“Not the sharpest kid, but at least he’s enthusiastic,” the officer said under his breath to the young man, rolling his eyes. He shrugged at the young man and then looked on in an avuncular way. The soldier flashed his light into the bed of the truck, lifting the blankets that were haphazardly strewn about. He was being thorough, wanting to impress his superior. Il-sun held her breath. The soldier poked at the shapeless bundle that was Gyong-ho. She did not make a sound, but the soldier recognized the density as being distinctly corporeal. He pulled at the blanket and uncovered the shivering Gyong-ho.
The officer perked up, his casual air gone. “What’s this?” He looked at the paperwork that was still in his hand, and then counted heads once again. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded of the young man. The young man swallowed hard, but kept his wits.
“Just a little recreation, sir.” He was again the professional soldier.
“What do you mean, ‘just a little recreation’?”
“A flower-selling girl we picked up in the city. We couldn’t exactly get paperwork for her through official channels, if you know what I mean. The boys at the factory site need a little companionship.” Then he added another hasty “sir.”
The officer looked thoughtful, the corners of his mouth tight and downturned. “This is out of the ordinary,” he said after a moment. The young man cursed to himself for finding the one man in all of North Korea who could not be bribed with foreign cigarettes. He had no choice but to try another tactic.
“She’s not exclusively for them, you know, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we could let you give her a try, right here and now, if you like. You would be doing us a favor, really. Let us know how she is?”
The officer rubbed his chin with his fingers thoughtfully. It was a lonely outpost. “Bring her over here,” he said finally. “I want to have a look at her.” The soldier got into the bed of the truck and forced Gyong-ho to get up and step onto the pavement. He led her over to the officer. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have a talk with her in private. You can wait in your truck.”
“You heard the man, everyone back in the truck!” the young man commanded.
“But—” Il-sun tried to protest.
“Get in the truck! Now!” The look on his face was truly frightening. Il-sun felt powerless to help her friend, but she wanted to do something. The men got immediately back in the truck, but Il-sun and Cho lingered.
Cho rolled her eyes and said, “I can’t believe you men!” She turned in the other direction and walked toward the concrete building. The officer and the soldier were just stepping Gyong-ho inside and were about to close the door.
Il-sun could not hear what Cho was saying to them, but her hands were quite animated. Fortunately they were distracted enough by what she was saying not to notice her long, red fingernails—a sure giveaway that she was not truly a soldier. The men looked from Cho to Gyong-ho and then back again. Listening to what she was saying, their faces went from incredulous to concerned. Finally they released Gi, and Cho walked her back to the truck untouched.
“How did you manage that?” asked Il-sun.
“It was easy, teacup. I told them she has a social disease.”
“A social disease?”
“Yeah. I told them that if they screw her, their peckers will turn black and fall off. They didn’t believe me at first, but then, who would want to take that chance?”
Il-sun looked at Cho through new eyes. The women got in the truck, the young soldier lifted the barricade, and they drove off into the night.
32
MOTHER WAS THE NEXT to die. She had succumbed to some combination of sickness and starvation. By that time, Gyong-ho was numb and calloused by the hardships of the gulag, and her mother was a stranger to her. She had no tears to shed. If she felt anything at all about her mother’s passing, it was relief; but even that was barely a sensation at all.
Days, weeks, months, and years passed meaninglessly. As she grew, her body twisted from lack of nourishment and overwork. She retreated into the abstract world of numbers, leaving little more than the shell of her body to cope with the rigors of prison life.
Gyong-ho did not have any feelings about God, but she did believe in angels. She believed in them because she had met one, no matter that she was flesh and bone. This angel appeared in the gulag, young and clean and beautiful, sometime after Gi’s mother died. She smelled fresh, like sunrise. She was a new prison guard, unsullied by the filth of mind that infected everyone else. She did not yell, she did not beat, she did not threaten. She just was.
