following, I sat for a minute wondering what he was up to. And then it dawned on me: whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly end well. Already, since boarding the Blue Train, we’d received some nasty looks. The case of the Blue Train rapist was on everyone’s mind, and every G.I. was a suspect. Ernie’s shenanigans normally were embarrassing enough. Under these conditions, they could be dangerous.
I rose from my seat, nodding to the halaboji across the aisle, realizing that his hair was mostly black, with only a smattering of gray. He wasn’t as old as he pretended to be. Instead of constantly trying to look younger, like Americans, Koreans often purposely try to appear older. I shoved the thought out of my mind and followed Ernie.
Without really intending to, I found myself stopping at the end of every car, checking into the bathrooms that weren’t occupied. Nothing amiss. I passed through the dining car with its long bar and square tables covered with white linen. Only a handful of customers were sitting there, but some of the black-clad waiters glared at me suspiciously.
Near the end of the train, I found him. The stewardess had stopped in the middle of the aisle and was looking back at him, her eyes wide. From this distance, I couldn’t hear what Ernie was saying; but whatever it was, most of the Korean passengers weren’t pleased with his little display. His hand was on her elbow and he leaned toward her, so closely that the stewardess leaned away from him. Ernie kept talking until finally the stewardess stepped back abruptly and said in Korean, “Na moolah.” I don’t understand.
A burly Korean man stood up from his seat, pointed at Ernie, and said, “Ku yangnom weikurei?” Which could be translated to “Why is this foreigner acting this way?” except that the word he used for foreigner, yangnom, was anything but polite. It meant something akin to foreign lout, and was a well-known insult. So well-known, in fact, that Ernie understood.
“What’d you call me?” Ernie said.
The Korean man bristled, placing both his hands on his hips, facing Ernie directly. Other men stood up.
By the time I stepped up next to Ernie, the stewardess had scurried toward the back of the passenger car and five or six more Korean men were standing in the aisle, wagging their fingers at Ernie and chattering among themselves. I knew what was causing this. The news of a rape, and now a murder, on the Blue Train had made everyone nervous. Seeing Ernie taking what the Koreans considered to be an overly aggressive stance toward the stewardess was not going to sit well.
I placed my hand on Ernie’s elbow. He jerked it away.
“What did this guy call me?” he asked.
“Forget it,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Like hell. This son of a bitch is calling me names and waving his finger. Who the hell does he think he is?”
Two of the men stepped forward, holding their hands up, in the Korean gesture meant to placate an argument. Before I could react, Ernie stepped forward and pushed one of them. A woman screamed. Others jumped in, and soon Ernie and I were wrestling in the middle of the aisle with what seemed like a sea of angry Korean faces. But no one was hitting. That’s the Korean style. When there’s an altercation, they grab one another, they push, they shove-and they certainly scream-but no one hits.
Except Ernie.
He smacked the man who’d called him a yangnom full in the face.
By now the conductor had been called, and he joined in the fray. Women were screaming and children were crying and I was pushed by the crush of bodies backward across a chair and into an old woman’s lap. Ernie by now had been totally overwhelmed and lay on the floor in the center of the aisle, cursing and kicking and trying to punch somebody, but his arms had been pinned down by the two men who’d originally been trying to stop the fight.
The conductor kept calling for order, but no one paid him any attention. I was still trying to struggle to my feet, apologizing to the woman I’d almost crushed, when a loud voice broke through the din of fear and confusion.
“Ssau-jima!” the voice said. Stop fighting!
Everyone froze and looked at the man standing at the end of the car. Everyone, that is, except Ernie, who kept kicking.
The man who had hollered was the halaboji wearing the blue pantaloons and jade vest. The man I’d seen across the aisle from us, teaching the children the ancient art of calligraphy. His hands were behind his back but his face was red, glowering with disapproval. He strode forward, barking orders in Korean. “Back to your seats! Let that man go. What is it with you? Have you no education?”
The men in the aisle faced the venerable grandfather, bowed their heads, mumbled apologies, and backed up to their original seats. Finally, the two men atop Ernie stood up, faced the halaboji, bowed, and hurried away down the aisle.
Ernie bounced to his feet, shaking his arms free, raising his fists and staring around for a target. All he saw was the much shorter halaboji staring sternly up at him.
I was still wedged between two seats and anyway too far away to reach Ernie in time. Instead, I prayed.
I could see anger cross Ernie’s face. He was about to launch a straight left jab and I was about to scream for him to stop. The halaboji, calmly, stepped closer to Ernie. Ernie glared down at the man. Then the older man said in English, “You must think before you accost women.”
“‘Accost?’” Ernie replied. “I didn’t ‘accost’ anyone.”
“You interrupted her in the performance of her duties.”
“She wasn’t doing nothing.”
“While she’s on this train,” the old man said, “she is responsible for the kibun of the passengers, for their sense of calmness and safety. You interrupted that.”
Ernie seemed confused. He knotted his fist. His face was red, he was embarrassed, and when a young American man is embarrassed-when other people see him as a boob-his natural response is to hit somebody. Violence, in the American mind, will make you seem smarter.
The halaboji read all this in Ernie’s thoughts. He continued to stare up at Ernie, but now his face wasn’t stern. He was calm, waiting patiently for something. For what, I wasn’t sure. I was just hoping it wasn’t a right cross.
Ernie glanced back at me. Mercifully, what must have been a rational thought flitted across his visage like a skittering storm cloud. He turned back to the old grandfather, hesitated, and, at last, lowered his right fist.
I exhaled, not even realizing that I’d been holding my breath.
More mumbling broke out in the crowd; a few of the Korean men would’ve just as soon punched Ernie out. The halaboji motioned for Ernie to follow. He did. I followed them out of the passenger car and back toward the front of the train.
In the dining car, the old man stopped and sat at a table. He motioned for Ernie to sit, and then he stood again and greeted me with a short bow. Suddenly, he didn’t seem old at all. It was because of the traditional getup that I’d assumed he was a grandfather. Now that I looked more closely, I realized that his physique was still sturdy beneath the silk vest and pantaloons, his hair gray on the edges but black on top. I revised my estimate of his age downward to about fifty. Still, he was twice the age of either Ernie or me. After the three of us were seated, a waiter approached and the man spoke.
“Have you ever tried ginseng tea before?”
“Often,” I replied.
He ordered three cups of ginseng tea. We sat silently until the hot brew was served; then the older gentleman raised his handleless cup with two hands, gestured toward us, and drank. Ernie and I did the same. We continued like that, without speaking, until only the dregs of the ginseng powder remained.
The man leaned back and smiled. “My name is Gil,” he said. “Gil Kwon-up. Chief Homicide Inspector of the Korean National Police.”
Every American MP and law-enforcement official in Korea knew of Inspector Gil. But Americans have trouble pronouncing the first letter of Gil’s name. In Korean, the sound falls somewhere between the harsh English k sound and the soft g sound. I listen carefully when Koreans pronounce the letter, and I can replicate the sound reasonably well, but most MPs and CID agents at 8th Army didn’t bother. They referred to Inspector Gil Kwon-up as “Mr. Kill.”
