Jade Lady Burning (15 page)

As she lay dying, her mother had given Kimiko a small brooch, a gift from her father when they had first started meeting, late at night after the first wife had gone to bed. It was made of jade, a finely etched design of white cranes rising from their nests.

In the spring, when the orchards burst back into life, Kimiko packed a small bag and walked through the fragrant fields, away from the life into which she had been born. She walked for three days, sleeping on the side of the road, begging handouts from strangers, until she arrived in Chonju, the capital of North Cholla Province.

There she sold the brooch, for much less than it was actually worth, and bought a new skirt, new blouse, and a ticket on the steam vehicle to the capital city of Seoul.

When she arrived in bustling Seoul Station she had no money, just her wits and her burgeoning young body.

Kimiko wandered, trying to find employment. She wheedled information and food but after a few days she was profoundly hungry and tired of sleeping in the street, huddled under the clayshingled alcove of a temple or a large house.

In a wine shop, an old woman with a brazenly made-up face looked Kimiko over.

“Do you speak Japanese?”

“Only what they taught me in school, ma’am.”

The woman laughed a harsh laugh. “That’s enough. The Japanese soldiers don’t expect too much talk from you. You can get a full-time job, food, and a place to stay. In Itaewon, the Japanese village.”

Kimiko’s eyes widened and her throat convulsed. She was unable to speak.

“Well, what do you say, girl? I have a friend there who owns a wine shop. A large, grand wine shop. Not like this little hovel.”

Kimiko nodded, and in a few minutes the woman had bundled her into the back of a pedicab and they were heading south, past Namsan Mountain, into the sloping Han River lowlands of Itaewon.

The wine shops were large, made of wood and concrete, and signs with Japanese lettering were everywhere. Some of the buildings were two or three stories high, and young women looked down at the urchin in the pedicab from their balconies above the puddled dirt street. Kimiko felt small and alone.

The woman who had brought her got out, went into the largest of the wine shops, and was gone for what seemed a long time. She came out all smiles, and another, even older woman came out and took a good look at Kimiko. She was led into the bowels of the darkened shop and she realized now that she had been sold.

It was hard to adjust. Many of the other girls hated her immediately, just because she was new and younger. But slowly she made a few friends and they washed her up and gave her new clothes and taught her how to wear her hair piled up in the Japanese style and how to put on makeup. Soon she was entertaining the Japanese soldiers who came to the wine shop every night to eat and drink rice wine and clap their hands and sing. The work was much easier than that in the kitchen at her father’s house and soon the men started to notice her. They noticed her shyness and her youth and quietly they began whispering to the old proprietress. One evening Kimiko was sold to an older balding man who, it was said, was a very important officer on Yongsan, which was the headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Army in Korea.

She didn’t mind so much, it didn’t hurt, and the next morning the old woman gave her a share of the money. It was more than Kimiko had ever seen in her life.

After that, she began to make her own friends, and have her own customers, men who would vie for her attention, and the jealousies of the other girls grew greater.

Then suddenly the war was over. The emperor had surrendered Japan. The cruel forty-year reign in Korea was ended. That day, the soldiers stopped coming to Itaewon. They stayed in their barracks, fortifying themselves for the vengeful onslaught of civilians that they expected before the Americans or the Russians could arrive. But the Koreans had no arms, and those of heroically rebellious spirit had died long ago.

The old woman brought all her girls together and gave them each some money and told them they must go. She could no longer afford to house and to feed them. Kimiko did not know what to do. That night there was a great fire and men ran through the streets yelling curses at the girls of the Japanese quarter. They grabbed them by the hair and pulled them into the street, calling them traitors. The fire spread rapidly, and Kimiko put on her old clothes and bundled all her money and her few possessions into an old rag.

The village of Itaewon was reduced to charred rubble, and Kimiko was back on the streets of Seoul, where she stayed for five years, until war again came.

“During the war, not so bad,” Kimiko said. “I had to move a lot but there were many soldiers and they gave me food or soap or cigarettes. Other people were very hungry, but I did okay.”

“And after the Korean War, you came back to Seoul?”

Kimiko spat on the floor. “No. I was sick of Seoul people. Too cold heart. I stayed up in the country. North. In the Second Division.”

“What made you come back?”

“I got in some trouble. Went to the monkey house. So after, I come back here.”

By then she was too old to compete with the young girls farmed out to the Second Division area. Guts and sheer hustle could get you further in Seoul.

It was almost curfew. Nobody else was left in the club. I sent Kimiko home in a taxi and walked halfway back to camp before I hailed one myself.

9

W
hen we gave our report on Lindbaugh, Ernie did most of the talking: “We sat in the parking lot behind the Officers’ Club while he got a steam job and a blow bath. Then he bought a bunch of groceries and a cock book and went back to his hooch.”

“What time did you end the surveillance?”

“Close to nine.”

Seven thirty is close to nine—not very close, but close.

“Our man Kurtz,” the first sergeant said, “is keeping an eye on him during the day but I want you guys to hang loose in case Lindbaugh decides to go anywhere unusual. Tonight, be at his hooch before five. Stay with him at least until curfew. It’s Friday night so he might have someplace to go.”

So did we. But my stomach was churning too violently to mouth off.

The first sergeant rubbed a speck from the gleaming surface of his immaculate desk. “I want you out at the parking lot at KPA watching his sedan during the lunch hour and then back at his hooch before he gets off work. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What’s for chow?”

“Get out of here, Sueño.”

We got up.

“Keep an eye on him, Bascom. He’s going to kill himself out there running the ville.”

Was I that obvious?

