Honolulu by Alan Brennert Read Free Book Online

the fire in Obedience’s eyes. She said tartly, “It is enough for you to know that we are acquainted,” and I wisely never broached the subject with her again.
    Which is not to say I didn’t broach it to Evening Rose, but when I asked her the same question she merely replied, “I am not free to discuss that with you,” and I decided that further pursuit of this question was futile.
    My teacher went on to demonstrate to me how letters were stacked and combined in syllable blocks, and the syllables then joined to create words. When I correctly deciphered the first word she presented to me, I was so happy and proud that I actually burst into tears, which seemed to both startle and move her.
    She then gave me a grade-school primer, not unlike the ones I had seen my brothers reading from, and tasked me with reading the simple wordscat, dog, house, sky, mother, father-therein. Over the next several sessions, as my reading skills gradually increased, so did my writing ability. Soon I was stacking vowel upon consonant, consonant upon vowel … and as the syllables combined into words flowing out of my pen, I exulted in a joy and a confidence I had never felt before.
    “Well,” Evening Rose said, pleased, “you seem to have a gift for language.”
    “The gift is yours, teacher.”
    “My teaching skills are minimal. I have a talented student.”
    I beamed with pleasure at this rare compliment. My initial shock and dismay at my teacher’s profession had receded to a faint reproof in my mind. It seemed, after all, a small thing compared to what I was receiving from her.
    That wonderful, thrilling week in Taegu passed all too quickly. At the end of it I had grasped the rudiments of something I had only dreamed of. the power to take meaning from words. It was a gift I knew I could never truly repay, but I wished to give my teacher something, so I filched one of the bottles of rice wine we had brought for Aunt Obedience and presented it to Evening Rose on our last day of lessons. She accepted it graciously and bowed. “Know that you are welcome to return again anytime,” she said, then turned away.
    I started to leave the room, when behind me I heard my teacher say, “Your parents were wrong, you know.”
    I looked back at her. “What?”
    “When they named you. They were wrong.” She gave me a soft smile. “To these eyes, you are a rare and beautiful gem.”
    I smiled and left, my heart soaring like a kite.
    Later, when I went into Aunt Obedience’s room to deliver her some ginseng tea Mother had made, I demonstrated to her how I could now write simple words. “You are a smart girl,” she said, looking pleased and proud. “You will make something of your life.”
    “I can’t thank you enough, Auntie, for all you’ve done for me,” and I kissed her on the cheek. Flustered, she changed the subject.
    Back in Pojogae, I found a moment alone and surreptitiously took out the browned old page I had kept all these years. Evening Rose had identified it, sight unseen, as from a travel book by a woman writing as Lady Uiyudang; and now I let my eyes drift across the columns of printed symbols. To my delight the word moon jumped off the page at me. Then sea, and night, and sun, the words blazing like stars in a paper sky. I did not, of course, recognize all the words-but I identified enough to transform the page from a mysterious and unfathomable riddle into something nearly comprehensible, and thrillingly attainable.
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    Blossom wanted to know everything about our trip, but I worried that a child as young as she might let slip something to my parents, so I withheld the full truth from her. I fell back into my old routine-cooking, sewing, housekeeping, washing. But having walked the streets of Taegu unescorted-and glimpsed an even broader world beyond that, through words-I found myself chafing even more within the limited confines of the Inner Room.
    Doing laundry at the stream, I found that Sunny had a new enthusiasm, and