Yin Yang Tattoo

by Ron McMillan

‘It is so nice to see you again, Mr Brodie.’ He spoke with a plummy English Public School accent that was so much at odds with his handsome Oriental appearance.

  ‘Thank you for inviting me to dinner.’ And for the assignment from heaven.

  Chang looked up to the rear-view mirror and nodded. The Mercedes bolted from the kerb, folding me back in my seat.

  ‘I do hope you like Japanese food.’

  ‘Very much.’ I tried to hide my surprise. For many Koreans an invite to the table of their former Imperial ruler might imply that their country’s cuisine was inferior to that of its arch-enemy. The car slid to a gentle halt in a narrow lane running between the high, broken glass-topped walls that surrounded homes of the seriously rich. We had travelled no more than a quarter of a mile from the hotel, and now the same driver who met me at the airport held the door for Chang. John Lee stepped up to the other door. A rubbish collector in plastic sandals and filthy hand-me-downs manoeuvred a hand-cart around the Mercedes, still clanging oversized shears, crying out for newspapers, cardboard boxes and other recyclables. The gap between rich and poor in Korea is like a continental divide.

  A tall wooden gate slipped sideways, and an elderly lady in full Japanese Kimono clacked forward on wooden sandals to welcome Chang like an old family friend. Over the gate, CCTV cameras watched us from three different angles, doubtless letting the mama-san know who she was welcoming before he even got out of the car. Chang and I strode in to ringing choruses of ‘welcome’ in Japanese and Korean.

  The courtyard was groomed to perfection and beyond. A clear rock-lined fish pond wove between white-painted boulders and teemed with gold and white carp, their hungry maws yawning among floating lilies and orchids that I couldn’t begin to name. Over the pond stretched a tiny arched wooden bridge, painted bright red, and beyond that sat a house straight out of a Kurosawa movie.

  ‘Isn’t it something?’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘It used to belong to a businessman who was a great admirer of Japanese art and design.’ He led me over the little bridge and towards the entrance where half a dozen figures in kimonos performed synchronised jack-knife bows.

  I didn’t tell him that I had been here before, or that I knew it used to belong to a business magnate who founded his giant empire by collaborating with the Japanese Imperial Army’s occupying forces in the ‘thirties and ‘forties. For nearly fifty years its owner had watched his fortune grow until he fell foul of the military regime of the early eighties. Facing doubtful but genuinely threatening espionage charges, he bolted to Japan and died in exile in Kyoto, leaving his home and much of his wealth to be divided up by the Generals and their hangers-on. It was a very Korean story, and I wondered who ended up owning this place. For all I knew it could be Chang.

  Inside, young women clad in exquisite silk competed to remove our shoes and replace them with open-backed slippers embroidered with cranes in flight. They ushered us along a broad hallway decorated with Japanese watercolours of bamboo stalks and more birdlife. A dark-stained wood-and-paper door slid back, and Chang stepped aside to wave me in. The room was small and classically minimalist, with square cushions around a low, lacquered wooden table set in the middle of the tatami mat floor. The whole of the far wall consisted of glass that looked out upon a private courtyard of potted bonsai trees, miniature bubbling streams and precision-manicured gravel. Standing to greet us were two Korean women in their twenties, fashionably dressed in Western outfits that hugged impressive figures. The room smelled of fresh make-up and the lingering rasp of hurriedly-extinguished cigarettes. They bowed demurely, eyes down, hands clasped, and I looked the other way to hide my smile.

  Chapter Four

  Chang drew the hostesses a blatant look of appraisal before settling himself down beside the taller of the two. She had shining black hair whose thick wavy tresses flowed forward as she reached for a hot hand-towel which she unwrapped and offered to Chang. I took to the cushion opposite them and the second hostess settled beside me. She was very trim, with small breasts pushed skywards beneath a lacy top. Gently hennaed hair was parted dead centre and razor-cropped just below her ears, framing a face immaculately highlighted with expensive make-up in a purplish theme. It had to be the current look in the Korean fashion magazines, and though it didn’t quite work with her slender facial features, it was still a face that could bring London’s rush hour to a screeching halt.

  Addressing them with the casual familiarity of an aristocrat talking down to his serving staff, Chang asked their names. Each bobbed her head as she responded, and Chang did the honours.

