In the hours that followed, Pak Ok-hi shed copious tears. But while she did so she kept one eye open for the Serviceman's Group Life Insurance that she knew would be coming her way. And it did. This morning. Ten thousand dollars in greenbacks, compliments of the United States government.
The entire fortune was paid in cash, in denominations of twenty dollar bills. The U.S. Army believes that the distribution of fifties or hundreds would make it too easy for Communist agents to transfer money from one country to the other. Therefore, they pay their troops—and bereaved widows—in twenties. Pak Ok-hi could've taken a check. But like most Koreans she preferred cash. During the turmoil of the twentieth century, Koreans have learned not to trust banks. Too many have folded, leaving depositors high and dry. True, usually the bank president is decent enough to commit suicide, but that doesn't get your money back.
As she stared into the dark hooch, Kimiko inhaled deeply. The smell of PX perfume, stale rice beer, and the pungent odor of kimchee—cabbage fermenting in brine—assaulted her nostrils. Everything seemed to be quiet. Everything in order.
Kimiko placed her weight gingerly on the varnished wood-slat floorboards. They creaked but not much. After taking a few steps into the hooch's dark interior, Kimiko could hear, behind a latticework paper-covered door, the strong, steady breathing of the mistress of the house. With long, tapered fingers, Kimiko fondled the ivory handle of the straight razor she kept beneath her belt. Thus reassured, she continued her forward creep.
A legal clerk at 8th Army JAG, the Judge Advocate General's office, was one of Kimiko's regular customers. She'd sat with him last night at a table in a dark corner of the King Club while he bragged about the.45 he was going to check out of the arms room tomorrow and the second lieutenant he was going to escort in a jeep to Itaewon in the morning to make a payment to the woman he called Ok-hi Culverson. Kimiko let him talk, and while he did, she dreamed of all that cash and what it could do for her.
A beauty shop in Suwon. That's what every businesswoman in Itaewon seemed to long for. Why Suwon? It was a quiet town fifty miles south of Seoul with no G.I.'s. Why a beauty shop? Because there'd be no men around. No Korean men. And especially no Americans.
Kimiko's plan was simple. Wear a woolen scarf over her head and crash the kut, pretending to be a friend of the mudang, the female shaman, who was paid to commune with the dead. Then, while all the other women were drinking and dancing and generally making fools of themselves, find a place to hide. Which she did. In a spider-infested storage bin half full of dried sweet potatoes.
Now her plan was equally as simple. Find the money and take it. And if Ok-hi Culverson woke up and was foolish enough to try to stop her, she'd taste the razored edge of Kimiko's stainless steel blade.
When she reached the back bedroom, Kimiko paused for a moment, listening. There was no rustling of blankets, no coughs, no hint that anyone was aware of her presence. Slowly, Kimiko slid back the latticework oil-papered door. When it was open about shoulder width, Kimiko paused once again. Still no movement. Only steady snoring. Kimiko peered into the room.
Moonlight filtered in through a small window. Jumbled blankets lay on a down-filled mat. The bean-filled pillow was where Kimiko planned to look first. If Ok-hi Culverson was sleeping on a fortune, that's where's she'd keep it. Close to her. Stuffed in the lining of the pillow where she could keep the money pressed close to her cheek. Kimiko would slide the pillow out from beneath her head and if the woman woke, Kimiko would place one hand on her throat and with the other...
Someone coughed. A deep rumble. Not the cough of a woman.
Kimiko leapt back to the far side of the hallway. And then she stopped, controlling herself, and peered into the bedroom through the open door.
Whoever coughed hadn't moved. The only sound now was the steady breathing of the person Kimiko had assumed to be Ok-hi Culverson. Without moving, Kimiko waited a full five minutes. No more coughs. When it seemed safe she crawled back to the door and stuck her head through. By now her eyes were more accustomed to the dim light, and she could see the room clearly. A tall armoire inlaid with fire-breathing mother-of-pearl dragons, a short dressing table shoved up against the far wall, and in the center of the room the pile of jumbled blankets. But this time Kimiko noticed something that almost made her, once again, leap backwards. At the bottom of the sleeping mat, peeking out from beneath the silk-covered comforter, were human feet. Not two as she'd expected but three. And one of them was huge. Gross. She recognized it immediately for what it was.
