Yin Yang Tattoo (12 page)

I was glad when at last she left me alone. I felt for the lonely soul, her peasant roots and sad looks condemning her to a lowly job and a solitary life in a society where women who failed to marry and to breed barely merited inclusion on the social register.

My thoughts turned to Jung-hwa. She would be nearly forty now. I wondered if she had children, and what life was like with a bastard like Schwartz for a husband. Better than anything I ever offered her, was the obvious answer. When I picked up the beer bottle it came off the table too quickly; I had already drained it. Shameless drunken escapism screamed loud, and I was in Itaewon to wash away fears old and new. I called for the bill, tipped the waitress generously, and hurried out in search of a glimpse of my past.

 

On that first night in the Cowboy Club, the sexy Miss Kim surprised me. We danced and drank and talked and laughed and danced some more. I remembered the tease and the seeming promise of the slow numbers, ‘Careless Whisper' and ‘Midnight Train to Georgia', songs that today still take me back to that dingy club all those years ago, still inspire a memory-driven stirring of the loins.

The surprise was in her refusal to come home with me. She took no offence at the request, but no matter how hard I pushed the point, she held her ground. At three in the morning, I walked her to a cab. She lived with her family so I couldn't have her phone number, but she did take mine after a little persuasion and promised to call. As she waved at me through the back window of the taxi, I almost believed her. Then she was gone, without so much as a goodnight kiss. Bobby and I eventually rounded off the night at the infamous Flower Shop. Not many flowers, but a great deal of money changed hands in the Flower Shop's back rooms. We each took a shop girl through the back for a
short time
. How short was immaterial, since I was so drunk that when I awoke the next morning I would never have recalled even being there if not for the wilted carnation pinned to my shirt pocket. I couldn't remember a single thing about the whore I had been with, but clear and sharp was the memory of Miss Kim's amused expression when I forced my telephone number on her as she clambered into the back of the taxi.

One morning a few days later, the phone woke me early. On the telephone her English became even more self-assured, and we talked and laughed like old friends. She agreed to meet me that Friday night.

The NFL was an Itaewon institution, one of the earliest American-run discos with decent music, cold beer and hot and cold running local women. Local men who made the mistake of trying to climb the club steps were politely turned away by the ever-smiling Amerasian bodybuilder who reigned supreme at the door.

The club belonged to a football-mad American soldier-turned-civilian whose Korean wife handled the minefield that was licensing and local government and police corruption. She did such a good job that prosperity grew unimpeded for years until she caught her husband with another woman. Divorce negotiations started out nasty but soon fell away, and within days the club was closed down by police for a long list of ‘violations'. It was an act of contrived vengeance, Korean style. If the American thought he was going to keep the place to himself, then she had ways of showing him how far off the mark he was. It re-opened a few days later after a deal had been struck, one that reportedly cost the American a lot more than he had ever anticipated.

Miss Kim arrived late, setting a precedent that she kept up for all the years we were together. She wore black again, another revealing low-cut number with strings for shoulder straps and a tight, fifties-style skirt that hugged her thighs and restricted her steps but didn't stop her dancing sinuously for long spells.

As closing time loomed I couldn't decide. Go for broke and take the chance of spoiling a great night, or settle once more for the uncertainty of another phone call? Then she stood up, slipped one arm through the long strap of her shoulder bag, and looked at me, rising amusement parting her painted lips.

‘Taxi?' I said.

‘How about your place.' She said it with a smile that made me weak at the knees.

I had tidied my room especially, and left the heating on to warm the freshly laundered Korean bedding that lay on the hot papered floor. Not a lot of sleep was had that night, but we did stay warm.

After that we met at least once a week, almost always in Itaewon, usually ending up on my warm floor. In bed just as out of it, she had a strength and confidence that belied the blinkered stereotype of the demure Asian woman. We explored endlessly, experimented tirelessly, and often exploded together in spontaneous laughter.

