“If you give this ride for free, I will never hire you again for fear you might never let me pay. So just take it.” Jade pressed the money into his palm more firmly, and this time he relented. He stood there watching her lithe form slip inside the gates, and on walking back, felt that everything—cars, bicycles, singing of drunkards, freshness of night air, liquid light spilling onto the dark road—was more vivid than ever before. As he neared his house, the singing died away and the stillness was only felt more purely by the innocent, rhythmic call of the sochuck owl. That spring bird call had never moved him so achingly. It seemed to say all that there is to life.
AFTER THE PERFORMANCE on the following night, Jade sat primly in the rickshaw without initiating a conversation. She seemed determined to pretend that nothing had happened between them. HanChol was disappointed, but not hurt. If anything, her reticence only confirmed to him that something significant had taken place. He was wondering how he could break the silence when the sound of a sochuck bird was heard in the distance.
“Did you hear that, miss?” he asked, slowing down to a walk.
“Hear what? That bird?” Jade leaned a little forward, closer to him.
“Yes, miss. It’s a sochuck bird.”
“I always heard that song and never knew which bird it came from,” Jade confessed.
“It’s a brownish owl with big round eyes. When I was little, my father and I went to the South Mountain one day and found a baby owl that had fallen out of its nest. It was just a tiny thing that fit into my palm—like a small, fluffy potato.”
“Oh my!” Jade couldn’t feign indifference any longer. “So what happened?”
“It had a broken leg, so we brought it home. My father wrapped its leg in a bit of cloth to help it heal. My sisters and I took turns feeding it cicadas. We named it Potato.”
“How precious!” she exclaimed. “Did his leg heal?”
“It did. He walked around, following me everywhere. When he got tired he would cry, asking to be put on my shoulder. And when I’d be out of the house, he’d cry then too, waiting for me by the gates for hours. But then, he got bigger, and fall came . . . And we couldn’t always keep looking for insects to feed our pet owl, even if we were still children. Our parents told us to get rid of Potato.
“So I brought him to the woods where I found him. At first, he kept crying and running after me. So I finally picked him up, put him on a tree, and said goodbye.”
“That’s awful. What if he just stayed there on the tree and starved to death?” Jade sounded close to tears.
“He’d been flapping his wings for a long time. I think he made it,” HanChol said. Only later had he learned that sochuck owls have to migrate across the South Sea in the fall. He didn’t tell her this because it would have caused her pain.
Jade was trying to contain the mysterious stirring within her, which started in her chest and radiated outward throughout her whole body, similar to intoxication. Love happens all at once, and also in stages. Having already fallen in love with him by sight, she was now experiencing that revelatory moment when a woman realizes what kind of soul her lover has. She felt that he had a special, tender soul—and that he could share this hidden self only with her, perhaps even that she brought it out of him. Seeing his broad-shouldered and lanky frame with its strong back, narrow waist and hips, she felt pity for the young man that he’d become—handsome and intelligent and capable, but also weighed down by his family and his circumstances. Already she wished she could lessen that premature sense of responsibility and see his face relax and light up, as it had while they were talking the night before. As naturally as some people take to books or sums or the making of money, Jade’s heart was predisposed to give love. It had already reached forward in order to make this person happy.
“You must be exhausted, Mr. HanChol,” she told him. “I want to get off here.”
“Here, miss?” They were still several blocks away from her house.
“Yes. I’ll get off here,” she said firmly. “You can walk beside me if you like.”
He helped her off, and she was thrilled to notice the tiniest squeeze of the hand he gave her before letting go. They walked side by side without further conversation, and that was sweet too in its own way, being able to focus on each other’s presence. Had walking ever been more pleasant? Jade wondered. She could not stop smiling. They didn’t tell each other much, and yet understood each other so well. So many words could be exchanged between people without any real desire to know one another. But with the right person, one could speak much or not at all, and feel completely connected. This was what Jade realized as they walked together to her gates.
When Jade tried to pay him, he preemptively pressed something into her palm—a letter. While she blushed and gathered her composure, he gave her a handsome smile (not quite as relaxed as before) and left. She came inside the house and, in the safety of her own room, lit a candle and began reading with a pounding heart. He had admired her for years, ever since he first saw her. He had no reason to hope that she would return his feelings, but he was happy now that the burden of secrecy was lifted. He would understand if she refused to ever see him again, since he had nothing to offer her. But he only wished that she would be very, very happy, because that was what she deserved.
“But that’s exactly how I feel about him! I only wish for his happiness,” she said to herself, curling into her bedspread, exhilarated and pained at the same time.