He sat back in his booth, glancing contentedly at Jade and seeing not her, but his immaculate collection and his similarly immaculate plan. Then, as if remembering something he’d forgotten, he checked his gold-faced watch.
“It’s quarter after nine. I have somewhere to be,” he said, summoning the waiter and instructing him to pack the rest of the dishes still untouched on the table. “I’m on my way to the ChangGyeong Palace Zoo. That’s near your house—I could drop you off.”
“The zoo? Why? And so late at night,” Jade asked, carefully clutching the parcel of food in her arms.
“I’ll tell you in the car,” Ito said. His driver, wearing pristine white gloves, was waiting in the front seat, and Ito himself opened the door for Jade before getting in on the other side.
“Where do you still get oil? Not even the military can find it these days,” Jade wondered aloud.
Ito laughed. “In some ways, you’re still a child,” he said, patting her arm playfully. “I know you don’t like or trust me, but in the name of time—sheer time that we’ve known each other, just listen to me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t trust anyone, don’t suffer unnecessarily, see the truth behind what people say, and always find a way to survive. That’s my advice.”
“Why do I have to survive?” Jade asked. “I feel like there’s no meaning to it. The world is crumbling down, it’s becoming a more evil and dark place every day, and I have no one.” She gestured at the muggy scene outside the window, devoid of any streetlamps, music, or moonlight, silence broken only by the rustling of damp leaves.
“You attach too much importance to other people,” Ito replied. They were both silent for a while, each unwilling to bend to the other.
“So what are you doing at the zoo?” she asked. Over the past few years, many animals had been starved to death. The inexpensive animals like the rabbits, dogs, and Jejudo horses were fed to the lions and the tigers, and their enclosures were melted down and turned into artillery. A few times, Jade brought a potato, an apple, or half a cabbage to feed the lone elephant, or the brother and sister half-moon bears. Afraid of getting too close, she tossed the food into the enclosure and watched them devour the lackluster vegetable. She thought that they’d looked at her with shockingly human eyes. Knowing, pleading, hopeful.
“Ah. I didn’t want to tell you at the restaurant, in case someone overheared and got alarmed,” Ito said in his smooth, unwavering voice. “There were orders from Tokyo to prepare for an American airstrike in Seoul in the near future. So the zookeepers are eliminating all the large and dangerous animals tonight, to prevent them from breaking loose.”
“But the poor things didn’t do anything wrong. So you’re going in order to watch them get killed?” Jade was gripped by anger, which returned with renewed force now that she felt more nourished and full.
“Watch them, yes, but mostly to recover what’s valuable afterward. I’m particularly interested in a tiger skin, two bear skins, and a set of ivory. The tiger, especially. We don’t have any such ferocious beasts in Japan, and we’re a far bigger country. How such enormous beasts have flourished in this little land is incomprehensible. I would have loved to hunt one in the wild—but they’re almost certainly extinct now.”
Jade remembered the long-ago nights in her village. The darkness had resounded with the cries of hungry animals, and on some snowy mornings she’d woken up to paw prints circling their cottage. But wild beasts had never frightened her—it was the humans who terrified her with their savagery.
“Why do you like death and killing so much?” Jade narrowed her eyes; if she wasn’t so dazed from constant physical and spiritual fatigue, she would have burst out crying.
“Oh no, I don’t take any special pleasure in watching a magnificent beast get poisoned inside a cage. It seems—unfair. Inelegant. But if it has to die, at least I can recover its hide. The zoo has said it will use the money to feed the remaining animals.”
The car rolled to a stop in front of Jade’s villa. In spite of her old hatred of Ito and his news about the zoo, she felt compelled to thank him for the food. He shrugged.
“Don’t thank me and just remember my advice. I’m leaving on Friday, so this is the last time we’re seeing each other . . . Fuck war, and fuck loneliness. Stay alive.”
She waited for him to press himself on her, but he merely sat there, smiling coolly. She realized that he didn’t want her, the same way he didn’t enjoy poisoning a caged tiger. It was not a matter of principle, but of taste. She bowed her head to hide her embarrassed flush.