Festival for Three Thousand Women (6 page)

“We're going in to weigh Bobby,” Larry told the colonel, and the officer bowed gallantly, throwing his hand out as if to show them the way.

The colonel's room was small and Larry dragged the scale to the middle of the floor. Before Bobby got on, he took off his shoes and peered at the gauge to make sure that it was set on zero. Cherry was right next to him, so he sighed and stood up on the thing, stealthily trying to cover the needle with his toe.

Larry knelt down. “What did you weigh when you got here?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Bobby mumbled, “two fifty, maybe.” He knew, of course, that it had been two fifty-five.

Bobby could feel himself growing red, but when Larry pushed his toe out of the way and said, “Two thirty-seven!” he was surprised. And when Larry and Cherry both started laughing, he got down off the scale and joined them, mindlessly happy with the news. He hadn't weighed two thirty-seven since high school.

When they all finally stepped back into the main room the three lieutenants told them that it was time to eat. The lieutenants separated them, as they were no doubt assigned to do, and Bobby was sharply disappointed at seeing Cherry seated so far away. What an easy girl she was to talk to. Why in the world had he not thought so before?

The lieutenant in charge of Bobby was Gary Smith, who was in his twenties and seemed quiet and self-effacing. From Chicago, he had gone to officers' candidate school and said that he'd actually volunteered for Vietnam. “That way I was sure I'd end up somewhere else,” he said.

Gary Smith and Bobby sat at the end of the table farthest from Cherry, who was with the colonel at the head. The table was nicely set and despite his weight loss, Bobby was salivating like a dog when the wine came and the colonel raised his glass to propose a toast.

“This is special,” he said. “The army is thankful that these Peace Corps volunteers are with us, and we are thankful that America's presence in Korea is not so totally military as it once was.” He raised his glass a little higher. “To Larry, Cherry, and Bobby,” he said. “And to peace.”

They all said, “To peace,” but right after that the turkey came and then the potatoes and the dressing and the rolls, and Bobby forgot everything else. Though he tried for some decorum, he ate like a maniac, hardly stopping to taste his food. The one saving factor was that as he looked down the table he discovered that he was not alone. He was among people now who all ate the American way, finishing everything in less than twenty minutes, with only a little conversation to get in the way.

After dinner there was pumpkin pie, and then the colonel excused himself, saying he was the duty officer but that they could do what they liked, stick around for the movie, stay here and drink, whatever. Bobby saw the colonel touch Cherry's arm before he left. “I've got a fine collection of Motown in my room,” he told her. “Feel free to go on in and listen. I'll only be gone a while.”

But by the time the colonel closed the door, Cherry was back at Bobby's side and Larry was too. The three of them looked at each other and then sidled up next to Gary Smith.

“Let's walk on down to the Vil for a while,” said Larry. “How about we see what's happening in the Vil?”

Gary Smith went to his room and came back wearing his jacket, and the other two lieutenants shook their hands before heading off on their own.

“Who told you about the Vil?” asked Gary. “Did anyone mention me?”

Larry said he hadn't heard anything, and Bobby mentioned Ron's invitation, which had apparently been extended to them all in turn.

“Oh yeah, Ron,” said Gary. “He's one of the best guys.”

Though Bobby had no clear idea what a “hooch” was, it turned out that Ron and Gary both had hooches in the same low building, on a dirt stretch behind a bar and hidden from view. They walked out of the officers' club, across the missile-base grounds and out the main gate. The Vil seemed made up entirely of bars and tailor shops, each with a certain glossy sheen. In a way it was like being transported back to America and Bobby felt an unexpected little charge. The bar girls standing along the street said hello to Gary and smiled at the rest of them. And when they turned down the pathway Gary showed them, they found Ron standing there waiting, the line of hooches behind him.

“That was fast,” said Ron. “The colonel must have gone out early.”

“We keep these places as a kind of a getaway,” said Gary Smith.

There were six rooms in the building, and Ron and Gary Smith had the last two. It was clear that they were buddies, though that wasn't the impression Gary had given them earlier. And it was interesting to watch Gary change once he shed his responsibilities as an officer on the base. It was like walking down some poor American street with a guy who originally came from there.

