Beasts of a Little Land(51)
“Goodbye, JungHo. You can come see me anytime. I’m always home at noon,” Jade whispered, giving him a light pat on the shoulder. JungHo looked like someone drowning in a sea of happiness. How lovely, easy, and natural it was to be reunited with him! Jade thought to herself before running to catch up with the others. Dani and Luna had already left on a rickshaw; Lotus was calling out to her from another one, driven by a young man in a worn black coat. He helped Jade up the carriage and then they were on their way, a soft wind grazing their ears and stars streaming up ahead.
“This is the most amazing night of my life! Jade, we’ll join Joseon Theatre! Who cares about pouring drinks for rich playboys. We’ll live like true artists!” Lotus shouted, grabbing her friend’s hand and shaking it up and down.
“It’s like a dream, isn’t it? We came here just with some small clothes in our arms . . . Do you remember how we were so little, the four of us all fit in one rickshaw?” Jade laughed. Her friend was on the verge of being known as the best singer in Seoul. And without any ambition or early promise, she herself had succeeded far beyond anyone’s expectations. At seventeen, it was impossible to imagine that anything other than triumphs and joys awaited her from this night forward.
They soon arrived in front of their house, and the driver helped them down from the rickshaw. He did this quickly and attentively, and without any slavishness or secret rudeness that sometimes characterized these laborers. While on the taller side and broad-shouldered, the rest of his body tapered rapidly even under his oversize coat, which was patched on the elbows with brown corduroy fabric. Noticing this, Jade was moved to sympathy, as often happens to people who feel particularly and unfairly blessed.
“You poor darling, you look like a student,” she said, gazing at his serious face. “Are you going to school?”
The rickshaw driver’s eyes, not large but attractive, lit up at her question. “Yes, I go to night school, miss,” he answered.
“So you work all day and evening, and go to school at night. Do you ever sleep?” Jade muttered with a smile. “Poor thing. We just did a benefit show to raise funds for a school for rickshaw drivers’ children. And my friend and I both had a very good night. Here, use this to buy yourself a new coat,” Jade said, handing him enough for an entire day’s work. She linked arms with Lotus and passed through the front gate, which the maid was holding open for them, hopping in place to keep warm. Jade was conscious of being watched by the rickshaw driver, which made her laugh louder and lean even more affectionately on Lotus.
“If you liked that handsome driver, you should’ve invited him in.” Lotus giggled as they crossed the courtyard.
“He’s a poor student and I was just being nice,” Jade protested. She couldn’t act friendly to anyone, even a rickshaw driver, without Lotus mocking her. Even a boy barely old enough to be in high school.
“Then I can have him?” Lotus asked, and Jade shrugged her shoulders. “Fine, we’ll share. He seems strong enough to handle the two of us. Oh, I bet we can both ride his rickshaw all night . . .” Then they broke out laughing.
*
“I AM SO GLAD YOU’VE COME. What would you like to drink? I have a very good sake. Also, an excellent cognac. I developed a taste for it when I was doing my European tour, and now I confess it’s become one of my favorite things,” Ito Atsuo said, letting go of his friend’s hand and settling himself on the settee with obvious pleasure. As he spoke he gestured to the high-backed chair opposite from him, and Yamada Genzo slid onto it with the careful manner of a guest visiting a friend’s home for the first time.
“If it’s one of your favorite things, let’s indulge you a bit.” Yamada smiled.
“Cognac then!” Ito exclaimed brightly and signaled to his servant, who wordlessly returned with the bottle and crystal glasses on a tray. The two men tasted the drinks silently, the better to appreciate its fragrance mingling with the fresh scent of a quiet fall gloaming.
“It’s very good,” Yamada said appreciatively. Ito nodded, smiling. Having an excellent taste in all things—wine, food, art, furniture—was the chief source of his pride. He, like all such people, believed that was the essence of sensibility and understanding. This was also the ostensible reason Ito had invited Yamada to his home, for the first time in the several years that they’d been working together: they were going to discuss art and admire a few priceless items Ito had purchased in recent months. Since Ito’s father died, leaving him vast estates that he’d acquired in Korea, Ito had begun to collect antiques in earnest. Now, he was bringing out a Koryo celadon from around the eleventh century, with the sly glance of someone who is asking a question while knowing the correct answer. The porcelain urn had a silhouette that was as instinctively graceful as the shoulders of a beautiful woman, and its color was an exquisite milky green—a shade that’s not truly found in nature, and yet immediately evocative of it.
“It’s marvelous,” Yamada said honestly. “It’s truly one of the best examples of its kind. But what happened here?” He pointed at the long line reaching from the bottom all the way to the shoulder of the urn.
“Ah, that crack. It’s impossible to get an antique of this vintage without one. That’s from the gravedigger’s shovel—but who can blame them? It’s not as though they can use feather dusters to bore through the ground, just to avoid hitting the porcelain. It’s been repaired beautifully.” He smirked, full of understanding. “I actually find it rather exciting. Much more thrilling than collecting something that has been kept in a study of some old gentry. Imagine this being buried with the king of Koryo; and now I get to retrieve it, a thousand years later.”