Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

A Crust of Rice by Martin Limón

The soft flesh of Kim Ji-na’s pudgy fingers shook as she poured steaming barley tea into an earthenware cup.

“He beat me, Older Sister,” she said. “And then he stole my money.”

Kimiko lifted the cup to her nose, savoring the aroma. Ji-na, the much younger woman, knelt on the warm ondol floor on the other side of a short serving table. The man Ji-na was talking about had been her boyfriend of almost six months, an American soldier by the name of Greene. His first name Ji-na didn’t know, something difficult to pronounce. His rank, however, was corporal. One of his tattered fatigue shirts still hung in the wooden armoire. What unit had he been assigned to? Ji-na only knew 8th Army, which didn’t narrow the possibilities much. Less than a mile away from this village of Itaewon stood the huge 8th Army headquarters, Yongsan Compound, teeming with over five thousand American GIs. He worked with engines, Ji-na told Kimiko. That much she knew because almost every night when he came home his fingers were cut and bleeding and covered with grease.

“Why did he leave you?” Kimiko asked.

Demurely, like a well-trained Confucian child, Ji-na lowered her eyes.

“He’s returning to the United States,” Ji-na said. “In a few days. He said we have to finish.”

“But why did he beat you?”

Ji-na stared at Kimiko, black eyes flashing with indignation. “He said he wanted his money back. For the final month he wouldn’t be spending with me. I refused.”

Kimiko nodded her head sadly. She’d heard such things before. Since the end of the Korean War some twelve years ago, the people of Korea had been poorer than they’d been in living memory. Even poorer than they’d been under the Japanese occupation during World War II. And people had been forced to do anything to survive. For a young girl like Ji-na, a young girl from the countryside, to land a rich American to take care of her was thought of as a great victory. A victory against hunger. A victory against begging on the street. What with their steady paychecks and their access to the PX — with its cornucopia of imported American-made goods — GIs were rich. Much richer than the average Korean.

Through a cloud of rising steam, Kimiko studied Ji-na. The young woman’s eyes were blackened and her nose had swollen red and angry to almost twice its natural size. Her entire face was round, flushed with blood, and puffier than Kimiko remembered seeing it before.

Ji-na busied herself with offering a bowl of nurungji, crisp flakes peeled from the edge of an earthenware pot. Kimiko picked out one of the stiff shards of burnt rice and nibbled on the tasteless wafer, staring all the while at Ji-na’s mangled fingernails.

“And why, young Ji-na,” Kimiko asked, “did you call me?”

Ji-na bowed once again.

“Because you have vast experience,” she answered. “With the Americans and with all sorts of foreigners.”

This was true. When she turned fourteen, Kimiko had been expelled by her poor farm family who could no longer afford to feed her. She caught the train to Seoul, arriving only a few months before the forces of the Imperial Japanese Army surrendered to the Americans on V-J day. Since then, she’d lived here in Seoul in the district of Itaewon, making a living as best she could. She knew foreigners. She knew them very well.

“And what would you have me do?” Kimiko asked.

“Find him for me,” Ji-na answered.

“To what purpose?”

“To retrieve my money.”

Kimiko knew why Ji-na didn’t go to the police. First, it was unlikely that the Korean National Police would ever be able to retrieve Ji-na’s money. On their fortified compounds, the Americans were a government unto themselves. If the KNPs asked to talk to Greene, they’d be laughed at. Second, even if by some miracle the Korean police did manage to retrieve Ji-na’s money, they would keep it for themselves. They certainly wouldn’t turn hard cash over to a lowly “business girl.”

Kimiko sighed and set down her cup. She was used to this. Many of the naive young country girls who flooded into Itaewon came to Kimiko for help. They had no idea how to deal with Americans or what thoughts ran through their strange foreign minds.

“What’s in it for me?” Kimiko asked.

“Ten percent of what you recover,” Ji-na answered immediately.

Ten percent of nothing, Kimiko thought, but she held out for twenty. Ji-na quickly agreed.

The first stop was the bars.

