The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (9 page)

“Is it not time,” he said, “to set up a proper name for my elder grandson?”

“Will you choose a name, Most Honored?” Sunia said.

She sank gracefully to a floor cushion, well aware that in an ordinary household she would not have appeared so easily before her husband’s father, although it was true that here women were proud and never knelt before their husbands as women in Japan did, or had their feet bound small as Chinese women did, or their waists boxed in, as it was said that western women did. No, here husband and wife were equal in their places, nor were mothers browbeaten by their grown sons. In the royal palace, were the King to die and leave the heir too young to rule, the Queen Dowager ruled until the heir attained majority. Il-han, too, had accustomed Sunia to freedom, partly because he gave her respect as well as love and partly because he had heard that western women came and went as they wished. True, his mother, now dead, had talked much of the good and ancient times when women were neither seen nor heard, and she said often that she longed for the old custom of curfew when only at a certain hour could women walk freely through the streets. So severe was the custom in those days that if a man stole a secret look at the woman his head was cut off.

“And would you be willing to have my head cut off if I stole a look at Sunia?” Il-han had once inquired.

“I would have taught you better,” his doughty mother had retorted.

Sunia kept her own modest ways, however, and now in the presence of her husband and his father she held her head down and did not look up to either face. Meanwhile the grandfather considered the name he would choose.

“My elder grandson,” he said, at last, “is no usual child. He has a high spirit and a quick mind. These are signs of youth, but in him they are more. They are the qualities of his nature. Moreover, he was born in the spring. Therefore I will choose for him the name of Yul-chun, or Spring-of-the-Year.”

Il-han and Sunia exchanged a look, each making sure of the other’s approval, and then Il-han expressed what both felt.

“The name is suitable, Father, and we thank you.”

All would have gone well except that at this moment the newly named child saw a small mouse under a low table beside which his grandfather sat. Winter was near and the crickets, the spiders and mice crept into the house, seeking escape from the coming cold. Crickets and spiders were harmless but mice were dangerous, for people believed that if girl children played with mice they would never be able to cook rice properly. The women servants therefore always chased mice away, and the little boy, seeing the mouse as courageous as a lion under the table beside his grandfather, gave a loud scream and pointed at the creature with his tiny forefinger. What could they think except that he was pointing at his grandfather with a look of terror on his face?

The grandfather was dismayed, and Il-han was ashamed.

“Remove the child,” he said sternly.

The child, however, tore himself free of his mother and ran to the table to peer under it. At this the mouse crept out, to the horror of the nurse who held the younger child. She in turn screamed and hurried from the room with the child, and even Sunia rose and stepped back. Seeing the fray, Il-han himself rose and caught the shivering creature in his cupped hands, and going to the door that led into the garden he loosed it there. Though he was no Buddhist, yet so deeply had Buddhist learning permeated his mind and heart that he could not kill any living creature. Even a fly he brushed away from his face rather than kill it and he blew upon a teasing mosquito to move it away.

When all this noise was over he threw a commanding look at Sunia and she caught its meaning and left the room with the elder child in her arms. The two men were then alone and after a moment of quiet, Il-han’s father made an observation.

“It is a strange truth,” he said, “that where women and children are, there is always commotion. Nothing useful can be done until they are removed.”

When this was said, he then went on to important matters.

“The King,” he said, “is determined not to carry on the policies of the Regent now in retirement. Yet he remembers that the Regent is his father, and he does not wish to proceed too rapidly to make treaties with western peoples. Now he is in confusion because the military premier of China wishes us to make a treaty with that new foreign power the United States in North America. Have we not seen the evils of such treaties? Because we made even that one treaty with Japan, six years ago, her greedy soldiers invaded the island of Formosa and attacked the Ryukyu Islands. Why then should we make another treaty with any nation? I advised the King that his father, the Regent, is right. We must separate ourselves from the world. We must continue to be a hermit nation, else we shall lose not only our independence but our national life. Our glorious history will sink into the sea of forgetfulness and we shall be no more.”

