Every Falling Star

by Sungju Lee

  “Yes,” I replied, sadly remembering the amusement park. I felt as if I were sinking. I wanted to go home.

  “What was it like?”

  “Fun,” I replied.

  I studied Young-bum. He was peppy, like Bo-Cho when he saw me rounding the corner on my way home from school. Young-bum was unable to keep still in his chair, tapping his foot and moving around, like some red candy abeoji once gave me that popped when I put it in my mouth. “What’s the name of the amusement park here?” I finally asked.

  “We don’t have amusement parks,” another boy said. He plopped himself down on the edge of Young-bum’s desk and introduced himself as Chulho. I gasped and tried hard not to show my dismay. Boys in Pyongyang would never be this informal.

  “Umm … ,” I started, turning my attention from Young-bum to Chulho. Everything about him seemed sharp, from his pointy nose and lips, which were like two longs sticks, to his eyebrows, which looked like the mustache my father painted on my general figurine. His lanky body reminded me of a flagpole.

  “We have nothing in Gyeong-seong,” he spat out with such force that his tone of voice was like an acid I once used for an experiment in science class. “But you in Pyongyang are rich and get good food and Ferris wheels.”

  “Don’t forget roller coasters and swimming pools,” Young-bum said, bouncing in his seat. These two couldn’t have been more opposite, I thought. Like sweet-and-sour sauce my father brought home once, saying it was a gift from a man who traded Joseon goods in China.

  Suddenly a boy sitting behind Chulho caught my attention.

  “I know him,” I said, pointing. “But I can’t remember …”

  “Oh,” Young-bum said, turning. “That’s Sangchul.”

  “For the past three years, he’s won the regional singing competition performing ‘So-nian-jang-soo,’” Chulho jumped in. “He’s a singer.”

  “You probably saw him at the train station,” Young-bum added.

  “Yeah, that’s Sangchul, all right,” Chulho continued. “He goes there to sing, to make won for his family.”

  I tilted my head and blinked. “What?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Sangchul can earn more won than anyone in his family—well, more than any of us put together—with his singing,” Young-bum said, beaming.

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand,” I said. “I mean, what does he need won for? The government provides for everything, and surely if his family wants extra, they’re earning won at their places of work.”

  Chulho’s laughter drowned out my words. “There are no rations here,” he finally said, folding his arms across his chest. “Surely you know that. The government isn’t providing for anything anymore.”

  “I … I …” I was stammering now.

  “Look,” said Chulho, leaning toward me and opening a brown bag. He then motioned for me to take a look inside. All I could see were strips of some kind of reddish meat covered in crystals of gray salt. I shrugged, trying to act cool, as if I knew what was going on. But I sure didn’t.

  “It’s squirrel meat. I caught a squirrel in the forests last fall,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, playing along.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “It’s all I’m going to eat today?” he said, the end of his sentence rising as if it were a question instead of a statement.

  A laugh spilled out of me now. For sure, Chulho was playing with me. No one ate squirrel.

  The room fell silent, and so did I. I slowly looked around and saw that every eye was on me again. I swallowed hard and chewed the inside of my mouth.

  “What were you told about your move to Gyeong-seong?” Chulho asked as Young-bum pulled his chair up beside mine and stuck his big head close to me.

  I wiped my sweaty forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. I remembered the mock interrogations we would do in class in Pyongyang. This felt like one of those times—but different. I wasn’t sure if this interrogation was real or not.

  I took a deep breath and kept looking down. I refused to answer, which was what I was told most prisoners of war do, at least at first, before the torture starts.

  “I don’t know what you were told, but I’ll tell you the truth,” Chulho said, leaning in close, too, so close I could smell that he smoked, which startled me. Children don’t smoke in Pyongyang, only adults. “The factories up here may be open, yet no one is working in them, because what’s the point?” he said. “People don’t get paid won for the hours they put in. The food-distribution centers are empty, so their ration tickets are useless. There’s no hope here, fancy-pants Pyongyang boy.”