Ernie drove me back to the barracks. He said he’d be back at about ten thirty to pick me up for the noon surveillance. I went to my room, took off my coat and tie, and lay down on my bunk. Carefully, so as not to wrinkle the synthetic material of my suit pants too much.

It was good to lie down. Mr. Yi, the houseboy, brought two pairs of glistening black low quarters into the room and placed one pair under my bunk and the other pair under the bunk of my roommate, Pederson.

Pederson worked rotating shifts at the communications center, had a lot of hobbies, and hung out mostly at the arts and crafts center. I didn’t see much of him. He was cagey, though. On the weekends he’d strap a camera over his shoulder, take a bus down to Ewha Women’s University on the outskirts of Seoul, and ask the best-looking young ladies he could find to take photos of him standing by a fountain. This often led to conversations in a coffee shop and occasionally much more.

Freebies.

Pederson was smart and also thrifty. He let them buy the coffee and didn’t bother to put any film in the camera.

I tried to go over the Pak Ok-suk case but it was a struggle. There were so many people involved. Something was missing but maybe whatever was, was only something that I had failed to notice. Maybe all the pieces were there but what was left out was my ability to put it all together.

I had yet to see a photograph of Miss Pak but I had acquired a picture of her in my mind. She was lovely, with soft round thighs and long black hair, and every time I thought of her she was dancing for me and smiling. I reached out to her and something shook me. My eyes popped open. Ernie.

“Time to hat up, pal.”

I washed my face in the latrine and then we jumped in Ernie’s jeep and drove over to the KPA compound. We found a little parking spot in the shade of one of the big red-brick buildings and waited. Ernie looked me over.

“What’s happening, man?”

“Not much.”

“Did you spend the night with Kimiko?”

I turned and stared him down.

“We talked.”

“That’s one worry off my mind,” Ernie said.

“What’d you do last night?”

“Hit a few bars. Then I went back to the compound. On the way in I checked Lindbaugh’s sedan. Cold. Hadn’t been moved.”

“And then you went back to the barracks?”

Ernie’s hands squeezed the bottom of the steering wheel. He looked straight ahead and for a moment I thought he hadn’t heard me.

“Naw. I went to see the Nurse.”

I let out a whoop. “I knew it! You can’t stay away.”

Ernie grinned a sheepish half-moon filled with well-brushed canines. “It’s the tears. They do it every time.”

We heard a door slam and a heavy rhythmic pounding as someone raced down the metal stairwell. Lindbaugh.

“Here he comes.”

Lindbaugh zigzagged his big frame through the parking lot, reached deep into his suit pocket for a wad of keys, and piled into the green Army sedan. He screeched off in a cloud of slush. Ernie started the jeep and we followed, about thirty yards behind at first. Steadily Ernie closed the gap to about ten. There were still two or three kimchi cabs between us at any given time as we threaded our way through the rushing flow of traffic.

Instead of turning right at the Camp Coiner intersection, Lindbaugh turned left, towards the sedate, leafy neighborhood of Huam-dong. About two blocks down the road he took another left into a narrow alley and parked. We continued up the main road, Ernie made a U-turn, doubled back, let me out just in front of the alley, and continued down the street, hung another U, and positioned himself across the street where he could see as far down the alley as possible.

Shops lined the narrow lane: a bicycle repair shop, a small fish market, a florist. Down the road a few yards a huge red banner waved in front of a small restaurant. The banner said po SHIN TANG, “Body Protection Soup.” A nice way of saying dog meat.

Lindbaugh’s car was parked a few yards down from the restaurant but he was gone. I pretended to look at some of the flowers at the open-air florist. An old man, in rolled-up gray slacks and sleeveless T-shirt, shuffled over towards me. I smiled and waved him off. He seemed convinced that I was harmless and returned to his chores.

I walked a little farther down the street, until I could see through the window of the restaurant. It was dark but I could make out the big girth of Lindbaugh and the outlines of two Korean men sitting across from him at a table. I went back to the florist and waited.

Apparently, they were having lunch. I wondered if Lindbaugh could read Korean—I doubted it—and whether or not he knew what the specialty of the house was. Lunch was mercifully quick.

Lindbaugh broke through the beaded curtain and looked both ways. I faded deeper into the stall of orchids. He walked down to his car alone and got in. After he drove past, I waited until the two Koreans came out. They paused in the alleyway, as if to make sure he was gone. Then they went back inside. Maybe they had a big weekend lined up and needed some more body protection soup, since it was believed to be an aphrodisiac.

Ernie drove us back to the KPA compound. Lindbaugh’s sedan was there.

I told Ernie about the dog-meat restaurant and the two Korean men sitting with Lindbaugh while he slurped his soup. Ernie nodded, bored. Just another clerk taking bribes. He didn’t show any interest until I told him the two men were the same two guys who had jumped Kimiko in Itaewon.

We had four more hours until Lindbaugh got off work so, on the way to the CID Detachment, I had Ernie drop me off at the base library. They’ve got a few shelves there dedicated to Korean culture and history and language. I scrounged around until I found the fat Korean-English dictionary and sat down to look up Miss Pak Ok-suk’s name.

The family name, Pak, was a clan name and literally millions out of the country’s forty million were named that, the three major clans in Korea being Kim, Lee, and Pak. The Koreans say that if you climb to the top of a tall building in Seoul and throw a pebble off, chances are that it will land on the head of a Pak, Kim, or Lee.

At one time people with the same family name were not allowed to marry but that was done away with: It just wasn’t practical. There are too many unrelated people with the same last names.

Her given name was more interesting. As I had thought,
ok
meant jade. In the Orient, jade is the most highly prized of all precious stones, and up until only a few decades earlier it had been considered more valuable than gold. Women often wore it in rings to signify that they were married.