The Starlet and the Spy Read online

  The streets were plastered with posters, printed materials, speeches, and slogans by various political organizations, from the Korea Democratic Party to the provisional government of the Republic of Korea to the Communist Party of Korea to the People’s Party of Korea, but in my mind I was lounging on a Santa Monica beach, sipping cocktails. My political involvement was limited to supporting Yo Unhyong solely because of his resemblance to leading men in black-and-white Hollywood films; when he was assassinated I was crushed that we wouldn’t see such a good, handsome politician in all of Korea any time soon. In 1946, I got a job through my uncle’s connections and went to work at the newly established US public information office. At the time the American military government distributed free printed materials like Farmers Weekly and World News in order to enlighten the highly illiterate Korean populace. It also created a variety of posters and slogans in order to more effectively reach the illiterate. My hands, which had cut out and pasted Gene Kelly’s face on a daily basis, now began drawing public safety posters about parasite prevention or road safety at the direction of the concerned American regime. I gradually became more rooted in reality.

  If I may boast about myself, I would say that my work had made me fairly popular at the time—not as well known as a famous woman poet might have been, but enough that I wasn’t discouraged. I was one of the few women who was paid by the US military without having to sell her body. Though I wasn’t one of those vain creatures frequenting dance parties at the Bando Hotel, I could see how my circumstances might invite misunderstanding. But I wanted to be the subject of more extensive, complicated misunderstandings and envy. Actually I wanted to be a haughty, picky, and independent modern woman. Or maybe I wanted to be a delicate and innocent girl? Or beautiful and tragic? Or perhaps I wanted to have a baby right away and suckle it, but then I also wanted to make grown men cry and have them grovel at my feet. Maybe instead I wanted to suffer from consumption, coughing bloodily into a white handkerchief. I see now that I had no idea what I wanted or what kind of person I wanted to be. I was confused and lonely; I just wanted to love someone and felt I would go insane if I wasn’t loved in return. I was ready to vanish from the real world in order to immerse myself in love. That was when he appeared before me.

  I GULP, THINKING ABOUT HIM, BUT NOT BECAUSE OF DESIRE. He is no longer alive. My mouth becomes parched. He churns through my brain and leaves ruins behind. He gazes gently into my eyes before ripping through my corneas and spitting on my tears, howling at me. Keeping him with me like this might be making me insane. I quietly waste away as I pretend to lead a quiet life, as though this is the only rational choice I have. It feels like a punishment not to be able to look back fondly to happier times, but I keep myself stretched out on a rack.

  I met the man I dearly loved and deeply betrayed—Yo Min-hwan—in the summer of ’47. If we had crossed paths in our dreams, we would have fallen deeply in love and never woken up.

  At the cusp of summer, I stopped by the import-export company operating out of the Bando Hotel to help translate English documents at the request of my uncle’s friend. The hotel exuded exotic, colonial sophistication and hypocrisy, and served American officers, foreign businessmen, parasitic Korean politicians, and a smattering of mysterious Korean beauties. I entered the hotel and rushed to catch the elevator. The hotel was famous for its pretty elevator operators, but this one was empty.

  A man stepped into the elevator after me and stood in the back. “Seven, please.” His voice was pleasantly smooth.

  I didn’t move, feeling his gaze on the back of my neck. I sensed a gentle, cinnamon-scented breeze. That was when the elevator operator rushed in, apologizing. We went up, along with that mysteriously delicate scent. I didn’t want to get off at my stop, the fourth floor, when the doors opened. I wanted to turn and look behind me, but I was too nervous and embarrassed.

