the tavern owner, shaking an empty bottle, and when no one answered, he yelled in a melodic voice, “Madam So-o-o-ong!”
A middle-aged woman appeared with a tray of wine bottles, her hair braided into a coil secured by a pin, decorated with red glass that winked at me. As she served her guests, I tried to examine her more closely. I’d met Madam Song once before when I’d gone around showing strangers the sketch of my brother; I’d be able to recognize her. But before I could catch a better look, she disappeared into the backyard kitchen. I sat down on the platform in the yard and craned my neck from side to side, hoping to see her return soon.
“Are you here from the police bureau?” a voice called out.
I turned to find the drunks and wastrels watching me, the lone girl sitting on the platform cluttered with low-legged tables, cups and bottles of rice wine, and bowls of either steaming rice or stew. An aged man in a dusty white garment waved, his hair tied in a topknot, his long beard a tangle of gray and yellow-stained white. He was sitting cross-legged behind a table to my left. “Pour me a drink and I will tell you whatever you wish to know. You may have seen me before. I was a clown famous for my storytelling. Unfortunately,” he added with a dramatic sigh, a rush of alcoholic breath sweeping into my nostrils, “I got kicked out of my traveling troupe of performers.”
For drinking too much? I thought as I slid around so that I sat before the low-legged table. Even closer to him now, I had to hold my breath as I picked up a bottle and poured him another drink. “I came because I hear Madam Song knows everything about the goings-on here in the capital.”
“Oh, she does know many things. Everything except for a certain man’s heart.” His lips twitched as though they were itchy—perhaps to gossip.
“Councillor Ch’oi, you mean,” I said.
“So you have heard the rumor!”
“Not really.”
“Well, well, well. Let me tell you a story, a tale of passion and betrayal—”
“Thank you, but a quick summary will do.” I looked around the courtyard, hoping to spot Madam Song. “I can’t stay long, sir.”
He swatted my request aside, as if it were a fly. “As I was saying, this is a love story between a high official and a gisaeng who never smiled. He was a competitive man, Councillor Ch’oi, and when he learned of all the men who had tried and failed to make her smile, he took hold of the challenge with the determination of a general bent on conquering a kingdom. After months and months of sharing with her all the jests he could think of, he fell in love with her, slowly but surely. Then one day, unable to withhold his feelings anymore, he confessed his love to her.”
“And that was when she smiled?” I guessed.
“No, she never did smile. Instead, he made her cry enough to fill the entire sea. They love each other still, even after twenty years. I see the councillor riding by, now and then, just to ask about her health, about her day. And I see such passionate longing in his eyes. But she was the one to end their affair, all to become an innkeeper’s wife.” He snorted. “What a prize this place must be, eh?”
“So she loved the innkeeper more than the councillor,” I observed.
“Aigoo, she loves no one more than Councillor Ch’oi. After she left the House of Bright Flowers, too old to stay there and too stubborn to ask the councillor for help, she simply had nowhere to go.”
“No family?”
“Her family sold her to a gisaeng school when she was a child.”
“Oh…” I’d heard of gisaeng schools, places where girls as young as eight were taught to sing, dance, play music, read, and write. They grew up without mothers or fathers, their tears wiped away with promises of gigantic mansions filled with servants—but only if they could become the mistress of a rich man’s heart.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If Madam Song and the councillor love each other, why did she choose to become an innkeeper?”
“She was too pretty for her own good,” he mused, not answering me. I wondered if I was speaking to a man or the dozen empty bottles littered around him. “It’s a good thing that you aren’t pretty.”
I kept my expression blank, pretending not to feel stung. “Will you answer