  ‘This is Miss Hong.’ His fingertips brushed oh-so-casually against her breast. She shone a white-toothed welcome, first to Chang, and next to me.

  ‘And beside you is Miss Pang.’ He switched to Korean. ‘This is Mr Brodie.’ Miss Pang, reaching for a hot towel, dipped her eyes as she and her friend chorused,

  ‘Anyong-hassimnika.’ How do you do?

  This kind of personal attention from Chang was a surprise, but the situation was nothing new to me. Fifteen years before, my friend Mr Cho used to take me to his ‘room salons’, plush, hideously expensive night clubs where every party occupied a private room. Orders were placed by intercom telephone, and professional hostesses of every stripe might as well have been listed on the menu, so central was their role in proceedings.

  It was a role built on fawning obsequiousness, shameless flattery and braying laughter. For some it never went any further, but many were available for a price. I remember the first time Mr Cho took me to a room salon. After a few drinks while we picked at a mountainous fruit salad and struggled for conversation, he reached for the telephone and issued precise instructions. Soon a man in waiter costume arrived with a wiry, tired-looking young woman in garish clothes and carrying a hotel room key, which she put on the table in front of Mr Cho. Pushing the key and a wedge of cash back across the table to my new partner, Mr Cho wished me a cheerful goodnight.

  As I sneaked a glance at Miss Hong, something intruded in my peripheral vision. A piece of pineapple on a cocktail stick, held by Miss Pang, her other hand cupped pro„tectively below. I opened my mouth and smiled with my eyes.

  As she fed me, the painted nails of her left hand came gently to rest, high on my inner thigh. Things hadn’t changed much. Across the table Miss Hong was making clucking noises in Chang’s ear while kimono-clad waitresses shuffled in bearing trays stacked with unbelievable quantities of food and drink.

  Miss Hong and Miss Pang competed to give us maximum face by pouring the Chivas Regal. Chang played gentleman patriarch by politely pouring shorter whiskies for them.

  ‘Welcome to Korea, Mr Brodie.’ He raised his glass in two hands, implying unwarranted respect that I nonetheless appreciated. I was slipping effortlessly into the Korean routine of vital courtesies displayed at all times.

  ‘Thank you Mr Chang. Please call me Alec.’ He nodded, and I pretended not to notice that he failed to return the compliment. In the foreign media he was Peter Chang, but in present company, it was Mr.

  ‘Mr Rhee mentioned publications for a stock market flotation?’

  Chang’s eyes narrowed like a bad poker player’s. I glanced at Miss Hong and Miss Pang, who nuzzled and grinned, on high alert for cues to join the conversation.

  ‘Is this a bad time – ’

  ‘Not at all. I was just enjoying a moment free of company pressures.’ As you might expect of a veteran of countless hi-pressure negotiations, he lied without effort. Billionaire Asian industrialist takes time out to kick back with near-stranger Scottish photographer. Give me a break.

  ‘I understand.’ Lying was my only option, too.

  ‘Mr Rhee was right, of course. K-N Group is about to undergo a major series of stock market issues in New York and Tokyo. They will be the first of their kind for a Korean Chaebol.’ He paused. ‘You are of course familiar with the Chaebol?’

  Anyone with even a passing interest in Korea knows about the
Chaebol. Vast, family-controlled conglomerates that make everything from silicon chips to the world’s largest container vessels and cruise liners, a handful of Chaebol dominate the Korean economy. I nodded and he went on.

  ‘Since this is the first issue of its kind for K-N Group, its confidentiality is absolutely imperative. So forgive me if I don’t go into any greater detail.’

  Time to change the subject. Before I could think of anything Chang did it for me and addressed the women.

  ‘Yong-au-rul haeyo?’ Can you speak English?

  Miss Hong raised forefinger and thumb, half an inch apart, universal sign-language, Lesson One.

  ‘Jekkum-man.’

  Miss Pang nodded an earnest ‘me too’.

  Chang pointed to the growing spread of dishes laid out across the scorched teak table top. ‘These are a big favourite in Korea. Do you know why?’

  I thought I knew, but this was a time to play along.

  ‘Is it because they’re spicy?’ The last thing they would be was spicy, but I could role-play, too.

