Beasts of a Little Land(112)

“What do you mean?”

“I never told you about the story of my father and a tiger, did I?”

Jade shook her head.

“It’s an astonishing story my father told me before he passed. As a child I didn’t know what to make of it, but many years later I met someone who confirmed that my father’s account was true.

“This was about fifty years ago in PyongAhn province. It was in the middle of winter and we didn’t have anything to eat, so my father went hunting in the mountains with a bow and arrow. He was hoping to catch some rabbits or a deer, but started tracking what looked like a leopard’s paw prints.

“So he followed the prints all the way to the deepest mountains, and it ended at a cliff. There he came face-to-face with the animal—but it turned out to be a tigerling rather than a leopard. If he’d shot and killed it, we would have had enough to eat for a year at least. But he just turned around and started walking down the mountain. It started to snow, and he was already close to starvation. Finally, he fell down, thinking he would not get back up.

“He was nearly frozen to death, when a Japanese officer found him and revived him—this officer was the one who corroborated the next part of the story, when I met him by sheer chance decades later. He described my father perfectly and said I looked like him.

“As my father and the officer were making their descent, they realized that a tiger was following them. A gigantic one, judging by its footprint. All of a sudden, it came leaping out of nowhere, ready to attack. But my father drove it away just by shouting—it saw him, turned around, and ran back into the woods. A tiger like that should have killed my father with one jump.”

“Why did it not want to hurt your father?”

“My father always thought the tiger was my mother, reborn.”

JungHo looked into Jade’s eyes, her only feature that still looked the same as when they were both young. He ached to discover that even inside the hourglass there was something untouched by time.

“I don’t know if that’s true—it’s just what he believed, that she loved him so much that even in another life she wanted to protect him. Because, Jade, everything is inyeon in this world. It’s true what they say, even brushing the hem of one’s coat on the streets is inyeon. But the most important inyeon of all is that between husband and wife. That’s what I regret . . . that I didn’t get to be with you.” JungHo smiled sadly. With everything they both knew, and experienced together and apart, he was no longer afraid of putting her off with this truest statement of his life.

“I’m sorry . . . I regret it too,” Jade said, wiping at her stinging nose.

“If I were to come back in another life, I would find you and marry you. Even if I don’t come back, and I’m stuck somewhere in the eternal twilight . . . or heaven or hell . . . I will float around, looking for you.” JungHo laughed quietly.

“If you ask me again, I will say yes. I promise,” she said. Drops of tears were turning into streams along her cheeks.

“Wait, hold on.” JungHo let go of her hands and started fumbling with his pant pockets. “I want to give you something.”

He held out something small in his hand. It was a silver ring of the rounded, garakji type.

“How ever did you keep this in here?” Jade whispered.

“Hidden inside my waistband.”

“It looks exactly like a ring my foster mother used to have, back in PyongYang. Since then I’ve never seen another one like this. Where did you get it?”

“My father gave this to me before he passed away. It must have belonged to my mother . . . He loved her very much. Here, give me your hand.”

JungHo slid the ring on her once-slim, now knobby finger.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you,” she said between sobs. “Do you know, this is the only ring I’ve ever received. I always wanted one just like this.”

“I only wish I could’ve given this to you a lot earlier. If I could go back, I would give you all the jewels in the world . . .” he said, looking away behind her ear so that he wouldn’t cry, so he wouldn’t burden her with his tears.





27


The Walk

1964

THE NEXT MORNING, JUNGHO WAS WOKEN UP BY HIS GUARD, WHO handcuffed him and led him to a door guarded by soldiers on either side. It was a dank room of concrete walls, and at the front there was a raised dais where a man in military uniform was writing something down on his notepad. He was one of those unremarkable, flat-featured men whose appearance is substantially improved by the addition of headgear, which was for him a camouflage cap. To his right, there was a secretary in front of a typewriter; to his left, there was an empty wooden chair. In the center of the room stood a stool, which was casting multiple faint shadows from the bare bulbs hanging on either side of the room. JungHo took his seat and looked stolidly at his interlocutor.

“Nam JungHo, you’re here on charges of treason, espionage, collusion with the enemy, and antipatriotic beliefs. How do you plead?” the man in camouflage asked.

“Not guilty,” JungHo said hoarsely.

“Listen, Nam JungHo. I read in the report that you were born in PyongAhn province. As was I—not sure if you can hear it in my accent,” the man continued, stabbing his pen into his notepad several times for emphasis.