Beasts of a Little Land(70)
It occurred to him now that he had never just told Jade his true feelings. Perhaps she knew and was refusing to acknowledge it. Perhaps she hadn’t seen him that way but would now realize what’s always been in front of her. When he arrived at her house, the maid told him she was out and asked if he’d wait inside. He opted to stay outside to breathe a little better in the fresh air.
He was wearing his only winter suit, one of two shirts, and an old overcoat, but everything was clean, pressed, and starched by MyungBo’s housekeeper. No one could say he looked like a dirty street urchin or an outcast. Some women passed by and glanced at him with friendly curiosity, which bolstered his confidence. He was finally ready to tell her.
*
JADE HAD GONE OUT that morning to the set of her new film near the Han River. It was chilly and windy by the water, and she wasn’t feeling well. Between takes, her costar asked her if she was all right.
“I’m just a little tired, but I’ll be okay,” she replied.
“It’s too cold today. I feel sorry you have to be in that thin little blouse,” he said with a smile. It was the kind of smile that men give to show, Yes, I care about you. Jade knew her costar liked her, and though she never planned on returning his feelings, his consistent availability made her feel immediately better.
She was suffering because HanChol had graduated from university, and instead of allowing them to begin their new life together, it had only brought on fresh anxieties. At first, it shocked both of them that he couldn’t find a job immediately. Many companies had laid off workers since the market crash, and only a few were hiring new employees. There were thousands of applicants for perhaps five or ten openings at a firm, which were first given to the Japanese and then the pro-Japanese elites. Without family connections or wealth, a degree was utterly worthless. Out of pride, HanChol refused to write letters to his estranged Andong relatives or hobnob with young bourgeois men from college—although avoiding the latter, strictly speaking, was less from his integrity than from an instinctive understanding that they would not welcome him. The more Jade tried to soothe him, the more HanChol acted aloof and cold, because he found himself becoming isolated in a woman’s love when he should be liberated in the company of other men. Jade knew that he felt this way. So she tried to demand as little as possible from him, even if that ground her down with unhappiness.
Jade had believed that all he required was some distance and a job, and rejoiced when HanChol finally found a position as a mechanic at a bicycle shop. It didn’t even require a college degree, but he had already spent months sending résumés to dozens of different companies and banks to no avail. If HanChol was disappointed, he hid it well. Years of fixing his own rickshaw soon gave him the ability to figure out any problems that a bicycle might have just by looking and tinkering for a few minutes. The night before, HanChol had come over and told her how he had even fixed his boss’s own bicycle.
“This job wasn’t what I had in mind exactly, but it’s at least consistent. And my boss pays better than most. He said he was very impressed by how quickly I fixed his brakes, and we talked a little about what I had studied in university,” HanChol said in bed. His right arm was wrapped around Jade, whose head with its cropped, wavy hair was resting snugly on his shoulder.
“See? He recognizes your talent. Before long, he will give you more important tasks and promote you. And then you’ll be set.” Jade beamed at him. Although she refrained from even thinking this directly in her head, she had a growing anticipation regarding their future, and she thought that HanChol would bring it up once he felt stabilized. While he was studying, he used to say from time to time that he wouldn’t let her down and that he would make her happy. More than a few times, he had said he wished that they could be together forever. Hearing these words in his arms had given her a feeling of pure luminescence, like a firefly that stores up the sun’s rays by day and fluoresces by night—humble yet miraculously alive. It was that awareness of having tasted life, of being kissed by life. But her happiness was dependent on him and thus easily broken.
HanChol had stopped saying that he wished they could be together forever. Since when exactly, Jade could not know.
Instead of those tender words, he mindlessly squeezed her shoulder and said, “Yes, I hope I’ll move up in this job. I mean to show him what I can do. He is rather absent-minded, and the business is run very badly by an associate . . .”
What she had wanted to hear was that once he was established, he would tell his mother about her and that arrangements would be made. With disappointment Jade sensed that he spoke rather more about himself than about her or them together. So she clung to him all the more affectionately. “Kiss me,” she whispered, guiding his narrow hips over her. She fell into the familiar pleasure as he kissed her breasts and plunged himself into her with the same longing and urgency. Her face lit up when she became certain that he still desired her just as much as at the beginning. A man’s eyes revealed everything while making love. But after finishing, he no longer kissed her or broke into that unconscious smile.
All afternoon, Jade mindlessly went through her scenes, preoccupied by HanChol. When the filming wrapped in the early evening, her costar asked, “Aren’t you in the mood for something hot after all this? Would you like to come with me to get some udon?”
He had a wonderful, anxious twinkle in his attractive eyes. His elegant wool suit was impeccably cut and pressed, and she had once laughed to herself imagining that it could stand up on its own without a wearer. But he really was a very nice man.