The Court Dancer

  1

  Two People

  It took four whole days to reach the harbor.

  The winding mountain road led to a new highway covered with dust, which carried them to a gravel path that overlooked a river dotted with ships. They passed the occasional rice paddy where rows of sprouts swayed in the breeze. They passed sumac trees, cherry trees, and zelkova trees, and marigolds, irises, dandelions, and guelder roses. They came upon a wild peony tree, which made them linger for a while. She captured every view outside her palanquin’s window by heart, thinking that she might never see such sights again.

  Then, for the first time in her life, she took in the endless spread of the ash-colored tideland.

  There wasn’t a hint of a cloud in the sky and the wind had quieted down. Casting her gaze farther, she could just make out the shapes of islands floating on the blue sea as in a dream, seemingly oblivious to the precarious status of the Joseon Dynasty. Ships carrying kindling and other cargo undulated with the waves as if being tugged to and from the shore. The smell rising from the stockfish yard permeated the entire harbor. Freshly caught fish were laid out on boards. A straw-shoe seller hurried by, carrying a rack full of wares on his back. Early summer sunlight, untouched by heat, shone upon the busy people going about their livelihoods.

  Her companion was a diplomat who was used to spending two months of the year on a ship, but she had been a dancer in the royal court and was about to board a boat for the first time.

  The companion, a tall Frenchman, his pale face covered in a mustache, wore a short vest and a pair of wide, loose trousers that came down to his ankles under a traveling coat fastened with a belt. The woman, a Korean who held a hat embroidered with roses and a coat to wear later when the wind blew, had on a light blue dress that rustled like lapping waves. They both caught the eye. An old man with a long pipe in his mouth, the man selling clogs, the loitering youth, not to mention the dusty children at play, and even foreigners—like the Chinese who had come on their rafts to sell their tea and kindling, or the Japanese who were selling rice at the docks—stared at the two as if a door had opened into a strange world, and they were looking in.

  Especially at the woman.

  Her thick, lustrous black hair was combed and arranged into piles of ebony atop her head, her eyes like dark indigo marbles set in her smooth-complexioned face. It was inevitable that she would stand out, as Western hairstyles were still a rare sight.

  Her light blue dress flowed down from her shoulders past her waist to her ankles in the shape of an S. She was clearly distinct from the women by the docks in their linen tunics. Each step she took made the gawkers approach from behind and retreat before her. They looked at her as if thinking, Is she a foreign woman? Ah, a Korean one. Their curious gazes lingered on her face, then moved to Victor’s arrogant nose and white skin, and to his brown curls. Some couldn’t take their eyes away from the brilliant white lace framing the woman’s décolletage. They kept at a distance as if afraid to tread on her hem, but their looks were frosted with suspicion. Why is a Korean woman going about in Western clothes? Some, disapproving, openly frowned at her.

  Her mystique wasn’t merely due to her exotic clothes. Nor was the reason she caught the eye, despite being among countless other women, because of the dazzling nape of her neck or the depth of her gaze. But her bared nape truly was pleasing when she lowered her head, resolute when she stood tall and centered, and magnetic when softly bending and twisting, drawing the touch of the hand.

  And how sparkling her eyes were underneath her perfectly symmetrical eyebrows. Her eyes seemed ready to sympathize with the most heartbreaking of sights and were as dark as the undiscovered ocean deep. Her skin from below her ear to her cheek was pink, which made her seem shy, but the straight and narrow nose between her eyes helped overcome that impression by giving her face an air of intelligence. It was a striking combination. Around her lips, which were neither thin nor plump, were soft, white hairs, finer than a hint of sprouts in spring, a mouth so lovely that no amount of silliness could make her anything less than embraceable. And yet that loveliness was not the only reason she exuded charm. It flowed from how she maintained the character of her neat and measured walk, conveying a sense of confidence despite the crush of attention. She made no sign of acknowledging the people’s leers and stares. Her walk was clearly distinct from the walk of normal Korean women, who went about in a slight bow with their faces peeking out from the long coats modestly covering their heads. The woman’s walk never wavered in its perfect balance, even for a moment. She didn’t bother with such conceits as pretending to stare out at the ocean to avoid the gazes that were full of suspicion. Her shoulders were spread wide, and the way in which she advanced gave a sense of her being strong enough to walk through any situation that met her way. The provocative quality of this walk was softened by the depths of her gaze, the beauty of the nape of her neck, and the loveliness that flowed from her face. If anything, her steady poise in the face of their scrutiny made them sigh and turn away toward the ocean.

