Hwang Sok-Yong - The Shadow of Arms

“Why, shall I call Major Pham Quyen for you? “ asked Yong Kyu, picking up the telephone.

“What do I have to do with soldiers?”

Yong Kyu signaled to Toi with his eyes. Toi hurried into the bedroom. The woman started to follow, but Yong Kyu grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her down in a chair. He felt a tingling sensation as his fingers touched her skin. The lower folds of her robe were coming apart, revealing her tantalizing white thighs. As her eyes met Yong Kyu’s, she pulled the sides of the robe together to cover her legs.

“Sons of bitches,” the woman muttered, shading her eyes with one hand. “Wasn’t firing me enough? Why do you keep harassing me?”

“Shall I close the shutters?”

The woman nodded in reply to Yong Kyu’s offer. He closed the shutters and the room grew dark. The woman lowered her hand and looked up at Yong Kyu.

“Do you have a cigarette?”

Yong Kyu handed her a pack of Pall Malls and she nervously pulled one out. Her fingernails were unpainted. He lit her cigarette with his Zippo.

“Let’s be reasonable. Why are you doing this?”

Toi came back into the room holding something he had found. It was a plastic bag and two pipes.

“Look at this. Opium,” Toi said.

“Why don’t you go search your own mother? I bet you’ll find some in her dresser drawer,” the woman said in English to Toi. Then she turned and faced Yong Kyu again.

“Too bad if that’s why you’re here. It’s not mine.”

“Miss Oh Hae Jong, do you have a passport?”

“If I didn’t, could I be here?”

“Let me see your passport.”

She just drew on the cigarette. Yong Kyu sat down in front of her.

“I asked you to show me your passport.”

“I turned it in. . to the consulate, to have it renewed.”

“You’re lying,” Yong Kyu said. “We know you’re stateless. Two months ago your name was deleted from the list of local civilian workers. That means your passport was automatically cancelled when you failed to return home as ordered.”

The woman defiantly looked Yong Kyu straight in the eye and spat out, “My nationality is Vietnamese. You knew it when you came here, didn’t you? Besides, my nationality is no concern of yours. Get me the Vietnamese police.”

Toi took two pieces of paper out from his inner pocket and handed them over to Yong Kyu. He unfolded the first piece and placed it in front of the woman.

“Now, this is a copy of your personnel record, and the date of your dismissal, right here. And this is a copy of the fake requisition document you submitted to MAC 36. You sold C-rations in the campside village near the navy hospital, didn’t you?”

“So?”

“So, first I have to deal with the offense of selling military supplies. Then, while you’re in our custody, we’ll get your deportation papers from the Vietnamese police and ship you home. Now. . is this all clear to you?”

“The C-rations weren’t mine.”

“Were they Major Pham’s?”

“I don’t know. I just rode along.”

“You mean, you just rode along with the C-rations and rode back with the money, is that it?”

The woman leapt up and tried to pick up the phone, but Toi quickly put his hand over the receiver.

“Look, Miss, you may be sent down to Saigon as a convicted narcotics offender before you’re deported,” Yong Kyu said as he got up.

The woman turned up her nose as if scoffing. But the quake in her fingers as she extinguished her cigarette revealed how nervous she was.

“Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“To our investigation headquarters.”

“I need to make a phone call.”

“Make it from there.”

“I’ll go and change,” the woman said, heading toward the bedroom.

“We’ll wait out here.”

She went into the bedroom. As she started to close the door, Toi stuck his foot in the way.

“This is rude and ridiculous,” she said in an irritated tone.

“Don’t worry, we won’t peek. Just get changed quickly and don’t even think of trying anything cute.”

She soon came back out fully dressed, removed a lipstick from her purse and put some on. She was wearing a light blue knit dress, an outfit certain to cause a minor riot if she were to pass by a soldiers’ barracks. The two men’s eyes widened as they exchanged glances. Under the thin wool the curves of her body were readily visible, and with the sun at her back you could make out her thighs through the fabric.

Once they were in the car, the woman said, “I hope you know what you’re doing. You’re not going to get away with this, I’ll see to that.”

Yong Kyu did not reply. Toi drove straight across the street and in a second they were pulling into the QC headquarters compound. In the parking lot stood an unbroken line of Vietnamese MP patrol Jeeps. At the sight of Oh Hae Jong, the QC staff milling around started whistling and making catcalls.

“Take us to the room,” Yong Kyu said to Toi.

As they walked into the building, Toi popped into an office and shortly reappeared and took the lead. As soon as they entered the room, Toi said something to the corporal and administrative officer inside and the two men left.

“Care for some coffee?” Toi asked the woman.

“Yes, thank you.”

In an effort to exhibit her composure, she then turned to Yong Kyu, saying, “You could offer me some lunch, too.”

“I’ll see to that once your custody is decided.”

Yong Kyu started the interrogation with questions about the delivery of the C-rations. She answered, and then gave a statement detailing where, how often, and what quantities she had delivered. Then he questioned her about the opium.

“I don’t know anything about that. The stuff isn’t mine,” she said.

“That was also your testimony when you were asked by the chief security officer at the PX, wasn’t it? I’ll get the record of that interrogation and add it to this report, and then my job will be done. They’ll make the decision.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

“The Vietnamese Narcotics Enforcement Team.”

“Hmmph, go ahead and call them if there is such a team. More than half the population of Da Nang, every household, would have to be arrested. The stuff belongs to Major Pham Quyen from the provincial governor’s staff. Ask him.”

Yong Kyu kept scrawling notes in his notebook.

“Fine. So you have no passport, right?”

Toi brought a tray in with three cups of coffee. The woman sipped it slowly, savoring each mouthful. In the bright sunlight her bare legs gleamed beneath the pale blue dress. She seemed much calmer. Her legs were bouncing up and down ever so slightly. Yong Kyu finished his English-language report and handed it over to Toi.

“Type this and bring it back.”

“All right.”

Toi took the papers and left. Now the two of them, Yong Kyu and the woman, were alone in the room.

“Look, what’s your name, anyway?”

Yong Kyu took out a cigarette for himself and offered her one. They lit them together.

“I asked what your name is.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“That’s not fair. You know about me through and through and I don’t even know your name.”

“Ahn Yong Kyu.”

“Rank?”

“You want to try and make trouble for me?”

“Are you a ‘lifer’? Isn’t that what you soldiers say?”

Yong Kyu relaxed a little. He wondered why had he been so hard on her at first. Maybe it was because she was, in her robe, rather sensuous, and he knew she was in the habit of sleeping with foreigners. No, I’m no lifer, he said to himself. In a strange room, so far away from home, this woman was asking him if he was a lifer.

“Why didn’t you go home?”