Ernie and I glanced at one another, grinned, and accepted gladly.
During and after the Korean War, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Korean orphans were adopted by families overseas. Even years after the war the practice was still going on. Unwanted children were left at the doorsteps of churches or temples, transferred to adoption agencies, and sent overseas to grow up speaking English or Dutch or German or French. But the old nun told us that they had kept the children who’d been dumped on their doorstep after the Itaewon Massacre and raised them right here at the Temple of the Constant Truth, raised them as Koreans and sent them to the public school in the village in the valley below Yongmun Mountain. And when they’d come of age, they’d been told the full story of how they’d been brought to the nunnery. Of course, some of them had been old enough at the time to remember but some had to be schooled as to what had happened to their parents.
The nuns had taught them not to be angry, that when you resent the actions of others, they own you; they own the most important part of you, your soul. But if you eliminate need, especially the need for revenge, then you are free. At least that’s what I think she told them. When she explained it to us over tea, Ernie and I had some trouble following her. Not only was the Buddhist philosophy itself hard to follow but she spoke English with the perfect syntax of a woman who’d been highly educated in the language but hadn’t had the opportunity to actually speak it in years, if not decades. Still, throughout the entire dissertation, Ernie and I sipped on our tea and smiled and nodded our heads.
Ernie wanted to know where those orphans were now. Did she have a list of names? he asked. She did. She had a few current addresses, those of the ones who wrote occasionally. The children had left, found jobs, married, and started families of their own.
“Did any of them stay here?” I asked.
The nun shook her head sadly. None.
Staring at the damp gray walls that surrounded us, that didn’t seem surprising.
We told the nun about the murders. She seemed shocked. It seemed to me that some of the children might have wanted to take revenge despite the nuns’ instructions. How could they stand by and watch the Seven Dragons strut around Seoul as rich men, knowing that they’d robbed and murdered their parents.
The nun had pulled out a photo and presented it to me with a flourish. It had taken me a moment to focus. It showed two adults. One a handsome Korean woman with high cheekbones and a square face, wearing a long Western-style dress. But what shocked me was the man standing next to her. I recognized the old uniform: khaki pants, short fatigue jacket, overseas cap cocked to the side, curly brown hair that would nowadays be too long for a regulation army haircut. The rank insignia on the sleeve was for technical sergeant but the lettering on the name tag was too small to read. I studied the photo for a while.
“Mori Di,” the nun said.
“This is him?” I’d handed the photo to Ernie. The nun nodded her head. “How’d you get it?” I asked.
“One of the children bring,” she said.
“Mori Di had a child?”
“No.” The nun shook her bald head vehemently. “The child was the daughter of this woman.” She pointed to the woman standing next to Technical Sergeant Flo Moretti. “Her daddy Korean, already dead in war.”
“So her mom moved in with Moretti,” I said.
The nun nodded her head. “And when Moretti was killed, this woman was probably killed also and her daughter kept this photograph and brought it here with her.”
“Yes.”
The nun showed me on the list the name of the little girl who’d brought the photo of Mori Di. Min-ju was her name. Family name Shin. She’d been about ten years old when she’d arrived and after middle school, she’d been sent to Seoul to complete her education.
“Do you have her current address?”
“No. After she leave, she never write.”
Ernie handed the photo back to the nun. “Why did she leave this photograph here?” he asked. “She couldn’t have too many photos of her mom.”
“She tough woman,” the nun told us. “She and her mom. That’s why her mom not afraid to live with American G.I. even though everybody talk, call her bad name. She did it to save her daughter. And when Min-ju leave, she say she don’t want nothing from the past. She only want future.”
I resisted, because it seemed like such a precious heirloom, but before we left, the nun forced me to take the photo of Mori Di and his yobo. “Maybe you need,” she told me.
I thanked her and slid the photo into my pocket.
We bowed to the nun and were heading back to the jeep when she stopped us and said, “You no see?”
“See?” Ernie asked.
“Him.” The nun pointed through the gray mist and at first I thought she was pointing toward heaven. But then I realized that there was a bend in the road that continued up the mountain and on a granite outcropping overlooking a precipice, about three quarters of a mile above us as the crow flies, sat another Buddhist temple.
“Why two temples?” Ernie asked.
“Monks,” the nun replied.
That’s where the boys lived.
We asked her who it was we were supposed to see but she wouldn’t answer. She just kept pointing, indicating that we should go there first before leaving Yongmun Mountain. When we finally complied and climbed in the jeep and Ernie started up the engine, the nun bowed deeply as we drove off and then stood and waved, American style.
It was quiet up here. Darker, too, because we were now on the shadowy side of Yongmun Mountain. The crows didn’t flutter between ramparts but sat perched on brick ledges, staring down at us, wondering just as much as we were what the hell we were doing here. There was no movement inside the compound of wooden buildings; no gongs sounding; no chanting of ancient prayers; no susurrant sweeping of gravel courtyards, none of the noises that one would associate with a Buddhist monastery. But when I thought about it, maybe silence was the correct sound for a Buddhist monastery. The sound of people keeping quiet while they waited patiently, forever if necessary, to hear-just once-the lonely voice of god.
Ernie shifted his weight in the driver’s seat of the jeep, crossed his arms, and frowned. He didn’t like waiting any more than I did but we both figured that someone would come out to talk to us sooner or later.
It was sooner.
A thin monk hustled toward us, his blue robe flapping in the mountain breeze, leather sandals slapping on dirt.
“Irriwa,” he said. Come.
We both hopped out of the jeep and followed him up a path that led toward a ridge on the northern side of the temple. Once we topped the ridge the monk stopped and pointed. There, in the distance, was a work shed and a storage area for grain and agricultural equipment. Men in broad straw hats worked amongst fields, not harvesting anything now in the middle of winter but puttering about near cylindrical greenhouses made of bamboo and plastic.
The monk, who I could see now was a very young man, pointed toward the shed and said, “Chogi. Kidarriyo.” There. Wait.
He left us. Ernie and I glanced at one another, shrugged, and walked down the frozen pathway toward the shed. The accommodations weren’t much. Just a couple of rough hewn benches. We sat, pulled our jackets tighter around our torsos and waited. For what I wasn’t sure. The bald-headed nun had said we would want to talk to “him.” A man. Who the man was I couldn’t be sure. Probably the patriarch of this temple complex. Maybe he had more information for us. More likely, he just wanted to check us out and make sure we weren’t going to cause him any headaches. Either way, Ernie and I resigned ourselves to waiting.
Of course, Ernie shouldn’t have been here at all. Colonel Brace had ordered him restricted to compound. Staff Sergeant Riley wouldn’t rat us out unless he was asked a direct question. And it was at least possible that Ernie and I could make it back to Seoul, and Ernie could resume his normal duties, before either the first sergeant or Colonel Brace noticed he was missing. Unlikely, but possible.