  This lovely woman taking in the view was not aware that only ten years ago, before the signing of the Jaemulpo Treaty, the harbor surrounded by low-lying hills had been nothing more than a quiet village of ten or so thatched-roof houses. As is often the case in life, change came only when forced. The tiny fishing village, surrounded by water on almost every side, changed rapidly after the signing of the treaty. A Japanese concession was established, followed by that of China and other nations, with their businesses popping up everywhere in the once sleepy environs. Soon, one out of every ten persons in Jaemulpo were either Japanese or Chinese. And at this point in time, no one knew for sure, yet, whether they would breathe life or sadness into this small seaside town.

  She thought to herself that it was good weather to set sail in but quickly dismissed the thought. A district official, tasked by the Board for Diplomacy and Trade’s Cho Byungsik with seeing off Victor, had greeted them with the advice that it was unlucky to say, “good weather for sailing” when about to board a ship. Commenting on good weather foreshadowed storms in the voyage ahead. Among the people seeing them off were harbor officials and French missionaries. There were also French nuns who had settled in Korea.

  There wasn’t a single tall building or large ship in sight. The harbor was an international port but looked no different from any local pier. The waves near the shore were as calm as those farther out. Among the low roofs were the occasional white, European-style habitations. The eaves of the thatched-roof houses seemed to overlap in the absence of tall buildings. Sunlight seeped between them. The woman, who had once danced for the King and embroidered tortoise patterns in the palace, was now soaking herself in the warm light of the harbor. The eaves of the palace buildings had been high and wide, almost touching each other, allowing only shade underneath. The journey to the harbor had been a constant meeting of and parting from things she had never before seen, land never before stepped on, and people never before met.

  Where was it that he’d said those words?

  The day they left the capital, the company had spent a night at an inn in the country. The inn, which was surrounded by a driftwood fence, had twelve ponies. The ponies puffed, their nostrils quivering, as if impatient to run the fields, but they too were enclosed by the fence. When darkness fell, the cries of the mountain creatures carried into the windowless rooms.

  Sometimes a kind word can encapsulate love like a seed buried in the soil.

  In that mountain inn, the former palace dancer Yi Jin heard the French legate Victor call out to her in Korean, “My angel.” She was more surprised by his unaccented pronunciation than by his calling her an angel. Victor practiced his Korean when he could, but there had always been something miss
ing in it, his words scattering in the air.

  Crossing the ocean to his country meant living with a people who spoke an utterly different language. Perhaps he had sensed her hidden anxiety. It was unmistakable that Victor had called her an angel, for the first time in perfect Korean, at this traveler’s inn nestled in the mountains of her own country.

  The Korean words flowing smoothly from his lips made her experience a moment when language changed her very emotions. Victor, who still found it difficult to pronounce her name, had made her placid heart tremble. She was flooded with a longing that felt as if her feet were dipped in warm water, a feeling that washed away the fatigue of being shaken all day in a palanquin. That older feeling of needing to keep her distance, a feeling she had felt since the day she met Victor and persisted over his efforts to be closer to her, disappeared in that single moment.

  She let her black hair fall down the nape of her neck and held out her hairbrush.

  —Peignez-moi.

  Victor’s eyes grew wide.

