Memorial Day
June 6. Memorial Day.
Lee Ki-jo was up at four in the morning. He fetched his golf bag, loaded it into the jeep, and turned the key. The carburetor snarled, and the racket filled the Jongno alley. He pointed the jeep toward the U.S. Eighth Army headquarters in Yongsan. He had a round scheduled with Hausman.
When he arrived, he found James Hausman and offered a greeting.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Ah. Well enough." Hausman laughed through eyes swollen and puffy from the night.
"You're going to lose to me today." Ki-jo said it looking him straight in the eye.
"I could stay up all night and you'd still beat me, kid." Hausman took the bait without blinking.
Ki-jo transferred the bag from his jeep into Hausman's sedan.
"Let's get moving. We need to get our fill in before the sun's up." Hausman, already in the passenger seat, hurried him along.
Ki-jo took the wheel and pulled them out of Eighth Army headquarters. At the main gate he turned right, toward Seoul Station, then on past Sungnyemun, through Jongno, and over Miari Pass.
If you wanted to play golf in Seoul, there was only one choice. Under the Japanese there had been courses at Hyochangwon, Cheongnyangni, and Gunjari, but all of them had vanished after liberation. The sole course left inside the city was the one at Hwayang-ri, on ground that would someday become Children's Grand Park. The two of them were not going there. Hausman loathed the place.
Syngman Rhee had built it for American troops who otherwise flew all the way to Okinawa for a round, and still the GIs wanted little to do with it. The blame lay with the blowflies. Hwayang-ri sat in Gwangjin-gu, hard against Seongdong-gu, and Seongdong-gu held Majang-dong, famous for its livestock market, and Seongsu-dong, where hides were scraped clean after the meat had been cut away. The flies bred there in staggering numbers and spilled all the way onto the fairways. Americans endured Hwayang-ri only after the weather turned cold. June was no month for it. So Ki-jo and Hausman were fleeing the swarms for Dongducheon, to the course Ki-jo himself had built inside the 7th Division.
Hausman grumbled at him as he drove.
"Seoul Country Club is pure hell. Forget the flies plastered all over you. I can't even tell whether anybody's managing the grass."
The turf at Hwayang-ri barely deserved the name. Grass was growing there. That was the extent of it.
"The course inside Eighth Army still isn't open?"
"Two months yet. They say the doors won't open until August. I caught a glimpse, and the one you built is better."
"The 7th Division course is only nine holes."
"Size doesn't matter. The grass is good, and that's what counts. The ball feels right coming off the club. And you laid the course out beautifully. For a technical golfer like me, it's fun."
Ki-jo was pleased to hear the course he had built praised so highly. He teased Hausman anyway.
"You aren't partial to it just because it's nine holes, are you? Eighteen is a bit much for an old man."
"What? You've grown bold, Ki-jo."
"All thanks to you, Advisor. You raised me."
"Ha. You always finish with flattery, so I can't even work up a proper scowl. You're going to drive me crazy." Hausman stuck a cigarette between his lips and laughed.
They were close enough to needle each other. Meet Hausman over business and he could sour the air; meet him in private and he was good company. Their temperaments were nothing alike, and yet they fit together better than either would have guessed.
Once Seoul fell behind them and they entered Yangju, Hausman asked, "The warehouse coming along?"
"Yes. The foundation work is in full swing."
"Our engineers went out for a look the other day, didn't they?"
"They did."
"They said you're practically building a fortress."
Ki-jo laughed. He knew what they meant: the embankment he had thrown all the way around the site. Yeongdeungpo was helpless against floodwater. The Han had never been brought under control, and every year it turned the surrounding ground into a sea.
"I raised the levee in case of a flood."
Hausman nodded. "You're not stacking the walls high to keep thieves out?"
"That's part of it, too."
"Good. That's how it ought to be."
He agreed readily. There had been a time when he would have said Korea could stand a few more thieves. These days, in front of Ki-jo, he was careful about running the country down.
"Aren't you thinking of making something? You've got a knack for it."
"I'm planning to put a wig factory inside the warehouse grounds."
"Wigs?"
"Yes. Make them here and sell them in America."