  ‘Noooooh,’ he laughed. ‘It’s because in Japan they are called ‘kai seki’.’ The women’s hands shot in front of their faces, shielding their amusement in the modest manner of the well-brought-up Korean female.

  ‘Ah-haah – you mean like kae-seki?’ More explosions of suppressed laughter at my pronunciation of the most common yet most passionate of Korean swear-words.

  ‘Han-guk-mal charrashinae,’ cried Miss Pang. I too had to laugh, imagining a Korean guest at an English dinner party shouting out ‘fucking arsehole’, to gleeful declarations of ‘he speaks English!’

  ‘Que yang-ban-ee, hanguk-mal nomu charrashinae,’ said Chang to two pairs of raised, pencilled eyebrows. ‘Yet-nal-ae, Seoul-ae sarrasoyo.’ Murmurs of understanding came from our hired partners.

  What was this? Last year when I photographed Chang I gave him my standard line of having ‘spent some time’ in Korea, but I never said that I used to live in Seoul. Or that I spoke any Korean. Now, Chang spoke to me in English.

  ‘When did you first come to Korea, Alec?’

  ‘In 1989. Why do you ask?’ Too late, I wished I could swallow the insolence implicit in those last four words.

  ‘Did you originally come here to teach English?’

  Who said anything about teaching English?

  ‘Or was it Tae Kwon-do that really brought you here?’

  ‘Tae Kwon-do?’ said Miss Pang, picking up something she understood. Chang answered her in Korean.

  ‘This gentleman knows Tae Kwon-do. He studied it while he was living in Seoul for more than five years.’

  As if he could read the confusion on my face, he fed me a wry glance. Miss Pang said something and the three of them laughed. Chang explained:

  ‘She says she envies you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Your hair.’ He translated, and the two hostesses giggled.

  Miss Pang took her hand from where it rested on my forearm and casually ran her fingers through ringlets that got curlier the longer they grew. In a nation whose entire population has straight black hair, my curly, collar-length blond hair was often a source of fascination. Miss Pang’s fingernails played gently with my scalp.

  We turned our attentions to a table full of food. It was authentic Japanese cuisine at its best, a subtle feast presented artistically, innumerable small dishes laid out like elements in a landscape painting. Miss Pang poured soya sauce into a tiny round dish and nodded at the lime-green wasabe paste.

  ‘Do you like?’

  Using metal chopsticks, she nipped a bud of green wasabe mustard paste and mixed it carefully into the soya sauce, pinching the broken pieces until they dissolved, turning the sauce a lighter brown that I knew would now pack a wicked bite. Wasabe is an absolute delight so long as you remember not to breathe in through your nose while you chew. Instant tears.

  Chang made small talk in English and Korean, drawing happy laughs from the women and occasional polite involvement from me. My thoughts kept turning to what he had said earlier. Why would he be so interested in what I did fifteen years ago? How could Chang know about the English teaching, the Tae Kwon-do – and what else did he know?

  ‘Do you remember Ben?’

  ‘Ben?’ Oh no.

  ‘Last year when you photographed me. Don’t you remember Ben Schwartz, my PR man?’

  Clunk. Pieces falling into place. Ben Schwartz was a New Yorker who had lived in Seoul for nearly twenty years. When I first came to Korea he was a low-level hack at a local business monthly, but last year I heard from Chang that Schwartz had his own Public Relations outfit and was calling himself a ‘Consultant’.

  Chang was waiting for a response.

  ‘How is Ben? Is he still in Korea?’

  I hoped not. The bastard’s interference made that portrait assignment a nightmare.

  ‘Ben’s been here for so long that he’s almost a Korean. He has a Korean wife and he speaks Korean like a native. You and he will be working together very closely.’

  No.

  ‘He’s in charge of all the printed materials that will use your photographs.’

  My heart sank. ‘It’ll be nice to see him again.’ Some lies are harder to utter than others.

  ‘He’ll meet you for breakfast at the hotel at eight o’clock.’

  I could hardly wait.

  The rest of the meal passed in a depressive blur, the combined powers of creeping jet-lag, Chivas Regal and the thought of working with Schwartz doing their best to spoil my homecoming. I thought of poor Naz sitting in London, fielding ugly calls from my creditors. The whole point of this was to generate the bucks to put an end to those phone calls and, if that meant dealing with Ben Schwartz, I had to make it work.

