The Wandering Ghost (25 page)

I held the phone slightly away from my ear, listening.

“
Muol hei?
” What are they doing?”

“The big one wants to use the phone.”

“I can see that. What are they doing here in Kumchon?”

“Who knows?”

And then the clicking grew louder and suddenly, above the static, a Korean-accented woman’s voice said in English, “Eighth Army Operator Number Thirty-seven. How may I help you?”

I gave her the number to the CID administrative office and waited. In Korean, I said to the beauticians, “
Miguk kisaeng dei dei ro yogi ei
wassoyo?
” Does the American
kisaeng
sometimes come in here?

The women’s eyes widened and they stared at one another.

Staff Sergeant Riley’s voice came over the line.

“Sueño?” he asked, after I’d identified myself. “Where in the hell are you?”

“On our way to Seoul,” I said. “But first we have to pick up Corporal Matthewson.”

“You found her?”

“Just about.”

“‘Just about’? What is that supposed to mean?”

“We have a solid lead.” About as solid as a whiff of perfume in a windstorm.

“The first sergeant has a case of the big ass,” Riley said. “So does the Eighth Army PMO.”

“Stall’em for us, Riley. We almost have her.”

“I don’t know if I can do that. The Second ID honchos have been teletyping messages down here like mad. Apparently, you—or somebody who looks like you—was spotted at a student demonstration in Tongduchon.”

“Do you believe everything you hear?”

“That’s not an answer,” Riley growled.

“How about the ration control records? The ones that were classified?”

“Smitty says he should have them by tonight. But what do I tell the First Shirt?”

“No time now. Got to run. Tell them we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

He started to say something more but, quickly, I hung up.

I noticed that the Division hadn’t messaged 8th Army about the shooting incident at the Tongduchon Market. Nor had they mentioned the fire at the Turkey Farm. Division was being, as usual, selective in their outrage.

I turned back to the beauticians, flashed my best smile, and bowed. “Thank you for the use of your phone.”

The eldest woman nodded.

One of the younger beauticians blurted out, “
Ku yoja arrassoyo?
” You knew that woman?

I didn’t like the use of the past tense but I kept my face as impassive as I could. Ernie stood still, sensing that I’d just been stunned by something the young beautician had said.

“Of course, I knew her,” I replied.

“Then you know what happened?”

All the women waited for my response. They were testing me. I decided to take a chance.

“You mean at the Forest of the Seven Clouds?”

They all exhaled together.

“Yes.”

“I heard something about it. Can you explain?”

“No. We don’t know either. All we know is that many powerful people were angry and the women who work at the Forest of the Seven Clouds haven’t been in here to have their hair done since then.”

How long ago, I thought, but I didn’t want to show my ignorance. They might stop talking. So I said, “Can they go that long without a hairdo?”

One of the youngest of the beauticians giggled, modestly covering her mouth with cupped fingers. “It’s only been three days,” she said.

I grinned. “Yes. Only three days. So no one from the Forest of the Seven Clouds has been in since that time. Not even the American woman?”

They shook their heads sadly. The youngest one piped up again. “Her hair was lovely. Gold with just a little red. And each strand so thin.” She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together as if caressing silk.

“Where is the Forest of the Seven Clouds from here?” I asked.

“Not far. Usually they take a taxi.”

The youngest one piped up again. “
Kisaeng
are rich.” Another beautician elbowed her to be quiet. The young one pouted.

I bowed once again to the women. “Thank you so much for your help.”

On our way out, Ernie grinned and saluted them. They waved back, the youngest beautician saying, “Bye-bye.”

We were halfway back to the jeep when Ernie asked, “What’d they say?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

An empty kimchee cab was cruising down the road toward us. I waved him down. When I opened the door and started asking him questions, his face drooped in disappointment. Obviously, he thought that Ernie and I were two GIs stranded far from our compound and a fat fare was in the offering. When I asked him for the location of the Forest of the Seven Clouds the disappointment on his face became more profound. He wasn’t working us for a tip. Most Koreans, especially those who live in the countryside, don’t think that way. They’re not born to hustle. They’re born to be polite. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a one thousand
won
note. Two bucks. He shook his head. Not necessary, he told me.