Gary's hooch was darkly psychedelic, and as they ducked through the low door Cherry took a firm hold of Bobby's hand. Once they were inside Gary went into the darkest corner and took his uniform completely off. Standing there in his underwear, he slipped into a pair of old jeans and a plain brown T-shirt. There were posters on the walls and pillows all over the floor.

Once they were seated Ron reached over and pushed a button and the place was filled with music, a sweet country-blues tune by Mississippi John Hurt. Soon they had all arranged themselves on the pillows, forming a circle along the edges of the room, and Ron pulled out a noodle package that was stuffed full of marijuana. Bobby had smoked dope only twice before, both times in college, but he was willing to try it again. Cherry, however, surprised them all by speaking up. “I don't know,” she said softly, “you guys go ahead. I think I'll pass.” She apparently knew the song that Mississippi John Hurt was singing and she took a little of the sting out of her refusal by quickly singing along.

“Got to go to Memphis,
From there to Leland.
Got to see my baby,
‘Bout a lovin' spoonful…”

Gary rolled a joint, which went by twice. Since Cherry wasn't smoking, Bobby only pretended to, but the room was full of the stuff and he soon began looking at Cherry in a new kind of way. She was a beautiful girl, but what the hell was going on? She hadn't touched him or held his hand in training, so why was she doing it now? Bobby found her refusal to smoke the marijuana wonderful, as if she knew some secret about herself and was avoiding a certain vulnerability, but he didn't understand the rest of it. Perhaps it was only that she, too, had been holed up in a Korean village these past six weeks and was seeking a little release of her own—glad to see him, perhaps, but using him as well.

Still, when Bobby looked at Larry he couldn't help wondering why Cherry wasn't touching him too. He was sitting just as close, after all, on her other side. So if she was glad to see them both, why touch one and not the other, why him and not Larry?

Such questions might have been influenced by the clouds of smoke billowing about the room, but the answer that Bobby came to was this: though Cherry was glad to see Larry too, if she were to touch Larry, he would somehow have a right to take her touches in a certain serious way. Bobby, on the other hand, was a fat boy, and though he had nearly forgotten it, his role in America, in situations like the one at hand, had always been that of an asexual friend. Fat girls played that part too. And though his fluids moved within him just as surely as Larry's did, Cherry somehow knew that he would not look upon her touches in the same way that Larry might. Bobby was a world apart and he was smart. Cherry knew that he would understand it all and so she touched him and not Larry. She sighed and kissed him and snuggled close and in every gesture she knew that he was safe. Goddamn!

The five of them stayed there in Gary's hooch for the rest of the afternoon, smoking and laughing. It was stupid and unnecessary, they all said, to go weeks without seeing each other again. Cherry's village was only a little north of Larry's and Bobby's was only a little south. Because the missile base was in the middle, it was the obvious convenient meeting place, but the Peace Corps volunteers all urged the G.I.'s to get out and see the real Korea for a while. So it was decided that Larry and Cherry and Gary Smith and Ron would all come to Taechon during Christmas vacation, which was less than a month away. It'd be great to see each other again. They smiled and smiled.

After that they spent an hour looking for Ron's truck keys so that he could drive them down to the station in time to catch the last train home.

Nine in the second place means: The son is capable of taking charge of the household
.

 

N
at King Cole was singing “Too Young,” and Bobby was watching Miss Moon and remembering the narcotic effect that seeing Cherry Consiliak had had on him when Headmaster Kim came into the Love Tearoom to say that he'd at last found a family with whom Bobby could live.

“They tried to tell us we're too young,
Too young to really be in love…”

“Too Young” was Headmaster Kim's favorite song, and he took a moment to listen to it before shaking the winter cold from his coat and sitting down. He had Mr. Soh with him in case Bobby didn't understand.

“I am so relieved,” said the headmaster. “You have been staying at the inn too long, my promise unfulfilled.”

