Martin Limón - Nightmare Range

The Widow Po danced toward Ernie. When she was close enough, she grabbed his wrist and started twirling Ernie around faster. Soon the other women took their seats as my partner, Ernie Bascom, and the mudang , Widow Po, swirled around the entire floor. The rhythm of the cymbals and drums grew more frenzied. The Widow Po reached down, gracefully plucked up an open bottle of soju , and once again poured a healthy glug down Ernie’s throat. One of the women in the crowd stood and pulled off his jacket. The Widow Po’s hood fell back. She wasn’t a bad looking woman, at least ten years older than Ernie but with a strong face and high cheekbones. The blemish was the pox. The flesh of her entire face was marked by the scars of some hideous childhood disease.

Ernie didn’t seem to notice. Especially when the Widow Po started rubbing her body against his.

The matronly women in the crowd squealed with delight. Even the modest Miss Choi covered her face with both hands, attempting to hide her mirth.

Ernie motioned for more soju and the Widow Po obliged but then, after another glug had dribbled down Ernie’s cheeks, the Widow Po suddenly stopped dancing. The music stopped. Ernie kept twirling for a few seconds and then stopped dancing himself. He glanced around, confused.

The Widow Po stood in the center of the floor, her head bowed, ignoring him. Sensing that his moment in the spotlight was over, Ernie grinned, grabbed the half-full bottle of soju off the low table, and resumed his seat on the far side of the hall.

No one moved for what seemed a long time-maybe five minutes. Finally, the Widow Po screamed.

The voice was high, banshee-like. The Korean was garbled, as if from a person who was ill or in great pain, and I could understand none of it. The attention turned to one of the women in the crowd. She was plump, holding a handkerchief to her face, crying profusely. The Widow Po approached her, still using the strange, falsetto voice. Finally, the crying woman burst out.

“Hyong-ae! Wei domang kasso.”

That I understood. Why did you leave me, Hyong-ae?

The Widow Po and the crying woman went back and forth, asking questions of one another, casting accusations, arguing. I leaned toward Miss Choi with a quizzical look on my face. She explained.

“Hyong-ae was her daughter. She died in a car accident last year. Now she’s blaming her mother for buying her a car.”

“The Widow Po is playing the part of her daughter?”

“Not playing. Hyung-ae’s spirit has entered her body.”

I stared at Miss Choi for a moment, wondering if she believed that. She blushed and turned away from me. I left it alone.

The crying matron and the Widow Po screamed back and forth at one another. The mom saying now that Hyung-ae, when she was alive, wouldn’t let her rest until she bought her a car. Hyung-ae countering that a mother should know what is best for her child. They were bickering like any mother and willful young daughter and yet it was eerie. How did the Widow Po know so much about other people’s lives? I didn’t bother to ask Miss Choi about it. I knew her answer. The Widow Po was possessed by the spirit of Hyung-ae.

Suddenly, the Widow Po let out a screech of pain. She knelt to the floor, hugging herself, and remained perfectly still for a few minutes. Without a cue, the musicians started again and then the Widow Po was up and dancing and a few minutes later she yelled again. This time an old grandfather took possession of her body. Another woman in the crowd spoke to this ghostly presence, giving him a report on the welfare of the family. When she was finished, the old man scolded her for not forcing his grandchildren to study hard enough.

Then this grandfather was gone and a few minutes later another spirit took possession of the perspiring body of the Widow Po.

The kut continued like this for over an hour. Ernie was growing restless but the women surrounding him read him like a book and kept pouring him small glassfuls of soju and stuffing sweet pink rice cakes down his throat.

Ernie must’ve already polished off a liter and a half of soju by the time the Widow Po growled.

Her eyes were like a she-wolf. She stalked toward Ernie. He stared up at her, half a rice cake in his mouth, dumfounded.

“ Choryo !” she shouted. Attention!

Ernie didn’t understand but the women around him shoved him to his feet.

“ Apuroi ka !” the Widow Po commanded. Forward march!

Again the women pushed Ernie forward and he marched to the center of the floor.

“ Chongji !” the Widow Po told Ernie. Halt!

Ernie understood that one. “Halt” was the one Korean word that 8th Army GI’s were taught, so they wouldn’t be shot by nervous Korean sentries. Ernie stopped, standing almost at the position of attention, a half-empty bottle of soju loose in his hand.

Miss Choi leaned toward me. “The soldier,” she said. “The one I told you about.”

Ernie reached for the Widow Po, thinking she was going to start rubbing her body against his again, but she would have none of it. She slapped his hand away and stepped forward, her hands on her hips, screaming into Ernie’s face. The words were coming out so fast and so furious-in a deep, garbled voice-that I could understand little of it. Miss Choi translated.

“He’s angry. ‘Why have you kept me waiting so long?’ he says.”

“Who’s kept him waiting?”

“You,” she said. “ Mi Pal Kun. ” The 8th United States Army.

“Waiting for what?”

“To talk to him. To let him explain.”

“Who is he?”

Miss Choi listened to the rant for a few more seconds and then said, “I’m not sure. The name sounds like mori di .”

Mori means “hair” or “head” in the Korean language. Di meant nothing, unless the spirit was referring to the letter “d” as in the English alphabet.

Ernie was becoming impatient with being screamed at. He lifted the soju bottle and took a drink. The Widow Po slapped the bottle from his lips and it crashed against the belly of the bronze god. Then the Widow Po leapt at Ernie, throwing left hooks and then rights, punching like a man.

The matronly women bounded to their feet and grabbed the Widow Po and held her on the floor, writhing and spitting. Ernie wasn’t damaged badly, just a bruise beneath his left eye.

The Widow Po kept shouting invective in garbled Korean, her burning eyes focused fiercely on Ernie.

“What’s she saying?” I asked Miss Choi.

“He,” she corrected. “ Mori Di , the spirit who possesses her. He says that you must start your work immediately. There must be no further delay.”

“What work?”

“I thought you understood.”

“No. The Widow Po is speaking much too fast for me to follow.”

“ Mori Di was an American soldier,” Miss Choi explained. “He died more than twenty years ago. He wants you to start an investigation and find the person who did this.”

“Find the person who did what?”

“Find the person who murdered him.”

The Widow Po let out one more guttural screech and her eyes rolled up into her head until only the whites showed. Then she let out a huge blast of rancid air and passed out cold.

Ernie slapped dust mites away from his nose.

“This is bull,” he said.

I tried to ignore him. Instead I continued down the row in the dimly lit warehouse, shining my flashlights on walls of stacked cardboard. We were looking for the box marked SIRs, FY54 . Serious Incident Reports. Fiscal Year 1954.

Exactly twenty years ago.

The NCO in charge of 8th Army Records Storage hadn’t been happy to see two CID agents barge in unannounced. He pulled his boots off his desk, hid his comic book, and had to pretend that he’d been working. When I told him what I wanted, he was incredulous.