by Young-Ha Kim
"Isn't that why people like you put theory into practice and build dams to control nature?"
"That's only a temporary solution. The last war was all about fire. Pyongyang went back to the stone age because of American bombs. After that was the era of earth. We picked up our shovels and erected cities. Through the Chollima Movement, we built a republic as good as any other. Now it's the era of water. Water appears placid from the outside but there's actually a very powerful energy within it. That's why we have to control water. We're doing that now, but nobody knows what will happen. Soon it will become the era of air. It may be the most painful era, more than the periods of fire, earth, and water. You can't see air but without it, people can't breathe."
At the time, Ki-yong didn't know what Father was trying to tell him. But soon, he understood that Father was deriding the pointless self-centered worldview of Juche Ideology, and was accurately prophesying North Korea's future. Years later, in the early 1990s, after a series of floods, the so-called arduous march began. It was the era of starvation, where the only available food was grass and bark and dirt. Stomachs went empty. The era of air. People said, If this is how it is, let's fight with anyone, be it South Korea or America. Let's go all the way until the very end.
Father changed the subject. "Your mother is a child of the earth. She's from a farming family. But as you know, I'm a child of water."
Ki-yong's grandfather was a boatman on Taedong River. He remained one even when the Japanese built a railway bridge over the river and luminaries like Natsume Soseki, Yi Kwangsu, and Na Hye-sok traversed it by train. When Ki-yong's father came back from Koje Island, his own father was waiting for him in a hut on a riverbank dense with weeping willows. Like the willows, a few of whose branches were always dipped in water, Father had a damp and dark side to him. Even his preference of talking frankly, instead of beating around the bush, was more characteristic of water than of earth or fire. Ki-yong, who was quick to catch on to nuances and possessed a good ear for language, understood that waterlike Father was telling him that he was being trapped by Mother, the earth, and that at some point the water would breach the earthen walls and go where it wanted. But this knowledge made Ki-yong feel uncomfortable. Why were they getting him involved in their arguments?
Ki-yong was a good skater. Even in ill-fitting skates, he turned corners faster than anyone and stopped precisely, with a spray of ice. Ki-yong bent low and shot forward, his legs stretching and lengthening. He went around counterclockwise on the outer edge of the pond as the beginners in the inner circle slowly wobbled around in the other direction. The chilly wind slapped his cheeks, but it wasn't painful. The smoke from a small fire of weeds, kindled to ward off the cold, billowed, aromatic and sulfurous. Ki-yong glided faster and completed a loop. He straightened and placed his feet parallel to each other, braking to a stop with a flourish, sending up a shower of ice chips.
That day was the first time he spoke with Jong-hee, a girl who lived on the same floor as Ki-yong's family, at the southern end of the hall. Her cheeks were red and her small nose was pert. At 7:20 A.M., when all the students gathered at the meeting place and marched to school together, grouped by class, their eyes met. It happened again at the skating rink. Jong-hee smiled, a red knitted scarf looped around her neck, and Ki-yong slid past her, missing his chance to reciprocate. Fifteen-year-old Ki-yong didn't have the courage to double back to say hello. But as he rested by the wooden post, watching his breath turn white, she came over to him, her long limbs moving elegantly.
"You're a very good skater."
Ki-yong was self-conscious about the gaze of his father, who was probably observing this from somewhere, and that of his school friends. He felt a little proud, too, but didn't know how to express this pride, and so it was a sort of pointless emotion.
"Are they your skates?" Jong-hee asked finally, when Ki-yong didn't say anything.
"No, my father's."
"So you can speak!" Jong-hee flashed him a smile and pushed off toward the inner circle. It was an embarrassingly unsophisticated conversation, but it was Pyongyang in the mid-1970s. Openly dating symbolized one's ideological laxity and was the subject of severe criticism. Nobody knew what to do or say to a girl at the ice rink; it wasn't only Ki-yong who was terribly inept. Dating was a clear taboo. Their interaction that day wouldn't have been that strained had he known that he would soon vomit on her, and twenty years later, would unexpectedly bump into her.
