The next morning, Kimiko dressed more conservatively. She, like Ji-na, wore a long woolen skirt and a warm knit sweater and a cotton scarf over her head. Together, they sat on a hard wooden bench in the Itaewon police station, waiting their turn to be seen by an investigator.
When Ji-na’s name was called, they entered a small cement-block back room and sat on wooden stools in front of a gray metal desk. Behind the desk sat Sergeant Oh Byong-gul. His khaki uniform was neatly pressed and his black hair slicked back with a scented pomade. Using the tips of his fingers, he held a Turtleboat Brand cigarette parallel to his nose. Spirals of pungent smoke drifted to the ceiling.
Kimiko spoke first. She explained that Kim Ji-na had been robbed and beaten by an American GI and she further explained how, together, they’d searched for him but had been unable to find him.
When she was finished, Sergeant Oh stared at Kimiko for a long time.
“You’re a business woman,” he said.
Kimiko nodded.
“So is this young one here.”
Kimiko nodded again.
“So you must know how business works. Sometimes you make money, sometimes you lose money. But when you lose, you must pick yourself up and resolve to work harder. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“But it was theft,” Ji-na said.
For the first time, Sergeant Oh looked at her.
“Theft? It was the man’s own money.”
“But he gave it to me.”
“For services you didn’t provide.”
“But I did provide him service. For six months I cooked for him and cleaned house and washed his laundry and tied his bootlaces before he went to work. I did everything for him. I gave him all I had.”
And then she was crying, holding her face in the splayed fingers of her hands.
Both Kimiko and Sergeant Oh stared at her. Neither one of them reached for her. After a time, Sergeant Oh puffed on his cigarette. Kimiko thought how round and flushed Ji-na’s face looked. When Ji-na’s sobs turned to sniffles, Kimiko turned back to Sergeant Oh. “Fifteen percent,” she said.
Oh barked a laugh. “For all that work?”
“What work? You contact the Americans, tell them Greene stole the money from a Korean citizen, they recover it for you.”
Sergeant Oh shook his head sadly. “You think it works that way? The Americans believe all Koreans are thieves. They think a woman like this...” He pointed at Kim Ji-na. “...does nothing but take advantage of their innocent young soldiers. They won’t lift a finger to help her.”
“So, if the Americans won’t help,” Kimiko said, “arrest Greene when he comes out here to Itaewon.”
“And land in trouble with my superiors for harassing the brave Americans who are here to protect us from communism?” Sergeant Oh laughed again. “You must be out of your mind.”
“Forty percent,” Kimiko said.
In a tin ashtray, Oh stubbed out his cigarette. “The money’s gone. She’ll never get it back. Forget it.”
He barked for a guard, and Kimiko and Miss Kim Ji-na were escorted out of the Itaewon police station.
Out on the street, Kimiko said, “Now do you understand?”
Ji-na bowed her head. “Now I understand, Older Sister. None of them will ever help me. I must help myself.”
The smell of burnt beans filled the cold morning air. Kimiko and Kim Ji-na stood at a public phone just outside the entrance to the Hamilton Hotel Coffee Shop. Using a handful of bronze 10-won coins, Kimiko placed the call. It took her fifteen minutes to reach the 8th Army switchboard, but finally she made it through and was transferred to the orderly room of the Twenty-first Transportation Company (Car).
Greene pulled duty last night, Kimiko was told, at the 8th Army head shed, which was why he hadn’t been in his room last night. He was still unavailable, but the GI on the other end of the line was friendly and promised to give Greene the message. He repeated it back to Kimiko.
“Meet Kim Ji-na tonight in Itaewon at her hooch. She won’t be angry.”
“You got it,” Kimiko said.
She flirted with the GI a few more minutes and then hung up.
“Will he come?” Ji-na asked.
Kimiko shrugged. “Maybe.”
Kimiko did her best to put Kim Ji-na’s troubles out of her mind. That evening she made her usual rounds, hopping from nightclub to nightclub, tossing back shots of bourbon, putting up with insults from GIs and evil stares from younger business girls. It was a normal night. She made a few bucks and tried not to think of who she was or what her future held. The booze helped. At the end of the evening, exhausted, she returned to her hooch.
Alone on her down-filled mat, she tossed and turned, sleeping the troubled sleep of someone who knows she’s doing everything wrong but has never found any other way to survive.
The midnight to four A.M. curfew had just ended. Despite the early hour, Kimiko rose from her sleeping mat and put on the same woolen skirt and knit sweater and cotton scarf she’d worn yesterday. She slipped on sandals over thick socks, left her hooch, and made her way through the dark and empty streets of Itaewon. Hugging herself against the cold, she hurried toward the home of Kim Ji-na.
Last night, early in the evening before she started her rounds, Kimiko hid outside of Ji-na’s hooch. She waited almost an hour, but finally she’d seen the GI known as Corporal Greene enter Ji-na’s home. Bearing gifts. A brown bag overflowing with PX groceries. Kimiko lingered a while, wondering if there would be an argument, waiting for shouting and shrill voices. But all had been quiet. Then the lights were turned off and Kimiko listened for a while longer. When she heard nothing, she left.
Still, she knew what to expect this morning. And that’s why she decided to be here at Kim Ji-na’s hooch early, before anyone else arrived.
The front gate was locked.
Three other families lived in the hooch complex so Kimiko knew she had to be quiet. She checked in either direction to make sure the alleyway was empty. When she was sure that everyone in the neighborhood was still sleeping, she found an empty wooden crate and propped it against the wall. Stepping atop it, she grabbed the top of the brick wall, studded with broken shards of glass, and carefully pulled herself up and over.
The courtyard was deserted. No roosters. No small dogs to bark and announce her arrival. She approached the latticework, oil-papered door that led to Kim Ji-na’s hooch. Carefully, she slid it open.
In the dark, Ji-na sat against the wall. Fully clothed. Staring straight ahead.
Kimiko shoved back the door even wider, allowing moonlight to flood in.
Corporal Greene lay in the center of the hooch, surrounded by a sea of blood. Below him, sopping up the gore, lay scattered shards of nurungji, crusted rice.
Kimiko stared into Ji-na’s eyes for a moment. Vacant. She was still alive, still breathing, still unhurt, but her mind was far away, in a land of lotus blossoms and sweet rice cakes and silk gowns wafting in a spring breeze.
Gingerly, Kimiko entered into the hooch, being careful not to step into puddled blood. Greene’s body didn’t move.
Kimiko crawled toward Kim Ji-na and placed her fingers on the soft flesh of her cheek. Cold. And she didn’t flinch at the touch. Leaning closer to the woman, Kimiko slipped her hand inside Ji-na’s tunic, beneath the waistband of her skirt. There, in her belly, the hard spherical rise that Kimiko knew she’d find. Kimiko withdrew her hand.
All along, from the first moment she’d been summoned by Kim Ji-na, Kimiko had seen it coming. Years of experience in the brutal world of Itaewon, in the brutal world of survival, had made Kimiko prescient in the ways of the young innocent girls just in from the countryside. And there were clues.