Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story (18 page)

T
HIRTY-TWO

“
U
mmah
, wake up!”
Soo-bo said, inches from my face. I blinked sleep from my eyes. Standing in front of me was my daughter, ready to begin her day. The morning light was still low and I needed more sleep. I ached from long hours of hard work. But I didn’t mind. I had saved Soo-bo from starving.

My daughter had filled out since we arrived at the
kijichon
ten months earlier. She was still thin and often had long spells of fever. But at the
kijichon
, she was able to eat every day and I was greatly relieved. I loved her more than I had ever thought possible. I took sublime joy in dressing her, her playfulness, and her four-year-old mannerisms. Still, Soo-bo struggled with the simple lessons I gave her. Sometimes she slipped into dark moods and I worried about her strength.

I stroked Soo-bo’s hair. “You’re awake so early, little one.”

“I’m hungry,
Ummah
,” my daughter said. “Will you tell me more of our story?”

I swung myself to the edge of the bed. “Yes,” I said. “Where did we leave off?”

“The rich yangban had come from Seoul with a present for her daughter. What is it,
Ummah
? What is the present?”

“You will have to wait to see,” I said. “Let’s eat breakfast first.”

I pulled on a shirt and slacks. I took Soo-bo’s hand and we went down the stairs to the small, plywood-walled kitchen in the back of the bar. It had a newer army refrigerator that Alan bartered a juicy girl’s time for, and a propane countertop stove. As Soo-bo waited at the table, I made bori cha and poured myself a cup. I poured Rice Krispies in a bowl with milk and gave it to Soo-bo. After I had worked for Alan for a while, I encouraged him to trade bar tabs for supplies, so we usually had American foods available. Rice Krispies was Soo-bo’s favorite. She loved the characters of Snap, Crackle and Pop on the box and delighted in the sounds that the cereal made. She wouldn’t eat anything else for breakfast. As Soo-bo ate her cereal, I cleaned the kitchen and washed out dozens of foul mugs with stale beer and cigarette butts inside.

As Soo-bo finished her breakfast, a juicy girl shuffled into the kitchen. She was dressed in baby-blue lingerie and her hair was a mess. Her name was Dae-ee and I guessed she was not much more than seventeen years old. She poured herself some bori cha. She looked at Soo-bo, then at me and I could tell she wanted to talk.

I told Soo-bo to go to our room and wait for me and that we would have more of our story when I got back.

Soo-bo hurried out of the kitchen and Dae-ee slumped into a chair at the table. Four months earlier, Dae-ee had strolled into the Hometown Cat Club on the arm of an American corporal who had told her he loved her and that he would take her to America and marry her. She’d looked with disdain at the juicy girls, and only talked to me to order drinks for her man. Days later, when the corporal went back to America without her—undoubtedly with a few hundred dollars in his pocket from Alan—she was alone, penniless and scared. She had to accept Alan’s offer to help me at the bar. One month later, she was a juicy girl.

“I can’t do this anymore,
Onni
,” Dae-ee said staring at her bori cha. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

I set the towel on the counter and took the chair across from her. “You should go back to your family,” I said. “Chonan is not far from here.”

“I cannot. I have shamed them. And I owe Alan too much. I thought if I worked as a juicy girl, I would be able to make more money. But now I owe more than when I started.” She began to cry. “What should I do,
Onni
? Tell me, what should I do?”

My heart went out to her. She reminded me of myself when I was young—stubborn and a little too proud. So when Dae-ee started working at the club, I had taken her under my wing and helped her get by. I warned her about becoming a juicy girl, but she didn’t listen to me. Now she owed Alan so much, she would never get out from under her debts. Dae-ee, like most other juicy girls, had become nothing more than a sex slave for the Americans, just like I had been for the Japanese.

I reached over and touched Dae-ee’s hand. “Don’t worry about what you owe Alan. Go back home and face your family. You have to find the strength to do the right thing.”

Dae-ee had tears in her eyes. “I can’t. I just can’t do it.”

I looked at my hands. “I have felt that way several times. Honestly, sometimes I feel like it here, too.”

Dae-ee’s jaw tightened. “You’ve never had to do what I do here,” she said.

I gave her a stern look which put her back. “Do not ever assume you know how others have suffered.”

Dae-ee lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry,
Onni
.” She set her bori cha aside and sighed heavily. “I wish I was strong like you.” She left the table and trudged up the stairs.

*

Thursday was the Colonel’s day off and I hoped to see him in the bar that evening. I gave Soo-bo to Dae-ee. Without Soo-bo in tow, I was able to finish my chores by early afternoon. I washed my blue dress and hung it on the line behind the club to dry. I took a hot bath, washed my hair and combed it smooth with the comb with the two-headed dragon.

Late afternoon, I put on my blue dress and went down to the bar. It was early. Only a handful of soldiers were there and only two juicy girls were working. Alan had an elbow on the bar and rested his square head on his thick hand. “When are you going to make some real money, Ja-hee?” he asked. “Been ten months and you ain’t making progress on your debt. You’re popular with the men. Any one of them would pay top dollar to have a poke with you.”

“I do make money for you, Alan. You just don’t pay me for it. Business is way up since I started here. I have offers from other bars.”

He plucked a toothpick from a shot glass and examined it. “You’d make a lot more as a juicy girl.”

“Who would do all the cooking and cleaning? Who would take care of the girls? This place would fall apart.”

“I’d find someone.”

No, he would not. Not anyone as good as me and he knew it. I leaned against the bar. “Dae-ee wants to leave. Let her go.”

“Can’t. She has debts.”

“She can’t pay it off.”

“‘Cause she’s lazy. And she’s just another girl. You, on the other hand, you got somethin’ the men want. You’d make a lot of money. Wouldn’t be so bad. You’d get used to it.”

