Blue Orchid straightened her skirt before she started to talk. “Jill was very popular here,” she said. “We called her Beik-jo.” White Swan. “She was so gracious. Friendly with all the women and charming to the customers. You should be proud of your compatriot,” she told me. “We’ve never had a woman before-not even Jade Beauty- who’s been so popular with the powerful men from Seoul.”
I wanted to ask who Jade Beauty was but we didn’t have time. Jill Matthewson was in danger. Not to mention the time pressure on us to return to 8th Army as soon as we could. Reluctantly, I prodded Blue Orchid to return to the main story. She did.
Jill Matthewson started working at the Forest of Seven Clouds a little more than three weeks ago. That jibed with when she’d gone AWOL. The position was procured for her, and for her friend, Kim Yong-ai, by a friend of a friend of the owner who happened to be a business associate of the entertainment agent, Pak Tong-i.
I didn’t tell Blue Orchid that Pak Tong-i was dead.
Jill had to be taught many things, Blue Orchid told us. She had to be taught how to kneel on a hardwood floor, how to offer everything to a guest-whether it was a warm hand towel, or a plate of quail eggs, or a shot glass full of imported Scotch-with two hands. Never use one hand; that would be insulting. She had to be taught when to bow, when to giggle politely, when to light a man’s cigarette, and when to open her eyes wide in astonishment when he explained his business triumphs-even when she didn’t understand a word he was saying. And she had to be taught how to never turn her back on a guest, to back out of the room bowing and facing the guest in a respectful manner. And she had to be taught how to dress and how to wear her hair and even how to apply her makeup. And after all these lessons were learned, she still made mistakes. But the Korean men were indulgent. They were impressed that an American was getting even a few of their customs right. And they were flattered when she turned her full radiant attention on them, what with her big, round blue eyes and her intent way of staring at a man, a boldness that a Korean woman would never be allowed.
“Everybody like,” Blue Orchid said, switching to English. “Many men come from Seoul. Want to see Miguk kisaeng.”
The Miguk kisaeng. The American woman of skill.
Ernie was becoming antsy. Still, I didn’t rush Blue Orchid. She’d stopped using Korean now and had switched almost exclusively to English. This told me that during those years of hardship during and after the Korean War, before she’d landed this gig at the Forest of Seven Clouds, she’d made her living not as a kisaeng but as a business girl-for GIs. As I hoped, Blue Orchid finally reached the point in her narrative where something went wrong.
“Two days ago, man come.” Blue Orchid’s face crinkled in disgust. “American man. GI. He drive up in jeep, have another GI with him. They both wear uniform. Everything dirty. Clothes dirty, boots dirty, even GI teeth dirty.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Tall. Almost like you. But skinny, like him.” She pointed at Ernie. “But more skinny than him.”
“An MP?” Ernie asked.
“Yes. He wear black helmet with “MP” on front.”
Warrant Officer Fred Bufford. Had to be.
“And the driver?”
“Black man. Small guy. Skinny, too. He don’t say much.”
Maybe Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“He walk in wearing boots. Same like you.” The cardinal sin. “Then he find Beik-jo.”
“She sit in room with customers. Important customers. They drink much whiskey. Buy taaksan anju.”
Anju means “snacks.” Taaksan is Japanese for “much.” English, Japanese, and Korean all in one sentence: Buy taaksan anju. Blue Orchid was slipping back into GI slang.
“Tall GI find Jill, he pull his gun.” Blue Orchid mimicked a man pointing a. 45 automatic pistol. “He tell Jill she gotta go back compound. She say, hell no! He try to grab her. Then Jill knuckle-sandwich with him.” Blue Orchid waved a small fist through the air. “Tall, skinny GI go down, drop gun, Jill pick it up. Point it at GI, take him back outside, make him and black GI karra chogi.” Go away.
“And she kept the pistol?” Ernie asked.
Blue Orchid nodded vigorously.
“Bold,” Ernie said, once again impressed with the exploits of Corporal Jill Matthewson.
“What’d she do next?” I asked.
“She… how you say?”
Blue Orchid mimicked grabbing things and placing them in a container.
“She packed her bags?” I said.
“Right. Pack bags. She and Kim Yong-ai. Right away, they go.”
“Kim Yong-ai was working here, too?”
Blue Orchid nodded. “Not taaksan popular like Jill. But she good woman.”
“Where’d they go?”
Blue Orchid shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Moolah me.” I don’t know. “They cry, they thank everybody for helping them, they so sorry they gotta go but, anyway, they gotta go.”
“They left that same night?”
“Yes. They leave same night. After they go, maybe one hour, GI come back. This time he have many jeeps and many MPs. They search every room, make our customer taaksan angry. They ask anybody where Jill go but nobody tell them nothing because nobody know.”
“Were there any KNPs with them?”
Blue Orchid shook her head. “None.”
“But they searched your premises. Did you report them to the KNPs?”
“No. We no call. Later, when KNP honcho come drinkey, I tell him. He taaksan kullasso.” Very angry. Blue Orchid was using English, Japanese, and Korean again.
“Did he do anything about it?”
Blue Orchid shrugged again. “I don’t know.”
Probably not. For the local boss of the Korean National Police to admit that 2nd Infantry Division MPs had taken it upon themselves to search a legitimate business enterprise without a warrant, an enterprise over which they had no jurisdiction, would be a tremendous loss of face. The KNP boss would never report the breach of legal procedure officially but, you can bet, he’d be waiting for his chance to take revenge.
We asked if we could see Jill Matthewson’s room. Blue Orchid not only agreed but escorted us there herself. I was disappointed. It was just a little cubbyhole with a vinyl-covered ondol floor and cherry tree wall paper furnished with a down-filled sleeping mat and a plastic armoire. It had been totally cleaned out. Nothing was left to indicate Jill Matthewson’s brief residence. Kim Yong-ai’s room was the same.
I grabbed Blue Orchid by her silk-covered shoulders and swore to her that Ernie and I weren’t here to harm Jill Matthewson. I told her of the letter from Jill’s mother and I even showed it to her. After she’d read it-or pretended to read it-I asked her to tell me anything she knew that could help me find Jill, and find her before she was located by her enemies.
Blue Orchid shook her head. “Jill Matthewson smart woman. She know that if she tell us anything, someday we tell somebody else. So she no tell us nothing. I swear.” Blue Orchid raised her right hand. “Beik-jo didn’t tell us where she go.”
I believed her.
As a group, the kisaeng of the Forest of the Seven Clouds followed us out to the exit. I thanked them for their cooperation. As one body, they bowed as we left.
“Zippo,” Ernie said. “Nada. Not a goddamn thing. That’s what we have to show for all these days of work. She’s gone. She’s in the wind and we don’t have a clue as to where she might’ve gone.”
Ernie was right. I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right.
We were in the jeep, driving back toward Kumchon.
“And furthermore,” he continued, “we now have one day of AWOL on our record. One day of bad time.”
By “bad time” Ernie meant that any days of absence without leave do not count toward earning a twenty-year military retirement.
He was right again. Our gamble hadn’t paid off. Bufford had reached Jill Matthewson before us. But how? Then I remembered the body of Pak Tong-i; I remembered how he’d been tortured, systematically strangled. He’d probably revealed information before he’d been stricken down by a heart attack. The timing was right. Bufford had learned the whereabouts of Jill Matthewson and Kim Yong-ai and then he and Staff Sergeant Weatherwax had hot-footed it over to the Forest of Seven Clouds.