The old gate slammed inward. Major Rhee entered first, yelling “Umjiki-jima!” Don’t move! The soldiers with the battering ram stepped back and men on either side filed in. Ernie and I followed as far as the wooden porch.
The hooch was quickly secured. Soldiers ran around the side of the house, more soldiers emerged over the back wall, and Major Rhee and two soldiers entered through the front sliding doors, none of them bothering to take off their boots, a serious violation of ancient propriety.
Then I heard the commotion from within, like a heavy chest of drawers or a large wooden box had crashed to the floor. Someone shouted and then cursed, and an M-16 round was fired before Major Rhee’s voice screeched angrily to cease fire. Ernie and I made it inside in time to see something ram against a wall. A small bearded man swung a short stick-a mongdungi used for beating wet laundry-in a broad arc, fighting off Major Rhee and the two armed guards. Children huddled in the corner, two of them, clutching flat cushions to their chests, their eyes wide with terror. The man was screaming, frothing white at the mouth, swinging the heavy wooden stick in front of him.
Major Rhee backed away, shouting orders that she wanted the man taken alive, and more soldiers rushed into the room, holding their rifles forward like shields. Five or six of them pressed up against him. Still trying to swing his heavy wooden stick, he was on the floor, biting and kicking and commanding them to get off of him. Within seconds, his hands were trussed behind his back and a sock was stuffed deep into his mouth. Too deep, I thought. As they dragged him out, saliva poured from his mouth, and he was starting to turn red.
Major Rhee shouted for the men to get out of the hooch and not to touch anything. She watched as one of the squad leaders pulled out a length of rope and securely bound the prisoner’s hands behind his back. She ordered that the sock be pulled out of his mouth, and when the man started cursing again, she called for it to be put back in.
“If you want to breathe,” she told him in Korean, “you’ll behave.”
The squad leader roughly shoved the prisoner out of the muddy courtyard.
When they were gone, Major Rhee slipped on plastic gloves and returned to the dilapidated hooch, and with another sergeant’s help, she started going through the man’s personal belongings.
Ernie and I were being ignored. I stepped outside the gate for a moment, mainly to get away from the whimpering of the children. Not a soul in this teeming jumble of humanity moved. Everyone was hiding. I heard nothing, not even the squawking of chickens; nothing except the flapping of wet laundry in the afternoon breeze. I returned to the hooch.
Major Rhee apparently hadn’t found anything of note in the man’s meager possessions. She ordered that the walls and flooring be cracked open. While the soldiers ripped the house apart, I asked her what she was looking for.
“Incriminating material,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like a radio to broadcast to North Korea.”
“In this dump?” I said, incredulously.
She shrugged. “Or union propaganda.”
By decree of President Pak Chung-hee, unions were outlawed in South Korea. All except one: the Foreign Organization Employees Union, which mainly comprised the workers of 8th Army.
“What about the children?” I asked.
“What about them?” she replied.
“Now that their father’s gone, what are you going to do with them?”
She shrugged. “They must have relatives.”
She turned and walked away from me. I followed. She seemed to be examining the outside of the hooch. Using a bamboo stick she found on the ground, she poked through the overhanging thatched roof. We entered the dark passageway between the back of the hooch and the surrounding wall.
“The man you just arrested,” I said, “he doesn’t look anything like the man with the iron sickle.” Major Rhee didn’t answer. “He’s short,” I continued. “His legs are stunted from malnutrition. He has a beard.”
“He could have grown that in the last few days.”
“Hair doesn’t grow that fast,” I said.
Again, she didn’t answer.
“What evidence do you have that he’s the man with the iron sickle?” I asked.
“He’s a union organizer,” she said, “and therefore he is our enemy. We’ll question him and see if he’s the man who did the killing.” She shrugged elaborately. “If not, maybe he knows who did.”
“You’re doing this just to make your bosses believe you’re making progress.”
She stopped poking with the stick, turned, and pointed her finger at my nose, very insulting in Korea. “ROK Army business is ROK Army business,” she said. “You are here just to observe.”
“I’m observing all right,” I told her. “And I believe you’ve been observing me. Whose sedan was that last night in Itaewon?”
She snorted an ironic laugh, half turned away from me and then thought better of it. “Huh. You think you’re so important we would watch you all the time.”
“You’re worried about what I’m going to find out.”
“Like what, for instance?”
“Like maybe the man with the iron sickle isn’t a North Korean agent.”
“So what if he’s not? It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll catch him anyway.”
“So you don’t think this man is the murderer?”
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
“Who’s going to conduct the interrogation?” I asked. “You?”
“You’ve seen me in action,” she said. “Don’t you think I can do it?”
“I think you can do it very well.”
She stepped closer, a half smile angling her face. “So maybe you’ll want to watch.” Then she slapped me. It was so fast I didn’t have time to flinch. I slapped her back. Her face twisted but then she stared back at me, laughing. Before I could stop myself, I stepped forward. She lunged toward me and then I grabbed her small waist, and she was kissing me and pulling me closer to her. I hated her, I knew that, but then I started to react, the biological reaction of all healthy young males. Her fingernails clawed into the back of my neck and her leg wrapped around my thigh; behind that dirty hooch, her soldiers not more than a few feet away.
Suddenly, I realized what I was doing and I pushed her away, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“You no likey, GI?” she said, her eyes taunting me.
I turned clumsily in the narrow passageway and stepped back into the light. Before returning to the front of the hooch, I paused, willing myself to calm down, but it wasn’t working too well. Finally the lump in my pants started to soften.
As if nothing had happened, Major Rhee continued her search through the low-hanging thatch.
When I had fully recovered, I returned to the front of the hooch.
Ernie squatted in front of the kids, trying to calm them down. Their eyes were as big as summer pears. He pulled out some ginseng gum, tore one stick in half, and offered each child a piece. They just stared at him, unmoving. He continued to speak soothingly and smiled a lot until one of the little arms darted out, and small fingers deftly grabbed the torn stick of gum.
Outside, a woman screamed hysterically. The wife, I thought, back from the market. She pushed past two soldiers and rushed inside, slipping off her plastic sandals and scurrying toward her children. She knelt and wrapped them in her arms, and they all started to cry. Ernie backed away.
Major Rhee, who had emerged from the far side of the hooch, ordered that they be removed from the premises. Where they were taken, I could only imagine.
Back at the CID office, Miss Kim handed me a phone message. It was from Mr. Pak Hyong-ku, the owner of the Sam-Il Office that did so much business with 8th Army Claims. He wanted me to meet him tonight at about seven at a teahouse in the Sugye-dong area.