The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (15 page)

The first step was plain. The Regent must be removed. He must be taken bodily out of the country and sent to a place across the seas from whence he could not return, because he would be in the hands of his enemies. Who were his enemies? The Chinese were his enemies and the chief of these was the Empress Tzu-hsi. Il-han would not plot to take the life of the Regent, nor would he allow others to do so, for to use such cruelty would inflame his people against the Queen. Once the Regent was gone, the next step would be to send the palanquin to the poet’s house and restore the Queen to her palace.

From his quiet house, while the children played in the gardens and Sunia tended her flowers and directed her women, Il-han spun his web wide. He had the genius to direct without seeming to command. Thus among his fellow statesmen as he had opportunity, or made it, he put his thoughts into a question here, or he made a reflection there, a suggestion that others, following his words eagerly, took up and put into action. His friends were peaceful men, and to them, also, he knew he could not propose violent deeds. Instead he proposed a new friendship with the Chinese.

“Our neighbors in the Middle Kingdom,” he said one day in conference in his own house, “are ever ready to help us. Let us now use their enmity against Japan, and make it our weapon.”

It was a day in late spring when he so spoke. Outside the open doors a hum of bees gathering among the yellow flowers of a persimmon tree told him that a hive had split. These were the wanderers seeking a new life for themselves with their queen, a symbol, perhaps, of what he sought too for his own kind. He clapped his hands for a servant and when the man came he gave a command.

“Tell the gardener that bees are hiving. Let him catch that mass of bees hanging there from the branch of the persimmon tree and persuade them into a new hive so that we may have the honey.”

The man obeyed and Il-han rose and drew the door shut so that the bees would not be disturbed. Then he sat down again on his floor cushion.

“A good omen,” he said to his guests. “There is honey to be had if we snare the bees.”

They laughed moderately in politeness and waited, a circle of gentlemen in white robes, their faces bland beneath the black hair coiled on their crowns. Il-han continued.

“Let us invite China to strengthen her armies in our city. With this new army we will silence the Japanese, now growing too strong under the Regent’s favor.”

“How will the Chinese restore order among us?” The man who asked this question was a scholar, one known to favor new ways and western learning.

“They need do one thing only,” Il-han said.

“And that one thing?”

“Remove the person of the Regent. Take him to China. Imprison him—not in jail, but in a house. And keep him there, perhaps forever—until he dies.”

He allowed his calm gaze to move from one astounded face to the next.

The boldness, the simplicity of this plan confounded those who heard it. They were silent, pondering what he had said, and he watched their faces. Doubt gave way to dawning hope and then approval. The older men thought only of the Regent removed and the house of Min returned and peace restored. The younger men thought of internal strife ended and room and time for new plans and ways.

“If you approve,” Il-han said, “then nod your heads.”

One after the other heads nodded. Il-han took up his cup and drank down the tea, and they all did the same.

“How will you do what you propose?” one asked when all had set their bowls down again.

“A messenger will be enough,” Il-han replied.

“What messenger dares to go on such a mission?” another asked.

“I know a man,” Il-han said.

Il-han spoke that same night to the young tutor, when all his guests were gone. “You are to leave at once for Tientsin. Here is my letter. I have signed it with the Queen’s seal. Yes, I have the seal! She gave it to me when we parted. Put it in the hands of our emissary in Tientsin. He is a Kim, as you well know—my cousin thrice removed. Let him read it and then ask how long it will be before the Chinese army can reach us. Tell him not too large an army—we are to be helped, not occupied! Four thousand men will be enough, or a few hundreds more to allow for death and illness.”

He opened the secret drawer in his desk and took out a small bag of rough dark linen. “Here is silver, enough to take you there and bring you back. Where will you hide the letter?”

“In the coil of my hair,” the young man said.

Il-han laughed. “Good! Then you must take care that no enemy beheads you.”

