Nightmare Range

by Martin Limon

  “Payoff time,” Ernie said.

  When they emerged, their young wards were delivered to them and they left the station. Usually the guardian was scowling and the student stared at the ground.

  The girl with the chrysanthemum in her hair didn’t have to wait too long. A dapper young Korean man who seemed more like a lawyer than a parent escorted her outside. Clinging to her arm was another college-age girl with short hair and a plain round face. Tagging along behind them were two boys, one of them thin and good-looking with short curly hair, the other slightly stout, wearing glasses. Studious looking.

  “That dude liberated a whole pack of them,” Ernie sad. “Must have cost him a bundle.”

  “Our young lady of the chrysanthemum has money and plenty of friends.”

  “The two go together,” Ernie said.

  The three other students said goodbye, and the lawyer and the flower girl climbed into a chauffeured Rekord Royale sedan. He sat in front. She sat in back. I copied the license number on my little notepad, and when they pulled away from the curb, Ernie followed, two car lengths behind in the rushing Seoul traffic.

  They turned left at the ancient edifice of the West Gate and traveled northeast toward the heart of Seoul. After about a mile and a half of weaving through traffic, they took a left up a road that wound through a residential area and stopped at a big house on a hill overlooking the downtown business district. Stone walls and iron gates.

  “This gal is rich,” Ernie said. “Why does she want to overthrow the system?”

  “She’ll change her mind later.”

  Autumn is the usual time for demonstrations. School starts up again, and all the students are excited about being reunited with their friends and confident about getting the good grades this year that they didn’t work hard enough for last year. And normally—if the government feels up to it—elections are held in the fall. The opposition parties had been growing stronger the last few years. One of their leaders received international recognition after he fled the country rather than allowing himself to be jailed for the offense of having more popular support than the president. Therefore, the ruling party had taken a wise step. They were going to allow elections, but a certain percentage of the seats in the legislature were going to be reserved exclusively for the ruling party. For some reason the students took umbrage at this and had taken to the streets.

  When demonstrations are imminent, there’s usually a reminder in the 8th Army Bulletin about political rallies being off-limits to military personnel. In fact, the only political activity GIs are allowed to participate in is the absentee ballot—if you remember to fill out the postcard and mail it to your home state. Other than that, forget it. And Corporal Ralph Whitcomb had made the foolish mistake of getting himself killed in the midst of an unauthorized activity.

  The army doesn’t mind you getting killed charging a machine gun nest—as a matter of fact they sort of like it—but don’t meet the grim reaper at a political rally. That’s frowned upon.

  Whitcomb wasn’t worried about it any more. And the only thing that bothered me was not where he died, but how he died. Someone had pushed him into the path of that charging armored vehicle, and I was going to find out who, even if nobody else really wanted to know.

  Ernie drifted to a stop and parked out of sight. I jumped out of the jeep and peeked around the corner. The lawyer climbed out of the Rekord Royale, unlocked a metal grating in the stone wall, and rolled it up using a hand crank on the side. Then he got back into the car and they pulled into the narrow garage. The metal grating ground down and clanked shut.

  I walked over to the front gate and copied the family’s name and address from the engraved marble plaque embedded in the stone wall: Shin, 201-26 bonji, 34 ho, Hyonjo-dong, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

  I walked back to the jeep.

  “I’m going to try to talk to her,” I said. “If I’m not back in thirty minutes, send in the Eighty-Second Airborne.”

  “If you’re not back in thirty minutes, I’ll be gone.”

  I returned to the front gate and rang the bell. An old woman shuffled out of the house and crossed the garden. When she saw my face, she started calling for someone named Lawyer Hong. He appeared at the door, speaking English.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I want to speak to Miss Shin. About what happened at the demonstration.” I showed him my identification.

  “Just a moment.” He closed the gate in my face and walked quickly back into the house. After a few minutes, he reappeared. “Miss Shin will be unable to talk to anyone for a few days.”

  “But it’s about the man who was killed …”

  The door slammed in my face again.

  As I walked away, I saw a baggy-faced old man glowering at me from a second-story window. I hated to drop a dime on little Miss Shin like that. American boyfriends aren’t exactly good news to the ears of Korean parents. But it could have been worse. She could have been the one under those tires this afternoon.

  I ducked back in the jeep and plopped into the passenger seat.

  “No luck?”

  “None.”

  “Where to?”

  “Let’s go find out a little bit more about the unfortunate Corporal Ralph Whitcomb.”

  The Charge of Quarters at Headquarters Company, 8th Army, was unsure if he should let us into Whitcomb’s room.

  “We showed you our identification,” Ernie said. “What more do you want?”

  “You need a warrant or something, don’t you?”

  “This is government property.” Ernie waved his arms, taking in the entire three-story building. “People inspect it inside and out all the time. Who needs a warrant?”

  The little guy brushed his brown hair back and reached for the ring of keys on his hip. “I guess you’re right. The first sergeant came through this morning tearing down FTA signs, and last week the dogs came through sniffing for dope.”

  “If anybody wants privacy,” Ernie said, “they better rent a hooch out in the village.”

