Notes.

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CHAPTER LIV


"If any of my friends, or my non-friends, go on too fast for me, I go out to my favourite spot and select a mound, and bury him or her there – bury that person who is yet alive."

(Hans Christian Andersen, danish writer, "Good Humour")


a. Johari window

The central room in which Woon had joined Dong Soo and his wife for breakfast, and where Mago entered a little less than an hour later, was in every way dissimilar to that of their former home, which he had visited on the evening of his departure from Hanyang. To begin with, the ceiling was much higher, which contributed to make it appear more spacious than it really was, whereas the ceiling of the house occupied four years earlier by the couple was so close to the floor that one would almost have been forced to move forward with their knees bent to avoid bumping the top of their skull on it.

It was, in general, longer and larger, and infinitely less darkened by this same characteristic. The sliding doors opened on a very clear, smooth and resplendent parquet floor, and the walls, when they were not covered with some tapestry or screen to hide their appearance, were of a beautiful luminous white, admirably immaculate, whereas the walls of the other house had been darker, more oppressive, dusty and blackened, in spite of the efforts visibly deployed to make the place more hospitable and well-tended. The wooden frame of the building had been, according to Dong Soo, carved from oak trees in the surrounding mountain forests, and the beams had amber, almost red shimmering, which Woon had admired for a long time while drinking his tea.

Although it was large, with plenty of light due to its south-facing structure and its colors naturally producing more luminosity, and most likely frequented in priority by the inhabitants of the house, the room was nevertheless furnished without the traditional exuberance that came with such a possibility of space, and thus avoided falling into a decorative excess that Woon had often seen in the hanoks of the yangbans, starting with the residence of the former Minister of War, Hong Dae Ju, where the slightest gap seemed to be impossible without an object or piece of furniture being integrated into it, thus reducing the overall volume of the building.

The small, square, black dining table was the centerpiece, and was surrounded by cushions in neutral, beige, cream, and off-white tones, whose luxury was nevertheless made evident by gold embroidery with floral motifs. When, later that morning, Mago praised their prettiness and mellowness, Yun-Seo said that they had bought them in a store in the city, run by friends of Dong Soo.

Ji-Seon and Jin-Ju, he had confirmed to Woon's interrogating gaze, with a slightly shy smile. They had only mentioned the two of them very briefly, during the time Woon had spent at the Spring House. Dong Soo had told him during one of their garden outings that they had become business partners, and that together they owned shares in a store that Ji-Seon had opened in one of the main shopping streets of the capital.

- They're rich, he had stated, his hand on Woon's as they were walking between the flowered alleys of the Garden of the Earth, without hurrying, while Hui Seon and the three other gisaengs were conversing on the verses addressed by a customer to Su-Jin, while keeping an eye on them in a discreet and emphatic way. Probably as much as any yangban, and maybe more. Ji-Seon takes care of a lot of the store locally, and Jin-Ju handles all the import-export business abroad, especially in Qing. For some time now, they also have interests in Japan.

He had also told him that Jin-Ju had lived for a time with Kim Hong Do, before resuming her celibacy with an enthusiasm that could have been unfavorable to the painter if she hadn't maintained friendly relations with him, and offered her help in selling several of his paintings, which had become very much in demand following the official portrait of the king that he had executed in 1771, at Jeongjo's own request.

As for Ji-Seon, she hadn't lived with anyone since her refusal to marry Dong Soo, and didn't seem to be interested in the prospect of finding a companion to ensure her descent or simply to fill a need for affection that Jang-Mi always brought up as an argument whenever the subject of the young woman came up in conversation.

- Ji-Seon doesn't say it, but it annoys her, Dong Soo had said. I think she wants to live for herself now and do what she wants to do without owing anything to anyone.

- Did you resent her ? Woon had eventually asked him, driven by a sharp impulse. When she said no ?

It was already late in the evening, and the air was saturated with the scent of flowers, pollen, gisaengs and water from the carp and water lily pond. Dong Soo had paused briefly before answering, then he had shaken his head vividly.

