Beasts of a Little Land(61)

Despite being one of the forty richest men in Korea and unfathomably influential, his mentor was living in constant mortal danger. His life was at an even greater risk since he renounced pacifism and compromise. MyungBo told JungHo that peacefully marching for independence had sacrificed too many lives for little gain, and that in order to gain their freedom they had to fight back. (JungHo had no problem understanding this portion of their lessons. He rather felt like saying, “Of course, what did you expect, you rich people?” but bit his tongue out of deference.) Unfortunately, the wings of the Korean armed forces had largely been clipped. The independence army based in Vladivostok had won victory after victory for a decade, sometimes joining forces with the Red Army against Japan. But afterward, the Bolsheviks demanded the Koreans disarm and disband, or be absorbed under the Russian command. Those who refused were killed or imprisoned.

The independence army in Manchuria had fared only a little better, severely weakened after the Japanese army massacred tens of thousands of Koreans living there, civilian or otherwise. That left Shanghai as the only viable center of armed resistance, although raising an army there in the heart of China was impossible. MyungBo therefore believed that the only effective course was to attack singly those places Japan valued the most: their police stations, banks, government offices, armories, and the like, in Korea, Japan, and China. MyungBo was trying to establish a group of exceptional snipers in Shanghai for these high-profile targets.

“We’re at war, Comrade JungHo. And sometimes, despite your best intentions and efforts, war is inevitable,” MyungBo had once said, almost like an apology. JungHo hadn’t needed that explanation, but he nodded and grimaced to show he didn’t take any of this lightly. He believed that his mentor would never lead him astray or ask him to do something shameful or unjust. He would live up to MyungBo’s expectations, when the time came. Until then, he was called to a hundred different tasks MyungBo couldn’t do himself: deliver forbidden manifestos to the socialists in the South, hide fugitives in safe houses and deliver them food, discreetly exchange a suitcase with a stranger at the train station under the plain gaze of the gendarmes. JungHo gave his all to these assignments, and MyungBo rewarded him—not with money or promotions, but with his unspeakable goodness.

The closer he became to MyungBo, the less intense JungHo’s yearning for Jade became. The occupation of his mind and body to all that he needed to do in order to be worthy of her left him with very little time or energy to spend with her. He was going to her house once a week for a while, then once every fortnight, then just once a month. The worst part of this was that Jade no longer seemed to mind that he’d stayed away—she seemed preoccupied with rehearsals, performances, salon appointments, photo shoots, interviews, shopping, cinema, and a hundred other obligations and amusements. She always greeted him warmly, looked more and more beautiful each time they met, and talked breathlessly about some artist or a new novel of which he had zero knowledge. It seemed she always had something to do after ten, fifteen minutes. She was sometimes not home when he came by at noon.

So JungHo made a promise to himself that he’d stop calling on her until he was as important to her as she was to him. If he was being honest, he didn’t know if he could ever take the place of her work, her art. Just from watching her dance once, he’d seen that this was a place in her soul that men couldn’t touch. But he wouldn’t even wish for that—he would only wish that he’d be the first among the people that she loved. That seemed possible so long as he could prove his worth as a man, although how he might do that was completely beyond his imagination. These thoughts came to him suddenly as he went about his day doing unrelated things, eating with his friends, delivering messages for MyungBo, getting up in the morning and shaving. Most often, it was when he felt the caress of the spring breeze or glimpsed the crystals of white moonlight salting the Han River. Then he would wonder how she had changed since they last saw each other, and whether he was now good enough for her.

IT WAS A WARM SPRING afternoon when the atmosphere shimmered under the quick-drying sun and everything from trees to grass to houses had a secret air of movement, of growing. HanChol narrowed his eyes against the white light, leaning against a wall and resisting the urge to put his hand on his stomach. Looking doubled over in hunger wouldn’t exactly help attract customers. He had only made one won since dawn, when he broke his fast with steamed potato and barley. He’d decided not to go home for lunch until he hit the one-won fifty-cent mark, and now it was past four.

A woman in a kimono was walking toward him, and he straightened up. It was hard to know how old she was under her white makeup, but her coquettish gait and mannerisms looked young.

“Koko kara Honmachi made ikura kakarimasuka?” she said, smiling. How much to go to Honmachi?

“Ni ju-sen desu,” HanChol replied—twenty cents. She nodded, and he helped her climb inside the carriage. He almost never had Japanese customers, who were mostly concentrated in MyungDong and Honmachi and didn’t venture outside, even somewhere as close as Jongno. But money was money. And the woman seemed pleased—perhaps it was the novelty of riding a Josenjing rickshaw. She broke the silence a few times to murmur about the weather, which could have been directed equally toward him or herself. The trailing sleeve of her kimono flapped rhythmically against the side of the rickshaw as they gained speed. HanChol stayed quiet until she got off at Honmachi and pressed a one-won bill into his palm, refusing change. He watched as her embroidered obi disappeared into the crowd. She didn’t move him; nevertheless, he was instinctively cataloguing her in his collection of women.