The Line

by Martin Limon

  Sweat glistened on his flushed face. His moist lips sputtered, but no more words came out. Instead of tossing the table at us, which I knew he was tempted to do, he let it drop to the floor with a loud thud. Peele straightened himself, and without waiting for our salutes, he turned and marched out of the room.

  Ernie and I looked at one another. He shrugged, his tongue worked along the inner edge of his teeth, and then he started clicking his gum again.

  “Did you just bring that back up?” I asked.

  “Never went down.” When I just stared at him, he said, “Hey, ginseng gum is expensive. No sense wasting it.”

  Ernie had read an article once about the health benefits of the ginseng plant, especially how it increased the metabolism and acted as a tonic for the smooth functioning of the body, including lowering blood sugar, reducing stress, and curing sexual dysfunction. Ever since, he’d been a fanatic for the stuff, occasionally chewing on the raw root but more often popping the slightly bitter chewing gum in his mouth. It being dried out, ground down, and stuffed in mass-produced packaging probably eliminated any and all benefits of the original root, which grew feral in parts of North Korea and Manchuria. But that didn’t faze him. He claimed that ginseng gum kept him revved up. “Like a new pair of spark plugs,” he’d told me.

  Since our little lecture was over, Ernie and I rose from our chairs and walked outside. After crossing the gravel parking lot, we climbed into the jeep’s canvas seats and Ernie started the engine. He let it idle for a moment. “Displacement,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Displacement,” Ernie repeated. “Your girlfriend, what was her name?”

  “You forgot?”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Three months.” The fact that we’d worked with her on an important murder case didn’t seem to jog his memory. “Captain Leah Prevault,” I said.

  “Yeah, her. The shrink. That’s what she called it. Displacement. When you’re mad at one person but you take it out on somebody else.”

  “A whipping boy.”

  “Yeah. That’s us. The whipping boys. Lieutenant Colonel Brunmeyer was the one who engineered for us to go up there before any of his superiors were aware of it, even though he probably knew the JSA wasn’t under our jurisdiction. He’s also the one who brought a squad of combat infantry onto JSA grounds, violating the armistice. But the Eighth Army honchos don’t want to blame him. Not a fellow officer. Not one of their own. So they blame us.”

  And it was hardly our fault that the North Koreans had mobilized seven infantry divisions and two tank battalions on their side of the border. But that was the way it was in the army: shit rolled downhill.

  “Colonel Peele says he’s going to make the Commies pay,” I said. “What do you suppose he means by that?”

  “Accuse them of the murder,” Ernie said. “Keep them on the defensive during the MAC meetings.”

  “For that he’d need proof, wouldn’t he?”

  Ernie shrugged. “The dead body of Corporal Noh is probably proof enough for him. It had to be the Commies. Who else?”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “Right now,” Ernie said, “I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. Maybe it was them, maybe not. But that’s not going to stop Eighth Army from forming all the opinions they want. Especially if those opinions are useful to them.”

  Ernie shoved the jeep in reverse, backed out of the parking spot, and stomped on the clutch and shifted into first. As we rolled forward, he said, “I guess that’s what us enlisted pukes are good for.”

  “For what?”

  “For taking out frustrations on.” He thought about it for a moment. “It must be nice to have somebody to take out your frustrations on.”

  “I guess it is. Who do you take your frustrations out on?”

  “Me? I don’t have any frustrations.”

  “Maybe because when you want to do something, you just do it.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Peele ought to try that sometime.”

  “What he wanted just now,” I said, “was to launch that table at us.”

  Ernie turned the corner, still pondering what we’d just seen. Then he said, “Probably would’ve done him a world of good.” After cruising for a while, Ernie said, “So are we going to do what he said and drop the case?”

  I remembered the bloody divot in the back of Corporal Noh Jong-bei’s head. “Not on your life,” I replied.

  “Yeah,” Ernie said. “Not on your life.”

  Ernie missed the turn and we ended up circling Dongdaemun, the Great East Gate. The ancient stone and tile-roofed edifice stared down at us as we made a one-eighty. During the Chosun Dynasty, Seoul had been much smaller and an actual wall had enveloped the city, extending from West Gate to South Gate to here at the East Gate. The northern approaches to the city had been guarded by fortifications that lined the precipitous mountains beyond. At night, constables with pikes, bows and arrows, and swords patrolled the walls, bearing oil lanterns. On the peaks above, lines of bonfires had been lit and doused according to a code that relayed messages up and down the spine of the Korean Peninsula. In those days, the country had been united. There had been no military demarcation line between north and south in centuries prior. No one had even imagined such a thing. The few times Korea had been conquered, it had been conquered whole. And then it had regained its freedom again, still whole.

  I spotted a sign pointing us toward Inui-dong. Ernie turned right into a narrow lane wide enough for two-way traffic but populated with pedestrians and bicyclists and men with A-frames strapped to their backs, hauling loads of charcoal briquettes. We slowed to a crawl. Twice we stopped, and the second time, I read the address splashed with white paint onto the side of a kagei, an open-fronted shop. Most of the people inside were busy and ignored me, but I found a kind-looking shopper who listened as I recited the address. She said we were heading in the right direction, then pointed and told me that before the small temple on the hill straight ahead, we should turn right and wind up the narrow lane.

