HanChol’s face was transformed at the mention of her name, as if it were an antidote that turned arrogance to sorrow. “I have heard of you. Jade used to tell me you were one of her closest friends,” he said, casting his eyes low.
“Did she?” JungHo wondered, more to himself. He flushed a little imagining what they’d said about him, but he brushed this aside.
“She told me about you as well, Mr. Kim HanChol. You were not a good friend to her.”
JungHo saw with satisfaction how his enemy’s face paled and lost its self-absorbed equanimity. So that was his weakness—the need to appear to be right. HanChol was the kind of man who could convince himself that he had always done the best he could. JungHo knew that this look of sorrow was just one way he protected his own self-regard. The best revenge against HanChol would be shaking his conceit, and that wasn’t going to happen just by pummeling him with fists.
“The likes of you don’t deserve to breathe the same air she breathes. Never, ever appear in front of her again, you hear me?” JungHo snarled, taking a step closer to his rival and barely resisting the urge to spit on the ground. HanChol hadn’t moved an inch all the while, like a lizard that has sensed a predator and decides to play dead until the danger passes. He did not look so fine now—only cowardly, just as JungHo intuited. If only Jade knew!
“Boys, make sure Mr. Kim HanChol here gets whatever he needs,” he said, turning around. YoungGu snapped to attention and sent his underlings off in all directions in search of food.
“And don’t accept any payment from him.”
He knew without looking that HanChol, with his tiresome nobleman’s rules, was humiliated by having to accept the generosity of someone who clearly despised him. And no matter what happened in the past, ultimately it was he, JungHo, who was going to see her this evening. She needed him. The pleasure of revenge was so great that he felt as though he were a furious star, aligned perfectly in a constellation.
*
JUNGHO MANAGED TO BARTER THREE of YoungGu’s potatoes for a yellow melon on the way to Jade’s house. He had hardly finished knocking when she appeared and opened the gate for him. She accepted the heavy linen bag from him with both hands, opened it, and gasped.
“Barley, potatoes, anchovies . . . And what’s this? A chameh melon! I feel like I’m looking at a mirage. JungHo, what would I do without you?” she said, ushering him inside.
“I only wish there’s something more I can do. How is Aunt Dani?” he asked, taking off his fedora.
“She’s still struggling with fever. I think it’s the shock from the raids, and this steamy weather isn’t helping, either. She hasn’t had much to eat in months and has lost too much weight.” Jade blushed. She herself had become gaunt, and there were dusk-like shadows under her cheekbones that he hadn’t seen before.
“Did they take everything?” The police had been raiding people’s homes to collect not just rice and jewelry, but also metal pots, pans, clothing irons, furnaces, fire pokers, and the like. Without discrimination they were all melted down and remade into artillery, ships, and airplanes.
“Almost. In the garden, I dug a hole under the cherry tree and buried a few of our most expensive jewelry. But what use is a diamond necklace or a gold comb when the rice is half mixed with sand and there’s nothing to eat?”
“Jade, don’t tell even me where your secret hiding place is! Be careful around your neighbors and friends. That’s just for you and Aunt Dani to know.” JungHo berated her, and a sweet smile warmed her face.
“But, JungHo, you are my family. You’ve been bringing us good rice for months. I trust you.” She grinned, and little crinkles appeared under her eyes. It made her look her age—she was thirty-three, and more than twenty years had passed since he first saw her. And yet he thought she looked beautiful now in her waning, perhaps even more so than when she was a young courtesan in full bloom. Even the shadows on her face drew him in.
“Just hang in there. This can’t last forever. Japan greatly underestimated how big a country China is. The world has turned its back on them after what happened in Nanjing. Rape, fire, killing pregnant women . . . What they did to us, they now do to the Chinese. Our Independence Army and the Chinese troops have already joined forces in Manchuria. My mentor says Japan cannot win this war,” he said. Jade nodded firmly, as if her assent would help that prediction come to pass.
“Actually, that’s what I came to tell you.” He took his hat by the brim and turned it around in a circle. The air in the room was heavy, like a fourth drink. The second hand of the clock ticked away the silence to the beating of his heart.