Yin Yang Tattoo

by Ron McMillan

  The cheery ajimah stood patiently by my table, battered red worker’s hands flat on the hips of her apron, talking non-stop at me, unconcerned that I had yet to utter a single word in response. From now on unlike that guy in the newspapers, this foreigner spoke no Korean. I pointed to the menu painted on the wall, shoulders shrugged and palms raised in a pantomime apology. She shuffled off, plastic slippers grating on concrete, and plucked something from between the two men at the table in the other corner. The foreigner’s menu, a small album of laminated photographs labelled with prices.

  I knew exactly what I wanted but pored over the photographs for a minute before pointing at the blurry image of hwae top-bap. Almost as an afterthought, I did the sign-language for drinking.

  ‘Beer?’

  ‘Maek-ju’ said the ajimah.

  ‘Yes, maek-ju. One bottle of maek-ju, please.’ This was a lot easier in Korean.

  Visibly pleased with herself, my helper headed for the kitchen, and emerged a few seconds later with a tall bottle and a glass.

  ‘Kam-sa-hamnida.’ I made my speech clumsy and uncertain.

  She bowed her head politely and left smiling broadly at the foreigner who could almost say ‘beer’ and ‘thank you’.

  I drank my beer and tried not to stare at the trio in the corner. I wanted to avoid attention, to project the impression of a tourist without a care in the world, not the terrified look of the hunted man I had seen in the shop window that morning.

  The three spoke English, small talk about the food and the beer and prices of things and places they had visited. I made her for about thirty years old, and American. Her companions sounded French and German, and looked five or six years her junior. They called her Rose. She looked like an office professional on holiday, while the other two had the air of budget travellers, hair unkempt, clothes faded, tired footwear fraying at the seams. The German called out, a brusque demand for more soju, and I saw a flicker of concern in the face of the ajimah. At the end of their table stood five empty bottles, more than enough to sink three soju novices without trace. The German grabbed the new bottle and made a production out of re-filling the Frenchman’s shot glass. Rose covered hers with one hand in a firm gesture that said ‘no’.

  ‘Cheers, stück dreck.’ The German toasted the Frenchman.

  ‘Santé.’ The cheerful Frenchman was oblivious to being called a piece of shit. They hectored Rose into picking up her glass and, while they threw the liquor back with theatrical gusto, she took a token sip. The lady wasn’t having much fun, but her boyish suitors were too far gone to notice.

  My food arrived. I scooped sticky red chili paste, or kochujang from a plastic dish into the middle of the ball of white rice that lay almost obscured by long thin slivers of translucent raw fish and finely-chopped raw vegetables.

  One autumn weekend on the east coast years before, I was the attentive pupil as Jung-hwa taught me the joys of raw fish, Korean style. The trick with hwae top-bap, I learned, was to get the chili paste mixed uniformly through, to soak its spicy garlic-heavy flavour into the entire dish. Fresh, unseasoned raw fish falls apart, invading the mouth with the taste of the ocean. Soak the fish in kochujang and its effect enters a whole new dimension. Surround it with crunchy fresh vegetables and a hint of sesame oil, and you get a meal you will never forget, and that no fast-food afficionado will ever come close to understanding.

  I spooned the first mouthful home just as the ajimah pointed a remote control at the television suspended over the kitchen doorway. The screen came to life at the top of a news bulletin, and it was all I could do to resist the temptation to run for cover.

  I was demoted down the news order, but only as far as third story, after a pitched battle between opposing factions of Seoul pacifist monks and striking shipyard workers in Ulsan. Next, the manhunt story led with a full-screen shot of that photograph. The one with the confident gaze and the curly blond hair. I leaned back in my chair and feigned casual interest. The bulletin went on forever while citizens were assured that everything possible was being done to bring an evil foreigner to justice. My stomach lurched with fear as I watched interviews with an extravagantly uniformed police chief and detectives in ill-fitting suits, and at one point Detective Kwok hurried away from a chasing camera, palm outwards signalling ‘no comment’. More uniformed cops knocked on doors and handed out two-colour flyers bearing my photograph. There were reports from Immigration counters at Incheon airport, and footage of passengers queuing for the daily ferry from Pusan to Japan. After an age I peeled my gaze from the screen, and only when I was rescued by the latest action from the big baseball match did it occur to me: not one person in the room had paid me so much as a glance. The new hairstyle had done its job. I picked up the empty beer bottle and waved it to the ajimah.