Jong-hee was well known in school. From the age of eleven, she was chosen to represent their school in large-scale Mass Games with children from all around the country, to celebrate the founding anniversary of the Workers Party or the War Victory Anniversary. More than eighty thousand children were divided into ten teams, and each came out and performed awe-inspiring, circuslike aerobics routines. Jong-hee was tall and good enough to be in the front row of her team. The performances went on for twenty days and all the schoolchildren in Pyongyang went to watch. Everyone dressed up—students in uniforms, men in suits, and women in blue or red hanbok. The crowd walked between the large columns and gathered in the Main Theater.
The aerobics routines were composed of scenes from revolutionary history, such as the armed anti-Japanese struggle. Ki-yong and the rest of the boys tracked Jong-hee's movements with their eyes, proud of their school representative. She leaned back, picked up a small ball and threw it high in the sky, did a running start like a doe, and launched into a somersault, catching the falling ball with her legs. More than one hundred girls threw the balls high above their heads and caught them with their legs in unison, and not a single one dropped the ball. Jong-hee looked more mature than her age because of her vivid eye makeup and red lipstick. Ki-yong and his friends watched Jong-hee's leaps and turns with their mouths agape, envious of the children who lifted her up and marched away.
Why would someone like that talk to him? Ki-yong couldn't believe it. A little later, when he looked for her, she was already gone. His brothers grew tired of sledding and the sun was dropping behind Moran Peak. They gathered their skates and sleds and went home.
A few days after their skating excursion, Father went to check on a Yalu River dam and power plant. A fissure had been discovered in the dam, which was built during the Japanese occupation, so a drove of functionaries from Pyongyang had to go to Sinuiju. That day happened to be Ki-yong's sixteenth birthday. Everything was symbolic: there was a fissure in the dam, Father wasn't home, Pyongyang was experiencing a blackout, and his two brothers were chosen as school representatives to go on a trip to Myohyang Mountain. Ki-yong felt an inexplicable dread for having to spend his birthday with only Mother.
"Mother will cook chicken stew for you. I'll bring you a present from Sinuiju. What would you like?" Father asked.
"A foreign-made ballpoint pen, please." Ki-yong actually wanted a good pair of shoes. But he ended up asking for a ballpoint pen made in a foreign country. Father ruffled his hair and left for work.
Father took the 6:00 P.M. train from Pyongyang station. As soon as it left, Pyongyang tumbled into darkness, as if someone had flicked off the light switch. Nobody knew if the blackout involved a problem with the hydropower plant or the electricity line coming into Pyongyang. Nobody in the North had any inkling about what was going on. The paper and television didn't mention it at all, leaving rumors to fill the void. In darkened Pyongyang, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Blackouts were routine. Or it could be a blackout drill to prepare for an air attack. But there was no siren that indicated the onset of a drill. Ki-yong walked home from the subway station. The December sun set early; it was already dark. Ki-yong stopped by his mother's foreign currency store. The unlit store was closed. Ki-yong shook the steel shutters a few times, but when nobody came out, he headed home. He climbed the stairs of the harmonica apartment building and approached his unit, the savory smell of chicken stew greeting him.
"Mother, I'm home!"
No answer. It was dark inside the apartment and the gas burner was o
n, casting a bluish glow. Ki-yong turned it off and went into the master bedroom. Mother wasn't there either. Did she go somewhere to borrow a candle? Ki-yong went out to the hall and looked around, peeking into a few apartments with open doors, but she wasn't to be found. Instead, he bumped into Jong-hee, who was coming home from practice. Even under the faint candlelight, he could tell that she was smiling at him. She bounced down the hall, her steps lighthearted and airy, revealing her talent for gymnastics. Ki-yong went back inside and tossed his book bag under his desk. The aroma of the chicken stew wasn't quite as strong anymore. He went into the bathroom, scooped some cold water they had saved in the tub into a big bucket and thoroughly washed his hands, face, and neck. It was dark in the bathroom, so dark that he couldn't even see his face in the mirror. Ki-yong searched like a blind man for a towel, but then slipped and fell. He tried to get up but fell again. The floor was slippery, coated with something wet. Ki-yong, sitting on the bathroom floor rubbing his aching tailbone, realized that there was someone else sitting on the floor, next to him. He reached out and felt clothes and then a brassiere under the clothes. He patted the face and the waist, then started to scream. It was a body, crumpled.
