About an hour later, just before sunrise, Jade woke up and immediately went to her aunt’s room. Dani didn’t answer when Jade called her name and sat down next to her.
“Wake up for a moment and drink some water. The heat’s finally broken and it’s a beautiful morning . . .”
There was something about the way that her words scattered unheard that reminded Jade of the white seeds of plane trees. In the summer, when the sun shone just a certain way, the fluffy particles sparkled like stars in the air, each seed tracing a resolutely different path, although the wind blew only in one direction. Jade once watched for a long time to see if they came down to the ground; and they did not, they just kept floating between the earth and the sky. It was the way her words hung in the air like seeds that let her know that her aunt had died.
23
The Beginning of the End
1944
AFTER THE MORNING MEETING AT THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT ended, JungHo descended the staircase and walked out into the courtyard. As he blinked a few times at the alabaster light, one of his comrades caught up to him.
“Brother JungHo, are you coming with us to play tennis?” The comrade was a son of an academic family, the end of a long line of white-bearded scholars and ministers. Unlike his progenitors, he was more of a physical type, a star athlete back in high school. He was only twenty-two and constantly raring to do things, which was all in keeping with the directive that they spend plenty of time exercising. Sometimes he even looked disappointed that he had to sleep at night. At thirty-eight, JungHo both envied and doted on that puppyish energy.
“I can’t today. I have to get the soles of my shoes fixed,” JungHo said with a smile.
“Next time, then.” The young tennis player bowed to him and hurried out of the courtyard.
JungHo followed him out a little more slowly. The Provisional Government was housed in a dark, three-story building accessible through an alley; once outside the courtyard and on the main road, the restless light and sounds of the French Concession took hold of him more fully. JungHo had the impression that the red brick buildings here were redder, and the plane trees lining the boulevards greener. The long-limbed and slender-hipped women strolled in skintight cheongsam, saying something unintelligible in throaty Shanghainese. There was a kind of music in their steps, and in the air scented with cooking oil and tea. In spite of the Japanese flags fluttering ominously on the buildings, people here seemed far less tormented. MyungBo had said that the Chinese were accustomed to war and dynastic changes, much more than the Koreans were. They had less concern over which master they served, he’d explained. Within the boundaries of the French Concession at least, the impact of the Japanese occupation was less felt than in the rest of the city.
The cobbler was located just a few blocks east, on an alley even darker and dingier than their own street. The Chinese owner greeted JungHo in Korean and took away his shoes to the back to be resoled. JungHo sat on a chair and waited in his socks; those were the only pair of shoes he’d brought to Shanghai. He even played tennis in them.
After a while, the cobbler brought back the shoes, resoled and shined.
“These look as good as new,” JungHo said, lacing up his shoes.
“Ya ya. See you next time.” The owner smiled and bowed to him. JungHo bowed back.
JungHo let his feet lead him to the dock, thinking of those words next time. It occurred to him that he probably wouldn’t ever need to resole his shoes again. His shirt, his trousers, his hat—everything he owned was all he’d ever need. But how much more tender were those words, next time, knowing that there won’t be one? How much more did he look into people’s faces with compassion and forgiveness? The slow-burning rage he’d felt in Seoul had been washed away and all that was left was a sense of being free.
He slipped past the cars lined up by the dock and walked along the wharf alone, watching the seagulls float like skilled sailors of the sky. Every day he came here and every day, he saw something different in the color of the sky, in the crying of the birds, in how the light glittered on the Pacific Ocean. It was achingly beautiful how new the world was each day, and he only wished that he could have realized it a little earlier.
JUNGHO HAD GONE TO SHANGHAI with three other men. One of them had shot and killed a Japanese general at a train station and then was tortured to death in prison. Another had walked into a police station and thrown a bomb hidden inside a lunch box, and was shot on the spot when it failed to go off. In January, the third comrade—the young tennis player—disguised himself as a cook at a military banquet, opened fire in the ballroom, and screamed “Korean Independence manseh!” on the rooftop, before getting swarmed by dozens of soldiers, his entire body perforated by bullets. JungHo hadn’t seen this, as they strictly adhered to their own assignments; instead, he had heard about it from others who read the Chinese newspapers. JungHo tried to imagine his comrade in death, but he could only picture him laughing breathlessly after scoring the match point.