Encounter: A Novel of Nineteenth-Century Korea

10. Encounter

Encounter Two ritual tables for the household gods stood in the main hall of the house, the smallerone set with a white porcelain wine cup filled with unrefined wine and a couple of dried whitings as the only offerings, the larger one still bare. On a straw mat in front of the table, the shaman Man-nyon sat with Butterfly, luminous in her white costume. She prayed, rubbing her hands together, as two slave women carried in a large earthen steamer filled with rice cake generously garnished with red beans from which the steam rose like smoke. The women placed it on the empty table. After they left, Man-nyon picked up a carving knife from under the table, plunged it into the steaming cake, and drew the character for the number ten.1 In that instant, Butterfly felt a sudden vertigo. She watched the cross on the rice cake float toward the post and remain stuck on the main beam. Meanwhile, the knife on the rice cake flew toward her, hitting her right hand with its handle. Instinctively, shecovered her injury, but the shaking hand, slipping out of its protection, moved toward her bosom, and as if manipulated by some unknown force, made the sign of the cross. Everything Butterfly saw was illusory , and she was unaware of her own strange behavior. Overcome by dizziness, she lost consciousness even before the prayer came to an end. When Butterfly finally regained her senses three hours later, it was almost nine in the evening. Fortunately, the governor had been away attending the banquet given in honor of his new post, but i. The Chinese character for the numberten resembles a cross. 283 Chapter Ten 284 E N C O U N T E R Man-nyon was extremely embarrassed by the incident. She did not dare to face the mistress of the house, because for a shaman to fall unconscious during the rite was certainly an inauspicious sign. Had she seen the strange movements of her daughter during her prayer, she would no doubt have fainted, too, but her eyes had been closed during the supplication. The rite on that day had therefore ended in vain, but Man-nyon was determined to find ways to appease the myriad spirits who had been angered by the incident. Calm and strong-willed though she was, Man-nyon was perturbed. However, looking at her daughter's inert face, astonishinglychildlike for a girl of seventeen, and watching her painful breathing, the thought never occurred to her to admonish Butterfly; it was only pity that filled her heart. The mistress, too, instead of being offended by the incident , knelt beside Butterfly to wipe away the beads of sweat that had formed on the girl's forehead. Despite the government ban against shamans as priestesses of obscene cults, there was a growing interest in them even among the royal women, who clandestinely sought shamans and diviners. The newly arrived governor, a man of impeccable character who had passed the civil service examination as a mere boy, opposed the performing of shaman rituals.The mistress, too, the wife of a literatibureaucrat , shunned their superstitious dealings, but she gave in to the persuasions of the staff and servant-women who had long been accustomed to the shaman rites being regularly performed in the governor's household. They had seen their former governor, a man with an overly stern sense of propriety, crippled after falling on perfectly level ground, forcing him to leave the district, and his successor, an uncompromisingfollowerof Confucian ethics, lose his son, whom he had left behind in Seoul. They advised the mistress: "Because this mansion is so old, you have to offer prayers to the Supreme Household God, the Ground God, and so on, and appease the demons swarming in the latrines and in the stumps of brooms. If you don't do anything, all the wretched bachelor ghosts, the ghosts of unmarried maidens, of those who starved to death or were flogged to death, or those who drowned, will crowd around your house. Just imagine how many were flogged to death in your house, this place where criminals were kept!" Thus, the inspired Man-nyon had been summoned in the governor 's absence, and this was why, in spite of the fact that shamans E N C O U N T E R 285 must not be seen frequenting an official household, she...