The angel was the new guard in charge of reeducation, and she was impressed by the quick and seamless way in which Gi could answer questions about even the most minute of details regarding the life and history of the great Chosun nation and its rulers. She began to reward Gi for her exceptional memory with little bits of extra food and lighter daily work. Gi learned to play into the angel’s favor by being ever sharper and quicker. This naturally caused many of the other children to be jealous, but it did not matter—any extra calorie or comfort could be the difference between living and dying.
Gi became the angel’s “special helper,” which entailed little more than sweeping the classroom floor and tidying odds and ends. Most days this kept her out of the fields and factories. From time to time the angel would sneak food to her from her own home, which often included small portions of rice. Though by most standards it was a meager amount of food, in the gulag it was a feast that helped her maintain her strength. The angel could have been punished for this, Gi knew.
“I always wished I could have a daughter,” the angel would sometimes say.
One day, as Gi was walking to the morning education class, the angel met her halfway there. This was highly unusual, though nobody questioned it. Nobody much cared what happened to the prisoners, including the prisoners themselves. The angel instructed Gi to follow her. She took her into the building where the dark man used his electric prod on her—Gi became short of breath. She assumed that finally the infection of cruelty must have spread to the angel too, and now she was going to be tortured by the most beautiful person she had ever known. The angel took her into a small room and told her to keep quiet, even though nobody else was around. Then she commanded her to strip down, and Gi obeyed. Now the pain will start, Gyong-ho thought, dispassionately. It was as if it were happening to someone else. But instead of pain, the angel handed her new clothes to wear. They were too big, but they were clean.
“If anyone asks, tell them you are my niece, okay?” said the angel. Gyong-ho nodded. “Listen to me, Gyong-ho,” she continued. “I am getting you away from here, to a much better place. We will probably never see each other again.”
“No!” shouted Gyong-ho. She could not imagine life without the angel.
“Shhh!” The angel put her finger on Gyong-ho’s lips. “Listen. My sister runs an orphanage, and she has agreed to take you. It will be much better for you. Trust me. My boyfriend has agreed to help. His father is an important man, and he has a car and can arrange all the appropriate paperwork. My boyfriend will drive you to my sister, and she will take care of you.”
“I don’t want to leave you!” Gi watched herself say it, and saw wetness in her eyes from tears, but was unaware of feeling anything. The outburst had come from some distant part of her biology, where feeling must still be happening without her.
“You must. You will die if you stay here. I will miss you, Song Gyong-ho.”
Gi nodded.
The angel led her outside the compound, where a shiny black automobile was parked. She opened the back door and helped Gyong-ho inside. She then walked to the driver’s window and said a few brief words. Gyong-ho watched her recede as the car drove away.
33
IT WAS A LITTLE past dawn when the truck came to a wrinkle in the landscape. The high fence and razor wire that marked the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, came into view. The DMZ was an i
deological cleave splitting the Korean peninsula in half: communists in Pyongyang to the north, and capitalists in Seoul to the south. Flanked on either side by opposing and powerful militaries, the DMZ was a pair of parallel fences, approximately four kilometers apart, running along the thirty-eighth parallel from coast to coast. Between the electric fences was a terrifying gauntlet of land mines that made the prospect of crossing it in one piece a near impossibility, not to mention the guard towers with machine gun nests on both sides. The irony of this inflammable and politically charged barrier was that the complete lack of human activity between the fences created an amazing nature preserve where plants and birds thrived. The two Koreas had been facing off at the DMZ for roughly a half century: technically in a cease-fire with no peace agreement ever signed. The Korean war was still smoldering.
