Chapter Fifteen
The wayside shrine on the eastern path of Inwangsan. The fourth month of King Injo's first year, the third day of the second snow. The blizzard not lifted in three days.
The blizzard is, on the third morning, the small flat blizzard of a snow that has decided it will not be hurried.
Da-eun knows the kind. Her mother taught her the kind in the autumn of her tenth year, on the kitchen floor of the small house in Chungcheong-do, with a small ink drawing of a snow-mountain her mother had brought up from a Buddhist monk on the road from Daejeon. The kind was the jeong-seol — the settled snow — a snow that arrived in the small folded hour of a turning month and stayed for the length of the turning. The jeong-seol, her mother said, was a snow that was not, in the meteorology, asking the mountain for anything. The jeong-seol was simply, on the mountain, the new weather. One did not, under the jeong-seol, descend.
She has, in the three days, descended only as far as the small stone basin at the second pine, where the man she has been told to call Yi-jun has, each morning at the second hour, set out the small bundle of his daily supply.
The bundle, the first morning, was a sack of charcoal and a small wrapped jeotgal from the woman at the foot of the path and one further small thing, which was a small clay pot of fresh jang — the woman at the foot of the path had not, in twenty years, made better jang for any other man — and a small folded square of mulberry paper with three lines on it.
The three lines, the first morning, said:
Daughter. The pass is closed for three more days. I will, at this hour each morning, come to the second pine with the day's supply. I will not enter. The shrine is yours. If you require a thing not on the list, write the thing on the paper and lay the paper under the lip of the second pine. I will read it at the morning hour. I will, in the evening hour, place the thing.
She did not, the first morning, write a thing on the paper.
She has not, by the third morning, written a thing on the paper.
She has, on the third morning, broken her abstention.
She has written, on the back of the paper, in the small clear hand her mother taught her in the autumn of her eighth year on a kitchen floor in Chungcheong-do, four words.
The four words are:
Sir. Come inside.
She has laid the paper under the lip of the second pine before dawn.
She has gone back to the shrine.
She has, since dawn, sat.
He arrives at the second hour.
She does not, on the floor of the shrine, see him arrive. She hears him at the second pine — the small flat sound of an older man's boots on the snow, the small careful sound of the bundle of charcoal being lowered onto the stone basin, the very small breath of a creature on a mountain at the second hour of the third day of a jeong-seol checking, before any other small attention, that he has not, in his bringing, displaced a creature smaller than him.
He, by the second hour of the third day, has not displaced a creature smaller than him. She knows this without watching. She knows this because the man at the lamp on the night of the first snow was, in the not-displacing, careful.
She hears him pause.
She hears him, in the pause, read the paper.
She hears him, after the reading, do nothing for the count of four breaths. Four breaths is, on the small accumulated grammar of the morning bundle, the count he has been allotting himself between the laying down of the bundle and the small bow to the pine he gives before turning back down the path.
On the fifth breath he does not bow.
On the fifth breath he steps from the second pine to the first pine. On the sixth he steps from the first pine to the small stone steps. On the seventh he is at the threshold.
He does not, on the seventh breath, slide the door.
He says, through the door, in the small flat clear voice she has heard him use on the floor of the shrine on the first night:
Daughter.
She says: Yes.
The paper.
Yes.
The asking of the paper is the asking of the paper. The asking does not, on the small accumulated grammar of the path, oblige the answering. I am, on the threshold, asking back. Daughter — is the asking, in the body, the asking. Or is the asking, in the body, a smaller asking the asking is, in the writing, standing in for.
She does not, for a moment, answer.
She has known the question would, in the asking, be the question.
She has, since dawn, prepared the answer.
She says: Sir. The asking of the paper is the asking of the paper. The asking is not, however, the asking of a thing the shrine has, in the three days, been asking. The shrine, in the three days, has been asking of me only that I lay the wrist under the henna and the persimmon under the tongue and the breath under the long high note my mother taught me to draw from under the collarbone. The shrine has not, in the three days, been asking for a guest. The asking of the paper is the asking of a daughter whose mother has been four days dead and whose body, on the third morning of a settled snow, has decided the small steady cold has been kept, for the three days, in a room that was, at the back of the count, smaller than the body could carry. The asking of the paper is the asking of a smaller asking. The smaller asking is the asking of an older creature than you, sir, to come inside the shrine and sit at the small distance the shrine permits. I am not, sir, asking for the touching. I am asking for the not-aloneness.
She breathes out.
She has, in the four months that her mother had been preparing her for the inner court of Gyeongbokgung at the age of eight, been taught to draft a sentence of formal request at the small flat accuracy of a Sungkyunkwan scholar.
The sentence is, on the third morning of the second snow of King Injo's first year, the sentence the four months had been preparing her for.
He says, after a long pause, from the other side of the door:
Daughter. Thank you for the small accurate redrafting.