  “When you get close,” she said, “you won’t be able to drive.”

  Many of the older neighborhoods in Seoul had been built before automobiles were popularized. Merchants pushing two-wheeled carts wandered through the lanes selling produce, fish, pulled taffy, secondhand clothes, and other sundries a busy housewife might need. The more resilient women would grab their own baskets and wander downhill toward the open-air markets that dotted the tightly packed city.

  Before we reached the pagoda of the temple, we found a place to park near a bicycle repair shop. I paid the proprietor a thousand won—two bucks—to watch the jeep for us, which was really just meant as a way to compensate him for the inconvenience.

  The address was 15-dong, 36-ho, and I had to ask for directions a couple more times. The lanes were a twisting maze lined with ten-foot-high walls of brick and stone. Every few feet, a metal gate led into an individual family home behind the wall. Finally, we spotted a wooden stand with a circular wreath of white flowers atop it, a black ribbon hanging from that. The gate was open.

  “That’s it,” Ernie said. And it was: 15-dong, 36-ho, the home of the Noh family. I knocked on the edge of the gate. No one answered, so we stepped into the flagstone courtyard. From inside, a woman wailed.

  -5-

  In the courtyard in front of the house, a line of people stood before a blown-up black-and-white photograph of Corporal Noh Jong-bei. He stared impassively ahead and wore the black high-collared uniform of a high school boy. Somebody chanted a few words and everyone bowed. The smell of incense wafted through the air. Finally, an older man in a black suit and white gloves noticed us. He strode forward and said, “Yes?”

  “We’re from Eighth Army,” I said, motioning toward myself and Ernie. I pulled out my badge and showed it to him. “We’d like to talk to Corpora
l Noh’s parents or to anyone who knew him well.”

  “We all knew him well.”

  The man’s English was polished; I figured he dealt with foreigners often.

  “We’d like to talk to someone who knew if he’d had any problems lately. Any arguments, any enemies. Especially up at the JSA.”

  “JSA?” the man said, not familiar with the military acronym.

  “Panmunjom,” I corrected.

  He nodded. “Oh, yes.” Then he looked at me, studying my face. “You are trying to find Jong-bei’s killer?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded again. “I will see if my brother, Jong-bei’s father, will talk to you.”

  He gestured toward a covered area with some stools and a metal table with an old radio sitting atop it. “Wait here. I will return.”

  Ernie sat down heavily on one of the three-legged stools. Pained crying continued to emerge from inside the large single-story home.

  “They’re rich,” Ernie said.

  “Yep. That’s why they could afford to pay for their son to become a KATUSA.”

  Every able-bodied young man in the Republic of Korea is required to serve two and a half years in the military. No exceptions. Even the president’s son had done his service. However, the system of under-the-table payments still thrived in Korea, and a wealthy family could pay to have their son assigned to a relatively cushy job rather than being part of the infantry tromping through the mud and snow on the DMZ and worrying about his throat being cut by a North Korean commando. Being designated a KATUSA, Korean Augmentation to the US Army, was considered one of the cushiest positions to be in. Mainly because you were assigned to an American army unit, and the barracks and other facilities were much more comfortable than they were on the ROK Army compounds. Also because a young KATUSA was under US Army discipline, which was less hard on soldiers than the unforgiving, often torturous ROK Army discipline.

  So the parents of Noh Jong-bei had paid to keep him safe. But though they’d succeeded in landing him the best assignment, he’d still been brutally murdered.

  The man who’d been talking to us, apparently Jong-bei’s uncle, returned with an older man at his side. He wore traditional mourning garb: hemp cloth trousers, a hemp cloth tunic, and a peaked cap sewn with the same ragged material atop his head. The man seemed weak, barely able to walk. But the two of them hobbled resolutely toward us.

  When they stopped in front of us, I was about to speak, but the older man gasped out something in garbled Korean. I didn’t understand and looked to the man in the suit supporting him.

  “When,” he translated, “are we going to get the body?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. That’s up to the coroner.”

  The younger man translated. Then the older man spoke again. This time I understood.

  “Then why are you here?”

  I answered in Korean, trying to remember the verb endings I’d learned in the night classes I’d taken on base; the deferential ones that showed respect for an older person. It felt unnatural compared to the verb endings used in the bars and brothels of the GI villages outside American army compounds, where I’d developed most of my conversational skills, but I did my best. I asked about his son’s friends and enemies. And whether Noh Jong-bei had had any problems recently.

  If I’d made any grammatical mistakes, or mistakes in decorum, they were overlooked. The old man studied me.

  “My son had no enemies. He was a good boy, dedicated to his work in the army. He had no problems. He was always on time, always prepared to do his best.”

  I tried to formulate more questions, but something told me that all this man wanted to talk about—or hear—at this painful time was how wonderful his son had been. Faults and other imperfections were off the table. Three women walked quickly through the crowd in front of the house. They wore identical cotton gowns—in white, the Korean color of mourning. One of the women was more distraught than the others, her face red and slathered in drying tears.

