Yin Yang Tattoo

by Ron McMillan

  No advance, and I wouldn’t even get out of London. Rhee was still talking:

  ‘So I did not ask Seoul about this.’

  Tell me this job isn’t slipping through my fingers even before the main course arrives.

  Rhee reached into his pocket and brought out an en„velope.

  ‘But I managed this, from my office funds.’

  ‘I hope it’s not too much trouble for you,’ I lied.

  ‘Not at all,’ he lied back.

  I signed the receipt for five thousand pounds. I could use more but the line about beggars and choosers sprang to mind, and this meant the difference between being able to take the assignment and staying in London to face my creditors.

  ‘There is another matter my managers in Seoul asked me to discuss with you.’ He spoke unselfconsciously through a mouthful of kimchi. ‘They tell me that you have taken many photographs of North Korea.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  He looked unsure of how to proceed.

  ‘I cannot discuss the exact details of my company’s plans, but they are connected with North Korea. The prospectuses we are preparing need good photographs from there.’

  Stock photographs of the Hermit Kingdom. I sold them all the time, even to South Korean publications.

  ‘You know that photographers sell stock photographs in this way?’

  ‘Of course. My headquarters asked that you discuss the fees with them when you are in Seoul.’

  I liked the sound of that. The more they used, the more money I made. We agreed that I would scan a couple of hundred slides of North Korean cities, infrastructure and what little I had of its industry, and that a messenger from Rhee’s office would pick the DVD up the next day for immediate air-freight to Seoul.

  As we ate our way through a mountain of spicy food, I tried to learn more about the assignment, but every time I broached the subject, Rhee changed it. He may have been their Country Manager, but today Rhee was a messenger at Seoul’s bidding, and if Head Office chose to keep him in the dark, the loss of face involved in me knowing so was something he would want to avoid. I gave up on the questions and concentrated on the food.

  At the end of the meal, we played the old sincerity game where I pretended to want to pay, but no matter how hard I pushed, Rhee resisted resolutely, which was just as well. Dipping into the envelope he had just given me would not have made a good impression.

  Over the next couple of days I spread Rhee’s cash around very carefully. I settled the bill with Gerry at the lab and paid part of my debt to Archie Angel, loose-mouthed git that he was; a thousand went to Naz towards wages owed and petty cash, and a token donation was paid to VISA to keep the plastic life raft afloat. The studio rent would have to wait until Rhee’s bosses in Seoul came up with a proper advance that I could wire to Naz. With American Express assuming the worries of my air ticket – I refuse to concern myself over bills that have yet to arrive – I would turn up on the other side of the world with credit cards groaning, and next to no cash. I kept telling myself I would be earning by then. Earning serious money.

  Checking in a mountain of luggage creates its own headaches, but the generous Business Class allowance saw off much of the excess baggage bill and the rest of the potential damage died in the face of a calm declaration that of course the heaviest of my stand bags was a set of golf clubs.

  Airlines can afford to treat Economy class passengers like second-class citizens, but they fall over themselves to keep businessmen’s bums out of the competition’s club-class seats. With a Business class ticket, golf bags fly free if you insist, and I insisted. I may only be an average photographer, but when it comes to lying to people in uniform, I know I am world-class.

  I was flying Korean Air because to my hosts, ardent patriots to the last, my arrival on the national flag carrier could only generate points in my favour. In Asia, little things go a long way towards setting things off on the right foot.

  There was another reason for flying Korean Air. Like mobile foreign embassies, airliners are patches of mother soil arranged in an ever-moving diaspora, never mind that the livery and the fittings all hail from Seattle. The moment I stepped aboard that Korean Air jet at Heathrow I was already in a little fragment of Korea, and that was fine by me.

  I settled into my upper deck lounge bed of a seat. I had done it, mission accomplished, and I was buckled up and Seoul-bound. Pre-flight orange juice or champagne, Sir? Just leave the bottle, will you. The champagne bottle.

