Beasts of a Little Land(75)

“Jade, what I mean is that I love you. And I wonder if you also love me.”

As he said those words, Jade cast her eyes down on her lap. Her fingertips were still red from being in the rain.

“I love you too, of course, JungHo. I’ve always admired you even when we were little. Do you know why? Because you weren’t afraid of anything. I was just in awe of how fearless you were even when you had nothing. When we were little Lotus used to tease that I was a coward. You helped me become more courageous—like you.” Jade laughed a little. “But I’m in love with someone else. I’m truly sorry.”

Even though he had somewhat expected this all along, he inwardly keeled over at those words. “Who is it?” he asked without thinking. “Some rich playboy?”

“His name is Kim HanChol. He’s just a repairman at a bicycle shop.” Jade smiled faintly.

JungHo had difficulty processing that he’d spent all these years trying to improve himself for her and that she was in love with some mechanic. He let out a confused laugh and she took it to mean that the tension was over, that they could go back to being friends.

“I guess poor guys are my type,” she joked. “I don’t ever have to talk about HanChol with you. It would just kill me to lose you over this. As life goes on I’m realizing more and more that it’s impossible to replace very old friends. Hold on, let me show you something.”

Jade got up, went to her sideboard, and brought back something in her hand. She dropped it into JungHo’s palm.

“See, this is the sea glass you tossed over the wall all those years ago. I kept it.”

JungHo stared at the smooth green pebble and felt all the ways people keep each other in their lives through material and immaterial means—words, memories, gestures, meaningless objects that become tokens and then turn back into meaningless objects—resting snugly in the palm of his hand. It was both unfathomably heavy and light as a feather. He gave it back to Jade.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” he said to her.





19


Hoarfrost

1934

ALL THE MEN IN THE WORLD FALL UNDER ONE OF TWO CATEGORIES. First—and far more numerous—is the man who discovers at some point in his life that he cannot and will not succeed any further beyond his present state. Then he must find some way to rationalize his lot in life and learn to become content with it. For the poorest of the poor, this point is reached remarkably quickly—before the age of twenty. Those who have had the benefit of education eventually come to the same realization between thirty and forty. Some, by virtue of birth, ambition, and talent, arrive at the reckoning around fifty, at which point the winding down does not seem so appalling.

The second and exceedingly rare type of man is he who never has to give up rising and expanding until the end of his life. Kim SungSoo belonged to this group not only by his birth, which already entitled him to fertile fields across four counties in the province, but also by his marriage to an only daughter of a minister. Instead of adopting a male relative as a son, his father-in-law had left his estate to his daughter upon his passing. Furthermore, SungSoo’s first cousin—his uncle’s only child—had died of a freak accident the following year, when his heart stopped midcoitus with his pretty young mistress. Though the uncle was still living, SungSoo was his heir as well, elegantly combining the wealth of the family’s two branches.

SungSoo was not so vulgar or ignorant as to be unaware of his extraordinary good luck. From time to time, he indeed felt that life had been unfairly generous to him. At fifty-one, he was at the height of middle-aged vigor, still going into the office, publishing books regularly, and not dissipated and lazy as were many of his peers. Others he knew had drifted aimlessly, unable to find a suitable occupation as the economy tanked and family fortunes dwindled, and some of them lost the will to live. Three years ago already, his friend the playwright had jumped off a bridge into the Han River. SungSoo had been sad, briefly, but as he aged he was less able to feel sorry for anyone else. Misfortunes of others only cemented his belief that he was quite exceptional. All of Seoul knew him and respected him, except for underground Communists, who would soon succumb to the government crackdown.

Only one thing weighed on him. It was that his wealth, though astronomical, also seemed to get drained quite quickly. He himself had always enjoyed spending money, and he had no plans to cut down on his habits of restaurants, clothes, and women. But he had not expected how much his only son would take after him in squandering the family fortune. He did everything SungSoo did but on a grander scale, and added his own vices of gambling and opium. SungSoo had already paid for debts amounting to the sale of a couple of prosperous villages and adjoining farmland, and his patience had reached its limits.

Adding to the unstable state of his affairs was the increase in property taxes, designed to squeeze the Korean landowners so that they would voluntarily give up their land. When the gentry finally decided to sell their estates, the Japanese would be hovering nearby, waiting to snatch up the land. This morning SungSoo had received a letter from his father in the country on this very issue. He complained of the local police, who had been showing the Japanese nobles around his property—ostensibly for a tour, but really to subtly pressure him.

These pesky worries had settled on SungSoo’s mind during his walk and he swatted them away when he reached his bicycle shop. The door was open, although it was a frosty late autumn afternoon. Inside, the manager and the senior repairman were chatting over some steamed buns and tea, while the junior repairman was crouched next to a bike. SungSoo frowned and cleared his throat, and the manager snapped to attention.