The Red Palace

by June Hur

Some dreams, I’d learned, were meant to fade away. And to let go of them didn’t mean to let go of myself, but to release the life I’d imagined I wanted. The loss had grieved me at first, but in its fading away—slowly, very slowly—a new dream had bloomed. A dream that was quieter, less desperate, mellowed by the ashes of those who had died in the massacre. But it was also a dream that infused my world with deeper shades and brighter hues, with richer scents and far warmer streaks of contentment. As I left the stall and continued on my way, I opened my five-stitched book, looking over the text I planned on teaching to a group of student nurses who’d begged me to tutor them. I had finished reviewing The Great Learning with them. And now we had moved on to the medical texts, with titles as difficult as their content: Injaejikjimaek, Tonginch´imhyŏlch´imgugyŏng, Kagamsipsambang, T´aepyŏnghyeminhwajegukbang, and the Puinmunsansŏ. It was the last that I’d be teaching today, which I had spent the past few days reviewing myself. As Nurse Jeongsu had said, a good teacher must teach precisely and with a whole heart in order for a student to be molded into a true uinyeo. I flipped to the next page and paused, glancing up from the text to the police bureau. It had become a habit over the months—looking, but no longer searching, that way each time I passed by. And out of the same habit, I lowered my gaze to the text, then froze. I must have imagined it, a glimpse of blue silk at