She says: Yes, sir.
He says: I will come in. I will sit at the small distance the shrine permits. I will not, in the day, touch. I will not, in the night, touch. I will, before the door closes, set the bundle of the day on the floor at the small distance the shrine permits, and the bundle will be on the floor where you may take from it the small things you require. I am, in the coming in, a guest of yours. I am not the resident.
Yes, sir.
He slides the door.
The day is the day of a man at a lamp.
It is not, however, the day of a man at a lamp on the first night, because on the first night the man had been the man who had been, by his own small careful grammar, in the shrine before her. On the third day the man is the guest. He sits, on the small distance the shrine permits, by the eastern wall — that is, at the same wall he had on the first night, but two arm's-lengths farther from the brazier, and with his back not quite at the wall but at the small low pine box he has, in his arriving, brought as a thing he sets a hand on instead of as a thing he sits against. The setting-the-hand on the small low pine box is, by her reading of him, the small substitution an older Korean creature makes for the resting-the-back when the resting-the-back is, in the room, no longer his.
She does not, on her side of the brazier, sit at the wall either. She sits, on the small accumulated grammar of the three days, slightly forward of the wall, with the small white ribbon under the henna at her left wrist and the small pewter cup of barley-water at her right knee.
The day passes.
He does not, in the day, speak.
She does not, in the day, speak.
He has brought, in the bundle, a small folded packet of yakgwa he has, by the small accumulated grammar of his face on the giving, made by his own hand at the Bukchon hanok in the small grey hour before dawn. He sets the packet down. He withdraws the hand. She, after the count of forty breaths, lifts the packet. She unfolds the packet. She takes one yakgwa. She sets it on her tongue.
It is the yakgwa of a winter Joseon kitchen. It is the yakgwa she had eaten, in the autumn of her seventh year, on a kitchen floor in Chungcheong-do, on the afternoon the man at the gate had given her mother the answer choongbun-hada and her mother had folded the hands and the man had bowed and the man had left. Her mother, on that afternoon, had set a packet of yakgwa down on the kitchen floor between them — yakgwa she had made herself in the small grey hour before dawn — and Da-eun had eaten one and her mother had eaten one and they had not, for the count of forty breaths, spoken.
She does not, on the third day of the second snow, know if the man at the eastern wall has, in his bringing of the yakgwa, eaten her mother's yakgwa in any small kitchen in Chungcheong-do.
She thinks, in the small careful grammar of her three days, that he has.
She does not, on her side of the brazier, ask.
At the small hour of the evening the lamp is lit.
He lights it. He has, in the bundle, brought a small unmustarded oil that does not, in the lighting, smoke. The lamp is the small mustard lamp of the first night. The oil is not. She sees, on the small clear flame, the small flat acknowledgment of the better oil — and she sees, in the same flame, the small careful Joseon-scholar courtesy of his not having brought up, in any moment of the day, the cut-mustard oil of the first night.
She thinks: this is, by the small flat ethics of an older creature, the better oil. The better oil is the lamp the shrine should have had on the first night. The better oil is, on the third evening, the oil he has, by his own small four-hundred-year discipline, brought up from the Bukchon hanok without any small comment.
She says, at the lighting: Sir.
He says: Yes, daughter.
The oil —
Is from the small lacquer envelope in the trunk by the door of the middle hanok. I have been keeping the envelope of the oil for forty-one years. I have used it twice. The third use is tonight.
Why have you kept it.
A long pause.
He says: Because, in 1582, I was in a wayside shrine on the eastern slope of Geumgangsan with a daughter of a gye family from Anseong who had, in a small flat winter, been caught on the mountain with me by a jeong-seol of the same kind. The shrine was lit, on the first night, with a cut-mustard oil. The daughter, on the first night, was not, in her body, asleep. The mustard cut had been bad and the smoke had been, by the third hour, irritating her eyes. I did not, on that night, have the means to bring up a better oil. I held, on that night, a small wet cloth at the lamp to take in some of the smoke, and the small wet cloth was not, in the holding, a remedy. The daughter, on the third night of the jeong-seol, fell ill. The daughter did not, by the count of the path opening, recover. The daughter died, on a small bench at her gate in Anseong, on the seventh day after the snow lifted. I attended the gut of her mother in the spring of the year after. I bought, from the small lacquer-maker in Bukchon I had been buying lacquer-work from since 1573, a small flat envelope of the best unmustarded oil I could buy. I have kept the envelope since.
She does not, on the brazier-side, breathe for one long beat.
She says: Sir.
Yes, daughter.
I am the third use.
Yes, daughter.
The first use was you.
