Chapter Twenty-Four
We took the KTX from Seoul Station to Daejeon on the morning of Wednesday, March of 2026.
We took the first train at six-twenty-three a.m.
He had said: Your grandmother in Daejeon, on the phone call at three-eleven, said the four days are the four days the jeong-seol of the paje-line has given the five-instrument arrangement to learn the grammar.
He had said: The grammar is not the one creature's at the north side of the low table. The grammar is, by seventy-three years of cedar-box discipline, mine to know — but it is not mine to teach. The grammar is, by the paje-line as it carries onward, your grandmother in Daejeon's to teach.
He had said: Han-ssi. Go to Daejeon.
I had said: With.
I had said: With the four-tailed creature of the north slope.
He had not, at the low table, blinked.
He had said, in the careful Joseon-scholar voice of a creature whose own four-hundred-year discipline had ended:
I had said: Sajangnim. The four-tailed creature of the north slope is, by the private hour at the second pillar of B3 at seven-sixteen on Saturday morning, the one creature on the five-instrument arrangement whose own line is — by the reincarnated creature of the Joseon-court line at the Cheong Wa Dae annex in Samcheong-dong who was, in 1953, the senior of her own one-hundred-and-eleven-year discipline at the north slope — the one line whose own creature my grandmother in Daejeon, by seventy-nine years, would, on the first reading of her at the pine gate of the herb garden in Daejeon, recognize.
I had said: I recognize him.
I had said: The recognition is the one piece my grandmother in Daejeon has not yet, on the phone call at three-eleven, been given by me.
I had said: The grandmother in Daejeon will, on the morning of the first train from Seoul Station at six-twenty-three on Wednesday morning of March 2026, with the four-tailed creature of the north slope at the half-step behind, be given the one piece.
I had said: The grandmother in Daejeon, by seventy-nine years, will — on the first reading of the four-tailed creature — decide whether the four-tailed creature of the north slope is — by the five-instrument arrangement at the low table on the Tuesday afternoon — the one creature my grandmother will accept as the instrument the paje-line, on the morning of the seventh of the fifth month four days from the first train, requires.
I had said: If my grandmother in Daejeon, on the first reading, does not accept the four-tailed creature of the north slope.
I had said: Then on the morning of the seventh of the fifth month, by my own grandmother in Daejeon, the four-tailed creature will not, by the paje-line, be on the ascent of the east shoulder of Inwangsan.
I had said: Sajangnim. Are you accepting that.
He had bowed.
Forty-five degrees.
He had held the bow.
He had straightened.
He had said, in the clear Joseon-scholar voice of a creature whose own four-hundred-year discipline had ended:
Yes, Han-ssi. I am accepting that.
He had said: Take Min-ji-ssi as well. The paje-line younger sister is, by the jeong-seol of the paje-line, the one creature on the five-instrument arrangement your grandmother in Daejeon, by the jeong-seol on the Cheongju grave of her own mother — and by the private grammar of seven generations of Daegu-coded barley tea — has already accepted.
He had said: Mr. Kang and I, on the four days, will stay at the Bukchon compound.
He had said: Come back on Saturday.
He had said: Whatever the one piece your grandmother in Daejeon has, on the first reading, given the four-tailed creature of the north slope is on Saturday morning, on the first train back to Seoul Station — that is, by the paje-line, the one piece.
He had said: Go.
We had gone.
The KTX at six-twenty-three a.m. on Wednesday morning of March 2026 from Seoul Station to Daejeon Station was, on the clear cold winter morning of a Wednesday in March of 2026, the KTX.
We sat in the second carriage.
Min-ji sat at the window seat.
I sat at the middle seat.
Hae-ri sat at the aisle seat.
We did not, in the one-hour-and-fifteen-minute KTX, speak.
The jeong-seol of the Cheongju grave of my own grandmother's mother had, by the two-minute phone call at three-eleven on Tuesday afternoon, melted.
The melting had been, by the phone call, the first sign.
The first sign had been the sign.
The first sign was, on the KTX at seven-thirty-one a.m. of the clear cold winter morning of a Wednesday in March of 2026, the first sign of the four days.
