“If you liked that handsome driver, you should’ve invited him in.” Lotus giggled as they crossed the courtyard.
“He’s a poor student and I was just being nice,” Jade protested. She couldn’t act friendly to anyone, even a rickshaw driver, without Lotus mocking her. Even a boy barely old enough to be in high school.
“Then I can have him?” Lotus asked, and Jade shrugged her shoulders. “Fine, we’ll share. He seems strong enough to handle the two of us. Oh, I bet we can both ride his rickshaw all night . . .” Then they broke out laughing.
*
“I AM SO GLAD YOU’VE COME. What would you like to drink? I have a very good sake. Also, an excellent cognac. I developed a taste for it when I was doing my European tour, and now I confess it’s become one of my favorite things,” Ito Atsuo said, letting go of his friend’s hand and settling himself on the settee with obvious pleasure. As he spoke he gestured to the high-backed chair opposite from him, and Yamada Genzo slid onto it with the careful manner of a guest visiting a friend’s home for the first time.
“If it’s one of your favorite things, let’s indulge you a bit.” Yamada smiled.
“Cognac then!” Ito exclaimed brightly and signaled to his servant, who wordlessly returned with the bottle and crystal glasses on a tray. The two men tasted the drinks silently, the better to appreciate its fragrance mingling with the fresh scent of a quiet fall gloaming.
“It’s very good,” Yamada said appreciatively. Ito nodded, smiling. Having an excellent taste in all things—wine, food, art, furniture—was the chief source of his pride. He, like all such people, believed that was the essence of sensibility and understanding. This was also the ostensible reason Ito had invited Yamada to his home, for the first time in the several years that they’d been working together: they were going to discuss art and admire a few priceless items Ito had purchased in recent months. Since Ito’s father died, leaving him vast estates that he’d acquired in Korea, Ito had begun to collect antiques in earnest. Now, he was bringing out a Koryo celadon from around the eleventh century, with the sly glance of someone who is asking a question while knowing the correct answer. The porcelain urn had a silhouette that was as instinctively graceful as the shoulders of a beautiful woman, and its color was an exquisite milky green—a shade that’s not truly found in nature, and yet immediately evocative of it.
“It’s marvelous,” Yamada said honestly. “It’s truly one of the best examples of its kind. But what happened here?” He pointed at the long line reaching from the bottom all the way to the shoulder of the urn.
“Ah, that crack. It’s impossible to get an antique of this vintage without one. That’s from the gravedigger’s shovel—but who can blame them? It’s not as though they can use feather dusters to bore through the ground, just to avoid hitting the porcelain. It’s been repaired beautifully.” He smirked, full of understanding. “I actually find it rather exciting. Much more thrilling than collecting something that has been kept in a study of some old gentry. Imagine this being buried with the king of Koryo; and now I get to retrieve it, a thousand years later.”
“Yes, that is exciting,” Yamada said, affecting approval. Only the flicker of his eyes and the deliberately careful way he set down his glass betrayed him.
“And you’ll love this,” Ito said, leading the way to the next room. On the floor there was a giant yellow-and-black tiger that, at a glance, looked like a live animal. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be only a skin.
“Do you know how much I paid for this?” Ito said with an unusual frankness, and revealed a sum that exceeded their yearly salaries as colonels. “They’re getting absurdly expensive nowadays. But that’s precisely why I bought one. Once the beasts are truly well and gone, I could sell this for twenty times what I paid.”
“I went tiger hunting once,” Yamada said with a distant look in his eyes. “They are the strongest and the most clever beasts you’ll ever see.”
“You don’t say! They’re becoming so rare these days in the wild. I haven’t heard one has been caught in the last three, four years. Within the next few years, we’ll only catch sight of them at the ChangGyeong Palace Zoo.”
At that moment, Ito turned his head to the door, where his sister was standing and casting shy glances.
“Come in, Mineko,” Ito said warmly, and the young woman quietly entered. Yamada rose, and the two of them exchanged bows. Unlike her handsome brother, she was plain and even unattractive. But her eyes were pretty and kind, whereas her brother’s fine eyes were cold and selfish. Like the two men and other members of the highest Japanese nobility, she was dressed in Western clothes—a loosely fitting dress of pale pink satin that made her look even whiter. She stood next to Yamada, smiling self-consciously.