  Not long after that, I was in a crowded elevator at the American military government building when I experienced something similar. I felt someone watching me and smelled cinnamon. I didn’t get off on my floor. The other passengers got off, one by one, until finally only one person was left behind me. We stood in that elevator, momentarily suspended above ground, listening to each other breathe. What would have happened if I hadn’t looked back just then? Would my life have taken a different turn? But even if I knew I would turn into stone, I would have obeyed my instincts to look. And so I did. He was standing there expectantly, as if he had been waiting for a long time for me to turn around. We recognized each other—listening with every fiber of our beings, our hearts thumping, gazing into each other’s eyes—and for a moment the rest of the world fell away. The sweet cinnamon scent filled the space as we hovered over reality.

  He was the talk of the town. He had studied at Stanford University after graduating from Tokyo Imperial University and had become a well-regarded translator and author and an important member of the Korea Writers League. Now he was working in the public information office of the American military government.

  “I met Yo Min-hwan,” I said dreamily to no one in particular back at the office.

  “Who knows what he’s really thinking. All he does is smile,” someone walking by said, letting slip a hint that I ignored.

  Min-hwan, with his rumpled suit and his habit of casually pushing his hair off his forehead, looked gentle at first glance. But his long, rough, limestone-colored face didn’t betray any emotions. His eyes were hard to read, his straight nose resembled the handle of a ceramic pot, and his lips were much too smooth. His handsomeness was a mask. He was the prototypical traitor, steeped in certain values while agonizing over others—a Communist working for the American military government. Even when I first met him I sensed he wouldn’t be interested in a great, passionate love affair. I could tell he would look down on a naive, pathetic girl like me, parched for romance. But I was convinced he would end up loving me, not because I was so beautiful or so innocent or so charming, but because I would devote myself utterly to him if given the opportunity. Men instinctively gravitate toward fools like that. The next time I spotted him, I found myself in the grip of a rare flush of confidence and, with nervous sweat beading on my forehead, I approached him to introduce myself, insisting we have tea.

  “Why don’t we go to the Bando?” he suggested. “I won’t make the same mistake again. I should have spoken to you the last time we were in the elevator.”

  He strode forward without looking at me. Perhaps he was embarrassed.

  We made awkward, dull conversation, keeping our surging desire at bay. I could feel the waves of passion hurtling toward us. One week later, I got out of his bed, drenched in sweat and tears, and realized I was afloat—a buoy in the middle of the ocean. My heart shrank. Somewhere in that ocean, something dangerous was lurking at the point where our dreams and our despair overlapped. While I had been dreaming of the day I would meet my one great love, he had been hoping the disillusionment he was feeling would pass. And that was precisely the moment I had fallen like an apple by his feet.

  That was how our romance began. The secretive nature of our union quickly drew us close. I groomed my eyebrows very thin in an effort to appear more mature, and he kept cutting his chin like a boy who had just learned to shave. Although he was fifteen years my senior, I teased him like he was my younger brother, and each time, he regarded me seriously, like a boy whose feelings had been hurt. I liked him for that. When I teased him he sometimes tugged my earlobes gently.

  “I’ll tell you your fortune,” he would say. “Give me your cup. Hmm. I see you’ll meet a handsome man.”

  He always read my fortune as we lay in bed drinking cooled coffee, making up what he saw in the coffee grounds at the bottom of my cup. I was always fated to fall in love with him according to the grounds. We did everything in bed—eat, drink, read. It was our entire world.

  “I like your moles,” I said. “They’re like constellations. They should be named after me, since I discovered them.”

/>   Tiny moles were scattered on the right side of his face, so small that only a lover lying next to him would be able to see them. I liked touching and gently blowing on them. Those small brown moles glowed like stars and disappeared magically around dawn.

  I laughed too much and startled for no reason. He lived alone on the second floor of a Western-style house in Chong-dong, which became filled with my fresh scent and laughter. Our affair continued for over a year. I would wait for him in his room, napping, riffling through his drawers, washing my face. He would return home tired and gaze at me numbly, looking slightly dismayed, as I chattered away. I was a silly child; I never once doubted his love for me. It was all picture perfect.