- No. She was right to do so. I would have made her life hell if she had accepted.

- Why ?

Woon had remembered the fascination Dong Soo had expressed for her, his clumsy and candid passion, his eagerness to win her favors and attract her attention, which contrasted powerfully with the bitter statement he had just enunciated. Once again, Dong Soo had hesitated.

Woon had slightly squeezed the hollow of his arm, where his hand was resting, taken by the necessity, by the need to know, to hear him say what he suspected without totally allowing himself to believe it, more out of defeatism and caution than out of lack of information. Tell me, he had wanted to beg him then, tell me, talk to me, clear the air, we have to talk, we have to talk, and I can't do it, I can't do it, I don't know how to do it, you're the one who talks all the time.

- Because, Dong Soo had confessed, slowly. She looked too much like you. Really too much. It's not her fault, nor yours. But I would have ended up not seeing her at all.

- What about Jin-Ju ?

The question had escaped him with a pressing, almost demanding voice. He could have blamed himself if he hadn't been so focused on Dong Soo's admissions, on this proof, made concrete and tangible by words, that ten years hadn't changed anything, that everything was still the same despite the fields and the scar on his chest, and that he had kept his empire, his place, his title, even if they had no name or form.

(say it say it say it say it)

- Same problem, Dong Soo had affirmed in a dull tone.

They had continued to walk forward, abandoning the subject for another, leaving the road still obstructed, and yet Woon had let himself be gently buried under a dreadfully dark triumph.

They had never come back to the question, or rather had been able to circle around it without really digging deep, without going beyond the first layers of earth, without daring to go beyond the framework that conveniences anchored since childhood, individual beliefs, fears also to a large extent, had led them to erect all around the idea they had of themselves, both as separate entities but above all as fused identities, projected into each other to the point of forming in the end only one, which had the colors of autumn, the shape of a leaf with three branches, and the smell of cold earth, rust, (blood).

Dong Soo had buried Woon in the summer of 1767, and deeper still, far in the dark, much further than the shredded fragments of the wood of his coffin on the day of his resurrection, he had also covered this other thing, the one that wasn't the creeping horror of the vision caused by the herbs (chrysanthemum carnations yew wolfbane it is the will of the Eye), but which had the taste, sometimes its appearance, which came with it, followed it in a blackish, slimy trail. Both went together, now, and if one was frightfully sweet, the other was tenderly awful.

In the new home of Dong Soo and his wife, all the time he had been drinking his tea, quiet, listening distractedly to the words they were exchanging in a low, sleepy voice, Woon had looked at the beams, the floor, the walls, the cabinets inlaid with mother-of-pearl and made of wood painted with simple, soothing figures, shining with walnut oil.

He was eating breakfast with his profile facing the doors, and in his back was a bamboo-framed screen whose panels depicted an elegant-looking nature, frozen in its peacefulness, in stark contrast to the fabulous, mirrored scenes once depicted on Woon's own furniture in his Sky Lord chambers at Heuksa Chorong, a set of an auburn-wood sofa with silk stuffing, a small, long coffee table on which a small pile of books was placed, as well as a black jade incense burner and what appeared to be a folded fan, and cushions whose function seemed primarily to be to serve the guests of the house, while its owners took a seat on the couch to converse after a meal.

In front of Woon, a sliding door was supposed to give, according to the information Baek Yun-Seo had given him during breakfast, onto a small corridor, which led among other things to Yoo-Jin's room, to Dong Soo's office, built by integrating a small terrace with a view of the backyard, arranged to be more of a garden than a vulgar place of passage, and to his wife's quarters. On the other side were a bathroom and the kitchen, also connected by a small corridor, but this time ending in a dead end.

- It was very entertaining for us to reverse the traditional male and female living quarters when we moved in, Baek Yun-Seo had specified when she had exposed the plan of the house to Woon. I hate being near the kitchen because of the smells and noise, but these inconveniences never bothered my husband. What's more, as surprising as it may seem, he spends infinitely more time in it than I do.

