Her eyes sparkled with indignation. “You go to the city and stay away for hours and then come back only to say that the house looks like every other house, and though the neighbors speak well of this Choi family, you forget to ask where they came from—”
“I told you, they said the family has lived in the same house for six generations,” Il-han replied.
He was very weary but he knew he could have no rest until he satisfied Sunia’s questions.
“Did you see no one of them?” she asked next.
“You said I was not to ask to enter.”
“You could have looked in the gate.”
“I did look in the gate. I saw two servants and a young woman cutting some flowers.”
“It might have been she,” Sunia exclaimed.
“It might have been,” he agreed.
“Was she pretty?”
“Now, Sunia,” he remonstrated. “What can I say to that? If I say yes you will not be pleased with my sharp eyesight. If I say no you will blame me for seeing nothing. I can only say that she looked cheerful and healthy.”
“Round face or long face?”
“I cannot tell you. It was a face with the necessary features.”
“Oh me,” Sunia sighed, “am I to have a daughter-in-law who has only a face with necessary features?”
He laughed and then, because he was so weary and worried with matters which he could not explain to her, he kept on laughing until she was alarmed.
“Did you drink while you were in the city?” she demanded.
“No, no,” he said, wiping away tears. “I am only laughing.”
“At me, I’ll swear!”
“At women,” he said. “Man’s eternal laughter at woman! That is all — that is all.”
Sunia sighed. “However long I live with you, I do not understand you!”
She looked at him earnestly for a moment, and quizzically as if to appraise him. Then she too began to laugh.
“And what are you laughing at?” he inquired, surprised.
“At you,” she said. “Am I not allowed to laugh?”
“Certainly,” he said. “Laugh your woman’s laughter. Why not?”
He was not pleased, nevertheless, although he did not know why, and he took up his book as a sign that she was dismissed, which sign she obeyed still smiling, and her lively eyes were mischievous.
Early spring gave way to full spring. Plum trees bloomed and their petals fell and cherry and peach, apple and pomegranate followed, blossom producing fruit, and Yul-han walked in dreams. No longer did he make pretense of accident when he met Induk, and she did not pretend. They met with their eyes when they were in the company of others, but when they met alone they spoke from their hearts. Neither used words of love for none were necessary. Each knew that they had but one thought and it was marriage. He knew that in the West it was the custom for a man to offer himself to the woman, but this was a way too foreign for him and, he was sure, for her. Were the approach so naked, would she not, in modesty, be repelled by him? He thought day and night of what he could say or do to express his love and desire. The new way was too foreign but the old way was too public. A professional matchmaker was only a coarse old woman. Nor did he want his parents to approach her family. The bustle of mothers, the formality of fathers, belonged to a past age. And Induk was Christian and would want a Christian ceremony. It was a grave danger, this marrying a Christian. The Japanese rulers did not like the missionaries or their religion; missionaries were sympathetic with the Koreans, they said, and the religion in itself was revolutionary in content.
Suddenly it occurred to him one day how to ask Induk if she would be his wife. It was a Sunday afternoon, the first in the sixth solar month. They had met by arrangement in one of the new city parks, and had walked to a quiet pool under hanging willows. He spread his coat on the bench for her to sit upon and together they watched the goldfish darting among the water lilies. Now — now was the moment. He began diffidently, wondering if he dared to touch her hand.
“Induk, I have something to ask you.”
She did not turn her head. “What is it?”
Across the pool a flowering quince tree, growing in the shade of the willows, was still in bloom. He saw the red petals dropping into the water. Goldfish darted up to nibble them and darted away again. He went on slowly, feeling his cheeks burning hot.
“Will you go with me to a fortuneteller?”
His voice was so low that he feared it lost in the ripple of the small waterwall at the end of the pool. But she heard.
“Do you believe in fortunetellers?” she asked, incredulous.
“To discover whether our birth years agree,” he said.
She understood. He knew it by her sudden stillness. She neither spoke nor moved. He looked at her sidewise and saw a rose-pink flush mounting from her soft neck to her cheeks. She was shy! She who seemed always so calm, so competent, so sure of herself, was shy before him, and seeing her thus, his own diffidence faded. He sprang to his feet and held out his hand.
“Come,” he commanded. “We will go now.”
She looked up at him, hesitating. “Alone? The two of us? Will it not seem strange to the fortuneteller?”
“What do we care?” he asked, very bold.
He smiled down into her eyes, infusing her with his own daring. She grasped his hand and leaped lightly to her feet. Hand in hand in the gathering dusk they went through the now lonely park and into a narrow cross street. There in a corner sheltered by an overhanging roof an old fortuneteller sat in the dim light of a paper lantern swinging over his head, waiting for customers. Before him was a small table, upon it the tools of his trade. He peered through his horn-rimmed spectacles at Yul-han and Induk.
“What do you seek?” he asked, his voice cracked with his sitting in wind and rain, snow and heat.
“Our birth years,” Yul-han said. “Are they suited for marriage?” And he gave the years in which he and Induk were born.
The fortuneteller muttered and mumbled over his signs and fumbled in worn old books. They waited, hands clasped and hidden behind the table. At last he looked up, and took off his spectacles.
“Earth,” he declared. “Both of you belong to Earth. Thus far it is yes. As to which animal …”
Here he pursed his withered lips and mused aloud while he pondered his books again.
“I can almost guess by looking at the two of you what your animal years are. People are like the animals under which they are born. You are not pig, or snake, or rat …”
He fell silent while his long dirty fingernail traced the paper.
“A-ha!” he cried. “You are safe, both of you! You, the male, are dragon; you, the female, are tiger. Dragon is stronger than tiger, young man, but tiger is strong, and she will fight you sometimes, though she can never win, for the dragon sits above, always in the clouds.”
In spite of their avowed disbelief in the old symbols both Yul-han and Induk were relieved. Tradition was still powerful and a man may not marry a woman whose animal is stronger than his own, else she will rule him without remorse or tenderness. Yet each was ashamed to show relief.
“I must fight you, it seems,” Induk said.
“You will always lose, remember,” Yul-han retorted.
Induk sighed in pretended despair and Yul-han laughed. Then something occurred to him.
“Old Fortuneteller,” he said, “are you not shocked that we make inquiry for ourselves?”
The old man stroked his few gray whiskers. “Not at all,” he said. “Young ones come nowadays to inquire for themselves.”
They were too surprised to reply to this and they went away in silence. But their joy was increased. When they parted, Yul-han held both her hands for a long moment as they stood in the shadow of a stranger’s gate.