  The dinner concluded with characteristic abruptness. One minute it’s all ‘dipshida’ (cheers) and wrestling with the bottle for the privilege of pouring the other guy a drink, and the next, without announcement, on go the jackets.

  The women had slipped out earlier, to the ladies room I thought, but now there was no sign of them. They were paid help, their job was done, and I missed them already.

  We departed to loud, grateful Korean and Japanese cries that implored us to come again soon.

  Chang’s Mercedes waited outside the gate, and two minutes later he left me at the door of the Hyatt. I thanked him and wished him goodnight. Fat tyres clawed asphalt as the limousine sped into the darkness.

  The cathedral-sized lobby buzzed with midnight chit-chat and restrained music from a string quartet in starched dinner suits. Reluctantly discounting the notion of another drink, I headed for the elevators.

  I stepped out on the nineteenth floor and padded the thickly-carpeted corridor to my room. When I reached into my jacket pocket for the key card, it wasn’t there. Nor was it in any other pocket, no matter how often I looked. I kicked at the door in anger.

  The door swung open and there, side-lit by a warm tungsten glow from the open bathroom, stood Miss Hong. Her hair was newly brushed, she smelt of soap, and was wrapped in a heavy towelling bathrobe tied lightly around her narrow waist. She was barefoot, and her painted toenails glistened a suggestive pink. In one hand she cupped two crystal glasses. Between the fingers of the other, miniatures of whisky rattled as she waved them at me.

  ‘Oh-so-u-seyo.’ Welcome.

  Chapter Five

  The hotel coffee shop at the height of the breakfast trade was just about more than I could handle. Artificial lights glowed weakly from recessed reflectors rendered all but redundant by the morning sun blazing through a double-height glass wall like the flash hell of a nuclear blast. Beyond the blue swimming pool, the grey-brown expanse that was the Han River swept westwards, its southern bank a uniform concrete horizon.

  The coffee shop diners were the usual mix of fresh-faced locals and weary foreign business travellers, jaded from long flights or late nights or both, complexions paled by lives spent in airports and fluorescent-lit factories and conf
erence rooms. The existence of the international business traveller owed more to routine tedium than the outsider could imagine. A half century before him, the travelling salesman trudged the length and breadth of Britain by rail, lugging a cardboard suitcase of samples from station to boarding house to prospective client. Today, ‘Marketing Vice Presidents’ crossed continents from airport to deluxe hotel to airport, Samsonite Oysters and eel skin briefcases heavy with laptop computers and multimedia presentation kits. Like the factory workers back home who thought their lives so exotic, an awful percentage of these latter-day Tupperware men would expire face-down in middle-age, heart disease or alcoholism snuffing pipedreams of happy retirements on sunlit golf courses.

  Florid faces picked listlessly at greasy food and sucked at iced water or coffee or orange juice, their jet-lag, hangovers and the day’s work worries writ clear on furrowed brows.

  I knew exactly how they felt.

  I had emerged very tentatively from my whisky-sodden slumber at six o’clock, a little surprised to find myself alone. Miss Hong had slipped away sometime before dawn without waking me, but the Rolling Stones could have held a sound-check at the foot of my bed without disturbing me. I made straight for the mini-bar, shuddering at the sight of empty miniatures lining the shelf above it. I pulled long and hard on a bottle of tooth-achingly cold mineral water. The stuffy room was still heavy with Miss Hong’s scent and I had to laugh at the exhausted face that stared back from the mirror. My head felt like I had out-drunk a pub full of football fans on Cup Final night, but my loins had that delicious spent feeling that comes only from a good night’s romp.

  Miss Hong was a wild and welcome addition to a long succession of Korean memories linking heavy drinking to hearty, uninhibited sex. When I finished showering, she led me by the hand to the huge bed, lay me down on my back and, after gently exploring my navel with a manicured fingernail, carefully filled it with whisky. She batted mascaraed eyelashes mischievously before lowering the tip of her tongue and licking me dry. A gentle kiss left a perfect lipstick print high on my inner thigh before she lay back and handed me the bottle. My turn.