Sometimes we met during her lunch break near the import/export company where she worked. These were quick hot hours of passionate surrender in a small inn on a back street in the thick of Dongdaemun Market, leaving us no time for lunch before she repaired her make-up and hurried to her office and I went back to spend the rest of the day teaching English, deliciously conscious that I smelled of her sex.

 

I wandered from club to bar, led by discarded pockets of memory fogged by alcohol and years of separation from Itaewon's singular brand of hedonism. Two hours later I sat next to the window in the top-floor Starship Bar and looked out over the lights of the city and down on the glow of the clubs and the action on the streets.

I checked my watch. Nearly eleven o'clock, time for a change of scenery, and the Nashville was only a couple of hundred yards away, but in a separate world. Another Itaewon survivor story, the Nashville was a cluttered bar that served mostly middle-aged Westerners, civilian beer guzzlers whose personal sporting efforts stretched no further than the bar's pool table and darts boards.

Bobby Purves sat at a round table bent under the strain of chunky glass mugs full of foamy draft lager. When he weaved over to meet me I knew he had had a few.

‘Hey-up, Jock, you look like you've already sunk some piss.'

I looked around the room. ‘Then I'll fit right in.'

I waved through the smoke to the Korean barman, an old face I recognised from days gone by when I used to be here several nights a week. I held my palms horizontal, one far above the other, and waggled two fingers. He got straight to work. Drunks love a professional.

‘I was wondering if you'd drop in.'

‘Didn't mean to. Got tired of my own company.'

‘How's the job going?'

‘Alright.' Beyond Bobby I recognised a face I knew. ‘I see our pal Martinmass is here.' The grimace Bobby pulled was answer enough.

‘I had to photograph him today along with Chang. You're right. He is a bad-tempered arsehole.'

‘He'll be in a better mood tonight. See the guy trying to sit on his knee?'

Beside Martinmass, a smooth-faced Korean in his early twenties and wearing a blue suit jacket buttoned up tight had his chair pulled close. He was hanging on the big guy's every utterance.

‘Martinmass is gay?'

‘He thinks nobody knows.'

‘The same guy who thinks wearing a dead crow on his head will make him one of the lads.' I remembered him tugging nervously at his ring finger whenever the camera was pointing his way. ‘He's married, right?'

‘You almost never see him and his missus in the same room. She's a pillar of the Chamber of Commerce wives' scene, does endless conspicuous charity work. She has recently been lobbying for a memorial to Diana in the garden of the Embassy.'

I had enough of this place already.

‘Let's go somewhere else, get ourselves one for the road, eh?'

Famous last words. Two hours later, I poured myself from a taxi outside the Hyatt and did my best to negotiate the still-crowded hotel lobby with minimum collateral damage to civilians or hotel furnishings. Just another night in Korea. When I lived in Seoul it was like this, too. Dangerously high levels of alcoholic intake on multiple nights of the week. No wonder I loved every minute of it.

I got myself to my room and, switching on the shower full-blast, stripped off clothes that reeked of sweat and stale tobacco smoke. I was drying off when the doorbell rang.

Twice in the last three nights, the lovely Miss Hong had surprised me. Could this be her again? I pulled on a towelling dressing gown and pulled open the door.

A Korean man in a dark suit and a baseball cap pulled low stood in the murk of the corridor.

‘Mr Brodie?'

‘Yes?'

‘For you.'

He thrust a small package in my hand and was gone. No signature required. It was a box about the size of a paperback book with wrapping around it, and it felt chilled, as if recently taken from a refrigerator. I tore at the paper, and immediately recognised a Fuji instant film box like the ones I used. Inside that, something was wrapped in greaseproof paper, smaller and more dense than a sandwich. I carefully unfolded it, and screamed loud enough to shake the curtains.

Vile and glistening and almost alive, the bloody contents fell to the desk blotter with a sickening wet thunk. Miss Hong's belly button, yin yang tattoo and all.