Dong Soo had expressed his point of view with a somewhat embarrassed grimace.

His eyes were less red, his complexion was fresher despite an obvious restless night, and he didn't ask for alcohol once during the entire morning meal, instead granting himself two cups of hot tea and two rations of beef and vegetables, accompanied by rice. He ate more than the time Woon had seen him at the courtesans, with an ostensibly stronger appetite, and looking at him closely, Woon could almost swear that he had put on some weight.

The couple was already up when he had left Dong Soo's room to come to the main hanok, where they had told him they were having their meal the day before : the cook, a small woman, a little cramped up on herself due to a profession that undoubtedly required her to bend over many times, with her hair simply combed into a low bun, was then serving them the dishes she was bringing from the kitchen.

Woon had paused on the doorstep, not knowing if it was wise for him to show up, until Dong Soo spotted him and called him, telling him to come and join them. He made no attempt to justify his presence to the woman, nor to explain who he was. She moved around them, bringing the bowls, chopsticks, jugs, and teapot, and remained silent during all her travels, accepting the thanks offered to her with a devoted smile.

- Don't worry, Dong Soo reassured him when the three of them were seated at the table and the woman had disappeared back into the kitchen. Bo-Young isn't a suspicious or overly curious person. You can trust her.

- And she only stays for meals, his wife added. She always leaves afterwards.

They had started the food under candlelight, as it was still too dark to see completely, and had gradually extinguished them as the sun was rising in the sky. It was Dong Soo's wife who, opening the discussion while Dong Soo was busy finishing his meal, asked about the quality of his night, and he said that it had been "very good", while again expressing his regret for having had to dislodge her husband from his apartments.

His remark was met with protests from his two hosts who, at the same time, said that there was no problem, that he had nothing to be sorry for, and that they both had no difficulty in adjusting, although the bags under Dong Soo's eyes were of an almost blackish blue color and the whole expression on his face expressed a deep desire to go back to bed. Yoo-Jin was still asleep, but his mother planned to wake him up soon so that he could attend his first lesson of the day.

- His tutor is due in the late morning, she signaled to him, but my husband thought we could talk quietly in his office in the meantime, if you and your student wish to keep your presence secret.

Mago had appeared at that moment, and while she was eating in turn, with her usual enthusiasm, so close to Dong Soo's when he was younger, Woon had pursued his observation of the vast room, and the questions had come like that, insidious, greedy, one after the other, about the reason for the move, on Dong Soo's new position, on the fire test, the surveillance, the Yeogogoedam, the Spring House, on everything that had happened since their departure to China, and also, emerging from the entrails of the earth that had covered his grave, on the painting of the tigers in Dong Soo's bedroom, and on what he had thought of the letter Woon had sent him.


b. Schadeufreude

As Woon's student was finishing her breakfast with a enthousiasm that would have done justice to any meal, and would most likely have contributed to making her immensely appreciable in Bo-Young's eyes, they began by addressing the official banalities, that is, everything that had to do with the societal changes that had taken place over the last four years, and which represented a necessary contextual introduction to the events.

Yun-Seo, who had studied the matter very closely, perhaps even more so than Dong Soo in some respects, described to them the months that had directly followed Woon's departure, indicating that after days of speculation among the inhabitants of the capital and of absolute silence from the king and his advisers, leading to the emergence of absurd suppositions, everything had really started with an initial declaration on the part of the government in the early days of July.

The latter had mainly revealed, with forceful expressions of terror and warnings, the presence of the gwishins among the living and their insertion, frequently referred to as "sneaky" or "vicious", in most of the various professions of the country, including the most illustrious. The monarch and the army called for the utmost vigilance and careful observation of each other's neighbors, definitively dampening the general atmosphere which had then regained all the mistrust and fear whose discouraging emanations had characterized the beginning of the decade and the first two waves of resurrection.

No sooner had there been time to digest the information and understand its implications, both individual and collective, or even to panic more generally, than the Royal Decree had entered the scene and came into force just a few days later, establishing the generalization of interrogations conducted jointly by the police force and the army, the proceedings of which had until then been kept relatively secret and few in number, despite the persistence of rumors shared at tavern tables.

