Chapter three
The storm raged all that night, but by the next morning the wind had dropped. It was still bitterly cold, but the sun was struggling to find a way through the lowering grey sky.
There was an atmosphere of gloom about the Dokgo hotel: Arsenio died at eight in the morning. ‘A terrible thing’, said Kwon Oh-young, sadly shaking his head. ‘First time it ever happened in my house to a foreigner’. Hae-jin, near to tears, seemed worried that the Cuban’s death was a reflection on her nursing abilities. She had gone into his room early in the morning and found him, in her own words, ‘horribly feverish and writhing in agony’. Dr Lee had been called, but there was nothing he could do. Now, accompanied by Officer Shin, Sinjang-Ri’s solitary police officer, they carried out the banal formalities that follow death.
For want of something better to do, I checked over Arsenio’s belongings with Shin. They seemed pathetically few and were all stained and crumpled by the sea: a wallet, a wrist watch, a comb, a tie pin, a notebook, a cigarette lighter, and a packet of cigarettes. Looking oddly domestic without his uniform, Shin sat opposite me at a table in the saloon.
Breathing heavily and writing laboriously, he was listing the articles in his official notebook as I read them out to him.
‘One pair of packet of cigarettes’, I announced.
‘One pair of cigarettes’, intoned Shin, licking his pencil.
I picked up the next article. ‘One comb, black; one wallet; one cigarette lighter’. Shin wrote busily and then closed his notebook. ‘That the lot?’
I nodded.
‘Not much, is it?’
‘What happens to these things?’ I asked.
‘I dunno, sir’, said Shin. ‘The captain’s coming down later. I suppose we hand’em over to him for this bloke’s next of kin’.
Jo Yun-je came down the stairs. He looked pretty rough I thought. Although he was freshly shaved, which I could tell as his chin had a deep razor cut across it, his suit was very crumpled, to the point that I could have sworn he had slept in it. His hair had been combed, but somehow managed to look as if it hadn’t.
‘Hello there’, he said in greeting. ‘Don’t suppose you know if the garage have rung do you?’
‘Not that I know of’, I replied.
‘I hope they have’, said Jo moodily. ‘They promised they’d call here to let me know what was happening with the car’. He blinked his bloodshot eyes and lit a cigarette. ‘These garages are all the same: promise to do a job and then sit on it for a week’.
‘Is the car supposed to be ready?’ I asked.
‘Well, they said they’d patch it up well enough for me to get to Muan’. ‘Why not give them a ring?’ I suggested.
‘Think I will’, said Jo. His eyes alighted on the articles on the table. ‘Hello, what’s all this lot? The Commies?’
Shin seemed to be wearing an expression of guarded disapproval. ‘That’s right, sir’, he said.
Jo shuddered. ‘Fancy dying in a dump like this. Bad enough living here, I should think. Seen the landlord anywhere?’
‘He’s gone to the mainland to meet the Seoul train’, I told him.
‘Mrs Kwon’s been visiting her married sister in Seoul’, supplied Shin. ‘What about the daughter?’
‘Out shopping’, said Shin. ‘Said she’d be back in about an hour’.
‘Oh, hell!’ said Jo petulantly. He drew a smoky breath and turned to the policeman. ‘Well, since you seem to be the expert on local information, officer, perhaps you could tell me what I do about paying my bill’. His manner seemed to me to be unnecessarily aggressive and unpleasant. I felt a mounting sense of irritation.
But presumably Shin had met so many men like Jo that they no longer annoyed him. He said affably: ‘Certainly, sir. Mr Kwon left it on the bar, in case you wanted to settle up’.
Jo glanced at Shin, as if scenting impertinence. He opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind, and picked up an envelope from the bar. He slit open the envelope and looked at the bill with a jaundiced eye. ‘Stone me!’ he exclaimed, ‘anyone’d think I’d had the bloody bridal suite’.
A car stopped outside, doors slammed, and Dr Lee came into the bar. He looked, I thought, tired and depressed. He was accompanied by a large, tall man wearing a somewhat crumpled blue uniform. In spite of this, and the fact that he walked awkwardly with the aid of a walking stick, there was about him an indefinable air of distinction and tough, nautical competence.
Lee smiled wanly at me and then turned to the policeman. ‘This is Captain Martinez, Shin. He’s come to collect Arsenio’s belongings’.
‘Got ’em all here, sir’, nodded Shin. ‘Mr Moon an’ me made out a list; all the captain’s got to do is sign for ’em’.
‘Thank you, yes’, said Martinez, eyeing the policeman shrewdly.
Shin produced a ballpoint pen. ‘If you wouldn’t mind signing for them, sir’.
Martinez scribbled his signature at the bottom of the sheet of paper. Shin collected the things together and handed them to the captain. As he did so, a large ticket fell on to the floor. I picked it up and looked at it.
‘This can’t be Arsenio’s’, I said. ‘What is it, sir?’ asked Shin.
‘A garage ticket’, I told him.
‘A garage ticket?’ queried Martinez in a puzzled tone.
‘It’s a kind of receipt’, I explained. ‘You get one when you leave your car at a garage’. I looked at the ticket again. ‘This one comes from the Namdaemun Garage in Seoul’.
Captain Martinez shook his head vehemently. ‘Arsenio’s never been to Seoul’, he said emphatically.
‘No, he couldn’t have been’, said Lee slowly.
‘Well, it came out of his room’, said Shin positively. ‘Brought it down myself’.
‘Most extraordinary’, murmured Lee. ‘What on earth would Arsenio be doing with a Seoul garage ticket?’
‘Quite obviously’, I said, ‘it wasn’t his at all. Either it was Kwon’s or it was left behind by someone who stayed in the same room. Anyway, I’ll give it to Kwon when he comes in’. I took the ticket from Shin and put it in my wallet. Then I turned to Martinez. ‘Captain, the night before Arsenio died he was conscious for a few minutes. I don’t know if the doctor has told you this?’
‘I haven’t’, said Lee. ‘But go ahead Moon. Tell him what happened’. Martinez eyed me, wearing an expression of polite expectancy.
‘I went into Arsenio and he spoke a few words’, I said. ‘All I could make out was that he was calling out ‘Seung-li’. That’s all, I’m afraid. I just thought his family might like to know that’. ‘Seung-li, said Martinez thoughtfully.
‘Yes, it’s a Korean name’ I added.
‘I see’, he replied, ‘a woman’s name?’
‘Yes’.
‘It is perhaps the name of his woman friend’ continued Martinez. ‘Quite likely’, I said.
Martinez nodded his head vehemently. ‘He was seeing a woman from Busan. Seung-li is perhaps her name’.
‘I expect that’s it’, said Dr Lee.
Martinez said: ‘Arsenio was a good lad. It is a tragedy to die so young – so very young’. ‘We’re all very sorry, Captain’, said Lee.
Martinez inclined his head. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘There is nothing we can do’, he said sadly. ‘It is too late’.
‘Dr Lee did everything he could, Captain’, said Shin.
‘Si, si’ Martinez interrupted him. ‘The doctor has been most kind. Everyone has been so helpful’ – he bowed with an awkward, jerky movement – ‘I wish to thank all of you for your kindness. You have been very good to us – all of you’.
He shook hands with Lee, Shin, Jo, and myself. He had a long, bony hand. Then Lee took him gently by the elbow and they went out together.
Jo ruefully flexed his fingers, temporarily numbed by the force of Martinez’s handshake. ‘Extraordinary blokes, these foreigners’, he said. ‘It’s a wonder he didn’t get the Cuban rum out while he was about it …’