  Half of my meal had disappeared unnoticed. The television picture dissolved leaving a silence broken only by the quiet murmur of conversation and the odd explosion of drunken laughter from the two Europeans. Their companion looked increasingly uncomfortable. She tried to get up and leave, only to be loudly persuaded, almost bullied, to stay ‘for just one more drink’. I pulled a dog-eared Robert B. Parker novel from my pocket and read it one-handed while spooning the last of red-tinged rice and raw fish with the other. It stretched my multi-tasking skills to their limits.

  I was struggling to maintain concentration on a show-down between the Boston private eye and two knife-wielding Chicanos when the Frenchman got to his feet, let a couple of banknotes flutter to the table and staggered out into the street. I almost felt sorry for him. I knew all about that deathly moment of realisation when the hitherto limitless joy of inebriation was snuffed out by the raging power of the drink.

  A few minutes later, I closed my book and walked to the counter beside the door to settle my tab.

  Rose was hemmed in by the German. She signalled to the ajimah, calling in Korean for the bill. The German gave her some money and disappeared towards the toilet as I shouldered the door wide and headed out into the cool night air.

  I made it about half way to the yogwan when the sound of hurried footsteps made me turn. The American woman held the middle of the trail as if frightened by its shadowy flanks. She looked up from the path and straight at me.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Where’s the fire?’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘You look like you’re in a hurry.’

  ‘Just heading back to my room.’ She pointed up the hill. ‘We came in on the same bus.’

  ‘I remember.’ I was hoping she hadn’t remembered the blond curls hiding under the baseball cap.

  She fell into step beside me.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Ireland.’ I had anticipated the question coming up at some point, and a lot of people, Americans and Koreans included, can’t usually tell Scottish from Irish.

  ‘I thought I heard an accent.’

  ‘You mean an un-American accent?’

  ‘I’m Canadian, but I suppose that’s exactly what I meant.’

  ‘Where’s your friend?’

  ‘Stefan? I don’t really know him. I just met him and Jean-Marc on the way to the restaurant.’

  ‘And got roped into more than you bargained for?’

  ‘They are new to soju, and wouldn’t listen when I said they had to be careful with the stuff. After a while, the macho posturing wore a bit thin.’

  Rounding a corner in the steep trail, we stopped to catch our breath and take in the unbroken view over the village and beyond, to a horizon ablaze with fishing boats. Powerful floodlights shone downwards to attract schools of fish and squid, and sent rippling rays like outstretched glowing fingers that fanned across inky black sea to the rocky shoreline.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘One of my favourite places on the planet.’

  ‘You’ve been here before?’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘On holiday. You?’
/>   ‘The same. I live in Seoul.’

  I had not enjoyed an innocent conversation in a very long time. Before I could respond, Stefan appeared from around the corner and stopped abruptly, chest heaving. He swayed like bamboo in a typhoon. Very thickset bamboo.

  ‘Ach sooo, now I find you.’

  He wasn’t talking to me.

  ‘Why did you run away?’

  Rose looked tired. ‘I wanted to get back.’

  ‘We were going to walk together, you said so.’ As if picking up on my presence for the first time, he switched his wavering look to me. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘No-one.’

  ‘OK, so fuck off Mr No-one, and give me and my friend peace.’

  He waved his big right hand directly at my face. The last thing he wanted me to do was leave while he put on a show in front of his dinner companion. He prodded at my chest with a fat finger, catching me square on the nipple. It hurt like hell. He did it again. I didn’t move.

  ‘You maybe have some problems to understand English?’

  I knew exactly where this was going. I also knew I should walk away right now, but I had taken more than enough shit for one day. I gently slid my left foot back and stood, weight evenly distributed, hands clear of my body.