They parted and the next day when the tutor was missed, Il-han said only that he had sent the young man to the north to buy ginseng root to export to China. Since ginseng was valuable and the dealers in China were never satisfied, and its export was part of the business of the house of Kim, he was believed. Indeed, this ginseng root was a treasure for all physicians, for according to an ancient Chinese prescription, ginseng fortifies the nobler parts of man or woman, fixes the animal spirits, cures the palpitations caused by sudden frights, dispels malignant vapors, and strengthens the judgment. When taken over the years, it makes the body light and active and prolongs life.

“I am married to you,” Sunia said, “but you are not married to me.” The hour was past midnight. The house was silent. They were lying in their bed, in the quiet of the sleeping house. He had come into this room at the day’s end, determined to give himself wholly to his wife for the next hours. He had done what he could for his country and his Queen, and now he could but wait. He knew Sunia’s patience and tonight he needed her with all the richness and the simplicity of her being.

Without words, then, he had taken her into his arms and for a while they had lain in quiet. Then the deep tide began to rise from his innermost center, and with ardor he had fulfilled himself and her. She had first yielded and had then responded with such delicacy of understanding and such instinctive passion that he breathed a deep sigh of profound happiness. Was there ever such a wife, such a woman? She asked no question, she spoke no word.

Then, in the midst of his completion, she made this monstrous accusation. She was married to him, but he was not married to her!

He considered for a moment. In what manner should he reply? Should he be angry? Or witty? Or laugh? He chose to answer as though he did not believe her serious.

“Shall we make an argument?” he inquired, his voice indolent with content.

She sat up in bed and began to braid her long dark hair.

“There is no argument,” she told him. “I am speaking truth.”

“Then anything I say must be untruth,” he countered, “so what shall I say?”

“Nothing.” Her voice was small and far away and she was very busy with her hair. He waited until she had finished to the end of her braid and then he took her by the braid and pulled her back gently to his shoulder.

“Can it be,” he inquired, “can it really be that you are jealous of a queen?”

She hid her face against his bare flesh.

“Can you imagine,” he went on most tenderly, “can you for one foolish moment dream that I could ever take a queen into my arms and hold her as I hold you, and adore her body as I adore yours?”

She began to laugh. “No, but …”

The laughter died away and she still hid her face against his bare shoulder.

“If you will not tell me,” he said at last, “will you blame me if I say I do not know what you are talking about?”

She sat up suddenly and turned her naked back to him, a most lovely back as he observed, the spine straight, the waist soft and small, the nape delicate, the skin fair and smooth.

“There is more to a woman than body,” she said.

“Tell me what more,” he said, half teasing.

She looked at him over her shoulder.

“If you make fun of me, I shall not speak a word.”

“I am not making fun—I am only waiting.”

She was silent, stealing a look at him now and again over her shoulder to see if he were laughing at her. He made his face grave and he did not put out his hand to touch her.

“You never loved me—so—” Here she paused for the word she wanted to use.

“How?” he asked.

“So—so—so strongly as you did tonight. You were feeling something new. Why?”

“Nothing new,” he said, “only more. Remember that for many days I have had not one moment to think of you—or the children.”

“Something new,” she insisted.

He sat up. “The wonders of a woman’s mind,” he exclaimed. “The tortuous, twisting corridors in which she loses herself—and the man! Speak out, Sunia! Tell me what you are thinking. What have I done? Are you trying to tell me that I am dreaming of a geisha or one of the maids?”

“No,” she said, her voice a whisper. She got to her feet and went to the wall screen and opened it. Outside the rain was falling and she felt the mist against her face.

He went after her and closed the screen. “Are you mad?” he demanded. “Do you want to die?”

“Perhaps I do,” she said.

She sat down again on the floor cushion beside the low table and lifted the teapot from its quilted cover. She poured the hot tea in the bowl and took the bowl in both hands to warm them while she sipped.

“Be sensible,” he urged. “I have neither time nor heart for complexities between us. Have I failed you as a husband? Then I must ask forgiveness. But first I must know for what I am to be forgiven.”

