Beasts of a Little Land(17)
“Forgive me, but little charming acts don’t impress me as a proof of any originality. This child, I’m sure, is adorable when she plays, but I’m not just looking for liveliness. Now your second daughter, she has spirit! She does take after you, just not in looks . . .” Dani laughed, but Silver’s face remained somber.
“I think you’re being too harsh, Dani. Jade is only ten, after all. Children completely change a dozen times a year when they’re growing,” Silver said. “All I can say is, she is a good one. I’ve also seen my share of people to know what I’m talking about.”
Dani cocked her beautiful face and made a slight noise that sounded like hrumph to Jade. She tried to project that special quality that Dani was looking for, perhaps an air of effortless joy that Lotus so easily radiated. But while Jade wasn’t prideful, she couldn’t force a smile while being dressed down like this. A tiny tear was threatening to escape out of her right eye and she focused on putting it back in its place.
“Well, my dear sister,” Dani sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know if she has what it takes to make a living as a courtesan. She doesn’t have sensuality, and what else do men want, really? On the other hand, she’s too refined to make a great washing girl. She’s a little in-between, don’t you agree? But you’re my cousin and my oldest friend. I will take her as an apprentice, if that would please you,” she said, turning away from Jade and dismissing her with a cavalier wave.
Jade backed out of the room and ran to tell this news to Lotus. She didn’t understand why Dani didn’t care for her while valuing Lotus—or why the reverse was true of Silver. It was strange to think that her best friend had a special quality that she lacked, although she was prettier and understood literature. Instead of being crushed, she felt relief at the confirmation that they were perfect counterparts. She—observant, intelligent, and hardworking; her friend—spirited, disarming, and confident. They would never compete for the same hearts or the same happiness, as might happen to two friends who are too alike. Jade felt that they each would have only half of a life, a single wing, which would not be truly complete unless they stood together side by side.
WHEN THEY GOT ON THE TRAIN, Dani picked out a pair of seats facing one another at the end of the car. None of them spoke as the fields whipped past in a blur. A flock of sparrows seemed to follow them for a while, and then fell back as if exhausted.
“We are going faster than the birds!” Lotus half whispered, half exclaimed. Dani smiled indulgently. It was already clear to all that Dani doted on Lotus for her unflappable personality and Luna for her looks and tragedy. Jade felt less hurt than embarrassed to notice herself at the end of the line for her affections.
“You’ve never been on a train before, right? Wait till we get to Seoul, you’ll see so many things you’ve never imagined even in your dreams,” Dani said. “Hey, look outside for a second.”
Dani paused, and the girls whipped their heads to the window, where the pearly sun was already halfway down the opaque, moist summer sky. “This railroad doesn’t just go between PyongYang and Seoul. It stretches all the way south to the tip of the peninsula, and all the way north to Uiju, where you can take the western route to Beijing, then Shanghai; or go north to Manchuria, Siberia, and eventually Europe! Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?”
“What would be the point of going so far? It’s uncivilized,” Lotus said, sounding unexpectedly like her mother. But Jade noticed how Luna’s face briefly lightened at the mention of the West of the Ocean. Next to her, Dani was staring willfully at the horizon, as though she could fly through the window by the force of her beautiful, opinionated eyes.
As for herself, Jade didn’t know whether she’d like going anywhere. The occasion to wonder this had never arisen before, and her mind always drew a blank when it came to uncertainties. Even worse, she was not even naturally curious: the books she liked best didn’t teach her something new, they talked of things that she already understood just in a more beautiful way. Her imagination ran its circular course inside familiarities—a fountain rather than a river, particularly when it came to thinking about her own life. What else could she become besides what others wanted her to be? She was certain that Dani’s imagination would have been an entire sea even as a young girl. Jade guessed that she would not grow up to be half as splendid as Dani—and worse, that Dani thought this too.
At sundown, the train slowly rolled into Seoul station like a tired horse returning to the stable. Once they walked out, the soupiness of the air suddenly intensified, glowing orange and violet over the sprawling unknown. Jade was struck most of all by the strangeness of the people crowding around her. Of course, people in PyongYang were also unfamiliar to her, but as a group she’d recognized their looks, sounds, and expressions on their faces; she’d felt safe in their company. The collective of strangers in Seoul had a different aura, more self-possessed, purposeful, and indifferent, not unlike Dani herself. They impatiently sidestepped the girls and flooded the large square in front of the station where street vendors and rickshaw drivers vied for attention. Beyond this, there was a huge, freestanding stone arch topped with a blue-black tiled roof. Small stores and odd buildings huddled on its sides like puppies.
“That’s the Great South Gate,” Dani pointed out, when they’d gotten on a rickshaw. “It was built more than five hundred years ago into the walls of the castle, which were still there when I first came to Seoul. It was a sight to behold, back then. The Japanese knocked off the walls long ago. And none of those unsightly electric poles used to be there, either.”