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘You think you are good enough, Mr No-one? Something special, eh?’ His whole body off-synch from the soju, he wavered forward to stare me down. He reeked of alcohol and garlic. I edged back slightly and made one last weak attempt to side-step an inevitability, the prospect of which I was beginning to relish.

  ‘We were only talking while we walked up the hill.’

  I was still speaking when he swung a looping right hook at my chin. If nothing else, he was predictable.

  I dipped back, and as his fist whistled past my face, I hammered it along its wayward track with a forearm block and made for a low kick with my left that instantly drew broad forearms crossed over his groin, but my kick was a feint. I planted the foot, spun, and drove my right heel deep into his solar plexus.

  Movie heroes prefer the more cinematic spinning back kick to the head, but in the real world, a shorter strike at a bigger target is the only way to go. His lungs emptied with a whoosh and he went down like he was there to stay. Face purple, he fought for oxygen and when it came he threw up, spasms shaking his entire frame.

  Rose looked shocked.

  ‘You didn’t need to do that for me.’

  ‘I didn’t. It was me he was trying to knock me into next week.’

  ‘So you just had to put him down?’ She shook her head, and her expression changed. This was getting us nowhere, and she knew it. ‘I could do with a drink.’

  ‘What about him?’ I pointed a toe. Stefan flinched reflexively, and I pointed the toe again, prompting another flinch. I could get to enjoy this.

  ‘He and the other guy are sharing a room at the yogwan.’

  ‘I hope they have the sense to sleep with a window open.’

  At last her look softened, and she turned towards the village lights.

  ‘Come on.’ I followed in her footsteps, wondering why a woman so wary of one set of drunks was apparently without fear of spending time with a guy who, for all she knew was another one; and wasn’t I supposed to be keeping a low profile? I followed her along the track towards the village.

  In a narrow back street, she knocked on the sliding doors of a corner shop, spoke to an old man in Korean, and came away with two soft plastic bottles of milky makkali, a beery, unrefined rice wine.

  ‘Home-made.’

  ‘Fine by me.’ I loved the stuff. ‘Where will we go to drink it?’

  ‘Back to the yogwan, I guess. So long as you behave.’ She wasn’t joking.

  At the front entrance to the inn, she pulled up.

  ‘Your place or mine?’ There was a hint of humour in her tone, but nothing else, I was sure.

  ‘Yours. Mine is a mess.’ Blond hair all over the bathroom.

  Her room had a traditional ondol heated floor, brightly-coloured fold-up bedding piled neatly against one wall. While she rinsed two plastic toothbrush mugs I peeled the top from a makkali bottle.

  Shoes off, we sat cross-legged on the warm floor and clinked mugs.

  ‘Cheers, Rose.’

  The look she drew me was dusted with suspicion. ‘I’m at a disadvantage here.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s John.’ My brother’s name.

  So much for keeping a low profile I thought again, as we worked our way through both bottles of the beery wine. I shouldn’t even be here but, right then, the draw of innocent chit-chat, totally divorced from all the shit in my real world, was impossible to resist.

  We stuck to small talk. My brother John ran a bar in Hong Kong, and since I know a thing or two about bars, I told her that was what I did. She had never been to Hong Kong, so I ran off a few ten-year-old impressions and vague generalisations before changing the topic.

  ‘What about you. Where did you learn to speak Korean so well?’

  ‘I grew up here.’ It came out in a way that flagged the subject as a no-go area, so I left it.

  I was alone with an attractive woman in her bedroom, yet the air remained flat and uncharged, completely devoid of sexual intrigue. She sat tugging distractedly at her pony tail, clearly pre-occupied. I remembered the unlikely group she made with the two Europeans at the restaurant. Perhaps she chose my company for the same reasons she opted to sit with them – an unwillingness to be alone. Innocent escapist companionship, strings neither attached nor desired. Maybe we had more in common than I would have guessed.

  I drew back the sleeve of my sweatshirt to look at my watch, then quickly pulled it down again. Even if sex had been in the air, I thought, unless it took place in pitch darkness I was off-limits, arms and chest covered as they were in downy fair hair.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’

  ‘Nothing. Just thinking. I better go. I’ve had a long couple of days.’