Then he explained that the Forest of the Seven Clouds was one of the highest-class
kisaeng
houses in the entire Paju County region. It was situated by itself on the side of a hill overlooking the valley. He pulled out a pad of brown pulp paper and a pen and sketched a quick map for me. I took the map and thanked him and tried once again to offer the thousand
won
note. Again, he refused. I told him that his time was valuable and so was his information and asked him not to embarrass me by not accepting my gift.

Reluctantly, the young man pocketed the money.

The narrow road was bordered by rice paddies. The fog had lifted but no sun came out, only a cold gray overcast that shrouded the world. We were traveling east. A few farm families pushing wooden carts were traveling west, pushing their wares toward the markets of Kumchon.

I studied the cab driver’s map. The roads were clear enough but his handwriting was difficult for a foreigner like me to make out. We came to an intersection. Ernie slowed. The signpost pointed off to the right toward the village of Chuk-hyon. The map, although indecipherable by itself, clearly showed the same name, now that I knew what I was looking for. We turned right. After a hundred yards, the road curved left, up towards hills, and then we were rising rapidly.

As we rounded a bend in the road, off in the valley below, three white cranes rose from the muck and winged their way gently into the dark sky.

Just the fact that the Forest of the Seven Clouds was so far from Seoul made it more high class. In order to have the time to drive all the way out here, you had to be a powerful boss who didn’t worry about punching the clock.

The remoteness also had another advantage, at least from Jill Matthewson’s point of view. There were no American military compounds within miles. And I’d be willing to bet that they’d never seen a GI up here in the entire history of their establishment, with—I was hoping—the possible exception of Corporal Matthewson.

The time was just after eleven but already fancy sedans covered about half the parking lot. Must be nice to take that much time off work, to drive out in the country and be catered to by beautiful women. Maybe Ernie and I were in the wrong line of work. Ernie’s thoughts must’ve been similar to mine.

“Assholes ought to be shot,” he said. “Making all that money, having all that fun, and not having to do any freaking work.”

The “assholes” he was referring to were a group of suit-clad Korean businessmen piling out of three sedans that had just pulled up, in a small convoy, to the front of the Forest of the Seven Clouds. We huddled once again as outcasts at the edge of the tree line, our jeep parked out of sight some fifty yards beyond the entrance road. As the men strode through the lacquered wooden gate a bevy of beautiful young women clad in traditional silk gowns bowed and cooed. The businessmen nodded to the women and strutted like peacocks through the carefully raked garden and into the inner confines of the Forest of the Seven Clouds.

The parking lot grew quiet again. Three uniformed chauffeurs lit up
tambei
, cigarettes, and stood leaning against one of the cars, smoking, and chatting with one another.

“Jill Matthewson worked here?” Ernie asked me.

“The women at the Princess Beauty Shop didn’t say so exactly but they said there was an American
kisaeng
who worked here, and she’d take a taxi into Kumchon to have her hair done.”

“Living the high life,” Ernie said.

“Maybe. But they also implied that something had gone wrong and she wasn’t here anymore. And none of the women who work here had been seen in three days.”

“What could go wrong out here?”

Ernie indicated the pine-covered forest and the fresh air and the snow-covered peaks above us.

“Let’s find out,” I said.

We strode out of the trees, across the parking lot. The chauffeurs stopped talking and stared at us. I nodded and said, “
Anyonghaseiyo?
” Are you at peace?

Dumbfounded, they nodded back.

Inside the main gate, Ernie and I made our way through the garden and at the entrance, I started to take off my shoes. The varnished floor was elevated, in the traditional Korean manner, about two feet off the ground. At least a dozen pairs of elegant men’s shoes sat neatly arranged beneath the platform. Ernie grabbed my elbow.

“Let’s keep ’em on,” he said.

Horrors! In Korean culture about the grossest thing a person can do is step onto an immaculately clean
ondol
floor wearing shoes that have picked up filth from the street.

When I hesitated, Ernie said, “We might have to leave in a hurry.” To further make his point, he pulled his .45 out of his shoulder holster.

I didn’t like it but I couldn’t argue. If there’d already been trouble here, there could be a lot more trouble when Ernie and I barged in and started asking questions. Reluctantly, I stepped onto the immaculately varnished wooden floor still wearing my highly-polished, army-issue low quarters.

The clunk of our shoes down the long hallway sounded to me like the tolling of the bell of death.