Ki-yong bolted out into the hall and sprinted toward the end of the hallway, where faint light was coming through. He panted, leaning against the railing. He could hear his breath and found himself feeling inhuman, like an animal, a wild hog cornered during a hunt. Jong-hee ran out of her apartment, candle in hand. Ki-yong was covered in blood, but it looked like dirt in the dim light. His neighbors rushed out, surprised by his screams. Jong-hee boldly embraced Ki-yong and led him toward the narrow balcony hanging at the end of the hallway, where people couldn't see them. The westerly wind from the Yellow Sea battered them. Ki-yong, on his knees, in Jong-hee's arms, drew in ragged breaths, then vomited warm, sour liquid onto her chest.
"What's wrong? What's going on?"
He didn't answer. Jong-hee drew Ki-yong's face deeper into her stomach, holding him. His face was buried in his vomit on her school uniform, the blood from his hands dyeing her clothes.
"It's not my fault. It's really not my fault."
"Okay, okay. What's wrong?"
"Mother. I think Mother is dead." Ki-yong's speech was garbled, so Jong-hee didn't catch "is dead." But she did hear "Mother." Dancing candlelight illuminated the apartment windows across the way.
"It's all right, it's all right. It's all right now," Jong-hee soothed. She led him back slowly to the hallway. Perhaps she was worried that he would jump from the railing. People were still gathered in the dark hallway, murmuring. Like ghosts wandering around subterranean cemeteries, their faces and candles floated in the air.
"What's going on? Hey, aren't you...?" The man who lived across the way from Jong-hee pushed a candle in Ki-yong's face and his eyes widened in shock as they registered the dark blood covering the boy. He took a step back. All the candles rushed toward Ki-yong, like a horde of moths. Ki-yong's bloody body and face glowed in the darkness, as if he were a Caravaggio painting.
Ki-yong tried to say "in the bathroom," but it came out "uhhhaahhhuhh." He pointed weakly toward his home. As soon as they heard the women scream, the men rushed into Ki-yong's apartment without bothering to take off their shoes. Candles paraded into his apartment. The hall was dark again. Jong-hee was still holding Ki-yong's hand, but nobody noticed.
Only later was Ki-yong overcome by an intense anger—after agents from the Ministry of People's Security came by, took the body, and sent telegrams to Myohyang Mountain and Sinuiju, and after Ki-yong changed into clean clothes provided by the neighbors. Why did she have to cut her wrists on his sixteenth birthday? Did she hate him that much? Why did she have to do it on the one day Father wasn't around? Ki-yong wanted to ask her these questions. After some time passed, a clinging guilt tempered his anger. If he had listened more attentively to Mother's complaints, if he had come home a little earlier instead of playing basketball with his friends, no, if he had never been born ... Uneasy thoughts dogged him, tormented him.
Father was brought back to Pyongyang and underwent an investigation conducted by the Ministry of People's Security, and the records kept in Mother's store were searched. But nobody found anything. It was the kind of situation that rendered Communists helpless. Suicide meant you left the socialist paradise of your own free will, for no good reason. Officially, their society didn't have suicides; without known statistics, nobody knew what the suicide rate was. In the end, the Ministry of People's Security found evidence of Mother's insanity. In a cabinet in the store, they found meaningless statistics and accounting books that she had been compiling in the few months before her death. The records didn't match the items in the storeroom or other records held by agencies that provided the goods. Transactions that existed solely in Mother's head filled more than twenty books. Nonexistent people bought made-up items in great quantities, and these imaginary transactions were meticulously recorded. Nobody had thought twice about her, a hardworking woman who never made a mistake, because so many books were created in such a short time and there was no problem in the actual circulation of items.
Later, when he arrived in Seoul, Ki-yong saw Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Watching Jack Nicholson go crazy in a cabin in the snow-covered Rockies, he remembered his mother, which he hadn't done in a long time. As Jack Nicholson typed, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," over and over on several hundred pages, he imagined Mother, sitting alone in her store, tittering like an idiot. He couldn't finish watching the movie. From then on, Ki-yong kept a safe distance from The Shining and chicken stew. But now, almost thirty years later, he wondered if she would have killed herself if there hadn't been a power outage and she could have continued to write in the books like she did every day. Maybe Father's business trip, the sudden blackout, and his birthday—three unusual events—merged and broke her rhythm, unfastening the safety latch located somewhere in her brain.
