The female scream again. Ernie heard this one clearly. He turned to me, his eyes blazing with glee.
'We're going to catch some asshole in the act,' he said.
Ernie is always in search of something that will make his heart race and his blood bubble. I'm a little less crazy about the wild life. I face trouble when it comes, but I sure as shit don't look for it.
I reached into the pocket of my nylon jacket and gripped the roll of dimes I always carry with me. It felt firm in my hand, adding heft to my knuckles.
Despite the rain and the mud and the darkening alleys, I felt almost cozy. Right at home. Back on the mean streets where I was born.
We rounded a corner. Up ahead, at a crossing alley, we heard it. Cursing, heavy breathing, the thud of flesh on flesh.
Ernie's sneakers splashed rainwater out of invisible puddles. I pulled the roll of dimes out of my pocket. Sooki found a corner and knelt down, doing her best to make herself small.
2
The man Mi-ja Burkowicz had been forced to call father crashed through the rickety wooden gate, stumbled across the courtyard, and bellowed her name.
'Mi-ja! Meikju kajiwa!' Bring me a beer!
Mi-ja remained frozen, squatting in front of a pan of laundry. After having worked all day, the muscles of her arms and shoulders quivered from exertion. Still, she pulled off her oversized plastic gloves, placed her hands on her knees, and shoved herself to a standing position.
'Yes, Father,' the nine-year-old Mi-ja said in English.
For some reason, this big foreign man liked to holler his orders in Korean and have her answer in his strange American language.
Mi-ja shuffled in oversized slippers to the small refrigerator hooked to a buzzing electrical transformer. She reached in, grabbed one of the cold cans of beer, and brought it to the man who called himself her father.
His body was huge. Gross. Round as a summer melon. His cheeks bulged and his nose was bulbous. Shockingly bright blue eyes sat recessed in layers of red-veined flesh. He was hard to look at, Mi-ja thought, and he always reeked of sweat, but he was never cruel to her.
Mi-ja popped the top of the can, watched the frothing liquid bubble to the edges. She offered it to her foster father with both hands, bowing as she did so.
No, it wasn't this fat man who was cruel to her. It was his wife, Mistress Nam, the woman who had adopted Mi-ja and brought her here. She treated Mi-ja as a slave. Making her work all day while Mistress Nam was out with her friends smoking and gambling at huatu, the ancient Korean flower cards. At night, if she was sober, Mistress Nam would dress Mi-ja in the traditional chima-chogori-a gaudy flower-print dress that Mi-ja hated-and parade her around the homes of her neighbors, showing her off, pretending that she herself had given birth to such a fine- looking Korean female child.
But everyone knew it wasn't true. Behind her back, Mistress Nam was called Slicky Girl Nam. Which meant that she had been a thief before, and before that a business girl. A yang kalbo, a whore for the foreign troops. The troops who cling to the terrain of Korea like fleas on the hide of a mule.
As Father Burkowicz guzzled his beer, Mi-ja noticed that he had left the front gate open. An unusual occurrence. This area, this Itaewon, is the most dangerous district in Seoul. Right near the American army base, the Itaewon district has the highest crime rate in the city. Thieves congregate here because the Americans put their wealth on display at every opportunity. To be sure, rich Koreans have more money, but they aren't as foolish as the Americans. They pay armed guards to patrol high fences and protect their wealth with unremitting ferocity.
Before she could trot across the courtyard and slam shut the gate, Father Burkowicz glugged down the last of his beer. With his big hairy fist, he crushed the can into a prickly ball of tin.
'Do hana kajiwa,' he said. Bring me another.
Mi-ja did as she was told, puzzled as to why he was drinking so fast. Although his appetite was enormous, she'd never seen him toss down beer so quickly. Was he trying to get drunk? Would he start screaming and crying as Mi-ja had seen him do before, when he'd guzzled too much rice wine?
The remaining daylight faded rapidly. Now the narrow alley outside the gateway was completely dark. Anyone could walk right in, Mi-ja thought. And if this big fat American who called himself her father was drunk, the local thieves could steal anything. How could Mi-ja stop them?
She wasn't worried about losing the household possessions. Mistress Nam and Father Burkowicz were rich and they were always buying and selling on the black market, increasing their wealth. But if some thief took anything, even the most inconsequential item, Mistress Nam would punish Mi-ja severely for not protecting it with her life. Mi-ja started for the gate.
Father Burkowicz reached out his big hand and clamped his clammy fingers around her forearm.
'Anjo,' he said. Sit down.
He'd never ordered her to do this before. Nevertheless, Mi-ja had been trained in obedience since infancy. She folded a pleat in her woolen dress and sat on the narrow wooden porch. Father Burkowicz draped his heavy arm around her shoulders and hugged her close to his side.
Mi-ja cringed and shut her eyes. To lessen her fear, she thought of her real father. A farmer in the province of Kangwon-do. A poor man, but hardworking. He rented five tiny plots carved out of the side of Star Spirit Mountain. Every morning before dawn, her father was out working, trying to coax the rocky land to grow something valuable enough to sell in the county market fifteen li from their home. Always, it was the same story. A small crop bringing in little money. But the taxes remained high and every month there was the rent to pay.
Mi-ja's oldest brother, Wol-sok, had been stricken with a disease as an infant, a disease that left him without strength in his legs. He was no help in the fields. Her second brother, Wol-han, was frail and always coughing up blood. Still, he assisted his father as best he could. After the birth of the two sons, Mi-ja's mother had borne only girls. One, two, three, four of them. Until Mi-ja herself was born.
All of the children worked as hard as they could, but there was never enough money. And never enough food.
When the matchmaker had come to their village, Mi-ja assumed that it was to find a husband for one of her older sisters. Instead, the wizened old woman had told of a rich lady in Seoul, with a fabulously wealthy foreign husband, a lady who was unable herself to bear children. Her only wish was to have a daughter that she could call her own.
That had been a year ago.
When Mi-ja left the village with the matchmaker, her father covered his eyes with his big hands and cried. Only Mother's face, of all those in her family, didn't crinkle in grief. Mi-ja could still see it. Gray as ashes. Unmoving. As if the flesh had been exhumed from a grave.
Tin clattered on rock. An empty beer can rolled across the cobbled courtyard. Saliva dripped from the lips of Father Burkowicz. Mi-ja swiveled in time to spot a row of shadows entering swiftly through the open gate. Men. Not Americans. Koreans, she thought. But then she looked again.
They were darker than Koreans and their cheekbones were not as pronounced. Their eyes were cruel and underlined with scars. Foreigners, she thought. What kind, she had no idea.
Soon, six of the men filled the small courtyard. The head of one of them, the tallest, was wrapped in a long strip of linen. This man stepped in front of Mi-ja and slipped a knife from his belt.
The wicked blade glinted in the harsh light streaming from the bulb that dangled in the kitchen. The turbaned man stuck the sharp tip beneath Mi-ja's nose. She straightened her back, lifting her head as high as she could, but dared not breathe.
Slowly, the man's full lips pulled back, revealing yellow blocks of teeth.
Father Burkowicz rose to his feet. The invaders stepped toward him. Mi-ja closed her eyes.
Everything happened fast then. She heard the sharp bark of command, raised voices.
Wood splintered.