I sat at the middle seat between Min-ji and Hae-ri.
I did not, on the KTX, sleep.
I did not, on the KTX, read.
I did not check the phone in the interior pocket of the gray Theory coat over the charcoal-grey wool sweater of an older creature whose own four-hundred-year discipline had ended.
I breathed.
I breathed, slow and even.
The KTX arrived at Daejeon Station at seven-forty-three a.m. of the clear cold winter morning of a Wednesday in March of 2026.
We got off.
We took the first taxi at seven-forty-nine a.m.
I gave the Daejeon-coded taxi driver the address my grandmother in Daejeon had, in the spring of two thousand and one when I was two years old in Cupertino, told me to memorize:
Yuseong-gu, Bong-myeong-dong, Halmoni's low pine gate at the ninth house up the alley from the Yuseong stream, third on the right past the old persimmon tree.
The driver said, in the flat Chungcheong-coded jondaetmal of a Daejeon taxi driver on a Wednesday morning in March of 2026:
Halmoni Yun.
He said: I have been driving Halmoni Yun's boricha in Bong-myeong-dong for twenty-three years.
He drove.
He drove in the unhurried Chungcheong-coded way of a Daejeon taxi driver who had, for twenty-three years, known a Daejeon herbalist on the alley up from the Yuseong stream, the foggy morning of a Wednesday in March of 2026 on the air through which the sun had not yet, on the clear cold winter morning, decided to lift.
We arrived at the low pine gate of the herb garden of Halmoni Yun at eight-eleven a.m. in the fog of a Wednesday in March of 2026.
I paid.
I got out.
Min-ji got out.
Hae-ri got out.
The low pine gate was open.
The low pine gate was open from the inside.
The low pine gate had been open from the inside since six-twenty-three a.m. of the morning of Wednesday in March of 2026, when — by seventy-nine years of carrying the private call forward — my grandmother in Daejeon had, on the first reading of the jeong-seol of her own mother's mother's grave at Cheongju on the grey morning of a Sunday in March of 2026, opened it.
I walked through.
I walked through the low pine gate of the herb garden in Bong-myeong-dong at eight-twelve a.m. in the fog of a Wednesday in March of 2026, in the charcoal-grey wool sweater of an older creature whose own four-hundred-year discipline had ended under the gray Theory coat, with the paje-line younger sister at my right shoulder in the grey cardigan over the soft black tee and the white linen pocket-square with its bujeok in the cardigan's interior pocket, and at the half-step behind the four-tailed creature of the north slope of Bukhansan in the black down jacket of a Tuesday-morning vocal trainee of the JL building.
The herb garden, in the fog of a Wednesday morning of March 2026, was the herb garden of a Daejeon herbalist of the paje line of Chungcheong-do who had, for seventy-nine years, been the one woman in the paje line whose own grandmother had, in the spring of nineteen-forty-seven on the wooden maru of the house in Bong-myeong-dong, given her the private grammar of the paje-line.
The herb garden was small.
The herb garden was the eight-meter rectangle of a backyard plot of a Daejeon hanok-style house with the low wooden pergola of the grape vine of autumn and the low wooden lattice of the pumpkin vine of autumn and the low wooden raised beds of the Korean herbs my grandmother had, for seventy-nine years, grown.
The Korean herbs were:
Insam (인삼, Korean ginseng) in the raised bed at the east wall.
Danggwi (당귀, Korean angelica) in the raised bed at the south wall.
Ssangwha (쌍화, the mixed ssanghwa-tang base of nine herbs) in the raised bed at the west wall.
Baekhasuo (백하수오, white fleeceflower root) in the raised bed at the north wall — the smallest bed, the bed my grandmother had, by seventy-nine years, been the one woman in Bong-myeong-dong whose baekhasuo the Daejeon herbalists' association had, since the autumn of nineteen-seventy-one, taken from her at the below-market price they had agreed was the one price they could ask her without offering to take the private grammar of the paje-line in trade.
The herbs were in the bare winter form of a Daejeon herbalist's garden in March.
At the center of the herb garden was a low pine maru on which my grandmother was sitting.
She was sitting on a low bangseok cushion.