Shadows flooded the alleys of Itaewon and neon flashed bravely, chasing the spirits of the dead that swirled through the night. Kimiko wore a yellow dress with a high hemline to show off her legs and a low-cut neckline to show off her decolletage. After all these years, her body was what kept her in business. This despite the fact that she was almost twice the age of many of the young GIs who filled the nightclubs that lined the main drag of Itaewon, the most notorious red light district in Seoul.

Ji-na tagged along, wearing a long woolen skirt and a cotton scarf draped over her head, as if she were a widow in mourning. Such drama these young girls portrayed when they lost their first GI. In time, Kimiko knew, they’d become used to it.

The two women pushed through the double doors of the well-lit entrance of the King Club. Cacophonous rock music assaulted their ears and a thick cloud of cigarette smoke assaulted their nostrils. Kimiko stood at the entranceway for a moment while Ji-na studied the crowd. Finally, she pointed toward the bar.

“There,” she said. “Two GIs. They are from the same compound as Greene. I saw them many times.”

One was a short black man and the other a thin white man. They sat swiveled around on their bar stools, backs against the railing, studying the small sea of business girls through bleary eyes.

Kimiko charged forward. She grabbed the black GI by the elbow and twirled him on his stool until he faced her.

“Where he go, Greene?” she demanded.

The man’s mouth fell open. Kimiko glared at him for a moment and when he didn’t say anything she spit on the floor and swiveled on the other GI.

“Where he go, Greene?” she shouted.

“Compound,” the thin white GI said.

“Why he no come Itaewon?”

The young GI sputtered, glancing around to see if anyone was watching him. The pale flesh of his face flushed red.

“I don’t know,” he answered finally. “Maybe he’s afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” Kimiko demanded.

The GI glanced at Ji-na. “Maybe her.”

Kimiko spit on the floor again and then looked back at the black GI. “What compound Greene work?”

“Yongsan South.”

“What company?”

“Twenty-one T Car.”

Kimiko waggled her finger at the white GI’s nose and then the black GI’s nose.

“You see Greene,” she said. “You say Kimiko find him most tick. Most tick Kimiko knuckle sandwich with him.” She clenched her slender fist and held it up to the light. “You arra?” You understand?

Both GIs nodded.

Kimiko turned and, pulling Kim Ji-na behind her, exited the hot and noisy world of the GI bar known as the King Club. Out on the neon-spangled street, Ji-na struggled to keep up with the long-striding Kimiko.

The big archway above the guard shack said “Twenty-first Transportation Company (Car).” Twenty-one T Car.

Listless Korean security guards stood behind the large windowpanes of the shack, keeping a wary eye on Kimiko and Kim Ji-na. They’d already told Kimiko that Korean civilians couldn’t enter the U.S. military compound, and when she protested they backed up the prohibition with a threat of violence. Wisely, Kimiko backed down.

“Koreans are not dumb like Americans,” Kimiko told Ji-na.

Ji-na didn’t quite understand why Americans were dumber since Americans were richer than Koreans, but she knew better than to contradict the older woman. It was almost midnight now, and Kimiko hadn’t bothered to wear a coat. The creamy flesh of her legs and her bosom and her upper chest and shoulders were dotted with aggressive mounds of gooseflesh. Ji-na wasn’t quite sure what they were waiting for but when an American army jeep with a lone driver pulled up to the gate, she found out.

Ignoring the Korean security guards, Kimiko stepped forward, leaned into the passenger side of the jeep, smiling, and cooed some strange foreign words to the driver. He was an older American man, maybe forty, with a long row of yellow stripes on his arm. Within seconds, Kimiko turned and was waving for Ji-na to join her. With the deft movements of long experience, Kimiko pulled the front seat of the jeep forward and Ji-na climbed into the back. Then Kimiko sat in the passenger seat and the American sergeant barked something to the Korean gate guards. Reluctantly, they pulled back the chain link fence that blocked the roadway and the GI, Kimiko, and Ji-na drove under the arch into the big open parking area of Twenty-one T Car.