A man's foot.
Men are bad luck at a kut. Spirits prefer to deal with women. And at the kut this evening, before Kimiko slipped away to hide in the storage bin, there had not been even one man in attendance. This man, Kimiko realized, must've been back here in the bedroom of the house, hiding from the women in the courtyard, waiting for the recently widowed Ok-hi Culverson to join him.
Never mind, Kimiko thought. I'll take the money anyway, man or no man. She pulled out her ivory-handled razor and flipped open the blade. Its sharp edge glimmered in faint moonlight.
Slowly, Kimiko began to creep through the open door of the bedroom.
And then she stopped again. One of the blankets, on the near side of the sleeping mat, began to rise. It rose and rose again and then slid to the floor, leaving in its wake a tall Korean man, facing away from her, wearing only white shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. Kimiko thought of charging him from behind and slashing the front of his throat. But it was too late now. The man was young and appeared strong and he was fully alert now. He'd turn before she'd taken three steps and would probably be able to fight her off, and even if Kimiko did manage to kill him, the woman would be alerted, and during the fight she'd probably run away—with the money.
Too late to act now. Kimiko leaned back away from the door and melted into the dark edge of the hallway, where she could observe without being observed.
The man stood for a moment with his tall frame glistening in the moonlight. He stared down at the supine figure of Ok-hi Culverson. The silence in the room was interrupted only by Ok-hi's heavy breathing. The man took two steps backwards until he was out of Kimiko's line of sight. But she could hear him. A minute later, when he reappeared, he was fully clothed. Again, he stared down at the still sleeping Ok-hi Culverson, as if contemplating what to do with her. Finally, he sighed and, crouching down, slipped his hands beneath her bean-filled pillow. When he pulled the pillow out from beneath Ok-hi Culverson's head, she grunted but just briefly. Then the slow, steady breathing began again.
The man searched the pillow, finally pulling off a cloth casing. Wads of cash fell out, landing on the silk comforter, making only the softest of thuds.
The man squatted down and picked up the bundled cash and held it between his arms. But now he seemed at a loss as to what to do with it. The pillowcase, apparently, had been nothing more than a cloth wrapping and had fallen apart during his search. When he found no suitable receptacle, the man rose to his feet and, hugging the cash, headed for the hallway where Kimiko crouched.
She backed up. Could she slice his throat before he dropped the cash and grabbed her? Maybe. But it was doubtful. The man was young and strong and fully alert. Instead, Kimiko backed down the hallway and stepped into an alcove that led toward the byonso, the outhouse out back. Silently, she crouched behind a varnished wooden cabinet.
The man stepped out into the hallway and, still hugging the cash, tiptoed past Kimiko and continued toward the front door.
As quietly as she could, Kimiko followed.
Inside her bedroom, Ok-hi Culverson still dreamed the dreams of a woman with a future.
At the front landing, the man stepped off the wooden platform and slipped his feet into a pair of sandals. When he reached the middle of the courtyard he paused, looking to either side. Kimiko stopped breathing. For a moment, she feared that he had sensed her lurking behind him. But it soon became apparent that the reason he stopped was not because he'd heard something
, but because he was looking for some way to carry the bundles of cash. He stooped and dropped them in a small pile in the middle of the courtyard. Then he checked the earthenware jars that lined the courtyard walls. They held various types of kimchee—cabbage, turnip, cucumber—that were being preserved for the winter. Then, on a wooden shelf, he found what he wanted, a small earthenware jar, maybe a foot tall and half a foot wide, just large enough for holding deinjang, spiced soybean paste. Also large enough—barely—to hold ten thousand dollars U.S. After stuffing the bundles of tightly bound twenty dollar bills into the jar, the man located a length of twine. Knotting it deftly, he secured the varnished cap to the top of the jar. Taking one last glance back at the hooch, he crossed the courtyard and opened the door in the front gate and, holding the jar of bean paste, walked out into the narrow pedestrian road that ran in front of the home of the Widow Culverson.