‘Good morning Mr Brodie, how may I help you? Mr Brodie?'

‘Never mind.'

‘Yessir. Have a nice day.'

It was too late for that. I couldn't remember picking up the phone, and the programmed chirpiness of the hotel receptionist had slapped me from an awful nightmare into a reality no less dire. The base unit of the telephone was splashed with droplets of dark red that drew fattening trails to the flap of flesh that sat screaming at me from the centre of the desk blotter.

Miss Hong was a beautiful thing. A little heavy on the make-up, but despite their natural beauty, Korean women see no irony in being the world's biggest consumers of cosmetics. Her expensive clothes were on the showy side, but nothing on the everyday surface of Miss Hong hinted at her profession. She was a stunning young woman. Determined, hard-working, making a success of her talents – and very, very good at her job.

Only when the clothes came off did she shed some of her patina of professional class respectability. Not being a pop star or a gang member, the two tattoos she sported marked Miss Hong indelibly as a sex-industry pawn. One was a tiny flower on her left breast, exaggerated pink and dark reds glowing from flawless olive skin. The other was the Korean flag around her belly button.

The
‘Taegukki'
is bright and cheery and as overused on the streets of Seoul as the Union Jack is in tourist-trodden London. In its centre is a circular yin yang in red/blue on a pure white background, with four black trigrams representing seasons, points of the compass and other worldly elements I could not recall. Koreans love their flag and take every opportunity to fly it or, better still, to wave it. Miss Hong wore it, in a three-colour yin yang tattoo around her belly button. Now it lay on the desk, shrivelled and discoloured, yet unmistakeable in all its hellish detail.

I fished a name card from my wallet and picked up the phone again. After three rings someone answered awkwardly, followed by a thud as the phone at the other end bounced off a hard surface.

‘Yoboseyo.'

‘John Lee? It's Alec Brodie.'

‘Mr Brodie.' Long pause. ‘It is two o'clock in the morning. What is wrong?'

I thought about telling him exactly what was wrong, and decided against it.

‘I need you to come to my hotel room.'

‘Can I see you in the mor – '

‘Mr Chang will be very angry if you don't come immediately.'

‘Mr Chang? I'm sorry, I do not underst – '

‘Shikurrup. Pally-waa.'
Shut it. Come quickly.

I put the phone down. He would come. The mention of Chang was enough to guarantee that. I gently placed a sheet of writing paper on top of Miss Hong's
Taegukki
and sought solace from the mini bar.

I had polished off the whisky miniatures and was making a dent in the vodka stocks when I heard a quiet knock at the door. I checked the spyhole before opening up. Lee's face was of the luminescent red that suffuses many Asians when they drink. In London a face so red would make you call the paramedics, but in Seoul at this time of night he didn't warrant a second glance. Before he spoke I silenced him with a raised hand and let him follow me into the room. I stood by the desk, and with the tips of forefinger and thumb raised the writing paper by its edge. His face blanched instantly.

‘Aigoo jingeruh.'
Disgusting.
‘What is it?'

I raised my tee shirt and with finger and thumb drew a rectangle around my navel. His gaze flicked from my stomach to the desktop and back. I watched realisation dawn, his expression widening in growing horror. His mouth hung open, and he drew a glistening tongue across dry lips.

‘You remember the two business girls from the Japanese restaurant?'

He nodded.

‘When I came back to my room that night, one of them was waiting for me. This,' I waved the paper at the desk blotter, ‘was hers.' Lee, hand hard against his face, pivoted and rushed towards the bathroom. I opened another vodka miniature, sat down on the bed, and tried not to listen. Just as I realised that nausea had yet to even affect me, saliva flooded my mouth. I fled in Lee's footsteps and found him staring blankly at the mirror, hands hard on the edge of the wash hand basin, taps running at full power. I sank with my knees astride the toilet bowl and heaved explosively.