  The public address system burbled with the soft tones of the Captain welcoming everyone aboard, wishing us all a pleasant flight, and taking a moment to remind us to switch off all mobile phones before the aircraft left the terminal. My hand reached instinctively towards my pocket, but stopped half-way as my mind’s eye drew an instant picture of my mobile exactly where I had left it, plugged into the charger at home.

  Right now the only other cloud on my horizon hung over the seat next to me, enough perfume to wrinkle noses downstairs in Economy. I have a theory that the power of a woman’s scent is directly proportionate to her ugliness and here was a case in point. She was an ageing Filipina, hair of the monotone dulled black that comes only from a bottle, heavily-painted face pulled surgically taut across razor cheekbones, a reptilian neck ringed by oversized pearls.

  At least she was on the window side, as I was in the aisle seat that I had been so careful to reserve. Window seats are fine for tourists, but the frequent flier knows an aisle seat is all about freedom. Freedom to walk off the threat of deep-vein thrombosis, freedom to have drinks and whatever delivered as you like, freedom to hit on the stewardesses in their tight primary-coloured dresses and immaculate make-up, lustrous black hair pulled back in pony tails that accentuated almond eyes and broad, honest foreheads.

  Once we reached cruising altitude I gave Miss Lee the flight attendant my warmest smile and, speaking Korean, asked for a Bloody Mary, a double in a tall glass, plenty of pepper and Worcester and three big drops of Tabasco. Two minutes later, with the drink and a bowl of smoked almonds in front of me, I ran through some mental checklists. I had every intention of drinking far too much during the flight, but first, there was thinking to be done.

  I was surprised when Rhee vetoed my request to take an assistant to Korea. This kind of work almost invariably involved one or more paid assistants, but Seoul insisted that local help would be provided, and I reluctantly conceded the point. More of a worry was the expenses situation. Standard practice is for half of the entire fee to be paid upfront. I had settled for a fraction of that from Rhee, and now I hoped that had not been a mistake.

  I caught Miss Lee’s attention and raised an eyebrow towards my empty glass. As she carefully set another double down on a fresh paper coaster, she murmured, ‘Cho-shim-haseyo, chui-halgoyo.’ Take care, you’re going to get drunk.

  ‘Kenchun-ah, chui ha’goshipeo.’ It’s alright, I want to get drunk.

  I pecked ineffectually at the food when it arrived and drank my way through an action movie that struck me as having a few too many exploding aircraft to qualify as ideal in-flight entertainment.

  When the credits rolled I switched the audio channel to jazz and pulled on my eye mask.

  I awoke hours later, neck painfully stiff and mouth parched. My ears popped as the 747 shed altitude. Daylight streamed through the windows, we were nearing Seoul, and I had slept undisturbed through a couple of meals and a staff shift change. I knew this because the hostess politely waiting for my eyes to adjust was taller and slimmer than Miss Lee. Her badge identified her as Miss Seo, and she was as welcome a sight as I had woken up to in a long time, not least for the tall glass of iced water and the three painkillers she placed on the tray in front of me. Thank you, Miss Seo. Bless you, Miss Lee.

  I squinted through the window on the far side of the snoring Filipina. We came in on an easterly approach and, spread out below us in bright late-summer evening light, Seoul stretched to the horizon and beyond. Above the homes of ten mill
ion people a grey-brown smog blanket drew a horizontal line so distinct that it was like looking at the scene through a photographic filter.

  Winding its way through the city from east to west was the huge track of the Han River, its broad curves skirted on both sides by crowded multi-laned highways. Over a dozen long bridges laden with traffic linked the heart of the city to sprawling southern suburbs of geometrically-arranged apartment towns and walled-in luxury villas. Terrifyingly expensive real estate stood on acreage where, thirty-five years before, only rice paddies occupied land that farmers could hardly give away.

  To the south I saw the old Kimpo Airport, and thought of the first time I landed at what was then Kimpo International, in 1989. I was seated next to a family of Canadian missionaries, four freckled kids listening to their parents reminisce about landing at Kimpo in the 1960s and watching their baggage proceed from airliner to tiny terminal by ox-drawn cart. By the late 80s, it was one of the world’s most modern airports, but that didn’t stop the government pushing on with the construction of a newer, even bigger international hub at Incheon, twenty miles to the west. Say what you like about the Koreans as a business force, but don’t dare accuse them of lacking long-term vision.

