Sung still couldn’t believe his brother might die. A few weeks ago, he had run beside him, a sweet potato in each hand while a shopkeeper chased after them. Now he lay sweating on the floor of their room, his skin raw and wet from all the cool cloths they placed on him.
As he passed the gate where he had seen the girl that morning, it opened out and a hand waved them in. It was the same girl from the morning. “Please come in,” she said. She wore a printed cotton dress and white socks with black shoes, a smirk on her face. Later, Jae told him that she was the daughter of the woman who ran the teahouse.
She said she needed their help: a man had passed out in one of the rooms and needed to be carried back to his hotel. She said she would pay them if they hurried.
“How much?” Jae asked. He was speaking informally with her, which meant she was younger than him.
“Enough,” she scoffed. The girl reminded Sung of a rooster.There was something fierce and a little ridiculous about her. Sung wondered how Jae knew this scrawny, dark girl.
“I have to go home,” Sung said, the medicine fragile in his pocket.
“Wait a minute,” Jae said, putting a hand on Sung’s arm.
The girl looked at Sung. “Who’s this?” she asked Jae.
“He’s a cousin from Kumchon.”
She looked at Sung doubtfully.
“What’s this about?” Jae said. “We’re in a hurry.”
The girl pouted, made a decision. “Follow me,” she said.
She showed them into a room where an American soldier lay stretched out, snoring.
“He’s been here too long,” the girl said. “How about taking him back to his hotel?”
The soldier was big and red with thick arms and even thicker thighs and a belly that made a nice hill. He was the size of a small cow. He looked dead but gave a snort every few seconds, coming up for oxygen. Sometimes his eyes rolled around, and he laughed. He smelled like old vinegar.
“He looks heavy,” Jae said uncertainly.
“No,” Sung said to Jae.
“All you have to do is drag him on an ox cart. With the three of you, it shouldn’t take long at all. Just drop him in back of the Bando Hotel.”
“How much?”
The girl pulled out five one-hundred won notes and put them in Jae’s hand. “If you’re quick I can also throw in a handful of white rice, and a bottle of makkoli,” she said.
Jae took Sung aside and said that it would go pretty fast with the three of them.
“I don’t know,” Sung said.
“It’s good money,” Jae said. “We can use it to find a real doctor for Jungho.”
Sung stared at him. Nodded.
The girl cleared her throat, saying loudly, “If you get caught, say you found him lying drunk on the street and just wanted to help. Don’t mention Madame Ri or this place.” She pinched Jae on the arm. “Thank you,” she said.
From the front of the cart, Jae, sweating, said, “I think his blood’s made of metal. Why else is he so heavy? Why are these Yankees made so big? He weighs as much as two Koreans.”
They were push-pulling the cart through a narrow, deserted alley that smelled from the open pipe of brackish water running alongside them. From the back, Jong was loudly telling Sung what he was going to buy with his money.
“Noodle soup,” he said, “and pickled pigs’ feet. Marinated beef. Miso for Mother, and a new pair of shoes for Father.”
Sung’s stomach was grumbling unpleasantly.
“Shut up,” Jae said. “You’ll wake him. Pull over for a minute.”
The three of them pushed the cart over to a wall and stopped, Sung thought, in order to catch their breath.
“Let’s check his pockets,” Jae said. “You take that side, I’ll take this.”
“What?” said Sung. “Are you nuts?”
“We won’t take everything,” Jae said. “Just enough so that he won’t notice.” With difficulty, he reached into the GI’s back pocket and pulled out a leather wallet shaped to the man’s rump. Jae opened it and examined its contents. Counting quickly, he took half of what was there. Then he said, “Look at this,” and held out several small photographs.
One was a picture of the soldier with his family, a mother, a father, two young men in uniform. Another was of a girl with curly hair who was looking up and off to the right, showing her perfect teeth. The last called forth a loud laugh from Jae. It was a picture of a fat yellow dog who looked like it was smiling.
“Shhh!” Sung said. “Do you want to get us all killed?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Jae said, putting the pictures back in the soldier’s wallet. But just as he was about to replace the wallet inthe man’s pocket, the soldier woke up with a loud grunt and sat up, shaking his head. Jae jumped back, the wallet visible in his hand.
“Hey!” the soldier said. He pointed at them.
Jae looked at the wallet in his hand and took off. Jong looked slow but ran fast.
Sung lost a couple of seconds to surprise, so when he started running, it was too late. The soldier got up, more agile than Sung could have imagined, and within a few steps, he caught up to Sung, pulling him down by the back of his shirt.
He shook Sung, demanding his wallet back, but Sung didn’t have it. In his terror, he flailed against the soldier, elbowing him in the eye. Now really and truly angry, the soldier let Sung have it, punching him in the face and gut, and when he fell, straddled Sung’s small body with his meaty hands locked around Sung’s neck.
What the fuck! What the fuck! The soldier was yelling into Sung’s face. Why are you doing this to me? People died because of you! Sung didn’t know any English except dollars and Lucky Strikes, but he understood every word the
