Beasts of a Little Land(104)

Jade tried to bring Lotus home at that moment, but the fat madame with rings on all her fingers stepped in front of them.

“Not a chance. She owes five years’ worth of room, board, and clothing. And she definitely hasn’t paid much of it back. Just look at her—only a real dog would sleep with such an ugly bitch.” The madame shot a hideous look at Lotus, who was cowering next to Jade.

“If you say one more word, I will kill you,” JungHo said, not menacingly—just simply and professionally as he used to do in the old days. “Unless you want to die today, shut up and step aside.”

“No, no, JungHo.” Jade took him by the arm. “There’s no need for that. So, how much does she owe?”

“Ah, you see, I took her in just when things went from bad to terrible, and kept her fed and alive all through the war,” the madame said with a suddenly ingratiating tone. “And eat well, she did. She would have starved to death without me . . .”

“I said, how much does she owe?” Jade asked coldly.

“Five hundred won,” the madame said with the hopeful, greedy look of a vendor about to swindle an idiot. Out in the countryside, she could easily buy a fresh, fifteen-year-old virgin for just a hundred won. “You see, that might sound like a lot, but the upkeep was insanely costly, and her debt accrued interest. Perhaps you can pay two hundred and fifty won up front, and the remainder with interest . . .”

“Here, this is five hundred won,” Jade said, pulling out crisp bills from her handbag. It was half of the money Ito had given her. The madame’s mouth dropped in surprise, then pursed in anger that she’d vastly lowballed her price. In her shabby linen blouse and skirt, Jade hadn’t looked like a rich woman.

“Come, Lotus, let’s go.” Jade wrapped her arm around her friend and JungHo followed protectively behind them, but not without shooting one final deadly glare at the madame.

ONCE JUNGHO TOOK HIS LEAVE in front of their house, Jade found it hard to say anything to her friend. Lotus didn’t seem ready to talk, either. Jade helped her take a bath, not saying much more than “is it warm enough or shall I pour more hot water?”

After Lotus had put on some clean clothes, she broke the silence. “Where’s Aunt Dani?”

Jade took a deep breath. The fact that someone thought Dani was still here made her feel, in fact, strangely alive. Maybe you only really died when no one assumed you were still living. Maybe not telling Lotus was a way to keep Dani in this world a little longer.

“She was very ill for a long time. She passed away—it’s been almost four years,” Jade said, her eyes warm and her nose pungent. She quietly rose and brought out the reliquary from the wardrobe. Lotus started weeping, quietly at first and then like a child, gasping and shuddering.

“I thought she was invincible. How could she die? How?” Lotus repeated, stroking the wooden reliquary with one hand and mopping her red face with the other. Once the tears broke, she didn’t seem able to stop herself—and Jade knew that she was crying not just for Dani, but also for everything that had happened. She cried with abandon, with determination. She cried like a woman who needed to dissolve in order to be remade.

But even through the renewed tears, Jade’s heart was lighter than it had been in years. That night, they slept in the same room, as they had when they were little girls, and Lotus confided in her all that had passed since they last saw each other. The one good thing about the war, Lotus said, was that without any opium in the market, she had been forced to become clean. She had almost died in the process, but she no longer smoked.

In the days that followed, Jade noticed that Lotus sagged underneath clothes and looked tired no matter the time of day. Yet little by little, Lotus was regaining herself. She sang songs—not from her brilliant yet brief career, but the ones they had to learn by heart to pass the first year of courtesan school.

“I like beginnings, Jade. Remember the beginning of our lives together?” she said, and Jade reached over and patted her shoulder. “That was such a wonderful time, but all we wanted to do was grow up as quickly as possible.”

Shortly after Lotus’s return, more good news came in the form of a letter from Luna. Correspondences between Korea and America had ceased during the war, and Jade hadn’t heard from her since she left.

Luna had lived in Washington, D.C., and New York City in the first years of her marriage. Then she became pregnant, and shortly afterward the family moved to San Francisco. Her son’s name was John Junior and he was eight already. Americans marveled that he took precisely half from Curtice, and half from Luna: he had his father’s large frame and prominent nose and his mother’s milky skin and soft black eyes. Hesook was a nurse, married to a navy officer who had been her patient at the military hospital.

Jade and Lotus giggled over the family photo enclosed in the letter, and marveled that little Hesook had become such a beautiful woman. She looked like the exact copy of Luna at that age, only less sad and more determined.

After all the news about her family, Luna wrote:

My beloved Jade, during these years of war, I have spent so many sleepless nights worrying about you, my mother, Aunt Dani, and Lotus. To know that my family is suffering there while I’m safe in America has been my greatest sorrow. I have spoken to my husband about it and he agrees with me. Fortunately he can bring people here better than anyone, and he says for now, we can get one person an American visa as my family member. I already know my mother won’t want to come. To leave her PyongYang and live in a foreign land—just after her country has regained its independence, her lifelong dream—would be unthinkable. But Aunt Dani has longed to live abroad her entire life. And though she’s an aunt strictly speaking, she’s been like a second mother to me.