He shook his head rapidly. “No. He’s the only one.”
“Then may we talk to him, please?”
“That would not be possible.”
“Why not? It would only take a few minutes.”
The monk shook his bald head again. “I’m afraid he’s up there.” He pointed to the cliff looming above us. “In one of those caves.”
For the first time, I realized that the craggy cliff was dotted with ink-like splotches. The entrances to caves, dozens of them.
“When will he come down?”
“Impossible to say. He’s meditating, even as we speak, and it could take days.”
“Days? How long has he been up there?”
The monk looked to his comrades for the answer. They conversed among themselves. Finally, he turned back to me and said, “About a week. We take him water and a little food every day, leave it in front of his cave in case he needs it.”
“A week?” Ernie said. “Why in the hell is he doing that?”
For the first time, the monk studied Ernie. “To better himself,” the monk said.
That seemed to confuse Ernie. The monk smiled. “To become an initiate in our order, long periods of meditation are required.”
“He wants to enlist with you guys?”
“So it seems.” The monk smiled again.
“This is extremely important,” I said. “Have you heard about the Blue Train rapist?”
The monk shook his head. “We don’t read newspapers.”
“Nevertheless, I must talk to Corporal Pruchert,” I said. “He’s a soldier and I’m under military orders.”
The monk frowned, thought for a minute, and then turned and walked away. He went inside the temple. About twenty minutes later, he came out.
“If you insist,” he told me, “we will send someone up to fetch him.”
It took an hour. During that time, Ernie walked back into the orchard behind us to take a leak, and later I took my turn. I was starting to worry that we might not have time to make it back to the main supply route and drive north to Waegwan before the Country Western All Stars started their show.
Suddenly a young man in russet robes walked toward us. He was tall and gangly, his flesh white. On his protruding nose, he wore thick army-issue glasses. A few feet from us, he stopped.
“Cut yourself shaving?” Ernie asked.
Ernie was referring to a red slice along the side of the man’s head. The man was completely bald.
“I’m Pruchert,” he replied. “And I’m on leave. Officially signed out of my unit and everything. So what is it you want?”
“Just a few questions,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like, where were you on Thursday?”
“Where was I? You know the answer to that.”
Pruchert looked worn, very haggard, and thin. Dirt and straw had accumulated on the rear of his robe.
“We want to hear the answer from you,” Ernie said.
“I was right here,” Pruchert said, raising his voice. “Meditating. In another few days, I could reach chunggun, the middle rank, if I could just get in enough hours.”
“Sort of like merit badges,” Ernie said.
Pruchert swiveled on him. “It may be funny to you, but it’s not funny to me. If you don’t take steps toward enlightenment, you’re wasting your life. Throwing away a precious opportunity.”
He glared at Ernie, his implication clear. We were obstacles in his path to enlightenment.
Ernie leaned against the side of the sedan, his arms crossed. He asked, “When was the last time you had a woman, Pruchert?”
Blood flushed Pruchert’s face, spreading up through the raw scalp of his shaved head.
“You come here,” he said, pointing at the grounds of the temple, “to this holy place, and ask me a question like that?”
Ernie nodded.
I stepped between them. “When did you arrive here, Pruchert?”
Pruchert looked away. I repeated my question. Finally, he answered.
“Saturday, the day my leave started.”
“And have you left these grounds since then?”
“No.”
“When are you returning to your unit?”
“Next Friday.”
“Have you ever been on the Blue Train to Seoul?”
“Never.”
“Why not?” Ernie asked.
“Seoul’s an evil place,” Pruchert replied. “Full of evil people who have no sense of the crimes they’re committing against the universe.”
“Crimes against the universe?” Ernie asked.
“Yes. Creating evil karma. Causing people like you to come up here to this holy place.”
“Get bent, Pruchert.”
Pruchert started toward Ernie. Instead of stopping him, I stepped back and let him go. Ernie stood, uncrossing his arms.
Pruchert clenched a fist, his lips taut, his face turning even redder than it had been before. Finally, he threw his fist down to his side, swiveled on his leather sandals, and stormed off, mumbling-almost crying-to himself.
When he had disappeared to the far side of the temple, Ernie leaned toward me. “Frustrated guy,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
We took a different road down the mountain. A few splats of rain had made the gravel-and-dirt pathway slick, and when we lost traction, Ernie found himself skidding part of the way downhill. Expertly, he turned into the skids, maintaining control, and we somehow managed to avoid plunging off the edge of the rocky precipice. I held my breath all the way.
When we finally reached the bottom, I exhaled and said, “Thanks, pal.”
Ernie looked at me, puzzled. “For what?”
“For not getting us killed.”
“Oh, that,” he said, tossing his head back toward the mountain. “If we’d been in my jeep and I’d had a proper gearshift, you could have meditated all the way down.”
A village, large enough to be considered a small town, sat at the bottom of Chonhuang Mountain. We rolled slowly through the main street. The sun was setting now and someone had switched on a neon sign. I read it aloud: “Chonhuang Tabang.”
“Chonhuang Teahouse,” Ernie said. “That means teahouse girls. Maybe we should stop.”
“Two reasons we can’t,” I told him.
“The first is we have to get to Waegwan,” Ernie replied. “What’s the second?”
“It might interfere with your journey toward enlightenment.”
“Nothing,” Ernie said, “is going to interfere with my journey toward enlightenment.”
“Except for maybe Marnie Orville,” I added.
“Yeah,” Ernie agreed. “Except for maybe her.”
From in front of the teahouse, a kimchee cab suddenly pulled out into the road, making a U-turn without even looking. Ernie slammed on his brakes and honked his horn. Sheepishly, the driver grinned at us, waved, and kept going.
“Out here,” I said, “they don’t even think about traffic.”
“Much less worry about it.”
