“This place ain’t half bad,” Ernie said.
“Maybe we can stop on the way back,” I said, “but first we have to climb halfway up White Cloud Mountain.”
We had stopped at the police station, and then told us that a Taoist nun by the name of Won Un-suk did indeed live on the mountain. Her official occupation was listed as the tender of the Temple of the Jade Emperor.
The crisp-suited young police officer could barley contain his mirth when we asked about her. Most of the inhabitants of Ok-dong considered her eccentric at best, but they tolerated her because her little temple sometimes caught the overflow of tourists who came to Ok-dong to visit the much larger Buddhist temple farther up the mountain.
“Did you see the American who visited her last week?” I asked.
“Of course. We always notice such things. Now some more Americans only a few days later. Ok-dong is becoming an international attraction.”
He gave us directions to the nun’s hooch, and we walked out of the station.
“Real wise-ass,” Ernie said.
“Everybody’s gotta have some fun.”
As we climbed up the steep mountain path, the chatter and the clanging of pots in the village of Ok-dong below gradually gave way to the rustling of wind through pine trees and the scurrying of squirrels through brush. Ernie wiped the first beads of sweat from his brow.
“Why don’t we just write up the report that it was a suicide brought on by statutory rape and let that farmer have his claim? Why go to all this trouble?”
“I want him to have the claim, too. But remember, there’s a Marine who could get burned.”
“He deserves it, going after the innocent stuff when there’s all those business girls in Song-tan willing to give him what he wants for a few bucks.”
“Besides,” I said, “this case doesn’t seem right. Why would she take it so hard so quickly? For all we know, he hadn’t even left Korea when she killed herself.”
“Eyewitnesses say she walked onto the tracks and nobody else was around.”
“So it wasn’t murder. Still, before you kill yourself, you at least brood about it for a while.”
“How do you know?”
“Some of us brood all our lives and never work up the courage.”
“Jesus,” Ernie said. “We really do need to stop in one of those soju houses. If the rice wine doesn’t perk you up, the girls will.”
“All right. On the way back, I promise.”
At a bend in the pathway a sign pointed up toward a plateau above the pines. We followed it, and when we crested the ridge, we came upon a small wooden hut surrounded by a carefully tended garden of sprouting turnips. I shouted as we approached.
“Yoboseiyo! Won Un-suk keiseiyo?”
A tall, thin Korean woman with a scraggly bobbed hairdo and loose blue cotton skirt and tunic emerged from the hut. Her full lips worked hard to cover her big front teeth but slid back into a broad grin when she saw us. Her eyes sparkled and she seemed to be having trouble keeping from breaking into a laugh. I saw the resemblance to the stern farmer we had met at the village of Chunhua, but she was like an inverted image of him, one that saw the gaiety of life rather than just its grimness.
“Are you Won Un-suk?”
She nodded. I showed her my badge, but she waved it away, still smiling up at us.
“You’re here about my sister,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Come in. Come in.”
The floor of her little hut was immaculately clean and covered with a smooth thick layer of oil paper. We took of our shoes and entered and sat down cross-legged while she happily buzzed about preparing some Black Dragon tea. A brass pot of water was already hot, as if she had been expecting visitors. As she worked, she talked.
“My sister came here to visit me on her last day of life.” She turned and flashed a quick, toothy smile. “For this I am very pleased. She brought an American. He had less hair than you do and was very lean and strong. My sister, I think, was in love with this man, which is a very happy thing but also a very dangerous thing. Don’t you agree?”
I nodded. Ernie just stared at her, slightly dumfounded by her bright manner, although he couldn’t understand the rapid Korean that she spoke.
She unfolded the legs of a small oak table, set it in front of our knees, and poured cups of warm tea. I didn’t bother to interrupt her. She seemed happy to have visitors and happy to talk about her sister.
“Many people visit me. The Temple of the Jade Emperor is very popular. Of course, sometimes people expect something a little more elaborate.”
She waved to a small hand-carved shrine in the corner. In it sat a statuette made of jade. A somber old gentleman in thick robes, his eyes closed, was apparently meditating.
“The Jade Emperor. What you Americans would call the god of the universe. Of course we Taoists realize that even the gods are subject to the whims of the Tao.”
She flashed one of her gleaming smiles.
I noticed another shrine on the opposite wall. Made of inlaid stone, it was a type of mosaic of a beautiful woman floating above the clouds, her long silken garments trailing gracefully behind her. The nun continued her monologue.
“They stayed for a while and had tea. My sister was very proud of her young man.” She smiled again. “Pride is a very dangerous thing, don’t you agree? After tea they left because he was anxious to get down to all the excitement of Ok-dong. She was very disappointed by this because we don’t get to visit too often and of course we will get to visit even less often now.”
I began to understand why the young policeman in Ok-dong found it so humorous that a couple of American investigators were planning to visit this hermit of White Cloud Mountain. She turned her smiling eyes on Ernie, who wasn’t paying any attention to her chatter but merely sipped contentedly on his tea. She looked at me.
“He is a student of the Tao.”
I glanced at him. “Yes. I think he is.”
Ernie looked up, realizing we were taking about him, but turned back to his tea.
“A very advanced student,” the nun said. For once her face turned solemn and she nodded slowly. “You must be wondering why my sister would kill herself. Of course, the answer is obvious. Love with a man will only lead to pain, and the sooner you get the pain over with, the sooner you will be able to resume your journey toward the eternal principles of the Tao. The great sage Lao-tze would have nothing to do with love, he was much beyond that, and eventually he found the Jade Elixir of Immortality.”
She thrust her finger into the air and waved it like a baton, her wide mouth sparkling below.
Ernie set down his tea. “Don’t you give a damn that your sister’s dead?”
She turned to me, puzzled. I translated. She smiled back at Ernie. “She’s much better off now. She escaped the illusion of love. Quite an accomplishment for one so young.”
Ernie swiveled his head. “What’d she say?”
“Never mind, Ernie. This broad’s crazy. I’ll just ask one more question and we’ll get out of here and down to that soju house.”
“Good idea.”
I turned back to the nun and spoke again in Korean. “When did you last see your sister?”
“When she walked down the mountain with the American.”
I nodded. “Thanks for the tea.” I pulled out some Korean money, a thousand won note, and slid it under the teapot. Laughing, she pushed it back at me.
“Oh no. Only devotees have to make contributions. You came as guests. This isn’t necessary.”
I picked up the wrinkled bill and shoved it back into my pocket. On the way across the turnip garden she smiled and bowed to us like a woodpecker after termites.
We went back to the soju house in the center of Ok-dong, and soon a bevy of giggling hostesses were sitting around us. “We had another American here,” one of them said, “just a few days ago.”