Beasts of a Little Land(30)
“Jump!” JungHo shouted. The guard was making his way toward them, brandishing the butt of his rifle like a club. JungHo yelled, “I’ll catch you!” and Jade shook her head.
Almost at the foot of the tree, the guard cursed and aimed his rifle at the dog. JungHo stayed still, unwilling to run away without her. Jade took a breath and jumped off, landing on her knees and palms in front of JungHo. The three of them fled without turning back to see whether the guard was following them—not stopping or slowing down until they’d reached her house.
“Are you okay? Let me see your hands,” JungHo said, breathing hard.
“I’m okay, it’s just a scrape,” she protested as he took her hands in his and blew away the dirt. The dog thumped his tail, whimpered loudly, and flattened himself on the ground in exhaustion.
“That elephant,” Jade began. “Do you know what it’s thinking all day, standing so still and quiet?”
JungHo reflected for a moment. “It’s probably just annoyed at having so many people around. Or it’s thinking about food,” he offered.
“No, it’s thinking, How can I get out of here? You saw how it wasn’t chained. It was very tall, but obviously it can’t cross over that moat. So elephants can’t jump. But don’t you think there’s a way it could get out?”
JungHo’s face turned dark and serious as he mulled it over. “I don’t know, I’m so sorry.”
“Let’s come up with ideas, next time we meet,” Jade said.
When she came back inside the house, she announced to Lotus, “My new friend took me to the zoo and we saw the biggest animal in the world! What’s strange is that I thought it would make me happy, but it made me sad.”
“A new friend?” Lotus asked, closing her sewing kit. She’d just finished reattaching the goreum ribbon of her jacket.
“Yes, a boy our age with a yellow dog.”
“Oh, I’ve seen him around the neighborhood,” Lotus said, suddenly reopening the sewing kit. She began pointedly adding more stitches to the ribbon, which was already secured. “He’s a dirty, pickpocketing street urchin. You should stay far away if you don’t want to catch lice.”
Jade was wounded. They had never disagreed about anything before, and Jade tried to shake off the feeling that there was a change in their friendship as thin and inevitable as a hairline break in a frozen lake. She tried to reassure Lotus that no one would take her place, that they would always be the oldest and closest friends in the world. But still, no matter how many times Jade tried to get her to come out and meet JungHo, she refused. Instead, Lotus stayed in the house next to Luna, who was heading to late pregnancy in catatonic silence.
From then on, whenever Jade came out of the house to play, JungHo was waiting for her by the gates. Sometimes he brought the dog and they cuddled him or made him fetch sticks. Other times he came alone and they strategized the elephant’s escape while walking around the block. By the time JungHo let her know he’d lost his entire family and slept outside in a tent, Jade didn’t think there was anything wrong about her new friend.
“You know, we’re not so different. I don’t have parents either, although mine are still alive,” Jade told him. “My mother told me I must never come back looking for them. They would be ruined if the other villagers found out I’d become a courtesan apprentice.”
“Do you miss them?” JungHo asked. Jade tried to recall her mother combing and braiding her hair at night, and how she embraced Jade one last time while making her swear not to come back. Those memories were already becoming fainter, like stars at the approaching of dawn.
“I used to miss them, but now I feel like I’ve met my real family,” Jade said.
One especially cold day, Jade snuck out one of the countless silk comforters from the paulownia-tree chest and gave it to JungHo. He seemed more shocked than pleased.
“Don’t worry, take it,” Jade said, pushing it into his arms. “We have dozens more inside.”
JungHo wordlessly looked down at the comforter filled with silk cocoons as light as air. Something seemed to stir in his mind, and he turned resolute.
“When I’m older I’ll give you something a hundred times finer than this,” he told her. Jade smiled and said of course, without expecting him to ever make good on his promise. This was why JungHo made such an impression on her, the way he said with total confidence that he would give her something worth more than he would probably earn in his life. JungHo had nothing compared to Jade, yet he seemed incapable of cowering. He never blamed his circumstances or thought regretfully about the past. He was like an empty vessel, but in the best way: it was true he didn’t hold a lot of knowledge, but his mind was free to flow in whatever direction, and he didn’t nurture pain. Whatever he did keep permanently, Jade was certain that he would protect firmly in the bottom of his jangdok pot. He might never fling himself far from where he’d landed, Jade thought, but he would nonetheless be happy for the simple reason that he refused to be caged.
8
I Have Met the Right Person, at Last
1919
THE SECRET TO DANI’S SUCCESS WAS THAT SHE LIKED NOT JUST TO BE busy, but to have projects to which she could apply her considerable mental and physical abilities. Her fame, her two-story house with its exquisite furnishings and rarefied garden, her powerful protector, even her unusual beauty and allure—none of these had resulted from chance, but from her imagination, planning, and execution.