"Wigs... is there money in that?"
Hausman was only half convinced. Ki-jo merely smiled. If there weren't money in it, I wouldn't be starting, you old fool. He kept the thought to himself.
As they neared the U.S. checkpoint at Uijeongbu, Hausman mentioned that someone else would be joining them for the round.
Ki-jo asked who.
"A friend of mine."
The car stopped at the checkpoint. The MP on duty saluted Hausman and jerked a thumb toward the building. A man in civilian clothes came out, his hat pulled low. He opened the rear door of the sedan and slipped inside.
"Let's go." Hausman told Ki-jo to move.
They had been underway only a little while when Hausman spoke to the man in the back seat.
"General Paik. What have you been doing with yourself all this time?"
Ki-jo glanced at the rearview mirror. The man took off his hat, and the face was Paik Sun-yup's.
"What do you think? Locked up at home. Wearing a false charge." Paik grinned as he said it.
"You know who's driving, don't you?"
"I do." Paik nodded, met Ki-jo's eyes in the mirror, and reached forward. "Mr. Lee Ki-jo, I owe you my life. It's late, but thank you."
Ki-jo took one hand from the wheel long enough to shake. Paik, mindful that he was driving, held on only a moment, gave the hand a light shake, and let go.
"Who would ever imagine General Paik and me meeting at the 7th Division on Memorial Day? Am I right?" Hausman cackled as if he had just sprung a prisoner from jail.
"These days nobody even watches my front gate. They've seen what they came to see. Who wastes time on a has-been?" There was self-mockery in Paik's voice.
He was ten years older than Ki-jo. He had climbed fast enough to become Army Chief of Staff at thirty-one, and he had fallen just as fast. In the original history he would have kept his post as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs until May 31, 1960. The butterfly effect of Ki-jo's return had brought him down early.
Hausman, two years Paik's senior, treated him with easy familiarity. A four-star general and a lieutenant colonel stood a long way apart in rank, but Hausman was as good as the mentor who had carried Paik to those stars, and Paik gave him the respect that was due.
"General Paik, you remember when we saved Park Chung-hee's neck?"
"I do."
"Well. Don't you think the man driving us just did the same thing not long ago?"
"Did he?" Paik looked startled.
Hausman laughed and told him how Ki-jo had gone back and forth lobbying Kwak Young-joo, and Hausman himself, to send Park Chung-hee to study in America. Paik laughed too, and turned to Ki-jo.
"So you've saved Major General Park twice. Save a man in trouble, and good fortune follows."
Hausman cut in. "You saved Park Chung-hee. So why are you in this state?"
"Must be because I only managed it once."
The two of them talked without the slightest reserve.
They reached the 7th Division at Dongducheon just before sunrise and hurried out to the course. The morning air was still cool. Even after the sun came up, the ball was a pleasure to hit. There were no flies. It was comfortable.
Paik had never learned the game. He simply carried a club and walked the holes with them, talking hard with Hausman all the while. Through the whole round the two of them never once let the conversation drop.
They played the nine twice, then went to the clubhouse, showered, and settled in the lounge with something cold to drink. Hausman, too busy talking with Paik to concentrate, had lost to Ki-jo, but he looked pleased all the same.
"You know this friend of mine built the course?" He laid a hand on Ki-jo's shoulder the way a father boasts of a son.
"I didn't." Paik studied Ki-jo with a look that meant something.
"Who was the old commander of the 7th Division?" Hausman asked Ki-jo.
"Major General Martin, sir."
"Right. While Martin was here, this fellow bought sod from Japan and laid it over the course. I hear Martin went around bragging that his unit had one hell of a golf course." He gave Ki-jo's shoulder a pat.
Paik nodded. "Mr. Lee also went into business with my sister."
"Your sister?"
"Yes. She said they traded dollars in Myeongdong. She took a heavy loss as the price of saving me."
"Is that so?" Hausman looked at Ki-jo the way a man looks at a thief.
"Originally I meant to deal with a man named Dan Sa-cheon, but..." Ki-jo started to explain, and Paik waved it off.
"No need to put it that way. I asked my sister how much she lost, and it wasn't much. So I took her to task. Is that all my life is worth? Ha ha ha."