  He had yearned to brush her hair. The first thing he had gifted her after her engagement ring was a hairbrush he had brought from his country. Unfortunately for him, Jin did not like other people touching her hair, apart from Dowager Consort Cheolin when Jin was a child at court, or Lady Suh. Even as the other young court ladies would chatter and laugh as they combed each other’s hair, artfully knotting the two braids and pinning them up with a violet ribbon, Jin would sit alone at a distance, her fingers struggling to re-create the weeping-willow style. And later, whenever she let down her hair to brush it, she would ignore Victor as he passed her an imploring look. But here she was now, her hair down and her hand offering him her hairbrush, asking him in his own language to brush her hair for her.

  Victor took the brush and sat behind her. Never having imagined she would ask him to brush her hair, he took a moment to bury his face in the lustrous blackness of it. A smile was about to break through his face. It was the same expression Jin made whenever Victor awkwardly pronounced her name, Yi Jin. Victor began brushing her hair, and in the middle of it, he put his face next to hers and said, “Peignez-moi?” in a playful imitation of her accent earlier.

  Jin’s hair swirled like eddying waves as she turned to face Victor. The brush still in Victor’s hand, she held his smiling face in her hands and brought her lips to his. His beard touched her heated cheek. She softly prodded his hand. He dropped the brush on the floor. They heard the horse that Victor had ridden all day exhale outside. They had rented three horses from the city along with the palanquin. Two of these carried their baggage, costing a hundred nyang for every twenty li. One of the three horses sported a wound on its abdomen. It probably had its oats with the ponies kept at the inn and was now fast asleep. Listening to the burbling sound the horses made in their slumber, Jin undid the buttons on the shirt Victor wore. His revealed chest was flushed red.

  She had him lie on his stomach.

  Her fingers entered the thicket of hair on the back of his head and grasped it gently. She pressed her fingers down on his scalp. Her hands followed the contours of his body from his neck down his spine. Every spot where her fingers touched released its tension and turned supple. Jin’s hands would spread as wide as a coltsfoot leaf and then scrunch as tight as a block of quartz. She would use the edges of her hands, round them into fists, and spread them again. These changes in the strength of her grip made a pleasant heat bloom across his body. The heat flowed to the soles of his feet and rekindled the desire that had been extinguished by the long ride on horseback and his fatigue.

  Before her hands could travel any farther down, Victor turned to lie on his back.

  He pulled her face toward him and kissed her, caressing her breasts over the thin material of her nightdress. Her soft tongue curled. He removed the clothing that covered her body, and his bare hand touched the mound of her shy breast. He felt a hot wave wash over him from below. He grasped her close against him and soon they were entangled, their hands searching each other’s bodies in the dark. Victor caressed Jin’s face, buried his nose in her breasts and hugged her close to him as Jin arched her back. Victor’s lips grazed her neck and bit her earlobe. Jin blushed, the earlier frosty melancholy of her eyes melted away, her lips red. Their knees, as each lover tried to cover the other, bumped into each other. Not a single shade of dark thought existed between them in that moment.

  The four hooves of a swiftly running horse barely touch the ground.

  They were both sensitively responsive to each other’s passionate lovemaking, bringing forth waves of mutual pleasure. Dew drops of perspiration beaded on their foreheads and the slightest tremor in one carried to the other. It was difficult to tell whether the heated body of the woman had enveloped the man, or whether the man’s hardened body had entered the woman. All at once, sparks burst inside of both lovers. As her back arched into her climax, she covered her face with her hands. She didn’t want him to see the teardrops gathered in her eyes.

  —Jin!

  She gave no answer.

  —I love you!

  He gently stroked away her tears with the tip of his tongue.

  A deer. A falcon. Or perhaps it was an otter. They heard an animal chirping from a place not far away.

  Jin closed her moist eyes and listened again for the sound. It wasn’t the breathing of the horses. The two lovers lay drenched in sweat as they fell asleep to the sound of a lost pup of some mountain beast crying for its mother as it crawled into the courtyard of the sleeping inn, somewhere in the mountains of Korea.