Kimiko didn’t glance at the sullen gate guards and didn’t savor her victory by flashing them a satisfied smirk. That’s when Ji-na decided that Kimiko was even wiser than she had originally thought.

Within minutes, the GI sergeant was pounding on one of the doors in the big GI barracks.

“Greene!” he shouted.

The door creaked open and a bleary-eyed young American, naked except for a flimsy pair of jockey shorts, stood rubbing his eyes.

“Where’s Greene?” the sergeant barked.

“Out,” the GI answered. “Ain’t seen him all night.”

“Curfew’s in ten minutes.”

The young man shrugged. “Apparently he ain’t coming back.”

The sergeant pushed past the GI and searched the room. A second bunk lay empty and unused. The sergeant told the GI to go back to sleep, and he and Kimiko and Ji-na stood outside the door in the hallway, waiting until the midnight curfew had come and gone.

“Greene ain’t coming,” the sergeant said.

Then he took Kimiko and led her outside and across the parking lot to another barracks. Ji-na followed. Kimiko and the sergeant went inside for almost an hour. Out in the parking lot, Ji-na waited. Finally, Kimiko emerged, looking none the worse for wear. Together, Kimiko and Ji-na returned to the main gate and walked the half mile back to Itaewon, slinking through unlit alleys.

The next morning, Kimiko dressed more conservatively. She, like Ji-na, wore a long woolen skirt and a warm knit sweater and a cotton scarf over her head. Together, they sat on a hard wooden bench in the Itaewon police station, waiting their turn to be seen by an investigator.

When Ji-na’s name was called, they entered a small cement-block back room and sat on wooden stools in front of a gray metal desk. Behind the desk sat Sergeant Oh Byong-gul. His khaki uniform was neatly pressed and his black hair slicked back with a scented pomade. Using the tips of his fingers, he held a Turtleboat Brand cigarette parallel to his nose. Spirals of pungent smoke drifted to the ceiling.

Kimiko spoke first. She explained that Kim Ji-na had been robbed and beaten by an American GI and she further explained how, together, they’d searched for him but had been unable to find him.

When she was finished, Sergeant Oh stared at Kimiko for a long time.

“You’re a business woman,” he said.

Kimiko nodded.

“So is this young one here.”

Kimiko nodded again.

“So you must know how business works. Sometimes you make money, sometimes you lose money. But when you lose, you must pick yourself up and resolve to work harder. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“But it was theft,” Ji-na said.

For the first time, Sergeant Oh looked at her.

“Theft? It was the man’s own money.”

“But he gave it to me.”

“For services you didn’t provide.”

“But I did provide him service. For six months I cooked for him and cleaned house and washed his laundry and tied his bootlaces before he went to work. I did everything for him. I gave him all I had.”

And then she was crying, holding her face in the splayed fingers of her hands.

Both Kimiko and Sergeant Oh stared at her. Neither one of them reached for her. After a time, Sergeant Oh puffed on his cigarette. Kimiko thought how round and flushed Ji-na’s face looked. When Ji-na’s sobs turned to sniffles, Kimiko turned back to Sergeant Oh. “Fifteen percent,” she said.

Oh barked a laugh. “For all that work?”

“What work? You contact the Americans, tell them Greene stole the money from a Korean citizen, they recover it for you.”

Sergeant Oh shook his head sadly. “You think it works that way? The Americans believe all Koreans are thieves. They think a woman like this...” He pointed at Kim Ji-na. “...does nothing but take advantage of their innocent young soldiers. They won’t lift a finger to help her.”

“So, if the Americans won’t help,” Kimiko said, “arrest Greene when he comes out here to Itaewon.”

“And land in trouble with my superiors for harassing the brave Americans who are here to protect us from communism?” Sergeant Oh laughed again. “You must be out of your mind.”

“Forty percent,” Kimiko said.

In a tin ashtray, Oh stubbed out his cigarette. “The money’s gone. She’ll never get it back. Forget it.”