The three of them laughed together.
"I don't know how it looks to the two of you, but I genuinely like this course Ki-jo built. The pines in the landscaping, especially. Think of Korea, and you think of pine, don't you?"
Hausman, it was plain, was truly fond of the 7th Division course.
"Anyway. In ten minutes President Syngman Rhee will be observing the silence at the National Cemetery." He glanced at his wristwatch. It was ten minutes to ten.
When ten o'clock came, a siren rose even on the American post. The three of them stood and bowed their heads. When the siren died, Hausman lifted his cola and offered a toast.
"To the heroes who defended Korea."
"To the heroes."
They touched glasses and drank. Hausman looked out the window for a moment, then asked, "General Paik. Feels good that Kim Chang-ryong is dead, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It does."
"And President Rhee?"
Paik closed his mouth.
"Come on, General. Speak plainly. We're men who can trust each other, aren't we?"
Paik thought a moment. "Honestly, it stings. There are far too many flatterers around him."
"That's right. That's right." Hausman nodded along, then turned to both of them. "If the two of you read what the CIA working in Korea sends home about Syngman Rhee, you'd be shocked."
"Because it's too favorable?" Ki-jo asked.
"The opposite. The reports are always negative. They have been since before the war. They leave the old man where he is only because there's no decent alternative."
Ki-jo already knew. He had read the reports after they were declassified. The American government fundamentally distrusted Syngman Rhee. When Rhee adopted Lee Ki-poong's eldest son, the intelligence papers had even carried the flavor of a judgment that the old man had reached a point where he could no longer think straight.
"Not long ago, the CIA officer who handled Cho Bong-am, the opposition leader, went back to the States."
"Is that so?" Paik showed interest.
Ki-jo knew who the officer was. Fred Thomas. He had crossed paths with the man a few times while Frank was still in Korea. Ki-jo had first learned of him while studying the 1950s, and meeting him in the flesh had felt uncanny. He had been a kind man.
"Before he left, he sat down with Cho Bong-am, and Cho said something to him." Hausman paused, then went on. "He said, 'Once you leave for America, I'll soon be in serious trouble.' And hasn't that become the reality?"
Ki-jo and Paik nodded.
"How does America see Mr. Cho? If things go wrong, the man could die."
"We?" Hausman asked it back, and grinned. "Our view is that he can't be called a communist. We see him as a nationalist."
"But he has a communist past, doesn't he?"
"He does. Even so, he only chose communism as a means of realizing his convictions as a nationalist. After he broke with it, we consider him fully turned."
Paik nodded. Ki-jo agreed. At the very least, the trial that had branded Cho a communist spy and condemned him to death was pure nonsense. There was not a shred of evidence he was a spy. Even the report the American embassy had written and sent home while the trial was underway stated that the evidence offered by the prosecution had no probative value whatsoever.
They rested in the clubhouse and talked of this and that. Ki-jo felt the early morning had been worth the sleep he had given up. He needed to keep thickening his bond with Hausman. He had not wanted it, but over the past year and this one his ties to Kwak Young-joo and Lee Ki-poong had deepened, and what would follow the April 19 Revolution of 1960 made him uneasy. Not even two years remained until that revolution. He had a record of helping the Liberal Party's election. If he were careless, he could be condemned as one of the old evils. Nor did he know what Lee Ki-poong and Kwak Young-joo might ask of him in the presidential and vice-presidential election of 1960. He would dodge anything fatal if he could, but if he stepped wrong he would need someone willing to step in. Hausman was the shield that could cover him through a political upheaval.
"Let's play the course once more. I've lost to Ki-jo twice. I absolutely cannot go back to Seoul like this." Hausman demanded a rematch.
"Gladly, Advisor. As champion, I accept the challenge."
"Good. Earlier the sunlight was tickling my eyes and I couldn't show my real game. This time it'll be different!"
Ki-jo left the clubhouse with Hausman and Paik and started another round. As they walked the course he thought of Division Commander Martin, and of Frank. Good people had a way of not being forgotten, even after years.
And so Memorial Day, the sixth of June, passed.