me or not? Why are Madam Song and the councillor not together now, ajusshi?”
“Ajusshi?” He barked out a laugh. “I have not been a middle-aged man in a long, long time. I’m old enough to be your grandfather!”
“Ajusshi!” I pressed, growing annoyed.
Finally, he answered. “There was another woman—Jumo!” he yelled out, shaking the empty wine bottle to catch the owner’s attention.
I wanted to reach out and yank the rest of the story from him, but before I could, Madam Song appeared. She had a broad forehead and pointed chin, full lips, and heavy-lidded, dreamy eyes. Eyes that watched me. I curled my lips into my mouth, hoping she wouldn’t see the taint of gossip glistening on them.
After setting a new bottle on the man’s table, Madam Song’s gaze drifted to one corner of my face. Her knitted brows straightened.
“What did you do?” she asked.
I blinked. “Pardon?”
She tapped the side of her face. It was then that I became aware of the hot summer’s air brushing my branded cheek. I loosened short strands of hair from my braid, letting them fall over the ugly mark. “I looked for my brother. When I couldn’t find his grave, I tried to run home,” I mumbled. “I was caught. That is all.”
“Home…,” she said in a steady voice. A series of emotions flowed through her dark eyes. “So my guess was right: we did meet before. You are the girl with the drawing. Have you found your brother’s burial ground yet?”
“Not yet, madam.”
“Let us see the sketch of him if you have it still,” the drunkard called out. “Perhaps I’ve seen him.”
“Yes,” Madam Song said, “let me see him again.”
“My brother?”
“That is why you have come, is it not?”
“It is, madam.” I fumbled for the sketch and thought to myself that this was a good way to continue my conversation with Madam Song. I doubted she would be pleased to know that I’d come for the sole purpose of learning more about a killing. Once I handed the drawing to her, I tensed as she studied my brother’s face.
“A fragile-looking young man,” she observed as she sat down on the edge of the platform, and I scooted over to sit next to her. A moment later, the drunkard also joined and looked over both our shoulders. “He traveled to the capital all on his own, you say … No, I never did see him.”
The drunkard chimed in, “Neither have I,” and returned to his drinking, finally leaving us to sit quietly together.
“I would remember a face like his. Does he have any other recognizable features?”
I often recalled my brother’s voice, his words and stories a clear echo in my ears, but the image of him had faded into a blur. I looked over Madam Song’s shoulder at the blank sky, trying to remember the last time I’d seen him. On a boat, surrounded by misty waters. A glimpse of his brown eyes, so light that it had seemed almost amber. The apple of his throat that had amused me, the way it would rise and fall with each uttered word. As my mind’s eye surveyed him, I frowned at a detail I had forgotten until now. On his lower right arm, a wound—a large patch of raw red.
“He had a burn on his arm,” I said, my thoughts still twelve years in the past. “A very bad burn.”
Madam Song nodded. “Then it would have left a scar. And do you know of any relatives here in Hanyang?”
“No, madam.” I knew very little about the details of my past. Older Brother and Sister had made sure of that, always speaking about our parents and relatives in whispers whenever I was around. As though stories about our family were a great and terrible secret.
“Was your brother clever?”
I nodded. “Neh.”
“Then he must have come to the capital knowing there was someone here,” she said. “When we first met months ago, you referred to your brother as someone who was dead. But he may be alive—and quite well.”
I lowered my head to avoid Madam Song’s gaze. She was wrong, and there was no point in considering a thought so preposterous. My brother had to be dead; I could feel this truth bone deep, this feeling that ties had been severed.
“Ajumma!” a maid yelled out, fracturing my thoughts. People called crude and tough middle-aged women “ajumma,” not queenly ladies like Madam Song. “Ajumma, a letter for you has arrived!”
Madam Song moved to leave, and at once, I remembered why