“How’d you find us?” Ernie asked.
Inspector Gil Kwon-up, chief homicide inspector of the Korean National Police, shrugged.
“We have our ways.”
Ways like police stations strategically placed throughout the entire metropolis of Seoul and foot patrols branching out from there.
“Why’d you find us?” I asked.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he said
Officer Oh drove toward the main drag that headed from Samgakji circle toward the Seoul Train Station, stepped on the gas, and plowed into heavy nighttime traffic.
Ernie leaned forward, gazing avidly past her left ear, excited by something. Maybe the traffic. Maybe the chase. More likely, her. There’s nothing he likes better, he once told me, than a woman who’s a fascist.
A kisaeng house is an institution in Seoul that virtually all men of any means participated in, at least occasionally. Of course the kisaeng houses for the rich and famous are elaborate edifices behind stone walls with accoutrements so luxurious that people like me and Ernie can only imagine what they might be like. But there are lower-level kisaeng houses, more like converted homes, where women in traditional Korean gowns, the chima-jeogori, dance and sing and pluck tunes on the kayagum zither. Where kimchi and soju and marinated beef and various delights from the sea are served and hardworking businessmen take off their jackets and loosen their ties and sit cross-legged on cushions on a warm floor and allow the gorgeous female kisaeng to rub their brows with warm towels and massage their backs and giggle musically every time they tell a weak joke.
That was the type of place Ernie and I had been to a couple of times, and it was the type of place Mr. Kill took us to this time. Stoically, Officer Oh waited outside in the sedan. Bright red Chinese characters shone from a white background on the neon sign. Mr. Kill glanced at me, raising one eyebrow. I read it.
“Myong Un,” I said. “Bright Cloud.”
Kill cracked a begrudging smile. “Very good,” he said.
At the entranceway, at least a dozen pairs of men’s shoes sat beneath the raised wooden floor. A heavily made-up middle-aged woman in an embroidered silk gown bowed to us and spoke in rapid Korean to Mr. Kill. We slipped off our shoes, stepped up on the polished surface, and followed her as she floated down the long hallway. She turned right, then left, and finally stopped and slid open an oil-papered door, motioning us in and bowing as she did so.
Ernie and I followed Mr. Kill into the room. He slipped off his overcoat and hung it on a coatrack. We did the same with our nylon jackets. Ernie arranged his so the fire-breathing dragon snarled at anyone who might approach. Then we sat on flat cushions on the floor around a low rectangular table. Mother-of-pearl white cranes flapped their wings against a black background, attempting to lift themselves into a beckoning sky.
“So what the hell are we here for?” Ernie asked.
“To talk to a girl,” Mr. Kill said.
Ernie’s eyes widened. “That’s what everybody comes here for.”
The oil-papered door slid open. The middle-aged woman entered again, this time carrying a wooden tray with three steaming cups of barley tea and a small porcelain pot for refills. She poured the cups, offered them to us with two hands, and bowed once again before backing out of the room.
I sipped on my tea. So did Ernie, gathering by Mr. Kill’s silence that more answers wouldn’t be forthcoming. Not, at least, until he was good and ready.
Footsteps pattered down the hallway. Tentative, light. The footsteps of a small person, almost childlike except for the deliberateness of the step. They paused in front of the door, as if they had to take a deep breath to summon courage. There was a moment of silence, and then the door slid abruptly open. A small young woman bowed very low and shuffled into the room.
Mr. Kill motioned with his open palm. “Anjo.” Sit down.
She did.
Her face was full cheeked but not fat, and heavily made up. The chima-jeogori she wore was made of cotton, not the fine silk of the older woman’s, and had a broad print pattern of red, green, and blue stripes, not elaborate hand embroidery. She stared at the tabletop, fingers interlaced in front of her waist. What she looked like was a rice-powdered chipmunk waiting for a falcon to swoop down and snatch her into the sky.
“Miss Kwon,” Inspector Gil said gently, speaking in Korean, “do not be afraid of these two men. They are here to listen, not to hurt you.”
She nodded very slightly to indicate that she had heard. In a halting voice she told her story.
She was from the province of Kyongsan-namdo and her parents had been very poor; itinerant laborers moving from farm to farm. She hadn’t acquired even the nationally mandated six years of schooling, and when she reached her teens her parents were approached by a recruiter looking for young women to purchase for work in Seoul.
“Purchase?” I asked, using the Korean word.
Mr. Kill motioned for me to be quiet. “Once you started work,” he said in Korean, “your employer promised to send money directly to your parents?”
She nodded.
“Did he?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What happened then?”
“They took me to a kisaeng house in Mapo. There I was trained in how to serve men.” Her face reddened as she said this. “Later, when they thought I was presentable enough, I was driven along with three other girls to Seoul.”
“And one of these girls was the woman you knew as Miss Hwang?”
“Yes. That’s what she called herself.”
None of them, I figured, would be using their real names. In fact, Mr. Kill hadn’t even used this young woman’s name. Remaining anonymous made it easier for her to confess.
“And they took you where?” Kill asked.
“To a dormitory, somewhere out near Guri.” Just east of Seoul. “I thought it was strange. I mean, strange that we didn’t have to entertain men at night. And then I found out why.”
She paused, looking down. We waited while she composed herself. I was beginning to realize what a brave little woman this was. She took a deep breath and started again.
“They had a van, and a driver. They would take us to various places. Office buildings after they were closed, hotel basements, even picnic areas outside the city.”
“What would you do there?” Mr. Kill asked.
“We would serve the men,” she said simply.
“In what way?”
For the first time, she looked up at him. “In every way.”
“And Miss Hwang always went with you?”
“She was one of us.”
“How well did you get to know her?”
“Not very. They kept us separated during the day. They had work for us to do. Mending old dresses. Washing. Ironing. Trying to make old rags look like new.” She shook her head at the memory. “We tried to look like kisaeng, but we weren’t kisaeng. We were the lowest of the low. Shuttled around from one place to another. I read about it in a movie magazine once. We’re what the Americans call ‘party girls.’”
She pronounced it in the Korean way: pa-ti gu-ruhl.
“How long did this go on?”
“Months. Until I escaped.”
“How did you escape?”
“The van driver was lax. And the man who was supposed to accompany him was sick. We were stuck in traffic, late in the afternoon, all dressed up and on our way to another party. Right in the middle of the road, I slid open the door, jumped out, and ran.”