  Final approach seemed to take forever, and I just caught sight of the ocean before the pilot executed a textbook landing at Incheon International.

  I cruised through Immigration without delay and moved on to Customs.

  Hauling cases full of expensive equipment that could fetch double its cost on the local market, I was prepared for clearing Customs to take a while, but when I steered my overloaded trolley through the ‘nothing to declare’ lane, the fat man in the black uniform only did a double take at the photo in my passport before he smiled and waved me through. I never did like that photo.

  Automatic doors slid open and spat me out to face an expectant crowd held back by a sturdy stainless steel barrier. I caught myself looking out for faces I knew, a ridiculous notion that I choked back almost as soon as it surfaced. Instead, I scanned the crowd for the K-N Group logo. There, on a handwritten sign held up by a young Korean man wearing what looked like an Armani suit: ‘Welcome to Korea, Mr. Alec’. I was working for one of the richest, most sophisticated corporations in the country – and the man meeting me didn’t understand Western names. This works both ways. I once laughed my way through a best-selling novel whose Korean characters suffered Western-reader-friendly names about as realistic as Jones Brown, Smith Anderson and Bronstein Murphy.

  I waved and pointed a forefinger at the tip of my nose. The young man with the sign looked pleased to see me.

  I was back.

  Chapter Three

  Armani suit shook my hand.

  ‘Welcome to Korea. My family name is Lee but you can call me John.’

  He barked into a mobile phone while we zig-zagged along crowded pavement. In the No Parking zone outside, a tangle of cars, taxis and minivans sat at crazy angles, hurriedly loading up with luggage and grey-faced jet lag victims. Kids asleep on their feet or in their parents’ arms, heedless of the piercing whistles of blue-uniformed security men who tried to enforce some order but only added to the chaos.

  Screeching tyres drew my eye to a large black Hyundai that squealed to a halt outside two taxis. The driver leapt out, the boot lid popped up, and from its underside flapped damp cloths looped over bungee cords and a polishing device like a Chihuahua with a baton up its backside – essentials of the Korean chauffeur’s trade.

  He was a burly guy with a crew cut and a badly-set nose, but his blue suit was immaculately pressed, red tie clipped neatly to white shirt by a company pin. Pushing through two tired families, he plucked the trolley from my grasp and started to load the boot, hefting leaden cases as though they weighed nothing. Lee ignored him completely. Classless, Korea is not. When one of the taxi drivers cursed the chauffeur for blocking his exit, our man drew him an opaque glance and the taxi driver clammed up. The big city chauffeur suffers all manner of shit in the course of his working day, but occasionally he gets to pass some down the line. Right now the taxi driver was wearing it.

  As we butted our way onto the expressway for Seoul, Lee tried to make small talk, but I was more interested in what was going on outside the car.

  ‘You are very tired from the flight.’

  ‘I’m sorry, John. Yes, I am a little tired.’

  The driver slotted into the outside lane and I went back to watching the city unfold around us. Soon we hustled along a riverside expressway, eight lanes of compressed motorised anarchy. To the north, the Han River and the twinkle of the city centre. To the south, massive new apartment towns that to the first-time European visitor are something of an enigma. We are used to high-rise inner-city ghettos, dilapidated low-rent pigeon lofts for the flightless poor who live with peeling paint, boarded-up windows and overlapping graffiti, the installation art of the terminally bored. Seoul apartment blocks stood tall and proud, modern and clean and fully-occupied by middle-class citizens who paid huge sums for a three-bedroom high-rise box, and who couldn’t pick their next door neighbours out of an identity parade.

  Coming out of a spaghetti plate intersection we found Youido, a mid-river island that forty years ago was a military airfield. Now, as well as being home to the National Assembly, it was covered in apartment and office towers, many of them new to me. In the middle of the island, a massive paved Plaza swarmed with rental bikes and all around it, tall office towers glowed fluorescent green. The Korean white-collar worker doesn’t even think about leaving his desk until the boss heads for the elevator, and a rigid behavioural code means Korean bosses work late every night.

