Hwang Sok-Yong - The Shadow of Arms

Then, there was James. . Hae Jong remembered their child. They were separated right after the adoption agency placed it with foster parents, so by now it must be growing up as the youngest of some family somewhere in America. James, first lieutenant in the US Army, high school history teacher, Anglo-Saxon, typically middle class, yellow roses on green lawns, low fences painted in bright colors, little brothers in checked shirts, girlfriend named Eileen, tears running through hairy fingers, Uijeongbu, the same US officer’s trench coat she had seen in Waterloo Bridge , the cheap rented house near the base, the harsh cold drafts of February slithering in through the cracks in the window frame. .

Hae Jong scooped up some more water and ran her fingers over her face. The light was still flickering. The white paint on the plywood ceiling was peeling off around the edges. A lizard the size of a man’s palm was crawling across it upside down. It stuck tenaciously to the ceiling, gripping with its skinny toes. A long forked tongue flicked in and out from time to time, unwinding to nearly half the length of its body. It stopped for a moment, then scurried toward the light fixture and froze once more.

The telephone was ringing, but Hae Jong did not even lift her head from the rim of the tub. The lizard crouched, then suddenly extended its neck and its long tongue shot out to whip around the moth. The insect fluttered futilely to try to escape, but was pulled back to the lizard’s mouth where the jaws locked down on its thorax. The telephone kept on ringing, but Hae Jong did not remove her eyes from the lizard. Its throat was distended as if swollen, and in a moment the moth’s wings disappeared into its mouth. The white eyelids of the lizard opened and closed like a chicken’s.

The telephone stopped ringing. Only then did Hae Jong look over into the other room. On the radio an announcer was crisply enunciating the results of a northern assault. Hae Jong slid her way up out of the tub. Though it was out of her reach, the movement sent the lizard scrambling across the ceiling and after some quick darting leaps it vanished into a crack in the plywood. How well do cold-blooded reptiles adapt to the dark? It would sleep in there a long time, digesting the moth.

Hae Jong stood before the mirror. A few curly hairs lay in the sink. Her body was firm, still free of any excess fat. The nipples were somewhat dark but upright, and her belly was smooth and flat. As fat Jerry had once said, her skin was “a lighter shade of ivory than a white woman’s.” That high nose and those large, deep-set eyes, for which her Korean classmates in high school had teased her as mixed-blood, were peering back at her from the looking glass. Standing out prominently was the mole she had come to despise. It was a dark blue color. She did not like those eyes, either. Shadows had settled in around them and they had lost the brightness they once had. Of all her features those eyes were what revealed the passage of time. Was it James and the baby that had taken away the gleam in her eyes? Or could it have been the long stretches of sleeping since coming to this place?

After towel-drying her wet hair, Hae Jong went into the other room. Noticing that the band of sunrays no longer shone in between the shutters, she told herself the sun must have gone down. The bed was still unmade, with the sheets half pulled off and a pillow dangling from the headboard ledge. A radio sitting on the same ledge was now belting out American country songs.

The apartment was divided into two parts. One was the bedroom with attached bath and the other was the outer space used for a living room and a kitchen, though the latter was no more than a small sink basin and a kerosene stove. Against the wall was an old couch and there was also a mahogany table with four rickety wicker chairs. An old Westinghouse fan hung from the ceiling. Out through the front door was a broad terrace. A platanus tree had grown right up next to the window, dropping leaves over the curb into Doc Lap Boulevard.

In the old days Hotel Thanh Thanh had been a luxurious residence for French colonial officials, but these days it was owned by a Chinese and had been turned into a high-class hotel and apartment building. On occasion a foreign prostitute would move in, paying rent in advance for a few months, make money, and then leave. Sometimes employees of Philco or Vinelli roomed there in groups of twos or threes. Half of the place lived up to the name of “hotel” and received visiting guests. Vietnamese hookers were also allowed in if accompanied by a registered guest, most of whom were American officers on business from Saigon, or Vietnamese government officials. The monthly rent was thirty thousand piasters.

Hae Jong finished drying herself and put on a pair of silk pants, the kind Vietnamese women liked; they were smooth to the touch and did not cling. Then she put on a cotton T-shirt. If she had been planning to go out, she would have selected an outfit from the closet, but the telephone call meant that he would be coming. She splashed some perfume behind her ears and on her neck, then applied a little make-up, some light foundation and lipstick. She made up the bed and switched on the lamp.

Coming out into the living room, she went over to the stove and put a frying pan on the burner. From the refrigerator she removed an egg and a piece of ham, and cooked them in the pan. With her plate of food and a glass of instant iced tea, she sat down in one of the wicker chairs and had just begun to eat when the telephone rang again. The ring was so loud and startling that her heart fell, and she frowned slightly as she picked up the receiver.

“Mimi?”

“It almost ruptured my eardrums.”

The man laughed. He knew how loud army phones could be. “What are you doing?”

“Just eating my dinner.”

“Sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.”

“What promise?”

“To take you to China Beach yesterday. But you’d forgotten, so I shouldn’t have reminded you.”

Hae Jong paused for a second and then spoke in a low, scolding tone. “You can forget promises like that. But you can’t forget my passport. Do you mean to leave me stranded here like food on a refrigerator shelf?”

“No, it’s just that I was swamped with work today. I had to go to some official ceremony with my boss. The meeting will be over soon, so I’ll drop by.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Hae Jong stood there absentmindedly with the receiver in hand. They had known each other for about two months. He used to sit next to her on the PX commuter bus. Asian prostitutes who’ve had any experience with white men hardly consider Asian men as equals, and she was no different. She remembered too well the faces of Korean soldiers who had cast scornful looks at her whenever they saw her with Jerry or Thomas, or especially when she was with James, even as they behaved submissively toward the Americans with her.

If it had been her choice she would never have sat down next to that Vietnamese officer. He had boarded the bus with an American navy officer. It happened that the seats beside and across from Hae Jong had been unoccupied, and the two of them had walked down the aisle and taken those two places. She was dressed in a white blouse and black skirt befitting an office worker. The officer beside her turned to her and tried to strike up a conversation in Vietnamese. Hae Jong at first pretended not to hear and kept her eyes fixed on the window. When the officer again turned to her and said something, she had answered politely in English, “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Vietnamese.”

“Ah, right. Maybe I speak your language. Chinese? Or, from Singapore?”

“I’m an administrative employee of the US Army.”

“That much I know. My name’s Pham Quyen. I’m at the army headquarters. People tend to look down on those in adverse circumstances — is that how you see the Vietnamese?”