Beasts of a Little Land(25)
“That’s impossible, you’re making it up!” Lotus giggled.
“It’s all true. Jejudo women dive even when they’re pregnant. My mother almost gave birth to me in the sea but she swam out just in time for me to be born on the beach. She caught me with her own hands and wiped me off with kelp,” Hesoon said. She was always telling these unbelievable stories, about mountains breathing fire and ice and long-winged birds that nested in the waves. When Jade closed her eyes, she could see women who turned to fish in the sea and babies rocked to sleep in the shallows, anchored in place by seaweed ropes.
When they were about to pepper the maid with more questions, Dani appeared at the door and feigned shock at their laziness.
“I know it’s rainy today, but you girls can’t just lie around all afternoon. When I was your age, I was the smartest student at my school—I even learned English! Come downstairs, and I’ll teach you something fun.”
By the time the girls came down to the sitting room, the sofa was pushed against one wall and Dani was putting on a record—a paper-thin, polished black disc that shone deliciously in the candlelight. It started spinning slowly on the turntable, filling the room with the warm syncopation of strings and trumpets. Jade closed her eyes, willing the wave of sound to sweep her out to sea.
“Isn’t it wonderful? This is called a foxtrot.” Dani beamed. “I wish I knew how to dance this one, but I didn’t learn it in school. Hold on, I’ll put on a waltz and teach you that.”
Before long, they were all standing on tiptoe—Dani, Luna, Jade, Lotus, and even Hesoon—and dancing in circles around the sitting room, roaring with laughter. Jade noticed that for the first time in months, Luna’s face was lighting up with a smile.
“Come into my room, girls,” Dani said. “You can try on my clothes.” Her words had the desired effect of driving up the merriment—Jade and Lotus screamed in joy, and even Luna couldn’t resist putting on a priceless embroidered dress and twirling around. After they had exhausted themselves dancing, they lay down on the floor together in a heap of colorful silk skirts. They were only roused by the sound of wheels parting the mud-flooded street. Hesoon ran to the front gates, came back shivering from the rain, and announced, “Madame, His Honor is here.”
“Did he send word earlier?” Dani asked, frowning. She immediately rose and started straightening her dress, while Hesoon picked up around the room and the housekeeper corralled the girls and ushered them upstairs.
Jade lagged behind the others. Just before rounding the corner at the landing, she turned around and caught a glimpse of a gray-haired man being greeted by Dani. He had the proud bearing of a hale old age, but already seemed to show all the promises of the frailness to come in just five or six years. With his muddy complexion and soft voice, he was not someone Jade had imagined for her lovely and indomitable aunt, who seemed able to make any man fall obediently at her feet. So Dani was just as shrewd as the others in choosing money over feelings. Jade felt with a pang of disappointment that Dani was not, after all, a fantastical creature.
The following day, Dani began giving the girls lessons in music and dance. Lotus had struggled to pass the tests under her mother’s tutelage; under Dani’s guidance she gained enough confidence to discover, for the first time, a remarkable voice that seemed to emanate from her whole body rather than her throat. Luna was interested in learning English, which only upper-class women in the most modern families ever learned. Jade took to dance the way she did to poetry—she discovered that they both originated from the same unfathomable place. She could imitate any movement on the first try; on the second or third try, she made it her own by adding a slight twist of the torso, a tilt of her chin, or a simple breath where there was none. With those nearly imperceptible differences, other girls remained girls while she became a crane, a legendary heroine, a season, an idea. When this happened, Dani perched her chin on a cupped hand and narrowed her eyes severely—whether in approval or displeasure, Jade was never certain.
In October, Dani told the girls that they were to have a special outing. MyungWol, the new restaurant where she’d been booked almost every evening for a fortnight, had asked her and other courtesans in her guild to help advertise its opening in Jongno. She was bringing the two younger girls as well, though Luna couldn’t go in her condition. New costumes were ordered for both Jade and Lotus, and they practiced their routine in their rooms every night before bed. Afterward, Jade felt the injustice of having to sleep when there was so much to do, so much to think about; only after being thoroughly tortured by excitement was she able to fall into a restless slumber.
The week leading up to the appointed day was gray and drizzly, which made Jade miserable with worry. That morning, however, the sun rose brilliantly against a cloudless sky. The girls helped Dani cut the cosmoses in the garden before getting dressed, sharing Hesoon between them. Before fixing the embroidered headdress over the crown of Jade’s head, the maid twisted her long braid into a low chignon and fixed it with a silver binyuh for the very first time. A bridal regalia. The updo marked her as a nonvirgin in status, if not in body. But she was different from normal married women: her wrap skirt opening on the right side indicated her profession. The last step in getting ready was the makeup. When it was finished, Jade saw in the mirror a beautiful stranger—red lips stark against the powdered skin—and was startled to realize that she looked very much like Dani.