The young man guided the truck down a dirt track. He had hoped to make this approach under the cover of darkness, but there was nothing he could do about that now. His contacts in this region were high ranking and well lubricated with bribes, so anyone seeing him was likely to turn a blind eye; but one could never be too careful. It had been a close call at the last checkpoint. He aimed the truck down a steep gully and was glad for the truck’s high clearance and stout, knobby tires as he straddled rocks and rolled over large exposed roots. He would have been happier if the truck had had better leaf springs to absorb impact, but he was in no position to complain: He was lucky to have a truck at all. He almost felt sorry for the people riding on the rigid wooden planks in the back, who were most certainly bruised and miserable.
The landscape was stark and dusty, dotted with scrub and clumps of dry grasses. The rising sun painted the surroundings in pinks, reds, and gold, and cast long, blue shadows. It was going to be a warm spring day. A lone jet cut a long vapor trail across the otherwise cloudless sky.
The truck came to a stop at a small natural rock amphitheater where the dirt track dead-ended. The men got out and began clearing piles of deadfall away from the rock wall. In a few moments they had uncovered a cleverly concealed cave with a mouth large enough to fit two trucks side by side. It looked to Il-sun like an empty eye socket in a parched human skull. The young man came back to the truck and emptied the two duffels into the bed, spilling their civilian clothes on the dirty wood.
Gyong-ho raised her head and looked around, confused. “Where are we?” she asked.
“Gi!” Il-sun threw her arms around her. “I was so afraid for you! We are at the DMZ!”
“The DMZ? How did we get to the DMZ? Why?”
“I have to leave the country, Gi. I’m in trouble.”
“What happened? You can’t leave the country! That’s absurd!”
“I have to, Gi. I’ve been implicated in antirevolutionary activity. If I stay, I’ll end up in a prison camp for sure.”
“How did this happen? Why am I here?”
“I’m not sure. Foreman Hwang brought you when he delivered the truck. He was drunk and angry. I think you need to come too, Gi.”
“She has no choice,” interjected the young man. “This is a one-way trip.”
Gyong-ho’s brow furrowed deeply in an attempt to remember how she had gotten there. She remembered the foreman grabbing her arm—she was still sore there—but everything else was a muddle. She was too confused to feel scared. “But how will we get across the DMZ? Nobody can get across it. And besides, the Americans—”
“Everybody, listen up,” the young man interrupted. “Change back into your old clothes now. This tunnel will take us past the fence into the DMZ. Once we are there, you have to do exactly as I say. Step exactly where I step. If you stray off my path, you will probably step on a land mine and blow your legs off. I won’t stop to pick up the pieces. If we’re seen by either side, we will be shot on sight; so be quiet and don’t make any big, fast movements, is that clear?” He looked around and everyone nodded. “I have made this trip dozens of times and this route is secure. The natural features of the landscape will keep us mostly hidden. When we get close to the fence on the other side, there is another tunnel that will take us safely into South Korea. I have friends who will be waiting for us over there.”
“What about papers when we get to the other side?” asked Cho.
“My friends have taken care of all of that.”
“What about Gyong-ho? They aren’t prepared for her,” asked Il-sun.
“We will take care of that later. It won’t be a problem. The Hanguk are not as bothered with identification as the Chosun.”
They changed back into their clothes, except for Gyong-ho who was still in her factory uniform. The young man put the fatigues into the duffels and handed flashlights to the men of the group. He then passed the water jug around, and they all drank from it until it was empty. “Okay, follow me,” he commanded, lighting a cigarette. They made a line and filed into the tunnel. Gi grabbed Il-sun by the arm and stopped her.
“I have a very bad feeling about this. I’m scared,” Gi whispered.
“Our lives are going to be different. We just have to get used to that.”
“I don’t want to go. I didn’t agree to this!” As the reality of the journey they were about to embark upon dawned on her, she began to feel panicked.
“What’s holding you girls up, let’s go!” shouted the young man.
“I’m glad you’re here with me, Gi. It’s going to be okay,” said Il-sun.
“What are we going to do over there? The Hanguk are starving. We won’t know anybody; how will we eat? Who will look after us?”