  Nervous perspiration dripped down my forehead, making my eyes itch. I wished—I wished so much—that seon-saeng-nim would return from his break and start lessons again.

  “Soon you’ll be out in those forests looking for food,” Young-bum said more gently. “And when you do, I’ll come with you. It won’t be that scary.”

  At that moment, seon-saeng-nim burst through the front door, sending a blast of cold air around the already cold room. I exhaled, never so happy in my life to see a teacher.

  As seon-saeng-nim went on about Japan’s expansion into Joseon over the 1900s, Chulho passed me a note.

  Trust me, those yummy noodles you just ate will soon run out. Then you’ll be just like us.

  I wasn’t allowed to switch classes to be exposed to a harder curriculum. For one, this class was apparently the most difficult in the school and had the top students, which I found hard to believe. My father said he would discuss with our block party leader if there were some activities I could do outside of school to further my studies. In the meantime, I stayed away from these Young-bum and Chulho characters, reading my textbooks during breaks and running right home from school at lunch and at the end of the day. I was sure the boys were not serious about what they had said to me. Yet why would they lie? Was it to test me? To see if I was strong and would continue to support the regime under interrogation?

  While I waited for eomeoni to return from her job on a government farm, I collected wood and twigs for the fire, and water, in a large metal bucket, from the well. I had food every day, good food, from sticky rice with kidney beans and vegetables to fried tofu and kimchi. Life up here was just fine, I thought on some days, although I missed watching Boy General on television because we didn’t have a TV. Even if we did, the electricity was turned on only for special occasions. I missed Bo-Cho and my sojo. Our eternal father sacrificed much more than I am, I reminded myself when I felt sad. This is all a test of my willpower, and I will be strong.

  Spring soon came. The hills and fields became dotted with red and yellow azaleas, and geese called out to me from above, announcing that they were on their way home from their own winter vacations.

  Just before biology class a few weeks after Kim Il-sung’s birthday, Young-bum skidded his chair and jumpy body beside mine and whispered, “We’re going to an execution tomorrow.”

  I stared at him for the longest time, not sure if I had heard him correctly. I wondered if he was just testing me again.

  “A what?” I finally asked, deciding I’d feign that I hadn’t quite made out what he’d said.

  “An execution. Where the government kills people.” Chulho joined us, squeezing his thin frame in between Young-bum’s and mine. “Don’t tell me you proper people in Pyongyang don’t execute people who commit crimes?”

  “No!” I wanted to shout out at him. But I didn’t. I said nothing.

  “Or maybe no one in Pyongyang does anything wrong?” Young-bum interrupted, cocking his head and smiling, revealing a newly missing tooth.

  “It’s because they have the amusement park. People in Pyongyang don’t do anything wrong because they’re always happy,” Chulho said with a scowl. “Isn’t that right, fancy-pants Pyongyang boy?”

  “What happened to your tooth?” I asked Young-bum, hoping to change the subject. I knew there was no way we would go to an execution. Joseon didn’t kill people. The government just sent
people who were bad to labor or political prison camps.

  “Got in a fight. Lost it,” he said matter-of-factly, drawing his tongue over the gap in his teeth. He seemed actually proud to have lost a tooth.

  “Oh,” I replied. I wanted to ask him more. Boys also don’t fight unless it was in the sojo, and I knew from my father that there were no tae kwon do clubs in Gyeong-seong. Nothing these two boys said made sense.

  “You still don’t get it,” Chulho said. “Life isn’t good here. Ask your dad where he goes every day. Ask him what it’s like in that factory of his.”

  “I’ll do that,” I snapped. What I really wanted to say to this guy was “Leave me alone.”