“It's been fine,” Bobby replied, on guard a little. His room at the inn had not been fine, but he wanted to hold on to it until he found out what was in store. Also he was thinking about the Goma. What would happen to him if he moved away?

Though Bobby's Korean was getting better fast, Headmaster Kim insisted on looking at Mr. Soh for a translation. Bobby didn't want to ignore Mr. Soh, but he continued looking directly at the headmaster.

Finally the headmaster said, “Policeman Kim. His house is even closer to school than your inn. I would have asked him earlier but he was in Seoul. There is a boy, a third-year student who is doing poorly in English.”

It was very common for Peace Corps volunteers to be taken into someone's home so that they could teach English to members of the family. Some of Bobby's training friends considered this a horrendously self-serving attitude on the part of the Koreans, but Bobby thought it was all right. The rent would be low. He tried to remember his third-year students, but no particular Kim stood out.

“When can I see the place?” he asked.

“Too Young” was going into its third consecutive playing—Miss Moon knew the headmaster's tastes—but rather than answer the question, Headmaster Kim only nodded. “Good,” he said. “I will talk to Policeman Kim again and we will go there after school tomorrow. Thank you for your patience at the inn.”

He and Mr. Soh stood. It was a Sunday evening and Bobby quickly understood that they had just come from Policeman Kim's and that they were going back there now to make it all final. His seeing the room was the last thing on their minds. And a refusal of it was completely out of the question.

The next day at school, Bobby was surprised to find the teachers not wearing their usual suits but plaid shirts with long boots over their trousers instead. Despite his growing proficiency in Korean he still had little idea of what went on at the morning meetings, so he assumed that he had simply missed an announcement, that this, happily, was a special day of some sort.

It had been two weeks since his return from the missile base, and during that time the weather had grown surprisingly cold. They had reached the date by which the Ministry of Education had decreed heat could be turned on, and the teachers were huddled around the stove, blowing into their hands or warming them on the teacups that they held. Bobby walked up to his friend Mr. Lee and asked, “What's going on?”

Given fresh evidence that no one other than a Korean could ever really speak the language, Mr. Lee found Mr. Kwak and pulled him over to explain.

“Tell him what's happening,” he said. “He doesn't understand.”

Bobby was glad Mr. Lee hadn't called over Mr. Soh, his usual interpreter. Though Bobby had continued to think of Mr. Kwak as the shy English teacher who immediately left school on his bicycle every day, he somehow liked the older man better than either Mr. Soh or Mr. Nam.

Mr. Kwak grew pensive for a second but then he took off his glasses to clean them on his tie. And, speaking quietly, he said, “You see, once a year we dissolve our regular activities for the day and allow the children to run into the hills to catch rabbits. Today is that day. At the end of the rabbit-catching the teachers will all be made a stew and we will frolic in congeniality, however forced it may appear to be.”

Bobby was astounded. Mr. Kwak's English was clear and fluent and easily understood, though he did take his time bringing it out. But it was as if he were showing Bobby some secret part of himself by speaking that way, and immediately Mr. Kwak's stature ballooned, never to be the same again.

“Wow,” Bobby said.

Unfortunately Mr. Nam was nearby and came over before Bobby had a chance to say something more clearly expressing his gratitude to Mr. Kwak. Still, Bobby was suddenly sure that he would have two true friends among the teachers: Mr. Kwak and Judo Lee. Judo Lee because of the largeness of his spirit, and Mr. Kwak because he had had the decency and grace to hide the good quality of his English while Bobby was studying Korean. How, Bobby wondered, could he know so clearly, from that frail little statement of his, that Mr. Kwak was at home with himself and someone important in the world?

Policeman Kim did indeed live in a nice house, about halfway between the inn and the school. Policeman Kim was a friend and judo partner of Mr. Lee and it had been Mr. Lee who'd made the initial contact for the school. So after rabbit-catching day and with a full belly of rabbit stew, they all progressed from the inn to Policeman Kim's house.

There were six people in the man's family: his mother, himself, his wife, his two children, and a maid. The middle-school boy who was bad in English was not, it turned out, one of Bobby's students, and the other child went to Taechon Girls' Middle School, which was across town.