  Of course she didn’t object. At the doorway, while I struggled with my shoes, I said:

  ‘I might take a walk along the coast in the morning. Not too early. Want to come?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see you around.’

  Then I did something I hadn’t done with a woman in years. I shook her hand.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The eastern sky signalled the emergent dawn, a dark blue horizon tinged with gold and smudged by the distant rolling of powerful currents.

  When the ringing tone came, it brought with it the comforting familiarity of a number called a thousand times before. I held my breath.

  ‘Hello – ’

  ‘Naz! It’s me. I’m – ’

  ‘You know what to do. Wait for the l-o-n-g beep, then leave a message.’

  I waited. She was right. The bloody beep went on forever.

  ‘Naz, it’s me, are you there? Pick up the phone, this is important. Naz? Come on, talk to me Naz, talk to me.’

  Nothing. I stood shivering until the machine cut the connection.

  The card slid silently from the public telephone. I pushed it back and dialled the studio. Same thing. Except this time I listened to myself tell me to please leave me a message and I would get back to me. Since I hoped Naz would be there some time soon, I did.

  ‘Naz, it’s Alec. Sorry I haven’t called for a few days but, well, I’m in trouble, a lot of trouble. The assignment’s gone to hell and now the police are looking for me. You’ve probably heard about it already, but I didn’t do what they’re saying. I’m still in Korea, because the police have my passport. I’m pretty safe now, just trying to work out what to do next. When I’ve got a better idea what’s happening, I’ll call again. Bye.’

  I clattered the receiver into place, spun outwards and pressed my face against the cold glass of the booth. Choking sobs slowly died away, tears, salty and full of shame, ran down my cheeks and into the corners of my mouth. Lights in the village flared and merged into watery starb
ursts.

  I flopped onto a dew-soaked bench and fought the urge to lean back and wail at the sky. I had put off talking to Naz out of dread at the thought of her voice, normally so full of spirit and mischief, reduced to a one-dimensional squawk by the transcontinental phone line and the news I had for her. Dread at the image of her, wide-eyed and wordless at the latest shit I was dragging my feet through.

  Not that she would stay wordless for long – and that was where the tears came from. I ached for her friendly voice, even if it did rail at me for being a fuck-up.

  I dug the purple phone from my pocket, thumbed the power button and dialled the number for Jung-hwa’s mobile. After a few seconds of electronic limbo, the connection came through.

  ‘Yoboseyo.’ Hello. Jung-hwa’s voice. Sleepy and irritable.

  ‘It’s me. Can you talk?’

  ‘Wrong number, asshole.’ In Korean. Convincingly angry, playing to the audience I had hoped might not be there.

  ‘Call me back,’ I said, just before the line went dead.

  I walked down to the village as the rising sun shot fiery stripes into the sky. Cockerels wandered narrow lanes, their discordant wake-up calls echoing off flinty stone walls.

  Five wooden fishing boats with boxy cockpits sat motionless in the fuel-rainbowed water of the miniature harbour, decks cluttered with the gear of their trade. Spiders’ webs of ropes and pulleys secured batons of tungsten lamps in giant stainless reflectors the size of umbrellas.

  On one boat deck, a man in patched overalls sat deep in concentration. The nub of a cigarette smouldered in the corner of his mouth while, from gnarled hands, fluid blue stitches flowed across a sun-bleached net.

  Another fisherman stood on the stone jetty and wielded a sturdy bamboo pole with a heavy loop of thick rope fixed to one end. With each downward swing he drove the rope onto a fishing net spread out across the pier. Plumes of dust and salt rose with each strike. Enshrouded by a particle cloud and backlit by the rising sun, the man became part of the landscape, a vision of ancestors who had worked this coastline for thousands of years before him. Deep-rooted instincts of my own took over, and while I perched unnoticed on a rope-wrapped bollard I calmly shot frames with the rangefinder from my belt pouch, freezing a dark sinewy silhouette against the dawn sky. The old camera was near-silent, and if he picked up on my presence, the man paid no heed, until the tinny wailing din of a Korean pop song from the purple phone in my pocket destroyed the moment for us both. Pole in the air, he stopped in mid-swing and looked at me, expressionless.