faces flushed red, the girls snatched up their school bags, nodded to us as they passed and, holding hands, they hustled out the main gate and down the pathway heading back toward Tongduchon.
“Cute kids,” Ernie said. “Must’ve been friends of the dead girl.”
“Maybe,” I answered. “Or just schoolmates. Koreans are very reverential of the dead. There’s an old saying my language teacher taught us.”
“Here we go.”
I pressed on. “‘A man needs three wives,’ the Koreans say. ‘A Chinese wife for his kitchen, a Japanese wife for his bed, and a Korean wife to tend his grave.’ ”
Ernie stared at me, amused. “I like the Japanese part.”
“You would. Come on.”
We walked across the courtyard to the front of the Chon residence.
The home featured a traditional elevated wood-slat floor, varnished and sparkling with cleanliness. Ernie and I slipped off our shoes and, in our stocking feet, stepped up onto the slick surface. I knocked on the edge of the oil- papered door. We waited. No answer. I knocked again and then again. Finally, I shouted, “Yoboseiyo!”
When there was still no answer, I looked at Ernie. He shrugged and I leaned forward and slid back the sliding, latticework door. Together, we entered the Chon family living quarters.
The ondol floor was covered with padded vinyl instead of a rug. Against the wall, mother-of-pearl tables, varnished chairs, cabinets. Artwork everywhere. Traditional Yi Dynasty paintings, both framed and embedded into standing silk screens.
“Yoboseiyo,” I said again. Still no answer.
Something was burning.
We followed the smell down a long a hallway: jasmine. More latticework sliding doors lined either side. Finally, we entered a wood-floored hall. Candles flickered, more incense burned, and a bronze Buddha held his left hand upright, thumb to forefinger, pinkie sticking straight out. Indicating, by this simple sign, that the universe is one.
A middle-aged Korean woman sat cross-legged on the floor. Her black hair hung down in greasy strings and she wore loose pantaloons and a blouse made of sackcloth, the traditional Korean garb of mourning. In front of her sat a short-legged serving table bearing a photograph of Chon Un-suk, the same picture as outside but smaller. A pair of chopsticks, a spoon, and a metal bowl of rice gruel had been carefully placed in front of the photograph, as if in offering. Breakfast for a spirit. In the guttering candlelight I could see that the woman’s skin was cracked and tight. Her features looked similar to the girl in the photograph. Chon Un-suk’s mother, without a doubt. Calmly, she stared at us, a look of perplexity on her face.
I knelt on the floor. So did Ernie.
“Anyonghashimnika,” I said. The formal greeting. Are you at peace?
She stared at me a long time. Confused. Finally she said, “Nugu?” Who?
“Nanun Mipalkun,” I said. I’m from 8th Army. Then I launched into my standard explanation of being an investigator, giving my name and Ernie’s name and then briefly flashing my badge.
The woman seemed totally uninterested.
I told her I was sorry about her daughter’s untimely death.
“Sorry?” she said in English. “You sorry?”
“Yes,” I replied.
She turned her head and barked a sardonic laugh. “You Americans kill her, then you sorry?”
She barked the laugh again.
Ernie started to say something but I waved him off.
“Jill Matthewson,” I said. “The woman MP at the accident. She tried to help. She tried to save your daughter.”
Madame Chon gazed into the darkness of the incense-filled hall. Before answering, she grabbed the bowl of rice gruel, pushing it forward slightly, mumbling something indecipherable as if speaking to a presence sitting across the table from her. Satisfied, she turned her attention back to me.
“Yes,” she said. “Jill try. She no understand. She no understand we want to bring Un-suk-i back home. We want Un-suk-i die here. So she no lose.” She gazed at me with a quizzical expression, realizing that her English was faltering. “How you say?”
“So Un-suk-i wouldn’t get lost.”
“Yes. That right. So she no get lost.”
Ernie coughed, shuffling uncomfortably, not used to kneeling on a hard wooden floor.
“Is that why you’re continuing these ceremonies?” I asked. “Because Un-suk-i is lost?”
“Yes. If Jill not stop my husband, he bring Un-suk-i back here, we perform… how you say?”
She placed her palms together and bowed rapidly.
“You’d perform ceremonies,” I said.
“Yes. Ceremony for people pretty soon going to die. And then Un-suk-i’s spirit happy. Un-suk-i spirit know she at home. Know mama and daddy take care of her. No have to wander around, looking for food, looking for smell.”
She cupped her right hand and waved it toward her nose, indicating the smoke from the incense.
“Un-suk-i no have to wander,” she continued, “all over place looking for someone to pray for her. She come home, mom and dad help her, and she go to heaven.”
Madame Chon pointed toward the roof and then dropped her hand and bowed her head. She sat silent for a long time. Then, softly, she spoke.
“I know. Jill feel bad. That’s why she go demo.”
Demo. The Korean word for a political demonstration.
Ernie sat up straight. Electrified.
I leaned forward and spoke English as clearly as I could. “You mean, ajjima, that Jill Matthewson went to the demonstrations that happened after Un-suk-i died?”
She looked up at me and her eyes widened slightly. “You don’t know?”
“No. Nobody told me.”
“Jill feel bad. She come here, bow to me, bow to Un-suk-i’s daddy, she say she sorry many times. She no understand Korean custom. But now GI get… how you say?”
She pounded her fist into her palm as if banging a gavel.
“Court-martial,” I said.
“Yes. GI get court-martial. Jill angry, she no can speak at court-martial. Jill angry because GI drive truck too fast but GI no get punishment. Just go back to States. Jill very angry. She go demo. Many Korean people there, only one American. Jill. How you say her last name?”
“Matthewson.”
“Yes. Jill Matthewson.”
I allowed the silence to stretch and then I asked the question I’d come to ask.
“Madame Chon, where is Jill Matthewson now?”
“Where? I don’t know. Many times I look, I no find.”
“You searched for Jill Matthewson?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
Un-suk’s mother, Madame Chon, stared at me as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Because I want her to help find Un-suk-i. Show Un-suk-i how to get home.”
Ernie and I glanced at one another.
“You mean,” I said, “pray to Un-suk and help guide her spirit home to you?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think Jill Matthewson can do that?”
Again, she stared at me and then Ernie as if we were both a little dense.
“Mudang say.”
Mudang. A Korean sorceress. A female shaman.
Madame Chon continued. “Mudang say Jill last person Un-suk-i saw, then Jill can find Un-suk-i. Bring her