  One day, I watched him from the bed as he changed out of the clothes he’d worn on a business trip, and I realized something was amiss. There was one clock in that sunny room of infidelity, and it had stopped at four thirty, the most ambiguous time of all, the time when you give up on the day.

  “My wife is pregnant,” he said quietly, his back to me.

  I touched my quivering lips. As soon as a mistress loses her sense of self, she loses her dignity. I stood up nonchalantly and went to the window. I wanted to seem worldly. At the time I didn’t know that mistresses are as easygoing as prostitutes are virgins. I should have been honest with my feelings and shown him how jealous and resentful and despairing I was. He had been in an unhappy, decade-long marriage. They had had no children, until now. Now, after he had met me. I should have heeded that warning: love could be conceived in a loveless place. I detected something else that hadn’t existed in that room until then: guilt. He glanced at me apologetically. I still had a choice at that moment. He was more sympathetic than loving, and I knew that when a man gazes upon a woman with sympathy it means that she has lost him. I should have turned away the moment I detected sympathy in his eyes. But instead I threw myself into his arms, weeping, hanging on to his neck, crying as wretchedly as I could.

  “Please stay. I don’t expect anything from you. Just stay with me.” I held on, casting embarrassment aside. Though in truth I did feel plenty of shame.

  He smoothed my wet hair pityingly. I pretended to weep, observing his reactions. A man shouldn’t be cocky when a woman hangs on to him tearfully, as she will remember that moment of humiliation forever; it will enable her to betray him. When he embraces an unhappy woman, he would do well to realize that he will always be remembered as part of her unhappiness.

  I wanted him out of loneliness and desperation, not pure love. I hoped foolishly that I could hold on to him until he eventually became mine. That this would be recompense for the sorrow I felt that day. In hindsight, I was just a silly young mistress. I didn’t hatch my plot out of malice or to put everyone in jeopardy. I don’t know why I did what I did next. Why did I betray him? Why did I do the unforgivable?

  Welcome to Seoul, Marilyn Monroe!

  February 16, 1954

  STILL, IT WAS REALLY AMAZING. WE HAD TO WAIT TWO weeks for the mines to be cleared in Wonsan Harbor, but once we landed, Bob Hope and the beautiful ladies welcomed us with open arms!” the driver chatters on excitedly.

  “My buddy from high school got a Bronze Star Medal. He said the only reason he survived was because of his helmet,” the military policeman sitting next to me chimes in.

  “Let me guess—that’s where he kept Marilyn Monroe’s picture?”

  “Bingo! He survived the Battle of Changjin, but as soon as he got home he died in a car accident.”

  “What? That idiot should have gone everywhere with that helmet on.”

  It’s unbearable. The driver keeps taking both hands off the wheel in excitement. We’re on our way to meet Marilyn and nobody is in his right mind. The caravan of cars heading to Youido Airport begins to speed up competitively. A military truck carrying American soldiers with mass erections kicks up dust to overtake our jeep. Our vehicle charges toward the truck as if it’s stealing Marilyn from us. I can’t help but get a little excited myself. Things aren’t looking good.

  As I feared, the usually deserted airport is roiling with humanity. National and international press, American soldiers who have lost their minds, even houseboys—how did they manage to get here? My body reacts instantly upon spotting the single-minded crowd. I grow sweaty and I can’t breathe and my hands and feet are stiff. One soldier is so touched that I am a woman, just like Marilyn, that he tries to give me a big embrace. I falter and push through the crowd, looking for Hammett. As the person tasked with all the preparations, Hammett hasn’t lost his mind yet.

  “You’re late!” Hammett says. “Did you talk to the band? Did you check with Taegu Hospital? It’s so cold—I hope it’s warmer in Taegu. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  My hands are covering my ears. “I really don’t feel well. I don’t think I can go.”

  “Now, now. She’s landing at any minute! She’s probably flying above Suwon right now.” Hammett isn’t listening to me.

