Beasts of a Little Land(24)
“It’s not ideal, but what can I do? And besides,” SungSoo said mildly, though not all in good faith, “you yourself are a son of a landowner. You have profited from your birth as much as I have. So what do you propose?”
“Great. I’m glad you asked me that,” MyungBo said with a satisfied smile. “I can’t, in good conscience, continue to benefit from a system that every part of my body and soul knows is immoral. When my father dies and the estate passes on to me, I will give half of it to the peasants who have always tended it, and sell the other half for the cause. Just now though, I’m not getting any money from my family, and it’s been awfully difficult trying to sustain the movement in Shanghai on so little . . .”
“Goodness, is that why you came to visit me?” SungSoo asked. “Well, then, how much is needed?”
“You must first understand that this isn’t for me. It is for the movement, feeding and clothing and training our brave young men in Manchuria, who would throw away their lives gladly for our country.” MyungBo’s face became red, and his eyes shined with tears. “I was thinking that a contribution of twenty thousand won would be most appropriate for a man of your stature.”
“Twenty thousand won? My fellow, do you realize that’s enough to buy twenty villas?” SungSoo exclaimed. “I know everyone thinks I’m so rich, but that’s a lot of money even for me. I would have to think on it,” he said, even though he already knew he would never give MyungBo that much, or even anything close; he had decided instantly, and only the reasoning was what he needed time to formulate.
“You are an artist, SungSoo . . . How can you close your heart to the rest of the world?” MyungBo muttered bitterly.
“On the contrary, it is because I am an artist that I must concern myself with art. Politics are the concern of politicians, like yourself,” SungSoo replied. What was next? Was he supposed to feel sorry for the cows toiling in the fields? Each being had its place in the universe.
“Fine, then, I can’t force you to do anything. Just think how much you spent setting up a house for that geisha in Tokyo, and what that money could have done for the young fighters who only ask for a gun and bullets to serve our country.”
“Really, MyungBo, I need time to process all this.” SungSoo suppressed his irritation as politely as he could. “It’s too bad you didn’t want to eat lunch, that we had to get into this talk without even a drop of liquor. But there, we had it all out, and now we can talk of something else.”
“No, I see that I’ve made you uneasy. I’ll get going now. But please, for all of our memories together, if you have even a bit of affection for me, would you think about it?”
“I promise, I promise,” SungSoo said, and felt the most vivid relief as MyungBo put on his hat and walked out of the office.
*
DANI’S HOUSE WAS IN YEONGEON-DONG near the ChangGyeong Palace Zoo, where many old and noble families had their ancestral homes. There was an excess of space: Dani alone occupied the ground floor of the two-story building, and there was even a charming pavilion across the courtyard. Each of the girls was given her own room on the second floor of the main house, where the maid and the housekeeper also slept. It was the finest home Jade had ever seen, filled with leather sofas, velvet curtains, and even a Steinway piano; and ensconced in the courtyard garden were strange and lovely plants from faraway places. With her characteristic poetic whimsy, Dani assigned flowers to each of the girls based on their qualities. Lotus was given summer sunflowers because they were bright, wholesome, and happy. Luna got Dani’s favorite flowers, fall cosmoses, which she claimed were not much to look at singly but sublime when bunched together in a bouquet.
Jade was matched with the winter camellia, a southern-flowering tree that she had never seen in the frigid North. Dani assured her, somewhat more warmly than usual, that the camellia was a very lucky flower for a woman. Its mate was the lovely, pale green camellia bird, which drank only its nectar and visited no other blossom. And at the end of its season, the camellia didn’t brown or blow away petal by petal as other flowers do; it fell down unblemished and intact, bloodred and velvety like a heart. As beautiful on the ground as on the day it first opened. “What all women want—an unchanging love. It’s what I see for you,” Dani said with a curious smile. Jade thought that her foster aunt had an intuitive streak of a born creative, somewhere between the levels of an artist and a clairvoyant. Sometimes her aesthetic fancy could get carried away and take on the shape of a small prophecy. Whether or not Dani actually had a feeling for the future, her enthusiastic delivery was what made it feel real.
“But Aunt Dani, what kind of flower would you be?” Lotus asked.
“I know,” Jade said before Dani could answer. “She could only be the regal spring rose.” As if on cue, the two little girls linked hands and made a ring around Dani, and ran in a small circle shouting “Queen Rose! Queen Rose!” until she burst out laughing. But even in the height of their amusements, Jade felt guilty when she saw how Luna continued to stay quiet. Nothing seemed able to make her speak, smile, or even get angry and scold the little girls.
ONE GRAY DAY IN EARLY FALL, Luna finally broke her months of silence. The rain was falling softly, casting everything in indigo. The three girls crawled back into their cots after lunch and listened to the downpour in a state of melancholy. Jade begged their maid Hesoon to tell them stories of her childhood in Jejudo, the magical southern island where there were trees without any branches and wild horses running freely under a snowcapped mountain. Hesoon said her mother and her four sisters were all seawomen who dove in the water to harvest abalones, holding their breath for two minutes at a time.