Kimiko trotted to the gate, leaned her ear against the wooden frame, and listened until his footsteps faded. Then she opened the gate and ducked through after him.
* * * *
Behind the Dragon Flame Nightclub, a door popped open. Light flared onto an alley lined with garbage bins. A young woman wearing a see-through negligee, her black hair mussed, held open the door, peering into the darkness expectantly. Immediately, the young man clutching the jar of bean paste stepped in past her and the woman slammed shut the door.
Kimiko wasn't surprised.
A good-looking young man, under normal circumstances, wouldn't want anything to do with the aged and jaded Widow Culverson. This young Korean man was, apparently, one of the legion of good-looking young men who hang around nightclubs, catering to the lonely Korean wives of American servicemen. He probably also knew that Ok-hi Culverson's husband was not well, and his patience had paid off with this bonanza in insurance money.
But what right did he have to all that money? At his age, he'd probably been hustling for no more than a few years. Kimiko had been putting up with the pawing of foreigners for most of her life—since she was fourteen and expelled from the country home of her father because he could no longer afford to feed an unmarried daughter. During the turmoil of the Korean War, and in the two decades that followed, Kimiko had been forced to fight fang and claw to eke out a bare existence.
No, this young man had not suffered like Kimiko had. He would not keep this money. He didn't deserve it. Soon, she swore to herself, the money would be hers.
Kimiko spent the better part of an hour wandering around the nightclub, searching for a way in. But the building had few windows and they were high, and both the front and the back doors were locked and bolted shut. As she searched, Kimiko kept a wary eye out for the police. Curfew in South Korea ran from midnight to four A.M. every night and it was strictly enforced. Now was no time to be caught and locked up for a curfew violation. From the lowering moon, Kimiko figured that the curfew would be over soon. She found a dark corner in the alley and waited. As soon as someone opened a door, maybe the cleaning lady, Kimiko would find a way to slip in and grab the jar of bean paste and the wealth it contained.
She was almost asleep on her feet, leaning against a dirty brick wall, when the same back door by which the man had entered the Dragon Flame Nightclub creaked open. Kimiko awoke with a start and peeked around the corner.
The same young man stood in the dim moonlight, dressed now more elegantly, with a green suit and a white shirt open at the collar. The same woman who had let him in emerged with him. She apparently preferred black because now she wore a smart black dress, closed at the collar and with a hemline that was too high, Kimiko thought, to be becoming. The man still clutched the jar of bean paste, tightly bound with thick twine, beneath his left arm. Together, they hoisted traveling bags and started walking briskly toward the main road of Itaewon. Kimiko followed, wondering what to do. Attack now? Not possible, the man would overpower her. Clearly, the two of them were leaving town. When the Widow Culverson awoke, undoubtedly she'd run straight to the Korean National Police, and it wouldn't take them long to show up at the Dragon Flame Nightclub. Leaving now was the smart move.
At the main drag, the four A.M. traffic had just started. An occasional three-wheeled truck trundled its way out of town, a few cabs were parked with their front windows clouded. As soon as the tall man and his elegantly dressed girlfriend stepped out to the curb, bean jar and traveling bags in hand, two of the cabs started their engines and raced to the edge of the curb. Kimiko was forced to hide a few yards away at the mouth of the alley, but she could hear them arguing about fares. Finally, a resolution was made and the man and the woman climbed into the back of one of the cabs.
They sped off.
Kimiko was about to jump into the back of the other and follow, but then she thought better of it. Although she couldn't hear clearly where their destination was, she knew that the first train leaving from the Seoul station didn't depart until seven A.M., almost three hours from now. Would this couple want to wait at the station for three hours while the Widow Culverson and the police searched for them? Not likely. Undoubtedly, they would head for the bus station. There, by government fiat, the buses started departing Seoul at five A.M. So she had time. Time to plan.