  If I foam at the mouth and collapse right this moment, all these men would gratefully step on me to get a better glimpse of Marilyn. My hands still covering my ears, I turn toward the American embassy staff, but Hammett grabs me, an expression of slight concern on his face.

  “Did someone come see you before you left the base?” he whispers.

  “Who?”

  “Well, the head office was asking about you. About an English-speaking woman who came south from Hungnam on the Ocean Odyssey.”

  Now I am twice as sweaty and nearly panting.

  Hammett flashes me a reassuring smile. “It’s not a big deal. I’m sure they’ll call again if it’s something important.”

  Why are they asking about me? What about the Ocean Odyssey? Just thinking about that time is exhausting; my memories of the war are landmines. I’m already nauseated from the racket. The world spins. I turn toward the jeep to sit and take a breath, but suddenly a roar shakes Youido.

  Everyone is craning up. When the four-engine fighter carrying Marilyn appears in the air, people are practically rioting. As the aircraft lands, assaulting our eardrums with a boom and causing dust to swirl, I stare down at my feet with my hands over my ears, worried I will be trampled. Hammett grabs me as I’m about to faint and drags me to the front of the crowd. A soldier hits my head with his camera for blocking his view and I respond, “Fuck you.” I’m barely standing on my feet. It’s so loud I can’t hear myself breathing. The ramp is rolled up to the plane. Youido erupts with cheers and applause. The plane door opens and my eardrums are about to burst.

  I see her.

  I smile.

  I, who didn’t really care about seeing her in the first place, find myself shyly smiling at her.

  She smiles wider, brighter, more beautiful, like a star.

  She stands on the ramp and waves, sweetly responding to the hundreds of American soldiers going crazy. She doesn’t forget to kindly greet the cameras pouring light on her. I come to my senses. Marilyn herself is modifying the image I had of her.

  She looks even more sensual wearing a flight jacket, fatigues, and military boots than she does in a dress. Her military shirt can’t hide her voluptuous bosom. She’s so dazzling it hurts my eyes. She puts her weight on one foot and pushes her curves out toward the crowd. She puts her hand to her lips and the officer standing behind me groans, calling on God. I take in her blond hair, thick, bright, moving with the breeze. Her face appears more natural than it does in the movies, but the color of her hair doesn’t. What would she look like if her hair were a different color, without that overdone icing? In movies, important events and conflicts begin with blondes. Brunettes can seduce and ruin men, too, but blondes can do that without even trying. I’m feeling a little jealous. I feel a little betrayed as the lovelorn GIs, whom I normally consider to be equivalent to insects, call her name. But I follow suit and call out, too. Welcome, Miss Monroe! Welcome to Korea, which has turned into a mass grave from three years of bloody battle!

  I watch as Marilyn finishes sha
king hands with the military brass and speaks with reporters. The publicist who accompanied her from Japan finds me. “Please get these trunks to the helicopter. Don’t lose them!”

  I am about to get the MPs to move them to the helicopter, but I realize I’m holding two feminine brick-colored leather trunks. “Didn’t Miss Monroe’s husband come, too? Mr. Joe DiMaggio?”

  “No, she came alone.”

  “Aren’t they on their honeymoon?”

  “Yes, but Mr. DiMaggio decided to stay in Tokyo.”

  I’m suddenly curious about this Joe DiMaggio. Some nerve to send his wife to these soldiers during their honeymoon. Especially when his wife is Marilyn Monroe. I have a lot of respect for this famous professional baseball player, although I think he’s made a fatal mistake. I guarantee he’ll regret this day for the rest of his life.

  WHEW. I LIKE YOUR GLOVES!” MARILYN DEIGNS TO NOTICE as she grabs my black lace-gloved hand to hop into the helicopter. My glove looks so filthy and her hand is so cold.

  The men—the USO staff, the photographers, the officers—are fussing over seat assignments and lose the opportunity to display their chivalry to Marilyn.