  I arrived at school the next morning and took my place at the front of the assembly. As school captain, my job was to ensure that the entire student body stood in straight lines and at attention, saluting the national flag of Joseon, followed by pledging allegiance that we would always be prepared to fight for our country. Beside me stood Young-bum, holding a pole with the school flag tied to the end. On our left arms, he and I wore bands indicating our school ranks. My band had three red lines and three stars because I was student president. His had three red lines and one star because he had a lower ranking.

  As school captain, I was responsible for many things, including taking attendance. I walked down the lines of students, stiff-backed and knees bending high as if I were marching in a military parade, collecting the number of students from each class’s leader, or boon-dan-we-won-jang. Then I returned to my place at the front of the assembly and called out: “All students’ attention to the manager.”

  Then, to the so-nyon-dan manager, I said: “So-nyon-dan, two hundred students out of a total of three hundred are gathered in front of you.”

  “Stand at ease,” the so-nyon-dan manager said to me.

  “Stand at ease!” I hollered to the classes.

  “Young-bum,” I leaned toward him and whispered. “Where have all the students gone? This week we’ve lost another twenty.”

  “Hmm,” he hummed, watching his flag droop. There was no wind. “I think they’re trading their textbooks and clothes at markets in nearby towns or they’ve moved to another city so their parents can find food.”

  “Oh.” I laughed out loud. I got it finally. “I guess these children and their families must have done something wrong against the government, like give military secrets to the South. That’s why they’ve been abandoned and have no food. That’s why some people up here have to eat squirrel. Thank you for clarifying,” I said to Young-bum.

  I turned my attention back to the students standing in front of me, smug in the knowledge that I’d finally figured out why Chulho and Young-bum say life is so terrible up here. It’s because people outside Pyongyang are bad.

  “Psst! Psst!” Young-bum hissed. I turned slowly and looked at him. “Do you really believe that?” he asked with real surprise in his voice.

  “Yes,” I replied with a nod, my tone of voice confident and assured.

  “Today, students, we are going to an execution,” the so-nyon-dan manager announced into a bullhorn with no emotion, almost casually, as if an execution were something the students went to regularly.

  I jumped, both at the sudden noise of the bullhorn and at what was said.

  Young-bum leaned over and whispered to me, “Today, your real-life education begins.”

  The boon-dan-we-won-jang called the classes to attention. When we set off on our march, I trailed behind the so-nyon-dan manager, and in order of age, from youngest to oldest, the rest of the school followed me. As we marched, the students sang songs about the great leader, Kim Il-sung, and Kim Jong-il. They sang loudly, sometimes shouting, so much so that my ears began to ring. Every now and then I could hear Sangchul’s voice above the others. Surprising me, though, I could also hear Young-bum belting out the lyrics in a contralto octave, as if he were the buk in an off-tune symphony orchestra.

  The so-nyon-dan manager had me stop on the bank of the Gyeong-seong River, not far from the Ryongcheon railroad bridge. We joined hundreds of students from other schools as well as adults, many standing on tiptoe and facing what appeared to be two poles. A policeman had me lead my school to the front, where he instructed me to tell the others to sit on a dry patch of ground that was covered in pebbles and dust.

  To the left was a white tent, on the front of which was Joseon’s national emblem, which included pictures of Sup’ung Dam and Baekdu Mountain, a beam of light, and a five-pointed red star. The two long poles were in front of me. On the right was a table, on top of which were photographs framed in gold of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. When the sun’s rays hit the picture frames, beams of light fanned out into the crowd, making me feel as if our eternal leaders were there with us, watching.

  “Be a man!” Young-bum, still beside me, mumbled into my ear. “Don’t look away. The first execution will be the hardest. After that, you’ll get used to seeing death.” He then laughed under his breath, a sinister cackle, as if he were the village idiot laughing at his own joke.

  I remained stone-faced. I had no idea what was going on.

  A gruff-looking police officer called us to attention by speaking into the bullhorn, introducing the judge, who walked to the center of the makeshift stage. The judge took the bullhorn from the police officer and called out a name.