  We walked down the hallway and the CQ opened Whitcomb’s door. The cement block walls of the rectangular room had been painted a pale yellow. Bunks sat in three of the corners with big double-door wall lockers strategically placed to give each soldier a modicum of privacy. A row of shoes, starting with a highly spit-shined pair of combat boots, sat under each tightly made bunk. A bikinied Korean beauty beckoned from the OB Beer calendar on an otherwise naked wall.

  There was no question about which bunk was Whitcomb’s. The wall behind was plastered with photographs, many showing him robust and alive. He had been about five foot ten and seemed to be always smiling. A shock of blond hair waved over a pair of army-issue horn-rimmed glasses. There were photos of him posing in front of pagodas and shrines and ancient ruins, all places that I’d heard about but never had the gumption to visit.

  In some of the photos Whitcomb was accompanied by young Korean women. In those, the backdrop was usually what appeared to be college campuses.

  “This guy didn’t waste his time or money on the girls out in the village,” Ernie said.

  “No. Looks like he went after the good ones.”

  Ernie checked some of the photos more closely. “Nice,” he said. “But these good ones can be more dangerous.”

  “You’re talking about getting trapped into marriage.”

  “That, too,” he said.

  There were more photos in an album and a packet of new photographs in a cloudy transparent wrapper.

  Miss Shin, without her chrysanthemum, stood next to Whitcomb on the campus of what looked like Chungang University. The plain, round-faced girl and the two young men we had seen at the police station were also smiling broadly at the lens. I turned it over. Their first names were penciled in, from left to right. Miss Shin’s first name was Myong-hui.

  I stuck the photograph in my pocket.

  “Time to visit a few dormitories,” I said.

  “You’re just hoping we’ll run
into a panty raid.”

  “They have those here?”

  “They have them everywhere,” Ernie said.

  We didn’t bother with the administrative offices, just asked a young woman, strolling through the campus, where we could find the women’s dormitories. She pointed, surprised to see two big Caucasian men on campus. She wasn’t carrying any books. Classes had been cancelled for the day.

  When we arrived at the row of dormitory buildings, we started asking young women if they knew the whereabouts of Shin Myong-hui or her friend. I showed them the photograph. Ernie kept picking out the best looking girls to question until we found one who was willing to answer. She also pointed, this time to a two-story brick building, and we trudged up cement steps until a middle-aged Korean woman barred our way. I spoke to her in Korean, showed her the photograph, and she ushered us toward a waiting room with a sitting area, a couple of card tables, and a pot of hot water on a charcoal-burning space heater.

  Ernie wandered over to the game room next door and fumbled with the foosball machine.

  The girl from the picture was short and her complexion was about the color of a cup of coffee lightened by an ounce of cream. She wore a plain beige skirt and blouse, kept wringing her hands in front of her flat belly, and bobbed her glasses beneath her crinkled brow. I asked her to sit down. The middle-aged woman made sure I caught her long hard look and then turned and marched out of the room.

  The young woman pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and started worrying it.

  “We’re here about the American who was killed today,” I said.

  Ernie padded into the room, pulled over a straight-backed chair, and sat down facing both of us.

  I continued. “You’re a good friend of Miss Shin Myong-hui?”

  “Yes.”

  “The American, Ralph, he bought her a chrysanthemum today.”

  The crinkles on her forehead softened for a moment, and she almost smiled.

  “It was very nice,” she said.

  “Were they lovers?”

  “No. Not yet. But I think they would have been.”

  She looked back down at the floor, and the handkerchief waggled.

  “Tell me about them.”

  Her sentences rolled out in precisely pronounced English, and I could see her editing her grammar as she went along.

  “I was with Myong-hui when she met Ralph. He was taking photographs, here on campus, and he asked us to take a snapshot of him next to the fountain. Then he asked us, one by one, to pose with him. Later we went to a teahouse and talked, and before he went back to the compound, he had exchanged phone number with Myong-hui.

  “At the time she didn’t think she’d ever hear from him again. Mainly she was curious—about Americans. He was the first she’d ever met. And the first I’d ever met. He seemed nice. I warned her about Hei-sok, her boyfriend, but she wouldn’t listen. She was always so open about everything. When he found out, he was upset, but he did his best to hide it. He tried to act …” She searched for a word. “… sophisticated about the whole thing. But I know he was very hurt and very angry. We met Ralph again about a week later, and he took us to see an American movie.”

  “On Eighth Army compound?”

  “Yes. In Yongsan. And after the movie we went to your snack bar and ate some ice cream. It was very delicious.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. When Hei-sok heard that we had gone to an American compound, he was furious, but he was smart enough not to scold Myong-hui. He knew that she would be sure to do whatever he told her not to do. Today was the fourth time we had seen Ralph, and the second time the four of us had gone together.”

  “Who was the fourth person?”

  “Pak Un-sil. Hei-sok’s friend. He is a very good student and wants to start a Department of Confucian Studies here at the university.”

  “Confucian studies?”

  “Yes. He is very upset that the old proprieties are not being observed.”

  Ernie lifted his eyebrows. I changed the subject before he became too fidgety.