  On her last night, Jin shared a bed with Soa at the Japanese-run Daibutsu Hotel at the harbor. This was a special concession given by Victor for Jin to say her good-byes. Soa had roomed with her at the palace since they entered at the age of six. The two made the appropriate ritual greetings and danced together. Soa was posted to the Refreshments Chamber and Jin to the Embroidery Chamber, but they shared the same futon in the palace. There was a time when one would feel anxious if the other were not in sight. They had to know where the other was and what she was doing if they were to dance the Dance of the Great Peace, the Dance of the Dragon King’s Son, or the Dance of the Mountain Scent, else the turn of their hands or the steps of their feet would not create the right, felicitous movement. Jin had to know what Soa was doing for her handiwork to be flawless on the tortoise and peony embroidery of the palace’s many silk pouches and quilted socks. Soa had to know what Jin was doing if she wanted her hands to be calm and steady as she prepared fruit to place on the King’s table.

  That night, Soa gave her a bit of earth, flower seeds, and a jar with a lady’s slipper orchid planted inside. It was the same orchid they had planted together in the Embroidery Chamber. Jin had to close her eyes upon seeing the deep greens of the tapered blades. Soa said that once Jin crossed the ocean and reached Victor’s country, she would have to change the soil. The carefully wrapped earth was for this purpose. She had also prepared seeds from flowers that bloomed in the palace for Jin to plant in that unfamiliar land. Soa said, “Do think of me when the seeds burst and the flowers bloom.” Her eyes began to tremble as she said the earth she had brought was from the courtyard of the Embroidery Chamber. Her eyes conveyed the good-bye that her voice couldn’t bear to express.

  When Jin had her luggage loaded onto the ship, she took the orchid, earth, and flower seeds on board to keep in her cabin. She sensed this talisman from Soa was something she would need during her long voyage over the ocean.

  Soa, who had assured Jin that she would return to the palace at daybreak, was, in fact, standing among the crowds at the harbor even after Jin had boarded, waving her hand. And it was at that moment, as Jin stood on the deck of the ship and Soa stood on the pier, that her departure from Korea finally felt real. The busy harbor became invisible. All that filled her sight now was Soa waving to her from the pier. But then she noticed a man standing still beside a white building near the entrance of the harbor. Everything else moved, especially Soa’s hand
as she waved good-bye, but the man stood there, frozen. Only when the boat announced its departure did the man take a few steps onto the white sands of the shore. Jin had just noticed him, but he had been out in the harbor since dawn. He was there when the sun rose and Jin had drawn the attention of everyone gathered at the harbor. He was there when she had stood next to Victor as they bade farewell to the French missionaries when the nuns by the rickshaw approached her and genuflected. He was there now, standing in that same spot, never taking his eyes off her.

  Could it be Yeon?

  Her eyes, once calm as if they hid the bottom of the ocean, suddenly trembled like the waves. Had he come here? She tried to lean out, but Victor placed his hand on the nape of her neck. She briefly lost her balance, but in a moment that white nape of her neck was upright again, having recovered her center and natural tension.

  Her eyes searched the harbor for Yeon.

  —Jin.

  Victor called her name, but she did not hear.

  Yeon, with whom she had watched over the apricot tree that she planted when she was five grow thick as a hug. Her gaze rapidly swept through the people coming and going at the harbor, lingering between the endless stretch of tideland and the buildings in the bright sunlight. She couldn’t find him, and she sank into bitter acceptance. Soa had just barely managed to see her off, thanks to a special dispensation from Lady Suh. I must be mistaken, Jin thought as she bit her lip. How could Yeon have freed up the time to come all the way to the harbor, which was four days of travel from the capital? And he had avoided her since a few days before she left the city, as if refusing to hear her good-byes. I must be seeing things, she thought as she closed her eyes.

  When she opened them again, she was calm.

  —I love you . . .

  She placed her hand on Victor’s.

  How different this man who stood beside her was, even more so than the Japanese or Chinese men one met at the harbor.