  My eyes moved to some fluttering behind the white tent. Two police officers finally emerged, each holding an arm of a middle-aged man whose hands were tied together by a piece of rough-looking rope. The man, who I guessed was the criminal, had skin the color of rock, and his legs were no bigger than a small child’s. His body trembled as the policemen used more rope to tie him by his torso and legs to the pole. When the policemen stepped away, the man stared into the sky, and urine dripped down one of the legs of his pants and onto his bare feet.

  The judge listed the man’s crimes, the main one of which was that he had stolen copper and electrical wire from a local factory and was caught trying to cross the Duman River into China with the goods. The judge said the man had committed high treason, and for that, the prisoner was sentenced to death.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  The nine gunshots came from out of nowhere, fired by three police officers who I hadn’t even noticed had taken positions close to me. Each of them shot the prisoner three times. The first pistol was aimed at the man’s chest, the second at his abdomen or legs, the third at his head.

  I jumped so high Young-bum reached over and held me down so I wouldn’t do it again. I pinched my eyes tightly shut, but Young-bum said I needed to watch. “The police and the so-nyon-dan manager will think you’re a traitor if you don’t,” he hissed.

  I stared at this so-called criminal, his head hanging on his chest, his body crumpling under his weight, pools of blood bubbling up under his clothes and spreading out at his feet like a tide creeping in.

  “See, even in death, the criminal has to bow down to the government,” Young-bum whispered to me. “It’s a lesson to us all: Don’t commit crimes.”

  I looked at the three policemen who had shot him. They were reloading their pistols.

  Next, police officers dragged a woman with shorn hair who looked about my mother’s age toward the other pole. A dirty white cloth was dangling from her mouth, and her eyes were wild, darting back and forth, as if she were the tiger at the Pyongyang zoo. Someone in the crowd shouted, “Traitor!” and soon Chulho and Young-bum led a chorus of students chanting, “Traitor. Spy. We have to kill you! Kill you! All of you!”

  The judge called into the bullhorn to get the crowd to quiet down. I wanted to cover my ears so I didn’t have to hear these words or the bullets crack and whiz through the air again. I wanted to wake up and find myself back in Pyongyang, under my cotton sheets, knowing Bo-Cho was asleep in his doghouse—which wasn’t much smaller than the house I lived in now. I wanted to return to my home city, with its
palaces that glittered in the sunlight; its theaters, bronze monuments, skating rinks, hotels, and exhibition halls that rose up from the ground and lifted us all up, too—a city in the sky, that’s what I thought of Pyongyang. Pyongyang, with its fountains, amusement park, forests … and silver escalators in the metro, polished every day by workers. In Pyongyang, everything about life was precise and known. And in Pyongyang, I had been taught that treason meant a person had sold Joseon secrets to the South or to the Americans, secrets that could put us all back to where we were under the Japanese: ruled by foreigners and oppressed. Treason meant the person and his or her family had to live in a labor or political prison camp. Our government didn’t kill people …

  “… met a South Korean Christian missionary in China, who was helping her plan to escape to the South.” The judge’s words dug into me, his words about this woman slumping now in front of me, tied to the second stake, this woman with saliva frothing from her mouth, this woman wearing torn and dirty pants and a top that was just a darker shade of her dirty and malnourished skin. “Chinese police discovered her before she could leave and deported her to Joseon, where she stands before you …”

  “Treason!” someone called out from the crowd.

  This time, the sound of the guns’ aftershock dug deep into my eardrums, causing a buzzing in my head. Sounds became muffled. I could see Young-bum’s and Chulho’s lips moving, but their voices sounded as if they were underwater.

  I felt dizzy and sick.

  By the time I flung open the front door to my house, I was short of breath, still dizzy and nauseous, and feeling as though I was about to pass out. At least my hearing had come back. I knew this because I heard my classmates shouting goodbye and “Great execution” to one another as we went to our various homes for lunch.