Beasts of a Little Land(27)

“Have you met that one, Dani?” the playwright asked with a knowing smile, noticing SungSoo’s gaze.

“I knew her a long time ago,” he said. “She was a student back then.”

“A student?” The playwright raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

SungSoo explained how Dani’s mother—a celebrated courtesan herself—had retired when she became the second wife of an influential official.

“So a stepchild in a distinguished house. But if they sent her to school, why become a courtesan?” the playwright persisted.

SungSoo shrugged rather than implicate himself further in the story. He knew that Dani had been raised as a normal girl and was innocent when they met by chance in front of her school—she was never meant to become a courtesan. SungSoo had seduced her with implied promises and slipped away when he was called to study abroad. This had not troubled him, since he hadn’t explicitly said, I will marry you. He could never have chosen anyone other than a woman of unimpeachable birth and wealth—a woman with a certain aristocratic blandness, like his dutiful and contented wife. If Dani hadn’t realized that, it wasn’t his fault.

“She’s being kept by a very powerful protector, you know.” The playwright gave the name of a Japanese judge near the very pinnacle of law, who had evidently set her up in a two-story house and even given her diamonds. “So if you’re interested in her, you should know she is a forbidden fruit.” The playwright winked. “As they say, you can see it, but you can’t touch it. The good ones are always like that!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t, anyway,” SungSoo said, turning his eyes away with difficulty from the back of Dani’s red robes.

AT THE SAME MOMENT, several blocks away, Yamada Genzo was riding out from his regimental headquarters with a fellow officer, named Ito. Disgusted by Hayashi’s brutality on the hunting trip, Yamada had easily succeeded in persuading his father that he should move away from PyongYang. Baron Yamada, as is typical of heads of powerful families, was unconditionally supportive of his children’s ambitions as a rule. He reached into his considerable network of friends and useful connections, and by spring, Genzo had received a commission in Seoul as a major. The promotion elicited veiled hostility from nearly all Yamada’s PyongYang comrades, especially Major Hayashi, and Yamada knew it and they knew that he knew. But they all hid their true feelings so well, and expressed and accepted congratulations without any hint of bitterness, that no one had a reason to confront anyone.

In Seoul, Yamada found that no single superior held unshakable power, as in PyongYang, but that several heads of the military balanced one another out in their vying for advancement and influence. Following his father’s advice, he had aligned himself with a faction to which Major Ito also belonged. The two men were both near the same age, well-built, handsome, and from the highest society. Though not tall, Ito had a lithe waist and muscular calves that made him appear full of restrained energy. He was the heir to an earldom but wore his distinguished background lightly and was rather unpretentious. Insofar as friendship was possible in Yamada’s soul, he liked Ito. They were often in each other’s company outside the regiment, and were now headed to an off-site meeting on horseback.

“You see, the absorption of a weaker nation and/or peoples by a stronger nation and/or peoples is not only inevitable, but desirable,” Ito said, running a finger along his shapely mustache. “Without Japan, how could Korea have modernized? Who brought the trains, roads, power lines, progress? We are benevolent, as much as it is possible to be while governing so unruly a country. And yet these bastards don’t know what’s good for them.”

“No doubt that we brought progress here. And you are right that the law of nature applies in this instance. But I do wonder about the whole issue of rice,” Yamada countered. “Why bleed them out? It makes them hostile and uncontrollable. Can’t there be another way?”

“But that rice is needed in Japan, the mother country. It is as when the body routes nutrients and fresh blood to the heart at the expense of a limb. Japan is the heart, and Korea is an extremity. Also, these Josenjings are too well fed and energetic and full-blooded. They will be more docile once they are bled out.” Ito was smiling. The rhythmic swaying of his body on the saddle put him in a particularly jaunty state of mind on this fine afternoon. “We bring them progress, in return they provide the rice, and exotic goods—the antique celadons, the tiger skins, and the like. It’s the same way everywhere else in the world now. Look at Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, how they divided up Africa and Asia and grow stronger. The United States in the Philippines and the South Pacific. It is the world order.” He paused a moment, then noticing a crowd gathered along the boulevard, he pointed ahead and started off at a gallop. Yamada followed, picking up his pace.

“It’s a parade of Joseon courtesans!” Ito exclaimed, beckoning him. Yamada brought his horse next to Ito’s and saw over the heads of the crowd a line of beautifully dressed women, singing and chanting and strewing flowers. Ito was laughing so heartily that his handsome black stallion stepped in place uneasily beneath him.

“Ah, and I forgot about the women, of course. Rice, tigers, and women—that’s what Joseon is good for.” Ito smirked and joined in the clapping and cheering. Turning to Yamada again, he said, “I myself am quite fond of these girls. They have a different flavor than the geisha.”