“Jom kanman.” Just a minute. “I checky checky.”
Still clutching the photocopy in her gnarled hand, she slipped off her sandals and climbed up on the raised wooden floor. She padded down the hallway, wood slid on wood, and then a woman’s voice erupted into moans of protest. Apparently, someone was waking up.
Ernie gave me the thumbs-up sign, slipped off his shoes, and stepped up onto the platform. In stocking feet, he tiptoed into the dark hooch. I had no reason to stand out here in this courtyard alone, so I took off my armyissue low quarters and followed.
Sliding wooden doors, made of latticework covered with oil paper, lined either side of the central hallway. Hazy sunlight oozed through the outside windows, blocked mostly by the taller buildings that surrounded us. At the end of the hallway, one of the doorways had been slid open; Ernie stood near it, listening.
I stopped and waited.
The voices were arguing. All female. Despite the late-afternoon hour, someone was very angry at being awakened. Another woman started protesting shrilly. Behind me, blankets rustled and then another door slid open.
“Weigurei?” someone shouted. Why this way?
A lot of other voices were grumbling, and naked feet started to slap on vinyl-covered floors; one by one, doors on either side of the hallway slid open.
“Wei-yo?” one voice shouted. Why?
“Sikkuro!” someone else hollered. Shut up!
And then a gaggle of women surrounded us, many of them in cotton nightgowns, some in silk. They paraded past us, heading for the byonso, rubbing their eyes, coughing, cursing beneath their breath. Matches sizzled, cigarettes were lit, and the narrow hallway started to reek of cheap tobacco. Ernie and I stood in the hallway, towering over the small flock of femininity, realizing for the first time that not one of them was young. Every woman here was middle-aged or older. One or two of them must’ve had tuberculosis, to gauge by the coughing and spitting going on into porcelain pee pots.
One of the huskier women, wearing a red terry-cloth bathrobe, stopped in front of Ernie.
“What you do, G.I.?” she said. “Why you come see mama-san so early?”
Ernie shrugged. “I was in the neighborhood.”
“Neighborhood? You likey this neighborhood?” She cackled and stalked off down the hallway.
After a few minutes, when the entire household was awake, pots and pans started to clang. Washrags and soap holders appeared, and the women vigorously scrubbed their faces and armpits, squatting in front of an outdoor faucet. When the ablutions were complete, the women returned briefly to their rooms, dried off, and changed into old housedresses and loose shifts.
The husky woman in a red robe was done first. She was wearing a green dress now, and she beckoned us toward the back, leading us into the largest room in the house, and told us to sit on flat cushions. Foothigh legs were unfolded and a five-foot-long mother-of-pearl table was placed in the center of the room. A brass pot of boiling water appeared, and women squatted near the edge of the table and stirred instant coffee or herbal concoctions into cups of boiling water. The husky woman, without asking, prepared us two cups of Maxim coffee crystals. She was about to shovel a heaping tablespoon of soluble creamer into mine when I stopped her.
“Just black,” I said.
“Black?” she asked. “Nomu jja.” Too bitter.
Sensibly, Ernie tasted the coffee first and then accepted a half teaspoon of the creamer and two tablespoons of sugar.
Most of the condiments being pulled out of cupboards were PX-purchased. Sugar from Hawaii, seedless jam from Ohio, even a tin of cookies from Denmark. Placed in opposite corners of the room were a stereo set with Bose speakers and a small Zenith television.
When most of the women were gathered around the table, sipping on various hot brews, I said, “Yogi ei Migun Chonguk i-ei-yo?” Is this G.I. Heaven?
At first all I saw were open mouths and wide eyes. Then the women started glancing at one another and then, simultaneously, they broke into laughter. The husky woman in the green dress, who seemed to be their leader, said, “Who teach you speaky Korean? ”
“He taught me,” I said, jabbing my thumb toward Ernie.
Ernie looked up from his coffee, in which he’d been totally absorbed.
“Him?” the husky woman said. Then she shook her head. “No. Not him. He dummy.”
The other women murmured in agreement.
I grinned at Ernie. “You going to take that?”
He shrugged. “They know what I’m good at.”
Indeed, they probably did. These women had already figured us out. As the conversation progressed, I became even more convinced of the accuracy of their observations.
The husky woman’s name was Lucy. That’s the only name she would admit to; she refused to give her Korean name.
“Long time ago,” she said, “I stop using Korean name. My life as Korean over. Now I’m Lucy.”
The other women nodded in assent. They were all of a similar age, the youngest were in their mid-forties, the oldest well above sixty. What were they doing together? Why did they all live here and not with their families? Why did they call this place Migun Chonguk? G.I. Heaven?
Of course, Ernie and I had known the answer almost from the moment we’d stepped inside the courtyard. Or at least we’d known part of the answer. This place was-or at least appeared to be-a brothel. But how did these women, whom most G.I. s would describe as old hags, survive when they were surrounded by a sea of desirable young business girls? That was the question. As we sat there talking with them, I believed I was starting to figure it out. They might have once been an active brothel, but they’d changed with the times, or changed because of necessity. Now they were the nerve center for black-marketing in this area. They offered the best deals both for the G.I. s who chose to sell their PX-bought goods directly and for the business girls who sold what their G.I. boyfriends gave them.
When my coffee was almost gone, another of the women refilled my cup. By now, ashtrays had been pulled out of hiding places and the little room was awash in cigarette smoke. Normally, I would’ve sought the relief of fresh air, but I was here to gather information and I suspected that the women of G.I. Heaven were guarding a wealth of information. The oldest of the women, the one who’d opened the door for us, was the housemaid and the cook. She spread out on the table the paper I’d given her with the picture of Corporal Pruchert. He’d still had hair then, when the picture was taken, but I didn’t say anything more as they studied the sheet, passing it back and forth.
Finally, Lucy turned to me and said, “You CID.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Anybody know,” she replied. “Short haircut, wear coat and tie, come from Seoul. But you not worried about black market. You not bother us old ladies who only can live because of black market.”
“That’s not what we’re here for,” I said.
Lucy puffed on her cigarette, squinting behind the smoke as she studied the photo she held in liver-spotted fingers.
“What he do?” she asked.
“We’re not sure yet,” Ernie said. “Right now, we’re just tracking his movements.”
“Tracking?”
“We just want to see where he went.”
“Oh.”
“When was he here last?” I asked.
Lucy set the photo down and turned to face me. “We tell you, what you give Lucy? What you give my friends?”
“It’s not what we’ll give you,” Ernie said, “it’s what we won’t give you. We won’t pay attention to all this blackmarketing and we won’t give you a ride to the monkey house.”
“What you know about monkey house?” Lucy said, suddenly angry. “Lucy long time ago go monkey house.” She jabbed her thumb into her chest. “Lucy live. No die. Not like some people. That time Communist come. They
