At least we had the right place. I searched for the appropriate Korean words. “Because we need her at work. It is very important.”
Professional responsibility was ingrained in Korean culture. I knew Miss Kim possessed that national trait.
In the background, there was muffled speaking, as if a hand was being held over the intercom. Finally, the woman’s voice came back on. “Jomkkanman-yo.” Just a moment. Then the buzzer sounded. We pushed through the small metal door in the larger wooden gate.
She kept her head down, as if she were ashamed or had done something wrong. We sat in a well-appointed sarang-bang, front room, with tea placed before us on a low folding-leg mother-of-pearl table. The oil-papered floor was immaculate, and the flowered wallpaper made a fine background for three watercolors of sparkling seascapes. The paintings leaned forward from the wall at about a 45-degree angle, as was customary in Korea so those sitting on the floor could look up and have a better view. Miss Kim wore a long, green housedress made of felt over a white cotton blouse. Her hair was tied back in a bun and clasped with a jade pin. She looked gorgeous, which I’m sure wasn’t lost on Ernie. He kept reaching for his tea, nervously sipping tiny amounts and setting the porcelain cup back on the table.
“We want you back,” I told Miss Kim in English.
She didn’t answer.
“It came as a big shock when we found out you were gone,” I continued. I motioned toward myself and Ernie. “Maybe we did something wrong?”
I thought of Ernie following her on the bus, and the fact that we’d rousted Specialist Four Fenton for bothering her after she’d expressly asked us not to.
She shook her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then why have you left us?” I asked.
Ernie raised his eyes, also waiting for her answer.
She finally spoke. “He came here.”
“Came here? To your home?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“The man who was bothering me,” she said. “The man who used to wait for me after work and then walk beside me to the Main Gate.”
I described him. “Thin, reddish hair, sort of curly, cheap patterned suit?”
She nodded. “That’s him.”
“When did he come here?”
“The night you and Ernie talked to him.”
“How’d you know we talked to him?”
“He told me. He told me that you punched him. He told me that you think you’re tough.”
I was surprised for a lot of reasons. Usually, twerps who bother women back off immediately when they know someone is watching. And most GIs are afraid to venture out in Seoul any farther than the red-light district of Itaewon. They can’t read the signs, they can’t speak the language, and with everybody staring at them, they feel hopelessly out of place. Specialist Four Fenton had more resourcefulness than I’d initially given him credit for.
“Did you let him in?” Ernie asked.
She shook her head again. “No. We talked through the . . . What do you call it?”
“The intercom,” I said.
“Yes. We talked through the intercom.”
“What’d he say?”
“The same thing he said on compound when he walked next to me.”
We waited for her to elaborate, but when she didn’t, I figured she didn’t want to repeat the probable obscenities he’d used.
“What’d he say?” I asked. “Bad words?”
She shook her head vehemently. “He never said bad words.”
I was surprised. “Never? Did he ask you to do bad things?”
“Yes. Very bad things.”
“Sexual things,” I said.
“No.” Her face flushed red, but to her credit, she swallowed and kept talking. “He asked me to do worse things than that. In fact, I didn’t know the English word. I had to look it up.”
I gulped down some of my tea. Ernie didn’t want to ask, so I had to.
“What did he ask you to do?”
Miss Kim leaned forward, as if afraid to say the word out loud. “He asked me to spy.” She sat back up, straightening her lower back. We both watched as she paused, breathing out and breathing in. “He said that if I didn’t spy on you two, and tell him every day what you were doing, that he knew where I lived and he knew where my mother lived, and he’d be back.”
Then she started to cry. Ernie and I both fumbled around for a handkerchief, but neither of us had one. Finally, Miss Kim’s mother crouched into the room and slid a box of tissue across the floor. Miss Kim daintily snatched two or three sheets and dried her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.
“I was afraid.”
“But you kept coming to work.”
“Yes. My mother and I, we need the job.”
“But something changed.”
I waited. She blew her nose. Not a Korean custom to do such a thing in front of other people, but she was amongst Americans now.
“Yes,” she said, “something changed.”
“What?”
“He came back.”
“When?”
“Last night. Late. Just before curfew. He buzzed on the intercom. When I answered, he didn’t say anything.”
“How’d you know it was him?”
“His breathing. How do you say? Heavy.”
“Maybe it was someone else,” I ventured.
“No. It was him.”
“How do you know?”
“Only an American would do such a thing.”
She was probably right. I looked at Ernie. “It wasn’t me,” he said.
I turned back to Miss Kim. “Maybe it was the same guy who bothered you before. But please, come back to work. We need you.”
Ernie reached for her hand. “We’ll protect you,” he said.
She studied him above the wad of tissue, doubt in her eyes. She glanced at me and I nodded in affirmation. Then she bowed her head and continued to cry.
– 21-
As Ernie sped north through the heavy traffic of downtown Seoul, I studied our copy of Major Schultz’s inspection report alongside my map of Kyongki Province.
According to what Miss Kim just told us, Specialist Fenton had first started bothering her about a month ago. That would’ve been shortly after Major Schultz launched his inspection of the 501st. It made sense. Captain Blood must have believed that a thorough inspection of his operation might lead to criminal charges and, if so, such a high-level classified inquiry wouldn’t be handled by the MPs. It would be handled at a higher level, by the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Division.
“So he decided to cover himself,” Ernie said, “just in case. Get himself a spy inside our organization.”
“So he had Fenton go after the most vulnerable person,” I replied. “A woman who was terrified of losing her job.”
“Maybe that’s what he thought. But he didn’t bargain for someone as brave as Miss Kim.”
“No.”
We drove in silence. Finally, when we passed Songbuk-dong and the last remnants of the ancient northern wall, Ernie said, “How many branch offices does the Five Oh First have?”
“Five, north of Seoul.” Which figured, because most US Army base camps sat between the capital city of Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone, which sliced across the Korean Peninsula about thirty miles to the north. On the far side of the DMZ, 700,000 North Korean Communist soldiers waited impatiently for the orders to flood south. So far, since the Korean War twenty years ago, they hadn’t, other than small-scale incursions and the occasional commando raid or stray artillery round. The South Korean Army averaged one fatality a month at the hands of the North Koreans; the US Army, about one per year. Of course, our commitment was much smaller than the ROK’s: 50,000 soldiers to their 450,000.
“So which one are we going to hit?” Ernie asked.
“Uijongbu,” I said. “They’ve busted three GIs in the last year and a half.”
Ernie whistled. “Busy little beavers.”