I shook my head. The girls in the Hometown Cat Club served three or four men per night. In Dongfeng, I’d had forced sex with as many as thirty men nearly every day for two years. I never got used to it then and I certainly would not get used to it now.

Alan chuckled. “Shit, I bet the Colonel’d pay five hundred bucks for a night with you. Maybe more. He likes you and he’s got money. Comes from a real rich family in Atlanta. They build houses or somethin’.”

“Commercial construction,” I said.

“What?”

“His family owns the biggest construction company in Georgia. They build skyscrapers. He told me all about it.”

“Is that what you two talk about all the time? Skyscrapers?”

“We talk about a lot of things. He gives me books to read. We talk about those. You told me I should spend as much time with him as he wants.”

“You shouldn’t be wastin’ time with your damn books. I wish you’d do more than talk to the Colonel. You’d be able to pay off your debt.”

“You and your debt,” I sniffed. “This is nothing more than indentured slavery.”

Alan pointed his toothpick at me. “Be careful, Ja-hee. I have a good guess why you’re here. A few calls and I’d know for sure. Then what’d you do?”

He jammed the toothpick in his mouth. “Beginning of the month,” he said, “you owe another rent payment. I ain’t letting you out of here until you pay me off, so you better think about how you’re going to make more money.” He went to the other end of the bar and picked up a magazine.

*

Disgusted, I grabbed a rag and went to the front window. I stood on a chair and wiped the window clean. I cleaned it every day—on most days, inside and out. I told myself I did it because it was my job to keep the club clean. But inside, I knew it was because the Colonel liked to look out the window.

The bar started to fill with soldiers and the girls came from their rooms to work them. I went from table to table taking drink orders. Jazz music pulsed from the jukebox while the girls started their nightly trek up stairs with men. The Hometown Cat Club ran smoothly because of me. It was clean, I had the bar stocked with good liquor, the beer was always cold, and the jukebox played the latest American records. The most attractive girls wanted to work at my club. I was proud that I had made it the most popular brothel in the entire
kijichon
. But when I thought about what I was doing, I was ashamed, too.

It was bustling when the Colonel came in. I smiled when I saw him. He was wearing the same khaki slacks and safari shirt that he always wore. His empty sleeve was pinned to his shirt. He took his table in front of the window. I poured some Old Fitzgerald Kentucky bourbon into a spotless glass and took it to him. Months earlier, he told me that he drank Old Fitzgerald at home in Georgia. “It’s what they serve in the White House,” he had said. So, I asked the man who sold us liquor to get a case and I convinced Alan to pay the higher price for it. The bourbon had come three days earlier and I couldn’t wait to surprise the Colonel with it. I took the glass to his table.

He said good evening to me in his soft Southern drawl. And asked how business was in the Hometown Cat Club. I told him it was busy as usual and took a seat across from him.

“Yes, it is that,” he said.

He raised his glass and took a sip of bourbon. He looked in the glass, lifted an eyebrow and took another sip. His jade-blue eyes went wide. “Ja-hee, what have you done? I do believe this is Old Fitz!” he exclaimed.

I grinned and nodded. “Alan was upset at how much it cost. I had to convince him to buy it. He’s charging you double.”

“Well worth it, well worth it. The drink of presidents. They say General Ulysses Grant drank a glass every day. He was a great warrior, but, as you know, my favorite is Robert E. Lee.”

“Yes. You have told me many times,” I said.

The Colonel sipped more bourbon and took a long look at me. “Thank you,” he said. “You always treat me well.”

“You are a good customer.”

“Good customer? Is that all I am?”

“Okay. A special customer,” I said.

“So why don’t you ever dance with me? You only did that one time.”

“I cannot.”

“Why not? We’ve spent a lot of time together, Ja-hee. We’ve shared a lot. At least, I’ve shared a lot. I think I’ve earned a dance, don’t you? As I recall, you caught on quickly to the Viennese waltz.”

I looked into the Colonel’s eyes. He was a decent man. He was always polite, always a Southern gentleman. He was well read on a host of topics. We spent hours talking about his family and friends back home in his beloved Georgia. He went on and on about “General Robert E. Lee of the Southern Confederacy” as he always said. We talked about politics, World War II and the Korean War. He gave me books to read—his favorite was Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead—which we discussed every Thursday night at his table for a month. I honestly enjoyed our talks. They reminded me of the long talks I’d had with Jin-mo about his books. But just like the juicy girls and their customers, there was no future for me with the Colonel. I knew he would go home someday and I would stay trapped in the
kijichon
thinking about him, wishing I had not gotten involved with the handsome southern gentleman.

“It is not proper for a Korean woman to dance with a man who is not her husband,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re in a
kijichon
. All sorts of improper things go on here. Dancing is relatively tame, don’t you think?”

“It depends on what your ulterior motives are.”

“My ulterior motives?” he exclaimed. “With you?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “I just want to dance.”

“And then?”

“There doesn’t have to be an ‘and then’. We can dance to enjoy dancing.” He set his glass on the table. “Why don’t you trust me? Is it me or do you distrust all foreigners?”

“I distrust people who have their soldiers in my country,” I answered. “I distrust a military that supports the trafficking of women for sex.”

“We don’t support it.”

“Oh? Then what are you and these men doing here?”

“We’re not the Japanese, Ja-hee,” the Colonel said.

“What’s the difference?” I pointed my chin at the girls in the room. “For them, for the girls, what’s the difference between you and the Japanese?”

He looked annoyed. “What would you have us do? Leave? Let the Communists take over? It’s us or them, Ja-hee. Take your pick.”

“So here we are, a divided nation,” I said.