It also described, in morbid and disturbing detail, a whole series of new repressive measures, this time involving not only the dead, but also the living.

- There was an outcry the week the news was spread, Dong Soo told their dead guests, while pouring a cup of tea and trying to forget the (thirst) that also tended to reappear when he spoke for a long time. People were furious, they called the king a despot, attacked the ministers by saying it was an attempt to repress the poorer classes even more, and many refused to cooperate during the interrogations. At least in the beginning.

The revolution hadn't only been short, but in retrospect it hadn't been followed much, and had been very localized. While complaints against the procedures had been widely shared and expressed at all levels, in practice the delicate position of many city residents within the social ladder and the risks potentially involved in an uprising had sadly cooled their ardor, and the desire for opposition had been met with fears of being arrested for insubordination, tortured, or in the worst case, executed.

The population also feared a social downfall as punishment, and the economic context had been deemed too unstable by a large majority to afford to raise their weapons and march to the palace to have the measures revised. Furthermore, and perhaps the most decisive factor in the failure of the loudly stated wishes for insurrection, the degree of despair experienced by the living hadn't been great enough to lead them to embark on a campaign against the decisions of their sovereign.

To compensate, petitions had been sent, which had been ignored by almost all the royal councillors and had made them laugh a lot, with the exception of one or two who were said to be more stupid or naive, and who nevertheless had shown enough judgment to take the matter seriously, unlike their colleagues. Faced with the lack of response from the government, people had returned to the good old protest techniques, that is to say, to large animated discussions around a kimchi, just between friends, but during which people were careful to speak very loudly to highlight the seriousness of the situation.

In the army, things were pretty much the same. There were men who had raised a few doubts, but most of them had followed the movement without asking too many questions, and there had been no rebellion, at least on the surface. By the late summer of 1777, interrogations, underpinned by questions conceived with the higher levels of government, including scholars and scientists who had worked on the subject of the gwishins, had become widespread.

The police, whose numbers had doubled in a span of two months, with no hesitation in going to the army for recruits deemed "complementary", sent small brigades of three or four men day after day, at all hours, to go to the homes of the living and to check one by one their identities and status. With them came the flames, first of all those of candles that were lit and over which all the inhabitants of the same house, children to the elderly, no matter their age, were asked to place their palms, in order to burn their skin and observe its color. If it had the misfortune of becoming black, arrestation was guaranteed, and torture a strong probability.

When protests had arisen among the wealthiest families of Hanyang, the government, in order to preserve its relations and the risk of seeing poor and aristocrats allying themselves in the same fight, had adapted the method and, on the advice of physicians, replaced the flames with small iron blades heated to white, which produced the same result for less pain, to a certain extend. Most people called the procedure "the fire test," but in the corridors of the royal palace it was referred to more simply as the "examination," which subtly attenuated its brutal side and probably made many officers and bureaucrats feel a little less guilty about its implementation.

- And you passed it ? Woon's student asked anxiously, and Dong Soo realized that she had been watching his hands and Yun-Seo's for several minutes. You passed the fire test ?

He raised his right hand, palm facing his chest, while his wife did the same, and they showed them both the burn marks, still rosy even after years.

- They gave priority to the men in the army and their families for testing, he explained. Same thing for the government members. They wanted to make sure there was no internal infiltration.

Immediately after the test, when the police had left, Yun-Seo had begun to cry furiously, outraged, shocked, holding her bruised hand against her chest.

They have no right to do that, she had lamented, fulminating, in a way Dong Soo had never seen before, no right, it's monstrous, it's barbaric, no one should have to go through something like that just to prove that they're dead or alive. They had been tested at the end of the summer of 1777, and Yoo Jin had been forced to submit to it as well.