Kimiko jumped in the back seat of the cab and told him to take her to the Itaewon open air market.
* * * *
The express bus to the southern city of Kwangju was about to depart.
The crowd at the Central Seoul Bus Station was large, even at this early hour. The tall young man and the elegant woman in a tight silk black dress stood in the middle of the crowd, gazing into one another's eyes. Apparently, this was goodbye, Kimiko thought. He had the money now and he didn't need this gal from the Dragon Flame Nightclub any longer. She'd say goodbye to him, expecting him to return, not realizing that he'd just stolen ten thousand U.S. dollars. And the chances that he'd come back for her, Kimiko knew, were nil. All men are swine.
Somehow, before the express bus to Kwangju departed, she had to grab that jar of bean paste.
Striding forward purposefully, Kimiko motioned to the two tough boys she'd just hired. Like a couple of jackals, they hopped through the crowd, laughing and pretending to be chasing one another. Inexorably, they closed in on the tall young man and his black-clad paramour. Screeching and laughing, the boys dodged to and fro through the swirling crowd until finally the first of them smashed into the back of the young man. When he turned, the other one smashed into the woman, almost knocking her off her feet. While the man shouted his outrage, Kimiko darted forward, crouching amidst the milling crowd, everyone craning their necks to see what had happened. Now, almost on her knees, Kimiko grabbed the jar of bean paste next to the young man's traveling bag, replacing it immediately with another jar that was an exact replica. Kimiko had prepared it to look exactly like the other one, even down to the thick twine knotted to hold the top of the jar shut tight. While the crowd was preoccupied with the argument between the young man and the tough boys, Kimiko stuffed the jar in a gunny sack and backed away.
Now the express bus for Kwangju was departing. Desperately, as if suddenly remembering something, the young man turned his attention away from the tough boys and knelt and searched next to his traveling bag. With a sigh of relief, he lifted up his precious earthenware jar, hugging it against his chest. Sticking it once again securely beneath his arm, he grabbed his traveling bag, pecked his erstwhile girlfriend on the cheek, and turned to join the line loading now onto the express bus for the far city of Kwangju.
In front of the ladies’ room, the boys found Kimiko. Frowning, she slapped some coins in their hands and when they demanded more she scolded them and threatened to scratch their eyes out. Cursing, the boys departed. But in seconds they were laughing again and scampering away. Kimiko entered the restroom, stepped into a stall, and closed the door behind her. Frantically, she untied the tightly knotted twine. Then, taking a deep breath, she opened the top of the jar. What she saw made her heart fall.
Newspaper. No
money whatsoever. Kimiko pulled it all out, dropping it onto moist tile, and then read the neatly wrapped note at the bottom. It was written in the childish script of a girl. “Yobo,” it said. Boyfriend. “I know you have been deceiving me with that old woman married to the American. But hiding money from me, that is too much. I never want to see you again. Don't try to follow me. Yours, Suk-ja."
Kimiko stifled a scream. Getting control of herself, she set the empty jar down and scurried out of the ladies’ room. In the main hall of the bus station, she could see that the express for Kwangju had already departed. She searched for the woman in the tight silk dress. Nowhere to be found. She ran to the front of the station. Just as she reached the long line in front of the taxi stand, she glimpsed a splash of black silk climbing into a cab. Running to the front of the line, Kimiko shoved her way past a startled elderly man. She jumped into the back seat of the first cab in line, and ordered the driver to follow the cab that had just left.
Staring at the face of the enraged Kimiko and listening to her teeth gnash, the driver shoved the cab in gear and urged the little engine forward.
* * * *
She should've known, Kimiko told herself. She should've seen it coming. Women aren't stupid. And they know that in this cruel world they must at all times protect themselves. The cab holding the young woman in the tight silk dress wound through the busy streets of Seoul, heading away from the red light district of Itaewon, toward the crowded downtown business area. Kimiko and her nervous cab driver followed until the lead cab pulled over in the center of the swanky shopping district known as Myongdong, the Bright District.
AHMM, Jul-Aug 2005 Page 22
