on you.
The jukebox spun out some good sounds and a couple of girls at one of the tables were giggling and looking at me and trying to get up the courage to talk to me or hoping that, better yet, I would talk to them. The place was warm and cozy and, as the bourbon started to seep into my body, I wondered what I was worried about. I told myself that I had no reason to feel anxious.
I wished that Miss Pak Ok-suk were here, to dance for me, in her tight blouse and miniskirt. But the Jade Lady was relegated to my dreams.
Freezing air burst into the room, trailing a bustling little woman, hair in disarray, eyes wide. She spotted the two girls at the table in front of me, sat down, and immediately launched into breathless exposition.
Something had happened. Something big.
I tried to pick out the words but she was running them all together and waving her hands for emphasis. The girls ignored their Cokes and sat with their mouths open, all their attention focused on the ranting woman. The young man behind the bar and the adolescent girl who was the daytime cashier also stopped what they were doing and listened.
I managed to pick out a couple of words. Something about her apartment. Her landlady. And then I realized what it was. Her rent had been raised. That’s all. Nothing serious. It didn’t affect me in any way. But I also realized what I had been so anxious about all day and if I hadn’t been so tired and so nervous and now so drunk, I might have realized it a long time ago.
Kimiko.
I finished my bourbon and headed towards the door.
Snow had begun to fall. Very lightly. It was a rough climb heading up the hill towards Kimiko’s hooch because the road was slick and the fresh snowflakes were not making it any easier. The long gray stone walls loomed up ahead of me. For some reason the gate to Kimiko’s hooch seemed farther up the road than it had been before, farther from the main road and farther from the pulsating life of Itaewon. But that was impossible. Gates in stone walls don’t move. It had to be my imagination, or the cheap bourbon.
When I reached the gate, the rusted metal swung back easily at my touch. I clanged it shut behind me, making sure the latch caught.
It seemed that no one was home. All the hooches were closed and shuttered. The burned-out hooch, Miss Pak’s hooch, was still blackened and charred. Fresh petals of snow landed on the scorched wood, as if to mock the ruins, and then melted-disappeared.
I almost turned around and walked out, but something made me decide to check Kimiko’s room. An obsessive sense of detail that the Army had drilled into me. Someday I would get rid of it. I hoped. As I crossed the courtyard, I made the only footsteps in an untouched field of white. The door to Kimiko’s hooch seemed to be stuck but I pulled and it rattled and then the door slid back.
She lay there in a long white dress. A dress I had never seen before. She was flat on her back on the cold vinyl floor, a pillow under her head. Her hands were crossed serenely across her stomach and her long black hair had been combed and neatly arranged beneath her. She wore no makeup, the first time I had ever seen her this way. Her mouth and eyes were closed and it seemed that calmness had finally overcome her. She was almost beautiful. Except for the huge gash across her neck.
But there was no blood. Only caked flecks along the jagged opening. And there was no blood on the floor or on her clothes. It had all been wiped up, cleaned, and someone had washed her and put on the fresh clothes and combed her hair and set her here, on display-like some great leader millions of people would file by to pay their last respects. But there were no other people. Just me.
Just me and what was left of the woman Kimiko.
Curiously, I didn’t feel bad. Maybe this was what was best for her. But I guess that sort of instant reaction is always there with people like Kimiko. Others just wish they would go away, that they wouldn’t be seen anymore, that they wouldn’t flaunt their needs in public anymore. I didn’t exactly miss her myself. It was a relief that she was no longer around, no longer able to cadge drinks and embarrass me when I was trying to impress other women. And I tried to harden my heart with the thought of her blackmailing and the way she had used Miss Pak-Ok-suk for her own designs. Still, she looked small lying there.
18
When we strolled into the American Club, Ginger didn’t come running down the planks, and when we sat down at the bar and ordered a couple of beers, she continued her halfhearted conversation with one of the retirees down at the end of the bar and sent the young girl who was her assistant to fill our order.
Ernie hit the beer pretty hard. The girl had hardly finished pouring for us when it was gone. Ernie ordered another, fished some money out of his wallet and, without asking me, told the girl to bring us two shots of brandy on the rocks. Korean brandy is pretty jagged stuff, but this brandy was not too bad. Probably California brandy poured into the Korean-made bottle, so Ginger wouldn’t have to pay import tax.
When we finished that shot, Ernie ordered two more, and another beer for me and another beer for himself, then set about busily pouring and slurping, hunched over the bar like a craftsman at his workbench.
“Building a drunk, eh?” I said.
“It’s time.”
I waited. I knew he’d tell me about it when he was ready. He was ready.
‘The Nurse is much better now. But old Bohler did scare the shit out of her. She’s quiet most of the time now, and she doesn’t even want me to get close to her.
“She doesn’t look any different. But I guess it’s on the inside. Like maybe she can’t trust anybody anymore and maybe she can’t relax with a man anymore. To me, that’s always been the greatest thing about the Nurse, that she was so relaxed. She took everything in stride, nothing fazed her.”
“She didn’t seem so relaxed the night she came in here with a stick.”
‘That was different. We were supposed to have gone to see the chaplain that day, for the marriage processing interview, but I skipped out. We were busy and, besides, I didn’t feel like going.”
I took a sip of the brandy and had to widen my lips and pull in some air with it. Ernie was rough on her, very rough, but I wasn’t one to be casting stones.
“I can understand why you didn’t feel like going. After you hardassed Chaplain Sturdivant like you did.”
“He’s a jerk.”
“No argument on that one.”
Ernie waited and then he spoke again. “I don’t know about this marriage paperwork stuff. It’s too much of a hassle.”
“So’s marriage,” I said.
“Yeah.”
I guess I wasn’t helping much.
Ernie squinted at me, mulling over what passed for a thought. Was something eating me, he wanted to know. I shook my head no and tried to look innocent.
A scraggly-looking little country band came in and started tuning up. Another night in Itaewon. But this would be the first one in a very long time without Kimiko.
I didn’t tell Ernie about what I had seen at her hooch today. Better to keep him out of it.
Finally, after a number of dead soldiers had fallen off the bar’s ramparts in front of us, Ginger came over and stood in front of me.
“Miss Lim, she was never sure when she was going to see you and she was afraid she might have to get on the plane to Hawaii without saying goodbye.
She thrust something at me.
“Here.”
It was a little package made of brightly colored wrapping paper, intricately folded. I thanked her and slipped it in my pocket. Korean custom is not to open gifts in front of others. Good custom. Helps you stay hidden.
We had a couple of more brandies and a few more beers and then launched ourselves unsteadily out the door