“It is not a question of forgiveness,” she said, looking into her tea bowl. “And perhaps you yourself do not know what is happening to you.”

“What is happening to me, wise woman?” he inquired.

She lifted her brooding eyes to meet his eyes. “You are being possessed,” she said. “The Queen is possessing you by her helplessness—by her high position—by her beauty and her power—and her loneliness. A lonely woman is always tempting to a man, but a queen! When she comes into any room it is the Queen who enters. You are flattered, of course. But you are overwhelmed by such honor. You, singled out, set apart, by the Queen? How can one who is only a—a—woman—compete with a queen? She possesses your mind—yes—she does—don’t speak!”

For he had leaped to his feet, but she pushed him off. “Stay away from me, Il-han! It is true. For a man like you, with your mind—oh, there are more ways of enchanting a man like you than by the body, I know it very well. And I am not clever like you, or—or witty or brilliant or even very intelligent beside you—and though you will never possess her, yet I am your possession, and you will think me a poor creature. You do so think, already! Whenever you see her, after every audience, you come home as a man returns from a glorious dream. And now, when it is you who have her in hiding, it is only you who know where she is—why, I daresay you are dreaming dreams!”

Her voice rose with anger and then broke into sadness.

He was confounded. He sank back upon the bed and clasped his hands behind his head. How could he reply to so monstrous an insult? And yet she could so penetrate by instinct that he wondered if indeed she had perceived some truth that he had not. He did think constantly of the Queen. Her person was sacredly dear to him, not as a man, he nevertheless believed, but as a symbol of the nation and the people to whom he was dedicated. Yet he was a man. And it was true that some enchantment always came into his mind when he was with the Queen. He could look at any beautiful geisha and feel no desire to look again. But when a woman, such as the Queen, spoke with grace and intelligence, when she had a mind, then her body was illumined and he looked.

He sighed and closed his eyes. He had no time for self-investigation. And did it matter? He had a duty to restore the Queen to the throne and he would do it. And when she was on the throne she was Queen, and only Queen.

“Will you listen to me?” he said to Sunia. “Will you hear me tell you what must be done and what my duty is? There must be unity among our people, else the great hungry nations who surround us can lick us up as a toad licks up a mouthful of ants by the flicker of its tongue. Will you hear me, Sunia? As my wife?”

She put down the tea bowl. “I will hear you.”

“I must keep my head clear,” he said. “I must listen to all factions, but I must choose, step by step, my own path. I believe, Sunia, that finally we must make friends with the West. We must find new allies. Yet for the moment China must come to our help against Japan so that we may restore the Queen—and the King—to the throne.”

She was shrewd enough, this wife of his! “Why do you falter when you speak of the King?” she inquired now. “Put the Queen first, and then you stammer. What of the King?”

“Come here to me,” he said.

“Lie down,” he said when she stood beside him. “Rest your head on the pillow by mine.”

She obeyed, wondering. When her head was beside his, he turned and spoke into her ear.

“I believe the King is not loyal to the Queen. It is he who helped the Regent to return to the palace.”

“The Regent is his father,” she reminded him.

“The Queen is the Queen,” he retorted, “and she is his wife.”

They lay silent then, for enough had been said so that she understood, at least in part, that it was possible for him to be possessed not by a woman, not even by a queen, but by the love of his country.

In silence they lay close, without passion, but closer than passion could bring them they lay close.

In the poet’s house the Queen lived through the long days and the longer nights. Summer changed to autumn and winter lingered. Never before had she had the chance and the time to ponder her life as a woman. Now as the hours of the day stretched endlessly long, she watched the poet and his wife as they lived through their simple round. The woman’s whole life was in the man, the wife a part of the husband, and this the Queen saw.

“Are you never weary of tending this one man?” she inquired one day when she was alone with the wife, for the poet had walked to the village to buy paper and fresh ink and a new brush.

The wife was grinding wheat meal between two stones, and she stopped and wiped the sweat from her face with the hem of her skirt.

“Who would tend him if I did not,” she asked, “and what else have I to do?”