  Crossing the northern branch of the river we hit ageing tracts of low-rise housing punctured by eruptions of yet more shiny office and apartment towers. Between the gleaming monoliths, long-time city residents clung to life as they had known it for generations. Small businesses carved a sliver of the wealth created by decades of spectacular economic growth. Fashion retailers, beauty shops, hardware stores, coffee shops, restaurants, Internet cafes and beer-and-fried-chicken joints jostled for space with one-room churches, after-school study institutes and neon-lit Tae Kwon-do dojang, their windows flung wide to let in cool air heavy with the fumes of traffic jams that never really cleared.

  I scoured the streets for locations that sparked memories. A bulgogi beef restaurant where I first encountered soju, Korea’s take-no-prisoners staple liquor. A side street coffee shop where I met a doctor’s wife for weekly English conversation lessons that soon adjourned to a cosy back alley yogwan, or inn, where the lonely Mrs Choi cheerfully took over the role of teacher to her diligent and grateful student.

  The padded luxury of the big Hyundai must have won out, because the next thing I knew Lee was watching two men in overcoats and top hats load my luggage onto a tall brass trolley. As I climbed from the back seat, a vision of beauty in a burgundy uniform stepped forward and bowed deeply.

  ‘Welcome to the Grand Hyatt, Mr Brodie. I hope you had a pleasant flight. My name is Miss Kim.’

  Miss Kim. Three-quarters of Koreans share three surnames, one of them Kim, yet ever since this trip was mooted, my Miss Kim had been tramping regularly through my thoughts.

  One of the top hats held open the door, and I followed today’s Miss Kim into the hotel.

  Although I had been to the Hyatt many times, this was my first visit as a guest. The check-in experience was of the programmed efficiency and fawning courtesy you would expect of an ancient Eastern culture polished and shaped by exacting American training standards.

  When Miss Kim asked me for my credit card I hesitated and looked to Lee. He stepped forward.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘I wonder if your office mentioned the hotel bill.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I expected your company to want to take care of it.’ My eye was on the full-priced ‘rack rate’ printed on the form, US$275 per night. A company with K-N’s clout could easily secure a
heavy discount on that figure. Lee looked embarrassed and Miss Kim looked away. This was better side-stepped than confronted.

  ‘Perhaps I can leave my credit card details for now, and you could talk to your office about this?’

  Lee looked relieved and Miss Kim’s smile was as fixed as a flash photograph.

  She tried to make some amends by taking my VISA card with two hands, palms up and thumbs pressing gently down on the card, implying formality and respect. I tried to look unconcerned. That card was nearly maxed out, and I already had no idea how Naz was going to make the next bill.

  Eight p.m. local time and I was ready for a long soak in a hot tub, a couple of drinks, followed by about nine hours adrift in a bed the size of a tennis court. I asked Lee about the plan for the morning.

  ‘President Chang has invited you to dinner.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘He will pick you up at nine o’clock.’ Will. Client’s privilege.

  Scratch the hot tub. I had time for a quick shower and a shave and maybe a restorative hit of caffeine.

  Five minutes before nine saw me back among the top-hatted doormen.

  Precisely on the hour a big black Mercedes purred to a halt and John Lee jumped from the front passenger seat to open the rear door. Inside, President Chang carelessly folded an Asian Wall Street Journal. He wore a dark grey suit with the faintest of pin stripes. The suit jacket was double-breasted, unusual in Korea, and he wore it open to show off a tie so unforgivably ugly that it could only be Versace. His jet black hair was on the long side, yet looked as if he had only just risen from the barber’s chair. He had the ageless features of the healthy Korean; in his mid-fifties, to the Western eye, he could pass for twenty years younger. He stretched out a pale hand with shining, freshly-manicured nails. As we shook hands, I managed to bow and made sure the fingertips of my left hand, palm up, touched my right fore-arm. Maximum respect to a person of superior standing.