He barked for a guard, and Kimiko and Miss Kim Ji-na were escorted out of the Itaewon police station.

Out on the street, Kimiko said, “Now do you understand?”

Ji-na bowed her head. “Now I understand, Older Sister. None of them will ever help me. I must help myself.”

The smell of burnt beans filled the cold morning air. Kimiko and Kim Ji-na stood at a public phone just outside the entrance to the Hamilton Hotel Coffee Shop. Using a handful of bronze 10-won coins, Kimiko placed the call. It took her fifteen minutes to reach the 8th Army switchboard, but finally she made it through and was transferred to the orderly room of the Twenty-first Transportation Company (Car).

Greene pulled duty last night, Kimiko was told, at the 8th Army head shed, which was why he hadn’t been in his room last night. He was still unavailable, but the GI on the other end of the line was friendly and promised to give Greene the message. He repeated it back to Kimiko.

“Meet Kim Ji-na tonight in Itaewon at her hooch. She won’t be angry.”

“You got it,” Kimiko said.

She flirted with the GI a few more minutes and then hung up.

“Will he come?” Ji-na asked.

Kimiko shrugged. “Maybe.”

Kimiko did her best to put Kim Ji-na’s troubles out of her mind. That evening she made her usual rounds, hopping from nightclub to nightclub, tossing back shots of bourbon, putting up with insults from GIs and evil stares from younger business girls. It was a normal night. She made a few bucks and tried not to think of who she was or what her future held. The booze helped. At the end of the evening, exhausted, she returned to her hooch.

Alone on her down-filled mat, she tossed and turned, sleeping the troubled sleep of someone who knows she’s doing everything wrong but has never found any other way to survive.

The midnight to four A.M. curfew had just ended. Despite the early hour, Kimiko rose from her sleeping mat and put on the same woolen skirt and knit sweater and cotton scarf she’d worn yesterday. She slipped on sandals over thick socks, left her hooch, and made her way through the dark and empty streets of Itaewon. Hugging herself against the cold, she hurried toward the home of Kim Ji-na.

Last night, early in the evening before she started her rounds, Kimiko hid outside of Ji-na’s hooch. She waited almost an hour, but finally she’d seen the GI known as Corporal Greene enter Ji-na’s home. Bearing gifts. A brown bag overflowing with PX groceries. Kimiko lingered a while, wondering if there would be an argument, waiting for shouting and shrill voices. But all had been quiet. Then the lights were turned off and Kimiko listened for a while longer. When she heard nothing, she left.

Still, she knew what to expect this morning. And that’s why she decided to be here at Kim Ji-na’s hooch early, before anyone else arrived.

The front gate was locked.

Three other families lived in the hooch complex so Kimiko knew she had to be quiet. She checked in either direction to make sure the alleyway was empty. When she was sure that everyone in the neighborhood was still sleeping, she found an empty wooden crate and propped it against the wall. Stepping atop it, she grabbed the top of the brick wall, studded with broken shards of glass, and carefully pulled herself up and over.

The courtyard was deserted. No roosters. No small dogs to bark and announce her arrival. She approached the latticework, oil-papered door that led to Kim Ji-na’s hooch. Carefully, she slid it open.

In the dark, Ji-na sat against the wall. Fully clothed. Staring straight ahead.

Kimiko shoved back the door even wider, allowing moonlight to flood in.

Corporal Greene lay in the center of the hooch, surrounded by a sea of blood. Below him, sopping up the gore, lay scattered shards of nurungji, crusted rice.

Kimiko stared into Ji-na’s eyes for a moment. Vacant. She was still alive, still breathing, still unhurt, but her mind was far away, in a land of lotus blossoms and sweet rice cakes and silk gowns wafting in a spring breeze.

Gingerly, Kimiko entered into the hooch, being careful not to step into puddled blood. Greene’s body didn’t move.

Kimiko crawled toward Kim Ji-na and placed her fingers on the soft flesh of her cheek. Cold. And she didn’t flinch at the touch. Leaning closer to the woman, Kimiko slipped her hand inside Ji-na’s tunic, beneath the waistband of her skirt. There, in her belly, the hard spherical rise that Kimiko knew she’d find. Kimiko withdrew her hand.