The first use was, in 1604, my mother's oldest sister, who had taken in a sick child of our line in a small storm of the same kind. The second use was, in 1789, a niece of mine who had been caught with two small children in a jeong-seol on the Gangwon coast. The third use is, in 1623, you. The first use was a creature of my own line. The second use was a creature of my own line. The third use is not. The third use is the daughter of Kim Gae-hwa of the paje line of Chungcheong-do, who is, on the third night of the jeong-seol, the only person in any small room I am, in 1623, willing to be in.
He does not, on the saying, look at her.
He looks at the lamp.
The lamp does not, on his looking, smoke.
In the smallest hour of the night she sleeps.
She has, by the small accumulated grammar of the three days, been laying her sleeping mat at the western wall of the shrine. He has been, by the same grammar, at the eastern wall. The shrine has a width, between the two mats, of the length of a Joseon man's outstretched arm plus the width of a Joseon man's open hand — that is, the jeong distance the shrine permits for a man and a daughter who are not, in any register, his.
In the smallest hour she wakes.
She wakes to the small flicker of warmth on the inside of her left wrist where the ribbon is. The warmth is not the warmth of the cup. The warmth is the warmth, on the third night, of a thing that has, in her sleep, been read again.
She does not, this time, lift the wrist.
She lies on the mat.
She listens.
The shrine is quiet. The blizzard, on the third night, is at the second pine. The wind is at the small east window. The brazier is at the small steady glow of the third coal.
She hears him breathe.
She has, in the three nights, learned the small careful breath of the man at the eastern wall. The breath is, on the first night, the breath of a watchman. The breath is, on the second night, the breath of a watchman who has been, by his own discipline, given permission not to be a watchman. The breath, on the third night, is the breath of a creature whose discipline has, in the long count of his years, been one of the most reliable disciplines in his body — and which has, on the third night, asked for a small permission to be, for one hour, not the discipline.
The breath is, on the third night, slower than it has been in three nights.
She thinks: this is the sleep of the man at the eastern wall.
She has not, in any of the three nights, heard him sleep.
She has, on the third night, heard him sleep.
She lies on the mat.
She does not, on the mat, weep. She has, since the willow grove, not wept.
She is, on the small mat of the small western wall, simply a daughter of the paje line of Chungcheong-do at eighteen and three months, lying on a sleeping mat in a wayside shrine at the third night of a settled snow at the small ear-grammar of a creature whose discipline has, for one hour, agreed to be not the discipline.
She is, on the small mat, not the bride of him.
She is not, on the small mat, the daughter of him.
She is, on the small mat, the small last living daughter of a court mudang of the paje line who, four nights earlier, had been executed on the snow of a courtyard for a thing she had not, by the small mudang-grammar of her body, done.
She is, on the small mat, the carrier of a small white ribbon under a henna at the wrist on which her mother had, on the riverbank of a small Chungcheong river, taught her to read a seven-syllable curse-line.
She is, on the small mat, listening to the breath of a creature who has, in the three nights, neither asked her for a thing nor given her a thing not already permitted by the shrine.
She is, on the small mat, in the smallest hour of the third night, deciding.
The deciding is not, on the small mat, decided.
The deciding is, on the small mat, only begun.
In the morning he does not, on the eastern wall, mention the night.
He, on the morning of the fourth day, sets out two small porcelain bowls of the white millet porridge his late grandmother in Chungju used to make for the third week of the year of mourning. He has, in the bundle of yesterday, brought up the millet. He has, in the small grey hour before dawn, cooked the porridge. The porridge is the porridge.
She eats. She does not, in the eating, weep.
She says, at the bottom of the bowl: Sir.
Yes, daughter.
The name you have given me — Yi-jun.
Yes.
It is the name your mother gave you.
Yes.
It is not, however, the name by which the small slopes of this mountain know you.
A long pause.
He says: Daughter. The small slopes of this mountain know me by a name I do not, in this shrine, on this morning, give. The name they know me by is the name of a creature whose discipline I have, in the four hundred and ten years since my mother died, kept. The name I am lending you, in the four days of this snow, is the name of the creature who I was, in my mother's kitchen in Chungju in the third year of my life, the day my mother first set me on her lap and gave the name. The two creatures are not, by the small accumulated grammar of the four hundred years, the same. I am, on this morning, lending you the creature my mother gave me. I am not, on this morning, lending you the creature the slopes know me by. When the snow lifts, the lending of the first creature is at an end. The creature the slopes know me by, you will, in the next year of your life, encounter. You will, in the encountering, know the creature is not the creature your mother knew the daughter to be in love with.
She does not, on the bowl, say anything.
She knows, on the bowl, the man at the eastern wall has, in the small clear unembarrassed way of a creature who has been, for four hundred years, the kind of creature he is, just now told her that he is not, in 1623, telling her the truth of what he is.
She does not, on the bowl, demand the truth.
