Beasts of a Little Land(72)
“It has chocolate in it—isn’t it amazing?” Jade giggled. “We start with this, then we’ll have some alcohol. You see how people are just talking now. Later on, everyone will be dancing. Oh, they’re playing ‘La Paloma’!” Jade flitted from one thought to the next. She pointed out a well-known woman painter who’d married a diplomat and traveled the world with him; but while abroad, she had an affair with her husband’s best friend, and he divorced her as soon as they returned. Now she struggled to make a living by selling paintings and doing illustrations for magazines. There was also a novelist who was sitting alone, ostensibly reading an American magazine that was stocked at the café, but was really there for one of the waitresses, who was his mistress.
“They all go for the café girls these days. More modern than the courtesans, I’ve been told,” Jade said, glancing at their waitress, whose apron emphasized her tiny waist. She looked no older than twenty. “And not as demanding as high-born Modern Girls.”
“Sometimes it feels strange to think that we started out learning classical poetry and traditional songs at that pavilion under the weeping willow. And my mother in her regal silks and jewels, and her lifelong devotion to the one man who gave her that silver ring . . . That feels like a hundred years ago.”
“Don’t you miss her? Why don’t you take Sunmi to visit her in PyongYang?”
“President Ma wouldn’t allow it,” Lotus said quietly to her cup of mocha. The music changed. A young gentleman was headed their way, and they both smiled in preparation for his arrival.
“Miss Jade, what a pleasure. Why have you been away for so long? We’ve missed you here,” said the gentleman, who was the poet-owner of the café. He was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, of an average height and build. His shirtwaist sans jacket, the horn-rimmed glasses, and amiable mannerisms were proof of his bohemian status. He took hold of Jade’s left hand and kissed it passionately, as if to say, “this is only half in jest.” When Jade introduced her friend, he was equally overjoyed to meet the famous singer and ordered a round of American whiskey to be brought out. He had the gift of talking to two women with equal attention and flirting without implication.
“So what does the name mean? Seahorn,” Lotus asked him, awash in her first taste of whiskey.
“Oh, it’s something I made up. You know, we all have those things that we just love without rationality. Actually, if it’s rational, then it’s not really love. So the thing I love the most in the world . . .” The gentleman lingered over his words, licking the whiskey off his lips.
“It’s the sound of ships. When I was a student, I once traveled to Busan on my own. I lived in a boardinghouse near the harbor for a month, just reading and writing from morning until nightfall. After dark, I would light a candle to keep going, and it was possible to believe that there was nothing in the world except myself and my books. It felt like my room was the cabin of a ship, somewhere out in the middle of the ocean. And every afternoon between three and four P.M., there would be the sound of the ships at the dock. The big ships would go, BOO—BOOOO . . . and the smaller ones would answer, Doo—doooo . . . Those ship horns made me happier than I’d ever felt in my life. If I could bottle that sound, I would pour it little by little when I’m sad and drink it like whiskey.” He smiled. “Have you ever been to the sea, Miss Lotus?”
Neither Lotus nor Jade had ever been to the sea. Not even to InCheon, which was so close.
“That’s right, you are both Northerners . . . Of course, that’s why you two are so pretty. Not for nothing that PyongYang courtesans are the most celebrated of all. Oh, the song has just ended. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to put on another record.” He bowed and turned away.
“How charming he is,” Lotus said, once he was out of earshot.
“Yes, but don’t you also find that he’s not all there with you?” Jade took another sip of her whiskey. “His story for instance. It’s like he wasn’t telling it for us, not really. He’s told that story to anyone who asks. He doesn’t really care about us knowing, ultimately. Why are you smiling? Am I too cynical?”
“I’m smiling because I love you so dearly. My oldest friend.” Lotus embraced Jade with one arm.
“But do you agree? Don’t you think I’m right?” Jade was thinking of the story of the owl HanChol had told. He’d always made her feel that he was telling that story only for her. He’d wanted to be understood by her. She missed him terribly.
“Yes, you are right. But you were always pickier with men. Oh, listen, Jade!” They both stopped speaking; it was Lotus’s record that was put on the gramophone. The poet-owner waved at them from across the room. Couples were starting to get up and dance, as if the music had awakened them from sleep like enchanted people in a fairy tale. The liquid light of the lamps spilled over them and their shadows whirled around the walls.
“I’m so glad you brought me here.” Lotus put her head on Jade’s shoulder. “You know, President Ma doesn’t love me and hasn’t for a long time. He doesn’t even pretend to love Sunmi—a fourth daughter and a bastard at that, when he’d really wanted a son. I’m pretty sure too that he’s been sleeping with that whore of a secretary.” Lotus actually hadn’t thought about the last part, but once she’d spoken it out loud she knew it had to be true.