All along, from the first moment she’d been summoned by Kim Ji-na, Kimiko had seen it coming. Years of experience in the brutal world of Itaewon, in the brutal world of survival, had made Kimiko prescient in the ways of the young innocent girls just in from the countryside. And there were clues.

First, the puffed face of Kim Ji-na. It meant only one thing. She was pregnant. Second, the claim that Corporal Greene had stolen her money. Most GIs, once they pay, never ask for their money back, especially if they know they are leaving forever and leaving the Korean woman with child. They’re soft hearted, these Americans. Most of them anyway. And third, the beating Ji-na had received. The wounds to the nose and eyes probably were self-inflicted, to gain sympathy from whoever would listen. The nails bent back and broken, most likely as a result of holding onto Corporal Greene and begging him not to leave. Whatever damage Greene had caused to the body of Kim Ji-na was probably in self-defense as he tried to flee. And finally, the claim that he had left her early, before the day of his flight out of the country. Why hadn’t he stayed with her until the very end? Because he’d seen the need in her, a need that he could not meet, and he’d fled in fear, in fear of having his young life held back by the needs of a young Korean business girl who was now with child.

The reason Kim Ji-na wanted to see Corporal Greene wasn’t to recover her money. The real reason was that she wanted to beg him not to leave her. And if he was going to leave her anyway, despite her pleas, Kim Ji-na knew that her life was over. At least a life that would have any shred of self-respect. And Kim Ji-na, like so many of these young cast-off country girls who find their way to Itaewon, wasn’t tough enough to live a life without self-respect. So, if Kim Ji-na had to leave her life behind, she would force Greene to leave his behind as well.

When she reached the old wooden armoire, Kimiko slid open drawers. There, beneath a folded silk comforter, sat the pile she’d knew she’d find. Stacks of blue money. MPC. Military Payment Certificates printed by the U.S. Army so they wouldn’t have to pay their troops in greenbacks. Kimiko pulled out the stack and counted it. Over four hundred dollars. Two months’ pay for a corporal. What Greene had left with Ji-na to get her by until she could give birth to their child. That’s why he’d been pulling extra duty at night, probably being paid to do so. Put the baby up for adoption, that’s what he would’ve told Kim Ji-na. I have to return to the States. Return to my family. I have to continue with my education. Get on with my life. Kimiko had heard it all before. In tearful conversation after tearful conversation, until she’d grown weary of the whole repetitive drama.

Kimiko thought of leaving some of the money but decided against it. No sense letting the Korean National Police divide it amongst themselves. Instead, she stuffed the bills into the deep folds of her skirt pockets.

Kim Ji-na continued to stare forward, as if gazing longingly into a better world where a crust of rice wouldn’t be the biggest treat of the day. The sharp chopping knife, blade smeared with blood, lay by her side.

Apparently, she’d waited until Greene fell asleep. He’d probably woken with a start, feeling the blade chop into his heart, and then passed out again in shock.

How had Kimiko been so certain that Ji-na would go through with it?

Intuition. She’d seen so many country girls ruined by GIs. Some of them killed themselves; only a few of them had the courage to take the GI with them.

Kim Ji-na had that courage.

Across the street, a rooster crowed.

Kimiko scooted closer to Kim Ji-na and once again touched her cheek.

“In prison,” Kimiko whispered, “you’ll never have to worry about hunger again. They’ll feed you every day.”

Ji-na didn’t answer.

Being careful not to disturb the carnage surrounding her, Kimiko backed quietly out of the hooch.

Outside, Kimiko strode through the dark alleys of Itaewon. The bundle of cash in her skirt swung impatiently against her thigh. She thought of Corporal Greene and Kim Ji-na and the baby that would be born in a few months. She wanted to cry but she knew she wouldn’t. Those tears had been shed many years ago. There were no more left. But even if there were, what good would they do?