Weekend Drama at the Livingtel

Since late November of last year, room 23 of the Yeoksam Livingtel has been my home. This red-brick edifice, located at 47 Bongeunsa-ro 30-gil, Gangnam-gu, is about a mile northeast of the Yesung Life Officetel, where I resided for more than 14 years. The ground floor is given over to an auto mechanic shop and a hardware store. The second floor is where I live, along with 25 others. Each person has his or her own none-too-spacious apartment; we share a kitchen and laundry room. Han Hee-jin, the landlady, occupies the third floor. A courtyard with green plants sprouting purple, red and white flowers wraps around two sides of the building. Rather anomalously, the Livingtel is a cheap place (430,000 won [$311 at the current exchange rate] per month) in a high-dollar district.

Hee-jin rules the roost, albeit with a rather light hand. Sometimes, two weeks go by without me seeing her. She emphasizes to the residents that since we live in such close proximity, we all must be respectful of each other and make as little noise as possible. Even when a door closes, it is usually done quietly. That is why I was surprised on Saturday afternoon to hear some noise out in the hallway or in a nearby room. I ignored it at first, but it continued so I eventually opened my door to see what was going on. To my surprise, a pair of Seoul policemen came hurrying past room 23. On and on went the hubbub, with loud voices and some bumping up against walls.

I returned to the book I was reading (American Prometheus / The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for journalism), but not for long. I again looked out my door and saw that one of my co-residents was in some kind of legal trouble. Like me, she was White, but seemingly not an American. For no valid reason, I pegged her as Russian so I will call her “Natasha.” Rather thin, she was in her late 20s, and sported bleach-blonde hair and a tattoo covering her right bicep. Natasha and I never had the slightest contact. Whenever I saw her, she averted her eyes. The girl seemed vaguely distressed, but I never gave her too much thought until Saturday.

Just where the hallway intersects with the kitchen, Natasha was surrounded by no fewer than five of Seoul’s finest—four male and one female. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, and the cops were being rather rough with her, pushing her this way and that. She protested as best she could. They seemed to have hustled her out of her room quickly because she was not fully clothed. I am blushing as I write this, but she was wearing a black brassiere from which her bosoms overflowed. Natasha refused to go further until her bag was retrieved. “My bag, my bag,” she said again and again. After the female cop went and got her bag, the six of them proceeded down the hall, to the left, out into the courtyard and down the steps to where a police car was surely waiting.

With Natasha gone, I was oddly upset. Why? Her problem was not my problem, and she must have done something to merit the attention of those police officers. I sent a text message to Hee-jin, asking why the blonde girl had been arrested and what crime she had allegedly committed. She chose not to answer my query, but I surmise that Natasha had been working as a freelance prostitute in her apartment—not that I saw a parade of men entering and leaving her room. In fact, I do not even know which room was hers.

Later that day, I was in the park adjacent to the Livingtel talking to a Korean friend and telling him about these events. His guess was the same as mine, that she had been hooking. Furthermore, he held the view that our little neighborhood in this big city was infested with people doing various black-market jobs; he himself ran an illegal online gambling business.

As mentioned, seeing Natasha busted and taken to face Korean justice had left me a bit unsettled. When I woke up on Sunday morning, this quickly came to mind. I wished the best for her, whatever that might be. Around 1 p.m., when passing through the courtyard I noted Hee-jin talking with a woman (also White) I had never seen before.

An hour later, I was sitting outside of Tiny Brown coffee shop just down the street from the Livingtel. In the midst of my English conversation class with Dr. Lee Kyoung-min, I looked across the street and beheld two women sitting outside of a different coffee shop—one of whom had been conversing with Hee-jin, and the other of whom had bleach-blonde hair. Natasha! Next to them were two suitcases on wheels. I quickly told Dr. Lee about Saturday’s developments, and he found them interesting as well. I had not even finished the story when a taxi pulled up. The two ladies put their suitcases in the trunk, got in and were away.

One final presumption in this tawdry tale is that the authorities had told Natasha to leave the country, and she and her friend were on their way to Seoul-Incheon International Airport, destination Moscow. A palpable wave of relief and joy came over me, knowing that this young woman was no longer incarcerated. I sincerely hope she can straighten out her life, and in the process get rid of that nasty tat on her right bicep.

Return address on my personal envelopes…

The book I was reading when Natasha was apprehended…

Our courtyard, 1…

Our courtyard, 2…

Tiny Brown, from which Dr. Lee and I observed the two “Russian” ladies across the street, about to go to the airport…

Where Natasha had her last cup of coffee in Seoul before departing…