibly want to work at the consulate—?”
“She is not married, Mr. Curtice, although I highly doubt she’d want to be a translator or a secretary,” the principal said tartly. Curtice blushed, wondering how he’d offended her. The principal was at least ten years older than he was, and they had always had a mutually respectful, sexless dynamic. Nevertheless, it was clear that his interest in this stranger made her feel indignant and insulted.
“She’s—what’s known as a giseng. A very successful one, I hear. Her daughter doesn’t have a father,” the principal pronounced, clasping her hands together on her lap, as though that would be the end of that discussion.
Curtice looked out the window again so as not to betray his astonishment. A sudden thought came to his mind that if he could see the stranger crossing the courtyard, he would take it as a sign. A sign of what? He didn’t know yet. A light breeze lifted a veil of dust and carried it up to the blue sky. When Curtice was beginning to feel afraid that he’d been looking away too long, that the principal would be offended by his inattention, the woman in the lavender skirt appeared in the frame of the window. Amid the pink sand that was blowing up, she looked a little like a traveler crossing the desert.
*