  “Weigurei no-nun?” she said, pointing her forefinger at me. What’s the matter with you?

  Apparently, she’d overheard the conversation. Even though the two women at her side tried to pull her away, she held fast and continued her tirade.

  “You come to my home, asking if my son has done something wrong? Asking if he has enemies? Why would you do this? How dare you bother us and call him names? You should be out there trying to catch the person who killed him. He was a good boy. A good boy. Do you understand?”

  She broke free from the other women and lunged at me. Her sharp nails would’ve reached my face if it hadn’t been for Jong-bei’s uncle, who stepped between us and moved her aside at the last minute. She grabbed the lapels of his suit, clinging to him, barely standing and still screaming.

  “Weigureino-nun?” she repeated. What’s wrong with you?

  Both of Corporal Noh’s parents were pulled away by his uncle and the others in the crowd. Ernie and I stood there under the overhang, feeling awkward now.

  “Any more bright ideas?” Ernie said out of the side of his mouth.

  “No,” I replied. “Let’s go.”

  We walked back to the entrance of the compound and ducked through the gate. Without talking, we walked down the narrow lane. I wasn’t sure how Ernie felt, but for me, it was as if I’d been rammed in the gut with a tire iron.

  “Hey,” Ernie said, “at least they didn’t beat us up like the last guy.”

  We’d almost reached the bottom of the hill when footsteps clattered on flagstone steps behind us. Ernie and I turned.

  It was a girl. Or rather, a young woman, either in her late teens or very early twenties. Tears streamed down her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in English. “About my parents. They are very sad.”

  “It’s okay. I understand they’re upset,” I said.

  She nodded vigorously. “Yes, upset.”

  Her black hair fell to her shoulders, longer than the short bob required of high school girls. So my first impression had been right—she’d been out of high school for maybe a couple years.

  “I’m sorry about your brother,” I said.

  She bowed her head but didn’t reply. Then she looked at me. “I have to talk to Teddy.”

  Ernie knew enough to keep quiet.

  “An American?” I asked gently.

  “Yes. He worked with Jong-bei. Up there.” She glanced north toward the DMZ.

  “Do you want me to have him call you?” I asked.

  “No. My parents would be very upset.” She stepped forward and handed me a sheet of lined notepaper tightly folded into the shape of a flower. “Please, give him this.” She started to walk away.

  “I don’t know his name,” I said.

  She stopped and turned. “Teddy.”

  “His family name.”

  She paused for a moment and said, “Fusterman.” And then she spelled it for me, pronouncing the F with two syllables—“epp-uh”—and the U like the “ooh” in ooh and aah.

  “Your parents don’t want you to see him?” I asked.

  “No. They think Americans something bad.” Then she looked at us, remembering who she was talking to, and her face flushed slightly red.

  “I understand,” I said. “And your brother, too, he didn’t want you going out with Teddy?”

  She saddened again at the mention of her brother but managed to say, “How do you know that?”

  “Was your brother the one who brought Teddy here to your home?”

  “Yes. Many times.”

  “But when he started seeing you, they argued.”

  “No. They don’t argue. Jong-bei don’t think it’s bad. Only my parents.”

  “But your brother sided with your parents.”

  She lowered her head again. “Supposed to.”
/>   “Okay,” I replied. “What’s your name?”

  “Marilyn.”

  Many Korean students adopted a Western name in their English conversation classes. Sometimes, they also used them outside of the classroom.

  “Your Korean name?” I asked.

  “You don’t need.”

  “Okay,” I said, slipping the note into my pocket. “I’ll deliver this for you.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe tonight.” The truth was, I couldn’t deliver it until the alert was over and maybe never, since Colonel Peele had barred us from the JSA. But I didn’t tell her that.

  She bowed slightly to both of us and turned and ran off.

  Ernie let out a breath of air. “Cute.”

  “Yeah. Plenty cute enough to attract a JSA GI.”

  “And cute enough to fight over.”

  “I’ll say. But cute enough to kill for?”

  Ernie didn’t answer. We hustled downhill to where we’d left the jeep.

  By the time we made it back to the Main Supply Route and began fighting our way through midafternoon traffic, it seemed like everyone in Seoul was on the road. And that was when the air raid sirens sounded. From nowhere, civil defense cops in white uniforms appeared out of side alleys, driving white jeeps painted with red hangul lettering on the side. They set up roadblocks and waved off vehicles to the side of the road.

  A civil defense alert. Everyone was supposed to get out of their cars and trucks and taxis and take cover in the underground shelters—or if you couldn’t reach a shelter, any place that would provide protection from incoming enemy artillery. Reluctantly, Ernie pulled the jeep over, and after securing the steering wheel with the chain welded to the floorboard, we crouched against a brick wall bordering a small Catholic university.

  “Is this a drill,” Ernie asked, “or are we actually under attack?”

  “A drill,” I said. “If this were a real attack, the rounds would already be landing.”