She has, in eighteen years of being her mother's daughter, learned that the truth a senior is not, in the moment, giving is the truth the senior is, in the not-giving, holding for the daughter at the cost the daughter has not yet been told the price of.
She says: Sir.
Yes, daughter.
I have heard your saying.
Yes, daughter.
I will, when the snow lifts, walk down the eastern path with you to the second pine. I will, at the second pine, turn south for the road to Chungju. I will, by the third day after, be at my mother's old aunt's house in the small village above the river. I will, in the small village, lie low for a month. I will, in the month, decide the next thing. The deciding will not, by the small flat ethics of the path, be a thing you may be at.
Yes, daughter.
If I, in the deciding, conclude the next thing is to come back to the mountain —
Yes, daughter.
— I will, on the small lip of the second pine, lay a small folded square of mulberry paper. I will, on the paper, write a single word.
Yes.
The word will be the small old Joseon word o-shi-yo. Come.
He bows. The bow is the bow of an older creature receiving, on the morning of the fourth day of a jeong-seol in 1623, a small clear unembarrassed Joseon-daughter's offer of a future appointment of a kind he has not, in four hundred years, been given.
He holds the bow for three breaths.
He straightens.
He says: Yes, daughter.
He says: I will, in the year of your lying low, not come for you. I will, however — and this I am telling you, in the small clear unembarrassed Joseon-mother's grammar I am borrowing this morning — leave at the lip of the second pine, on the morning of the first day of each month, a small bundle of the day's supply. The bundle will, by the small accumulated grammar of the path, simply be at the pine. You may take from it. You may not take. The leaving is, by my discipline, mine. The taking is, by your discipline, yours. I will not, in any month, leave a paper.
She does not, for one long beat, say anything.
She says: Yes, sir.
She says, after the pause: Sir. May I, on the third morning, lay a paper.
Yes, daughter.
If the paper says nothing, what will you read it as.
He says, very quietly: I will read it as the paper of a daughter who is, on the third morning, still alive.
She does not, on the bowl, weep.
She breathes.
She picks up the bowl. She finishes the millet porridge of the late grandmother in Chungju.
She sets the bowl down.
She bows. Forty-five degrees.
He bows. Forty-five degrees.
They sit.
The shrine, by the small acoustic grammar of the fourth morning, is, for the first time in three days, the shrine of two creatures who have, in the four mornings, agreed to be the two creatures the shrine has been holding.
At the second hour of the afternoon the snow eases.
He stands.
He goes to the door. He slides it. He looks out at the eastern path. The path, by the small mountain-reading he has been doing for four hundred years, will, by the morning, be passable.
He turns.
He says: Daughter.
Yes.
I will, this afternoon, walk down the path to the foot of the mountain and bring up, by the evening hour, the bundle of the next two days. The bundle will, by my count, be the last bundle. The path, in the morning, will let you down.
Yes, sir.
He bows. Fifteen degrees. The bow of a guest taking small temporary leave of a host.
He goes out.
She slides the door behind him.
She sits, on the floor of the shrine, in the small space he has, by his going out, briefly returned to her.
She lifts her left wrist.
She unwraps the henna.
She lays the small white ribbon flat on the floor in the small fading-warm circle of the brazier.
She reads, on the four hundred-and-third reading of the morning, the seven syllables.
She lays her palm flat on the ribbon.
She speaks, for the first time in four days, the small word her mother taught her, at the age of seven, to speak when a thing of the line was, in the body, asking to be carried for a length of time longer than the daughter had, on the day, accounted for.
She says: Eomma.
She says: I will carry it.
She folds the ribbon. She slides it under the henna. She ties the henna, this time, with the small bone stick that had, on the riverbank of a small Chungcheong river, been her mother's.
She sits with the wrist in her lap.
She waits for the evening hour.
She waits for the bundle.
She waits, on the small flat ethics of the path, for the lifting of the snow that will, in the morning, take her south to her mother's old aunt's house in a small village above the Chungju river, where she will lie low for a year, and at the end of the year — by the small clear unembarrassed grammar of a Joseon-daughter who has, on the third morning of a jeong-seol, written four words on the back of a piece of mulberry paper — return.
She does not, on the floor of the shrine, know whether the return will be to him.
She knows, on the floor of the shrine, only that the return will be hers.
She breathes.
She sleeps, in the small steady cold of the late afternoon, the small sleep of a daughter on the fourth day of a settled snow whose mother, four nights earlier, was executed for a thing she had not, by the small mudang-grammar of her body, done.
The man at the eastern wall, when he returns at the evening hour with the last bundle, does not, on her sleep, wake her.
He sits at the eastern wall.
He keeps the lamp.
He keeps, in his own small careful discipline, the breath of a creature who has, in the four nights, learned not, in her sleep, to be a watchman.
He keeps, in the smallest hour, the small breath of a man.
In the morning the snow has lifted.
In the morning she goes south.