  “Wasn’t Myong-hui concerned that her parents would become upset when she received a phone call from an American?”

  “Ralph called Myong-hui at the dormitory.”

  “I thought she lived in Hyonjo-dong with her parents.”

  “No. She doesn’t like it there. She forced them to pay for a room in the dormitory here. She didn’t go home very often. Only when she was in trouble.”

  “What kinds of trouble did she get into?”

  “Well, her grades aren’t very good. And she’s had a lot of boyfriends.” Her voice trailed off. “But today is the biggest trouble yet.”

  I asked it softly. “Why?”

  She looked up and her eyes widened. “Because now everyone will know she had a date with an American.”

  I nodded. Made sense to me. Ernie opened a new package of gum but didn’t offer her any.

  “When did Ralph call her?”

  “Two days ago. He said he was off today, Friday, and he wanted to meet us and go to one of the teahouses near here. Our teahouses at Chungang University are very famous. Many young people come here for the music and the artwork.”

  “If there was going to be a demonstration, why did you meet him here?’

  “We didn’t know there was going to be a demonstration. We found out about that later, but we didn’t think it would be so big. And we didn’t think that the army would come.”

  “Why did Hei-sok and his friend come along?”

  “I think he wanted to keep an eye on his rival.”

  “How did Myong-hui feel about that?”

  “She didn’t mind. I think she liked the idea of men competing for her.”

  I pulled the photograph out of my pocket. “Is this Hei-sok?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this is his friend, Pak Un-sil?”

  “Yes. They go everywhere together.”

  “Is Pak Un-sil your boyfriend?”

  “Oh, no.” She dropped her handkerchief and turned a bright red. I waited for her to bend over and pick up the handkerchief.

  “It must have been awkward,” I said. “Ralph here to see Myong-hui and yet all five of you together?”

  “Yes. It was awkward.” She sat up a little straighter, her normal color gradually returning. “The only reason I stayed was to support Myong-hui against Hei-sok. But it turned out that Hei-sok’s friend was the one who kept making mean remarks. About Americans. Ralph couldn’t understand, of course.”

  “What sort of remarks?”

  “About your impoliteness.” She looked at me and almost smiled. “Things like that. Myong-hui didn’t like it at all.”

  “What happened after you met Ralph?”

  “First we went to a teahouse. We all had coffee, except for Myong-hui. She had cola. Hei-sok tried to act as if he were very rich and insisted on paying for everything. After about an hour the demonstration was starting and some students were making speeches over loudspeakers, so we went outside to see what was happening. Everything was fine until the army moved in. It was funny at first, their taking it so seriously. It was only a few speeches, about politics. I really didn’t pay much attention. That’s when Ralph stopped in the shop and bought the flower for Myong-hui.”

  “What did Hei-sok think?”

  “He was angry, but he didn’t say anything. Myong-hui loved the flower. Instead of spending so much money in the teahouse, Hei-sok should have done something like that. Since his money was all gone, all he did was pluck a withered old blossom for her hair. I think that’s what gave Ralph the idea, but she threw the blossom away when Ralph gave her the more beautiful flower he bought in the shop.”

  “Was the blossom a mukung-hua?”

  “Yes. You know about our national flower?”

  She seemed impressed, which is why I said it. I had paid close attention during my Korean language classes. Might as well get some credit.

  “What about Hei-sok�
�s friend?” I said. “How did he react?”

  “I didn’t see because that’s when everyone started yelling when they noticed the riot police moving in behind us. We couldn’t get out. It was strange, really. They kept telling us to leave the area, but there was no way out. I wasn’t too worried then, there were so many of us, and everyone had been peaceful. But of course the speakers had said so many impolite things about our president. I think that must have made the soldiers angry.”

  “What did you do when the armored vehicles moved forward?”

  “We tried to move out of the way. Students climbed over fences and ran down alleys. The vehicle moved very slowly. I’m sure the driver didn’t intend to run over anyone.”

  “Did you see Ralph go down?”

  “No. There was too much confusion.”

  “Where was Hei-sok?”

  “I don’t know. Myong-hui and I were holding on to one another, trying to get out of the way. We didn’t see what happened to Ralph. It was only later that we heard about it.”

  “Does Hei-sok live on campus?”

  “Yes. In the first men’s dormitory.”

  I put my hand in the right pocket of my coat, Ernie’s cue to take over the interrogation.

  “Young lady,” he said, “do you love Myong-hui?”

  She seemed to be surprised that Ernie could speak. “She is my best friend.”

  “And you’d want to protect her, wouldn’t you, from ruining her life by becoming involved with a foreigner?”

  “I think it would be best to marry a Korean,” she said, and then her mouth fell open. “You think that I …”

  “Where were you when Whitcomb went down?”

  “I told you. We were trying to get away. It was an accident. He must have fallen.”

  “This Hei-sok, does he study tae kwon do?”

  “No. He is very frail. He could not have done anything like that.”

  And then she dropped her head into her lap and she was crying.

  My face felt feverish by now, the flu shot was getting to me, but I took a breath of the garden-scented air and the dizziness subsided.