She was in the grey hanbok her own grandmother had, in the spring of nineteen-forty-seven, made for her on the wooden maru of the house in Bong-myeong-dong, and which my grandmother had, for the seventy-nine years since, mended at the seven-year interval whose grammar I had, in the spring of two thousand and eight at the seven-year-old of the body I was then visiting Daejeon in, watched her perform once at the low pine maru.
She had on, at eight-twelve a.m. in the fog of a Wednesday morning of March 2026, no shoes.
She had, on her own Korean feet, on the low pine maru, the white cotton beoseon socks of a Daejeon herbalist of seventy-nine years on a low pine maru on a Wednesday morning in March of 2026.
She looked up.
She looked at me.
She did not stand.
She bowed Fifteen degrees, from the low pine maru, on the bangseok cushion.
I bowed Fifteen degrees.
Min-ji bowed Fifteen degrees.
Hae-ri bowed Fifteen degrees.
My grandmother said, in the quiet Chungcheong-coded jondaetmal of a Daejeon herbalist of seventy-nine years whose own private grammar of the paje-line had, by the jeong-seol on the Cheongju grave, decided that the Wednesday morning of March 2026 in Bong-myeong-dong was the morning her own granddaughter and the paje-line younger sister and the four-tailed creature of the north slope would, at the low pine maru, arrive:
Granddaughter. Come up.
I came up.
I sat on the bangseok cushion at the angle the low pine maru permitted, a hand-span away from my grandmother.
Min-ji sat at my right.
Hae-ri sat at my left, at the ten-centimeter distance the maru permitted — which was, by the maru, the two centimeters further-away of a four-tailed creature of the north slope of Bukhansan whose own one-hundred-and-eleven-year discipline had — by seventy-nine years of my grandmother's discipline of allowing the two-centimeter further-away — been accepted.
I noted the two centimeters.
I did not, on the low pine maru, weep.
She held.
She held.
She breathed.
She said: Hae-ri-ssi. The two centimeters are, by the paje-line elder daughter who brought you to the pine gate of the herb garden on a Wednesday morning in March of 2026, the first piece I am, on the low pine maru, going to teach. The two centimeters are, by seventy-nine years and the private grammar of the paje-line, the distance my own grandmother, in the spring of nineteen-forty-seven, taught me to keep — for the one paje-line gut-ritual our line is, by the braided four-strand white linen mourning ribbon on the clear square of mulberry paper at the center of the low table of the anbang of the middle hanok of the Bukchon compound at four-thirty-four on Tuesday afternoon of March 2026, going to, on the morning of the seventh of the fifth month at the east shoulder of Inwangsan, perform.
Hae-ri did not, on the bangseok cushion, blink.
Hae-ri bowed Forty-five degrees, from the low pine maru.
She held it.
She straightened.
She said, in the clean unembarrassed careful Korean of a four-tailed creature whose own one-hundred-and-eleven-year discipline at the north slope had decided to be at the low pine maru in Bong-myeong-dong on a Wednesday morning of March 2026:
Halmoni. The two centimeters are accepted.
My grandmother said: Granddaughter. The two centimeters are, by my own first reading of the four-tailed creature of the north slope at the pine gate of the herb garden at eight-eleven a.m. on a Wednesday morning of March 2026, the piece by which the four-tailed creature of the north slope of Bukhansan is — by the paje-line, on the morning of the seventh of the fifth month four days from the low pine maru — accepted.
I said: Thank you, Halmoni.
She said: Don't thank me yet Granddaughter. The teaching is the four days. The four days are mine. They are not, by seventy-nine years, given. They are, on the low pine maru, charged. The charge is the four days of your own attention on the low pine maru and the low wooden raised beds and the low wooden pergola and the private grammar of the paje-line your own grandmother, in the spring of nineteen-forty-seven, gave me on the wooden maru of the house in Bong-myeong-dong — which I have, in the spring of two thousand and twenty-six, given to no other Korean body, because the one Korean body I have, in seventy-nine years, been waiting to give it to has, by the loom of Samshin halmoni, only arrived on the Wednesday morning of March 2026. The charge is mine to bring. Yours is to receive. Go up the alley to the persimmon-tree house at the corner. The persimmon-tree house is, by seventy-nine years, the house of a cousin of mine, who is — by the persimmon-tree's seventy-nine-year fruit — the one woman in Bong-myeong-dong whose house is the house in which a paje-line elder daughter and a paje-line younger sister and a four-tailed creature of the north slope of Bukhansan are, by the jeong-seol, going to stay for the four days. The cousin is, by seventy-nine years, knowing Drop your bags Come back at the tenth hour of the morning We will, by seventy-nine years, begin One more thing.