Ki-yong saw Jong-hee again in 2001, in Seoul. He was sitting in a subway car, on the northbound Line 3, crossing the Han River. A woman was staring at him, sitting across the aisle. He glanced at her too, but couldn't place her. He tried to remember. Who was she? She was wearing a neat slate-colored skirt that came to her knees, and looked to be in her late thirties. Although she had faint lines around her eyes and on her neck, she was a beauty, with symmetrical features. Her hair was tied back, secured with pins and an elastic band. Her wrists were thin, and she had narrow shoulders. There was something old-fashioned about her makeup. Her eyebrows were thin and drawn in, her lips were red, and she wasn't wearing mascara. She was gripping the handle of her purse as if her life depended on it, looking frightened out of her mind, or maybe sad. It was an expression he couldn't decipher. He looked away, and she looked down at her lap hastily. But soon, they were staring at each other again.
A subway car is laid out awkwardly, forcing people to stare at each other from across the way. The aisle's too wide to say hello, but it's too narrow to just ignore someone, so it's always difficult to decide where to look. Ki-yong squinted and studied her face again. The more he looked at her, the more it convinced him that he knew her. But he couldn't remember where he'd seen her. She wasn't someone in the movie business, and she didn't seem like someone he went to school with. If it had been someone who did publicity for movies, she wouldn't have stared at him like that, making him uncomfortable. He wanted to ask, Who are you? But if he had gotten up from his seat and walked over, people would have stared. He couldn't go up to a woman whose name he didn't know and ask, "Excuse me, who are you and why do you keep staring at me?"
Her gaze was testing Ki-yong's patience. The train was still clattering across the Han River. She twisted her lips into a wry smile. There was something unnatural about her expression, revealing a tragic plea. That's when he realized who it was. He never imagined that he would see her in Seoul. Jong-hee. He whispered her name to himself, but his voice was so low that the sound evaporated as soon as it escaped hi
s mouth. But she was reading his lips. Her expression stiffened, and when the car stopped at Yaksu station, she bolted up and hastily left the car. Ki-yong followed her out. She was walking briskly toward the transfer station, toward Line 6. He dodged the sea of people coming toward him and followed her. She kept looking behind her, frightened. Finally, stumbling like she would fall over, she started running. Ki-yong started running too. Why was she here? And why was she so desperately running away from him?
Finally, he caught up to her, close enough that he could grab and stop her. She backed up against a wall and her breath came out in rasps, her shoulders tense. People walked by, glancing at them. She was crying. "Please, please."
"Jong-hee, what's going on? You're Jong-hee, right? Right?" Ki-yong asked.
She kept repeating the same words. "Please, please," she said, seeking his generosity, hands clasped and bowing her head in supplication.
"All right, I'm sorry. I won't do anything. I'm going to go, so you can get up, okay?" He tried to help her up, as she was sliding down the wall, but she shrank away as if she had touched a snake.
Ki-yong raised his hands, palms open, and stepped back.
She got up with difficulty. "Thank you. Thank you."
Ki-yong turned toward Line 3. Only after she saw him leave did she start walking toward Line 6, with cautious steps. Ki-yong looked back after a while, but she was already gone.
A while later, he learned that she and her husband had escaped the North via Macau and Bangkok. He looked it up online, which revealed their route and reasons for escaping. In the twenty-first century, leaving North Korea had become a nonevent, something that wasn't all that shocking. People he used to know in Pyongyang might be living in Seoul, and he might even bump into them on the street.
Jong-hee was the last person he saw before he was selected to go into Liaison Office 130. She was a member of the most renowned dance troupe in the North, Mansudae Art Troupe. He told her they wouldn't be able to see each other for a long time. She knew exactly what Liaison Office 130 and Office No. 35 entailed, and that he would be sent down south as an agent. He realized why she had looked so terrified when she saw him on the subway. She must have thought he had orders to kill her. It wasn't a ridiculous thought. In 1997, Lee Han-yong, a nephew of Kim Jong Il's wife, was shot to death in front of his South Korean apartment by the Operation Department assassination squad, which then went back north, evading capture.