His father’s voice fell into its usual cadences, as though he were reciting poetry, and Il-han could not bear it. He had been summoned by the Queen, but it was his father who was summoned by the King. True, the Queen was strong, yet she was a woman and if she gave an order which was in conflict with the command of the King, his will must be obeyed before hers. In this matter Il-han’s father was stronger than he. For the sake of the nation he must speak against his father now.

“Sir, the Regent is wrong, and so are you. I dare to say this with full respect to both. Li Hung-chang has purpose in what he does. The Americans are no threat to us. They are a new nation, far away, and I hear they have a vast country. They have no need of our small terrain. They come only for trade—”

Here his father broke in with some anger.

“It is you who are wrong. You do not read the times right. How did the English begin their possession of India except by trade? Oh, they were very innocent, they only wanted trade, and this trade they said would benefit the people of India. Innocent—innocent—but what was the end? India became a subject people and there is no end to their subjection. The English have grown rich and strong upon this trade while the people of India have grown poor and weak. No—no—you young men never study history! Yet only the past can illumine the present and foretell the future.”

Il-han was not surprised at his father’s outburst, which repeated what the Queen had said. There was some truth in what they said, but it was specious truth.

“The two countries we must fear,” he replied, “are Russia and Japan. In both countries the rulers are rapacious and the people ignorant of what their rulers plan. Moreover they are not peaceful nations, and Japan is the more ambitious because she is small. Small men are to be feared if they are ambitious for they are dissatisfied with themselves. Japan is a small man with a big head. We must fortify ourselves against this small man by seeking friends who are large and not greedy. Even China cannot protect us now. We must seek a western friend. Li Hung-chang knows this, and to keep us within China’s sovereignty, he too seeks help. Therefore he advises a treaty with Americans, and—”

His father would listen to no more. He rose up from his floor cushion, he adjusted his tall hat, he folded his fan and thrust it into the collar of his white robe. Without a word of farewell he stalked out of the house, his head held high and his underlip thrust out beyond his nose. Il-han watched him go and did not follow, recognizing with some rueful mirth that he had left the Queen in like manner an hour ago. Then he sighed and shook his head. If father and son could not agree, if Queen and subject came to quarrel, where could peace be expected in the nation?

As usual when he could not answer his own questions, Il-han retired to his books, and reading he came upon a poem of the late Yi dynasty written in the Sigo style.

          
Stay, O wind, and do not blow.

          
The leaves of the weeping tree by the arbor are fallen.

          
Months and years, stay in your course.

          
The fair brow and the fresh face grow old in vain.

          
Think of man; he cannot stay forever young.

          
There’s the thought that makes me sad.

Would life be long enough for what must be done for his people? He was suddenly conscious that the bright autumn day had changed to night. The wind was rising and he heard the sound of rain upon the roof.

“I am sorry,” Sunia said.

It was night. The house was quiet, the children asleep, the gates locked. Il-han took off his outer robes and she folded them and laid them upon the shelves in the wall closet.

“Sorry?” he repeated.

“This morning—the mouse—the child—”

“Ha—I had forgotten.”

He went on disrobing, down to his soft white silk undergarments. She held a night garment for him and he slipped his arms into it.

“What are you thinking of these days and nights?” she inquired gently. “You do not see any of us even when you look at us. I think this is why our elder son is too often naughty. He worships you as a god, and you forget to speak to him. How long has it been since you have spoken even to me more than to tell me you were hungry or thirsty or that something must be done?”