She breathed.
She took a slow breath.
She said, in the measured Chungcheong-coded jondaetmal of a Daejeon herbalist of seventy-nine years on a low pine maru at eight-fifteen a.m. in the fog of a Wednesday morning of March 2026:
The cedar box has, by seventy-nine years of my own carrying, been on the upper pine shelf of the anbang of the Bong-myeong-dong hanok of my own house — and which, by the jeong-seol of our line on the Cheongju grave on the grey morning of a Sunday in March of 2026, is — at the ninth hour of the Wednesday morning of March 2026 on the low pine maru of the herb garden in Bong-myeong-dong — to be brought down.
She said: I have, on the upper pine shelf, kept the cedar box for seventy-nine years, waiting for the one granddaughter whose own four-hundred-and-three-year private call sent forward I had — by the loom of Samshin halmoni and the private grammar of seven generations and the flat un-vowelled breath of a Joseon mudang's daughter on the slope above the willow grove of the east shoulder of Inwangsan at eleven-oh-three on the morning of the seventh of the fifth month of the first year of King Injo's reign — known, since the grey hour at four-eleven on a Sunday morning in March of 2026, was on a folded futon of a heated ondol of the anbang of the middle hanok of the Bukchon compound in Seoul.
I said: You have known since the grey hour at four-eleven.
I said: Forty-eight hours and twelve minutes.
I said: You have waited.
I said: Halmoni. Why.
She said: Granddaughter. The waiting is, by seventy-nine years, the one teaching I have not, until the Wednesday morning, been able to give. The waiting is the piece by which the paje-line is, by seven generations and the loom and the jeong-seol, the paje-line.
I sat at the bangseok cushion on the low pine maru.
I breathed.
I did not, on the low pine maru, weep.
The reservation, from the strip under the Banpo Bridge and the Anguk station platform and the low pine chair by the window and the one-room of Min-ji in Mapo-gu and the Tuesday-Thursday rehearsal room and the anbang of the middle hanok of the Bukchon compound, was — by my own grandmother in Daejeon's teaching of the waiting — held.
I bowed Forty-five degrees, from the bangseok cushion.
I kept it a moment.
I straightened.
The persimmon-tree house of the cousin of my grandmother at the corner of the alley up from the Yuseong stream was, on the Wednesday morning of March 2026, the persimmon-tree house.
The cousin was, at ninety-one years of a paje-line cousin in Bong-myeong-dong, the cousin.
She was, on the low bangseok cushion of the low maru of the persimmon-tree house at eight-thirty-one a.m. in the fog of a Wednesday morning of March 2026, in the grey hanbok her own grandmother had, in the spring of nineteen-thirty-eight, made for her — the one Korean ninety-one-year-old of Bong-myeong-dong whose house was, by seventy-nine years of my own grandmother's discipline, the house of the four days.
She did not stand.
She bowed Fifteen degrees, on the low bangseok cushion.
We bowed Fifteen degrees.
She said, in the even Chungcheong-coded jondaetmal of a paje-line cousin of ninety-one years at the low maru of a persimmon-tree house on a Wednesday morning in March of 2026:
Granddaughter Ji-won. Granddaughter Min-ji. Granddaughter Hae-ri.
She said: Drop your bags.
We dropped our bags at the low pine shelf by the east door.
She said: Tea is in the porcelain kettle at the low pine kitchen by the north window. The porcelain kettle is, by seventy-nine years, the one porcelain kettle of the persimmon-tree house. Pour. Drink. Be at the low pine maru of the herb garden of Halmoni Yun at the tenth hour One more thing Granddaughter Hae-ri. The two centimeters are, on the low maru of the persimmon-tree house, by the four days, also two.
