Beasts of a Little Land(7)

“But he also saved us from that tiger,” Yamada replied coolly. “It appears to me that squares the score back to even.” He looked from Fukuda to Major Hayashi, then back to Fukuda. “I have no love of filthy Josenjings, and have no doubt that I have killed enough of them on the field. But if you harm this man, you would be owing him a debt of life, and nothing is more dishonorable than owing something to an inferior. As he also saved my life, I can’t allow that to happen and be shamed. Let him go free.”

“You really speak out of turn, Captain,” Fukuda said, turning red in the face. He looked at Major Hayashi to back him up.

Hayashi looked almost expressionless, which was when he was at his most dangerous. He licked his lips, a serpentine habit.

“It doesn’t seem necessary, after all, to kill every Josenjing who knows these parts. He was indeed useful, unlike that worthless old man Baek,” Hayashi said.

At that, Fukuda quickly gave up and they decided to head to the police station.

When he was sure of not being noticed, Yamada breathed out with a sense of genuine relief. He had never wished anything for or from others, which gave him a secret satisfaction all his life. He felt complete in his independence, and never longed for warmth even from his mother—a quiet, elegant lady with cold white hands—or for the love of a woman. But the possibility of losing his face because of Fukuda’s brutishness had roused Yamada more than he’d even expected. He was irritated by this sense of attachment to another’s fate. The less he could be certain of Nam’s safety, the longer this attachment would last. So he pulled Nam aside, who had been frozen silent, staring at Baek’s body ahead. Crows were already gathered on it, cawing excitedly.

“If you get into trouble, come find me,” Yamada said quietly, out of hearing of the others. “My name is Yamada Genzo.”

Nam stared back. Yamada didn’t know whether he’d understood, so he pulled out a silver cigarette case from the inside pocket of his coat and pressed it onto Nam’s hand. Yamada ran his finger along its side, where his name was engraved. Then he pulled away with the rest of the officers; and now that Nam’s fate was decided, at least temporarily, no one paid him any mind as he limped away on his own.





Part I



1918–1919





1


Secret Letters

1918

ON A DAY HOVERING BETWEEN WINTER AND SPRING, THE CUSP OF warmth just visible on the glistening ice, a woman and a girl walked ten miles of country road where tender green shoots were coming up like eyelashes. They had started their journey before dawn and did not stop until they arrived in front of a walled mansion in PyongYang.

The woman heaved a sigh and smoothed down the stray hairs clinging to the sides of her face. She looked more unkempt in contrast to her daughter, who had her shiny black tresses braided behind each ear and joined in one long rope down the center of her back. Jade had been made to work around the house and care for her siblings almost as soon as she could walk, but her mother had always combed and braided her hair every night. Her mother gave more food to her brothers because they were sons, but served her first because she was the oldest. These were the only acts of love Jade had received in the first ten years of her life. Now, she saw that even these had come to an end.

Jade tugged at her mother’s sleeve.

“Can I go back home with you?” she said, her voice punctuated by tears.

“Stop crying like a child. Listen to me,” her mother scolded her. “You’ll be able to come visit for a half day, once every moon. Don’t you want to help your mother and father?”

Jade nodded, mopping her face with little red hands like maple leaves. The weight of being a firstborn already hung heavily over her frame.

A servant greeted them at the side entrance and made them wait in the courtyard. There were several tile-roofed villas facing them on three sides, emanating that otherworldly air of fine and old mansions. Even without any wind, Jade was enveloped by a cool draft that seemed to be the house’s exhalation. Where the wooden floor of the porch was rubbed smooth and dipped low, she could envision the countless guests taking off their shoes before entering: men seeking pleasure, solace, some jolting reminder of their virility or perhaps their first passion. Though Jade was young, it was easy to see what the men wanted here. Their motivations were simple—to feel alive. It was the women who remained outside of her understanding. Did they ever feel alive, the way they made the men feel?

One of the doors of the villa opened and a woman emerged. Even before she turned around, Jade could immediately tell that she was extremely beautiful just from the shape of her back and the particularly graceful distance between her nape and her shoulders. When she showed her face and even deigned to flash a small smile in their direction, Jade felt her insides clamp with yearning. Instead of the more common kind of female beauty that elicited jealousy in other women, this stranger had the much rarer kind that drew them in with a promise of something that might also rub off on them. But underneath an air of general benevolence, she was not easygoing. She seemed to toy with people’s attraction to her, raising their hopes and then watching them cower.

Jade’s mother gave a stiff bow, impervious to the woman’s charms. Even though they were tenant farmers throwing themselves to a tiny plot of land, they were technically of a higher class than the giseng—who belonged to the same ignoble rung as butchers and tanners. Those who made their money in the filth.