“Was that what he gave you under the table?” Jade whispered as they started walking again. He nodded.
“A Japanese officer got too drunk one night and left it behind. It’s been harder and harder to source weapons within the country—every single gun counts,” JungHo said softly. It had never been very clear to Jade what he did; she knew this was to protect both of them. But just then, under the fresh darkness of the sundown, she felt his urgency to share a little of his secrets before it became too late.
“With the crackdown getting worse, we don’t know how much longer we can keep up the resistance, at least in the peninsula itself. It’s frustrating. I wish I could be of greater service than being the delivery man . . . But for that I would have to read and write better, and speak some Chinese besides. No matter how hard I try, my mentor doesn’t think I’m ready.” He bit his lips in bitter disappointment. Jade didn’t know how to comfort him, so she reached out and patted his arm. That seemed to soothe him, as always.
“I thought the owner was just a dandy,” she said after a long pause. “Soft hands, pretty hair.”
“People are brave in different ways, Jade.”
Because it had been such a nice, sunny day, it stayed balmy even as the darkness ripened. Many young lovers were promenading on the boulevard, and the shops played their SP records outside so that passersby could join in. Soft, hazy, nocturnal noises—laughter, a car engine, a dog barking—broke through the calm surface of silence, like muffled voices behind a drawn curtain onstage. Jade breathed in deeply the mixture of sounds and the smell of lilac. Everywhere around them, life was happening without their knowing, and their lives were also happening in the presence of all else. All existences were touching lightly as air and leaving invisible fingerprints.
“It’s too dark now,” she said softly.
“Let’s get you home. But we’ll find her soon, Jade. I go everywhere in the city, and know many people besides. I’ll find her for you.”
They turned a corner and headed in the direction of Jade’s house. Somewhere nearby a record was playing and grew louder as they approached. A crowd of a few dozen people were standing in front of the record store, singing along to the latest hit. The SP had a vellum quality that caressed the atmosphere. The rounded plucking of the double bass was like rain pattering on water.
“It’s ‘Manchu Tango,’” Jade told him. “It wasn’t going to pass censorship with that title though, so they changed it to ‘Mandu Tango.’ But everyone knows it’s really about moving to Manchuria and missing home. Apparently the activists in the north took it up as their anthem.” The crowd was changing mandu to Manchu in the refrain, and young couples were discreetly swaying side by side with their hands intertwined.
JungHo turned to her and held out his hand. “Would you like to dance?” He had a nervous twinkle in his eyes. The crisp crease of his pants, the carefully combed hair—all the effort he made, principally, for her—made her wish she liked him that way.
“We can’t, we’ll get arrested.” She smiled in apology. Ballroom dancing was officially illegal, and although everyone knew that people danced in cafés and secret clubs, doing so on the streets was out of the question.
“It’s so dark and no one will notice,” JungHo said, hand still outstretched. He appeared determined but just under the surface she knew he was terrified of embarrassing himself. Even the darkness of the night and his own permanent tan couldn’t hide the redness rising to his cheeks. She took his right hand with her left, then they stood both facing the gramophone and rocked side to side.
Jade closed her eyes. JungHo’s hand locked around her own was hot and clammy. She tried to imagine that it was HanChol’s hand that she was holding, but nothing about their hands was alike. HanChol’s had been well shaped with long and sturdy fingers and she’d loved even the greenish veins that stood up under the skin. But more than their appearance it was the touch that revealed all their differences. The older courtesans used to joke that men were indistinguishable once you blew out the candle. In reality, when you stopped looking at their expressions and hearing their words and focused simply on how they felt, you perceived their disparity more keenly. If love was just the deepest shade of friendship, so deep as to look like a distinct color but actually on the same spectrum of loyalty, then she loved JungHo. So much. But if it was something else altogether, then she did not.