Beasts of a Little Land(65)
16
Because You Were You, Standing There
1928
OVER THE MONTHS, LOTUS HAD LEARNED THAT PRESIDENT MA DIDN’T act the same way normal people did. He let his feelings be known: once at a restaurant, he’d forced the chef to remake the entire spread of twelve dishes because in one of them he’d tasted onions, to which he was allergic. For this reason, Lotus had been anxious about telling him her news. She waited until he was in a particularly good mood one night following the signing of a deal—a purchase of a lucrative factory in KaeSong.
“It’s a huge win. One of only a few chemical manufacturers in the country. I’m going to go up there on Friday,” he said, his hands on the steering wheel. He’d picked her up after her performance and they were parked near her house. “You should come with me. It would be a nice drive out in the country.” He paused, noticing her silence. “Why, what’s the matter?”
“I’m pregnant,” Lotus blurted out, hiding her face in her hands. For a while, neither of them said anything. Then she felt him take her left wrist and slowly lower it down.
“Look at me,” he said matter-of-factly. “Are you sure?”
Lotus nodded through the hot tears streaming down her face, clutching her still-flat abdomen.
“You can’t keep living at your aunt’s. I’ll have to find you your own house. And a maid and a housekeeper. You’ll be comfortable. But why are you crying?” he said.
“I thought you’d be angry with me.” She sobbed, nostrils flaring. At that, President Ma laughed out loud.
“Angry? I’ve never been less angry in my life,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I might finally get a son.”
The next morning, Lotus told the family at breakfast that she would soon be moving out. But she didn’t tell them her news, basking in the power of withholding a secret. If she was being honest with herself, she could admit that she was primarily hiding it from Jade. Some irreconcilable awkwardness had entered into their relationship ever since Lotus joined the Grand Oriental Cinema, and while they still smiled at each other and exchanged pleasantries, they both acutely felt the impossibility of being frank with one another. Lotus believed that their present iciness was caused by Jade’s jealousy. Now that Lotus was the star of the most prestigious theater in Seoul, and mistress to one of its wealthiest businessmen, Jade was insincere and cold, and not genuinely happy as she ought to be. On the other hand, Jade believed that their relationship was strained because Lotus had hidden her decision to move to a different theater, not even telling her almost until the last day. How could Lotus believe that Jade, her own best friend, would stand in the way of her success and happiness?
On the day of the move, Dani, Luna, and Jade helped Lotus carry the trunks of clothes to the car.
“This is a lot more than what you brought here, ten years ago,” Dani joked, pretending to grimace under the weight of the package. “My arms feel like they’re going to fall off.” Still, it was she who had insisted on helping instead of leaving it to the maids. When everything had been stuffed inside the trunk and the backseat, Dani took Lotus’s face in her hands as if she were still a child.
“You’re my cousin’s daughter, so we are five degrees apart. But I’ve always treated you as if you were my own daughter. We were a family, together in this house for ten years, eh?” She had no trace of tears in her eyes, but her voice quaked.
“We’ll always be a family, Aunt Dani,” Lotus said softly as she embraced her. She went to Luna, Jade, and Hesook and hugged each one. The car was already started, rumbling and emitting a stream of warm sooty smoke. The chauffeur opened the passenger-seat door for her, and they were off.
*
LOTUS’S DEPARTURE CAST a subtle gloom over Dani’s house. Breakfast was the time when her absence was most conspicuously felt, since that had been the meal that they all shared together. As usual, Dani vacillated between experiencing emotions passionately and restraining herself from sentimentality; the former was her nature and the latter was her principle. She never admitted to feeling sad or empty, and only the keenest observer could perceive a change in her confident self-possession. But Luna, who was familiar with Dani’s inner workings, knew that she missed the girl dearly.
Luna herself felt the loss but was not devastated by it. She had grown to love her younger sister as they both got older. But that had also coincided with the shaping of their individuality, and they had needed each other less with every passing year. She was simply glad that Lotus had blossomed and found what she wanted. Luna knew that her younger sister needed only two things to be happy: a man’s love and music.
As for what she herself needed to be happy, Luna was less certain. Rather, she never stopped to think about this, since for her even the very idea of happiness seemed alien and out of reach. It was no more sensible than being asked, “Would you like to live on the moon? How does that sound?” The closest thing to happiness was how she felt when her daughter curled up to her at night, begging to use her arm as a pillow. “What about your pillow?” Luna would ask, pointing at the soft silk cylinder filled with dried chrysanthemum petals and mung beans. “No, no. I want to sleep on Mama’s arm,” Hesook would protest, snuggling her head toward Luna. Luna would sigh, as though exasperated, making the child giggle. They would play silly games that only they understood; Hesook would call out, “Nose, forehead, chin, cheek, eyebrow” and so on, and Luna would kiss rapidly each part that was named. Messing up and kissing the wrong place caused both of them to break into utterly senseless and joyful laughter. Looking at the pure adoration in her daughter’s sweet little face, Luna welled up with the conviction that nothing and no one else mattered.