She was right and he knew it. Yet how to explain to her his feelings of heavy foreboding? How to explain them to himself? He smiled at her over his shoulder and walking away he slid back the paper lattices and stood looking out into the night. The garden lay before him gilded by the autumn moon, now nearly full. The gardener had lit the lamps in the stone lantern to warn away thieves, but the moon outshone them. Over the stone wall he looked at the crests of the high mountains outside the city. Their bare and rocky flanks shone softly with reflected moonlight. His heart filled anew with love for his country, his beautiful country, encircled by the sea on three sides, walled on the north by Pakdusan, Mount of Eternal Snow, and strengthened by the spine of mountains running its length from north to south. What treasures of gold and silver and minerals those mountains hid! For generations people had washed gold from the river Han, alone, in inexhaustible supply. He had read of caves in the western countries dug by men’s hands deep into mountains, and how they found gold and silver and lead and precious minerals hidden there by nature. The riches of his country were unexplored, secret, waiting.

Between the mountains lay valleys as rich in fruitful earth and rushing streams, fields tilled with ancient tools, men and women and children doing the work of beasts. Seasons came and went, spring planting followed by autumn harvest and it was treasure, too. This he knew, but he had not traveled far into the countryside beyond his father’s house. He was the son of a scholar and he had never worked with his hands, for though the Kim clan held vast lands he had been half ashamed to think of those lands. How had the Kim clan become rich in houses and land except by royal favor and corruption and usury? Even his father—even his father—

He turned abruptly away from the window. Sunia stood there waiting, her lovely face half questioning, half sad, her white robes flowing away from her slender body like floating mist.

“Sunia …” he began and stopped.

“Yes?” she whispered.

He knew what she expected. Her warm smile, her voice, tender and shy, her dark eyes longing and soft, her whole being waiting for his invitation to love. He could not give it.

“I am troubled,” he said. “I have the cares of our nation on my mind tonight.”

She withdrew with instant grace.

“I think only of you,” she said, and left him alone.

… He woke early the next morning. The sun filtered through the rice paper lattices and, seeing the morning was fair, he put on a robe and went out into the garden. The air was cool but the earth was warm and a heavy dew lay on the mossy paths and the rocks and the shrubs. Clumps of autumn chrysanthemums glowed among the pines near a small brook sparkling as it fell over a ledge. He walked the length of a path and sat down on a Chinese garden seat of blue porcelain and there contemplated the low and flowing lines of the roofs of his home. The buildings had stood there for centuries, the foundations of mountain rock, the walls of gray brick, the roofs of earth-dried tile. Yet its stability was only seeming. Peasant unrest, the division between young and old, and even war could destroy his possession. The house could become a prison if a foreign tyrant ruled the land. What powers lay in his people to save them from such attack? They must defend themselves. China, their ancient friend, was now too weak to save her own people, and Russia and Japan were only contending enemies.

How strong were his people?

There was no answer to the question except to discover its answer for himself. It was at this hour in the morning, while under the curving roofs of his home his household lay tranquil in sleep, that a new resolve took sudden shape in his mind. He would go on a pilgrimage, not for penance or for any of the reasons for which men usually made pilgrimage. He would not seek out a temple or search for a god. No, his search would be for himself, for his own answer to his own question. North and south, east and west, he would travel in search of the soul of his people. He must know them for only then would he know what to expect of them, what to demand of them, and what they would be able or even willing to do for their country if it were attacked.

With resolution came peace. He had been a man lost in a jungle of doubt and fear but now he saw a path opening before him to lead him out of the jungle. If he did not see its end at least he saw its beginning, and he was free to pursue it and follow it wherever it led—free except for the two women he loved, his wife Sunia and his queen, Queen Min. They must be willing to let him go. Which woman should he approach first? There were arguments for one and for the other. If he began with the Queen’s approval, he could say to Sunia that it was royal command. Yet he knew Sunia’s willful and stubborn nature, and he knew her love.

“All very well for the Queen,” she would cry. “All very well for her to send you wandering alone through the mountains and the valleys in these troubled times! She has other men to heed her bidding. Of men she has a plenty, but I have only you. To me you are everything and without you I am lost and with me our children. What if you never come back? What if—”