Hae-ri bowed Forty-five degrees.
She held the bow a moment.
She straightened.
The cousin said: Go.
We went.
We came back to the low pine maru of the herb garden of Halmoni Yun at the tenth hour of the morning of Wednesday March 2026.
The cedar box was on the low pine maru.
The cedar box was, by my grandmother's seventy-nine-year carrying, the cedar box of the upper pine shelf of the anbang of the Bong-myeong-dong hanok.
The cedar box was, by seventy-nine years, smaller than the cedar box of an older creature in the Bukchon compound.
The cedar box was the seven-by-twelve-centimeter rectangle of a piece of Korean cedar, smoothed at the corners by the seventy-nine years of my grandmother's two-handed daily reading.
It was on the low pine maru.
My grandmother was on the bangseok cushion at the center of the low pine maru, with the cedar box at her own right hand.
She bowed Fifteen degrees.
We bowed Fifteen degrees.
She said: Granddaughter. Sit.
I sat across the table at the south side of the cedar box.
Min-ji sat at my right.
Hae-ri sat at the ten-centimeter distance at my left.
My grandmother breathed.
She breathed once and let it out.
She said, in the level Chungcheong-coded jondaetmal of a Daejeon herbalist of seventy-nine years on the low pine maru of the herb garden in Bong-myeong-dong at the tenth hour of the clear cold winter morning of a Wednesday in March of 2026, the fog lifting at the eastern wall of the herb garden to the clear cold winter sun of a Wednesday morning in March of 2026:
Granddaughter. The cedar box of our line is, on the low pine maru, going to be opened.
She said: I am, on the low pine maru, asking. I am asking the paje-line elder daughter at the south side of the cedar box whether — by the jeong-seol on the Cheongju grave and the grey hour at four-eleven and the forty-eight hours of the one-room in Mapo-gu and the Tuesday afternoon at the low table of the anbang of the middle hanok of the Bukchon compound and the braided four-strand white linen mourning ribbon on the clear square of mulberry paper of the chairman of JL whose own four-hundred-year discipline has ended — she has, on the Wednesday morning of March 2026, decided that she is the paje-line elder daughter to whom the cedar box is mine to give.
I sat at the south side of the cedar box on the low pine maru.
I breathed.
I did not, on the low pine maru, weep.
I said: On the Tuesday afternoon at the low table of the anbang of the middle hanok of the Bukchon compound, the chairman of JL — whose own four-hundred-year discipline has ended — set the braided four-strand white linen mourning ribbon at the center of the low table.
I said: The ribbon was the one the Joseon mudang's daughter Yun Da-eun of the paje line of Chungcheong-do had — on the granite cap of the Seonbawi rocks of the east shoulder of Inwangsan at the second hour of the fourth morning of the fourth month of the first year of King Injo's reign — braided of four strands.
I said: I have, on the Tuesday afternoon at the low table, asked the one creature whose own four-hundred-year discipline has ended one question.
I said: The question stood.
I said: Halmoni — I have, on the Tuesday afternoon, decided.
I said: I have decided that the four-hundred-year-and-three-day private call of the paje-line is, by the braided four-strand white linen mourning ribbon at the center of the low table of the anbang of the middle hanok of the Bukchon compound at four-thirty-four on the afternoon of Tuesday March of 2026, mine.
I said: The deciding is mine.
I said: Open the cedar box.
She opened the cedar box.
She opened it at the low pine maru of the herb garden of Halmoni Yun in Bong-myeong-dong at the tenth hour and the third minute of the clear cold winter morning of a Wednesday in March of 2026.
The cedar box of my grandmother in Daejeon had, on the low pine maru, two things in it.
The first thing was, in the careful Joseon-mother way of a Daejeon herbalist of seventy-nine years, a folded piece of white linen on which had been written, in the plain Joseon-mother hand of a Korean paje-line daughter of two thousand and one in Cupertino California:
손녀딸. 그날에 줄 것. 그날까지는 내가 잡고 있다.