The Korean businessmen thought we were mad; they were just as outraged as the group we’d encountered last night at the Koryo Forest Inn. How could we possibly have the temerity to defile their expensive sanctuary? But through all the shoving and shouting and red faces blasting whiskey-soaked breath, Ernie and I held our ground. Even during the outraged shouts about our shoes and how we’d spread dirt throughout the palatial grounds and how we had no business upsetting honest customers and hard-working
kisaeng
, nobody threw any punches. But finally, the elderly woman who managed the place pulled us aside.

She wore the most elaborate
chima-chogori
I’d ever seen. The silk of her vest and skirt was hand-embroidered with tortoises, phoenixes, and dragons—lucky creatures all. She stood on her tiptoes and hissed in my ear. “
Tone
,” she said. Money. She’d give us money if we’d just leave.

I told her that we didn’t want money. We only wanted information. Then, I showed her the locket containing the photo of Kim Yong-ai. I also showed her the military personnel jacket photo of Corporal Jill Matthewson. She stared at both photos long and hard, and then nodded her head in surrender and said she’d tell me the entire story. But the quid pro quo was that Ernie and I had to return to the entranceway and take off our shoes.

We did so.

Immediately, silk-clad
kisaeng
, heavily made-up and reeking of expensive perfume, grabbed moist towels and, folding them neatly, began to scrub the floor. From the spot where Ernie and I had entered these hallowed precincts all the way to where we’d encountered the irate businessman, they cleaned as if their lives depended on it. As if this was their last chance to eradicate the influence of filthy foreigners. Somehow, I think they knew that the floor would never again be as clean as it once had been.

We sat with the aging
kisaeng
on a wooden bench in an inner garden. She told me that her name was Blue Orchid and she’d been sold by her parents to a
kisaeng
house near the outskirts of Pyongyang when she was twelve years old. Her training had been rigorous and traditional. When the Korean War broke out and General MacArthur’s United Nations Command bulled its way through Pyongyang, heading north toward the Yalu River, she and some of her fellow
kisaeng
had become refugees. After months of hardship, they made their way to Seoul. Since then, she’d held many positions but she’d been at the Forest of Seven Clouds for almost twelve years now.

“Never before,” she told me in Korean, “did we have as much trouble as we did this week.”

A young woman, just a girl really, brought a tray with folding legs and set it on the bench next to us. Ceremoniously, she poured handle-less cups full of green tea. Ernie and I sipped the warm fluid. Blue Orchid watched and cooed in approval as the young girl left.

Blue Orchid straightened her skirt before she started to talk. “Jill was very popular here,” she said. “We called her
Beik-jo
.” White Swan. “She was so gracious. Friendly with all the women and charming to the customers. You should be proud of your compatriot,” she told me. “We’ve never had a woman before—not even Jade Beauty— who’s been so popular with the powerful men from Seoul.”

I wanted to ask who Jade Beauty was but we didn’t have time. Jill Matthewson was in danger. Not to mention the time pressure on us to return to 8th Army as soon as we could. Reluctantly, I prodded Blue Orchid to return to the main story. She did.

Jill Matthewson started working at the Forest of Seven Clouds a little more than three weeks ago. That jibed with when she’d gone AWOL. The position was procured for her, and for her friend, Kim Yong-ai, by a friend of a friend of the owner who happened to be a business associate of the entertainment agent, Pak Tong-i.

I didn’t tell Blue Orchid that Pak Tong-i was dead.

Jill had to be taught many things, Blue Orchid told us. She had to be taught how to kneel on a hardwood floor, how to offer everything to a guest—whether it was a warm hand towel, or a plate of quail eggs, or a shot glass full of imported Scotch—with two hands. Never use one hand; that would be insulting. She had to be taught when to bow, when to giggle politely, when to light a man’s cigarette, and when to open her eyes wide in astonishment when he explained his business triumphs—even when she didn’t understand a word he was saying. And she had to be taught how to never turn her back on a guest, to back out of the room bowing and facing the guest in a respectful manner. And she had to be taught how to dress and how to wear her hair and even how to apply her makeup. And after all these lessons were learned, she still made mistakes. But the Korean men were indulgent. They were impressed that an American was getting even a few of their customs right. And they were flattered when she turned her full radiant attention on them, what with her big, round blue eyes and her intent way of staring at a man, a boldness that a Korean woman would never be allowed.