Although he had been very dignified and brave during the ordeal, he had cried almost as much as his mother, huddled in her embrace as she stroked his hair, and Dong Soo, smelling the charred skin, which was the same smell as that of a barbecue grilling pieces of pork, except it was considerably less appetizing, as well as the sharp pain of his own hand, had gone to fetch them bowls of cold water to soothe their suffering, and had found nothing to say to them, because no assertion could have improved the situation, and he himself thought that things were taking an increasingly alarming turn, increasingly excessive. And they were alive.

- The whole capital underwent the interrogations and the fire trial, he continued, dragging out a new cup of tea, and guessing that he would soon have to go away to get rid of all this excess drinking (which, by the way, was still more pleasant than having to throw up). You won't find an inhabitant who doesn't have the mark, and if they do, you can be sure it won't be for long. Everybody has been through it. Ji-Seon and Jin-Ju, Sa-Mo, Jang-Mi, their daughter...

- Cho-Rip ? Woon cut him off, looking at Dong Soo in a very direct way (if you loved him you wouldn't have killed him karma always karma).

Dong Soo held his gaze.

- He was among the first to be tested, to "prove his good faith," he taught him coldly. He might as well have done without it, since it didn't prevent him from losing the king's favor and ending up in prison.

- Why that ?

- The death of his sister, who was the king's concubine. She was believed to have been poisoned, and he was accused of having participated in it. It was a bunch of nonsense made up by his political opponents, but the king was looking for a culprit, and Cho-Rip had been in a bad position for some time.

Woon's long fingers tightened around the porcelain of his teacup.

- He lost the king's favor ?

Yun-Seo nodded her head.

- He was becoming very aggressive, she resumed. He would lock himself in his office for hours, refuse to be disturbed, talk deliriously to everyone, bury himself under tons of papers. He hardly slept, he was suspected of being delirious, and even his friends ended up distancing themselves from him. His attitude scared them too much. People said he had gone crazy.

It's because of limits, he had thought to himself a few years ago, reading a document with the name of Cho-Rip (Hong Guk Yeong) on it, there are always limits, always, and as soon as you cross them, you are alone, and people run away from you, and sometimes they sign papers that get you involved in shady business. He had signed the paper, in black ink, with a new brush, without even a hesitation. And he had thought (tomorrow, nothing).

Before his dismissal, the rare times he had seen Cho-Rip, the latter, with bloodshot, utterly demented eyes, was talking to him about his dreams, or rather about his nightmares, and he had confessed to him that he was seeing Woon, all the time, permanently, that he was seeing him coming out of his grave and dragging him into it by force, and Dong Soo would have lied if he had claimed that the image hadn't given him a hint of satisfaction or pleasure, while his childhood friend, the shy boy from the training camp, was shivering with fear and looking for comfort, like before. Too bad. Too late.

He had signed, and the signature was Woon's open grave, it was the fields, it was autumn, and them together, as if the brush had been held by their two hands bound, proclaiming the fall of the third member of their adolescent trio without the slightest pity.

- He's still in prison ? Woon asked, and his black eyes were chasms, and Dong Soo remembered that he had wanted to fall into them the day after Woon's death, to let himself be swallowed up in them, and get completely lost in them.

- No. He spent about two months there, and then he was dismissed from his job and sent away from the capital, he informed him. He moved with Min-So and their daughter to another region.

- Have you heard from him ?

- I did. For a while. He sent me letters.

Quiet but attentive, Woon's student watched the conversation between them as if it was a sword fight. Yun-Seo had also been more discreet, guessing that the subject was more intimate, more personal.

- But not anymore ? Woon remarked.

- Not for some time. I keep giving news to the king, but the truth is, I haven't heard anything from him for months, not even from Min-So. I wasn't answering him, so I guess he finally gave up, but there might be another possibility, Dong Soo answered slowly. He was sick when he left, and his condition continued to worsen after he moved to the province.

- And ?

He asserted, looking for Woon's eyes, looking for the abyss and something that had always been between them, just between the two of them (it had always been just the two of you).

- I think he died.

And he believed seeing, for a brief moment, almost for a terrible, thunderous split second, the corner of Woon's lips rise up in a gloomy, horribly victorious smile (I liked what you did).