Granddaughter. To be given on the day. Until the day I am holding it.
I knew the handwriting.
The handwriting was the unhurried Joseon-mother hand of my mother in Cupertino in the autumn of the year two thousand and one.
My mother had, in the autumn of two thousand and one, when I was two years old in Cupertino, on the kitchen counter of the house in Cupertino California — by the private grammar of the paje-line — written the note.
My mother had sent it, in a clear envelope, from Cupertino to Daejeon to her own mother in Bong-myeong-dong.
My mother had — by seventeen generations of the paje-line — known.
I did not, on the low pine maru, weep.
The reservation was held.
I held it.
I held it by the charcoal-grey wool sweater of an older creature at the south side of the cedar box and the paje-line younger sister at my right shoulder and the four-tailed creature of the north slope at the ten-centimeter distance at my left and the Daejeon herbalist of seventy-nine years at the center of the low pine maru.
The second thing in the cedar box was, by the folded white linen of my mother's handwriting and the note of the autumn of two thousand and one, light.
The second thing was, on the low pine maru, the second thing.
The second thing was the further piece of the mulberry paper of the first sentence of the private call of the paje-line — written in the careful Joseon-court calligrapher's hand of Lee Si-yul of the paje line of Chungcheong-do on the mulberry paper of the wayside shrine on the morning of the third day of the jeong-seol of the third month of the first year of King Injo's reign — and which was, by seventeen generations of the paje-line, the further piece of the seven syllables that had been, in the cedar box of an older creature in the Bukchon compound, the one piece of that cedar box.
The further piece had been written, in the same careful Joseon-court calligrapher's hand, on the back of the mulberry paper of the older creature.
The older creature had not, in seventy-three years of cedar-box discipline of the front of the mulberry paper, been able to read the back.
The back was, by the jeong-seol on the Cheongju grave of my own grandmother's mother, mine.
My grandmother held it.
She held it at close range.
She did not, on the low pine maru, read it to me.
She said: The back is not the front. The back is, by the paje-line, the piece a paje-line elder daughter on the morning of the seventh of the fifth month of the second year of a president of the Republic of Korea at the east shoulder of Inwangsan is — by seventeen generations and the loom and the jeong-seol and the braided four-strand white linen mourning ribbon and the one creature whose own four-hundred-year discipline has ended — going to read. I am not, on the low pine maru, going to read it to you I am going to, in the four days, teach you to read it yourself The four days begin.
She closed the cedar box.
She set the cedar box at the center of the low pine maru.
She breathed.
She set, beside the cedar box, a pewter cup — the one paje-line gut-cup my own great-great-grandmother had, in the autumn of eighteen-ninety-three on the kitchen floor of the house in Chungcheong-do, made.
She set, beside the pewter cup, a porcelain saucer of the Korean herbs of the herb garden of Bong-myeong-dong.
She set, beside the saucer, a cinnabar inkstone with the cinnabar ink of a Daejeon herbalist of seventy-nine years.
She set, beside the inkstone, a clear sheet of mulberry paper.
The four things, on the low pine maru, were the four things.
The four things were, by seventy-nine years of carrying the private grammar of the paje-line, the four instruments by which the Daejeon herbalist of Bong-myeong-dong was, on the four days the jeong-seol of the paje-line had given the five-instrument arrangement to learn the grammar, going to teach the paje-line elder daughter at the south side of the low pine maru the grammar.
It was the grammar of the paje-line.
The grammar was not the grammar of any other Korean line.
The grammar was, by seventeen generations and the loom and the jeong-seol and the braided four-strand white linen mourning ribbon at the center of the low table of the anbang of the middle hanok of the Bukchon compound, mine.
She said: Pour.
I poured.
I poured the paje-line gut-cup of my own great-great-grandmother on the low pine maru of the herb garden of Halmoni Yun in Bong-myeong-dong at the tenth hour and the eleventh minute of the clear cold winter morning of a Wednesday in March of 2026 — and the Daejeon herbalist of seventy-nine years began, on the low pine maru, to teach the grammar of the paje-line.
The four days began.
The four days were, by seventy-nine years of waiting, the four days.
I learned.