“He will look after us, Gi,” Il-sun said, pointing at the young man. “Don’t worry. His friends will take us in and we can get jobs. He will probably work as a driver, and maybe we can work in another garment factory. He said it’s not as bad as we think over there. And besides, you heard him: There really isn’t a choice at this point. If you stay, where will you go? You’ll be stuck in the middle of nowhere without food or water. You have no travel papers. You will probably end up back at the prison camp.”
Gi shuddered. The prison camp. She remembered it clearly now. She found that she could sift through the memory, like going through ashes from a recently extinguished fire. She didn’t want to disturb the ashes too much, but for the first time she could look plainly into the memories. The demon was no longer pressing at her. She took a deep breath and clenched the hem of her blouse.
“Okay,” she said finally, seeing no other choice.
They walked into the cave, the light from the mouth of the tunnel getting smaller behind them. The smell of dry brush was replaced by the smell of damp earth.
“Why is the tunnel so big around?” Il-sun asked the young man.
“The Great Leader Kim Il-sung started digging this tunnel many years ago,” he replied. “He wanted tanks to be able to get through to the other side for when we reclaim the South. They got about a third of the way through the DMZ. I’m not sure why they stopped.”
“How did you learn about it?” asked Cho.
“I found it when I was in the military, when I was stationed near here.”
The four flashlights diluted the darkness. The ground was flat and smooth, having been made for vehicles, and easy to walk on. The tunnel was quite straight, though they could not see the end of it from the mouth. It was supported at regular intervals with large wooden beams; clearly great care had gone into the engineering and construction of it. Along the way there were inscriptions carved into the earthen walls commemorating workers who had died during construction, as well as proclamations of devotion to the Great Leader.
As they went deeper into the tunnel, the air became cooler and moister, and the darkness seemed to hang thicker around them. The air was stale and moldy, causing Gyong-ho to sneeze. Il-sun began to feel claustrophobic. About fifteen minutes into the journey they came across a red line painted around the circumference of the tunnel, and a sign that read Demilitarized Zone. “We’re crossing the northern border of the DMZ now,” the young man said.
“We will be out of the tunnel soon.” Several minutes later they could see a faint light in the distance. Il-sun was impressed by the undertaking of making such a long underground road, even if it was never fully completed. Surely the Americans and their puppet regime in Seoul could never construct anything so sophisticated. In another twenty minutes the grand tunnel tapered into a gradual earthen ramp heading toward a narrow opening into the light.
The young man halted the group before exiting the tunnel. “From this point forward, do exactly as I do and stay on my trail. There are land mines everywhere in the DMZ. Don’t speak unless you absolutely need to, and be as quiet as possible. If we do run into trouble, then run to the south fence. Your chances of survival are greater over there. If anyone gets shot, don’t stay behind with them. Just run.”
The group tensed. It dawned on them that soon they were going to be fully exposed on some of the most dangerous ground on earth. They followed the young man into the sunlight.
The sun had climbed and it was now late morning. The sky was still clear and the air was warm. The tunnel ended in a secluded depression in the earth that was hidden from either side of the DMZ. The air was alive with bird sounds and thick with the smell of foliage. The men cleared away a pile of dead brush from the side of the tunnel to reveal several wheelbarrows. Without a word, each of the accompanying men took a wheelbarrow and filed in line behind the young man, who was beginning to walk along a discernable path.
“What are those for?” Cho asked rather loudly, pointing to the wheelbarrows.
“Shut up, woman, we are in the DMZ!” came the harsh reply of the young man, looking back with a stern face.
As promised, the path was concealed by the folds of the landscape. The southern fence was visible only for brief moments, and at those places the path was well hidden by trees. The narrow trail was well worn. Obviously it had been used often. This part of the journey seemed so easy and the day was so lovely that the walk was actually enjoyable. Sooner than Il-sun had expected, the young man stopped the group in front of another tunnel entrance. This tunnel was much narrower than the last, and so low that it looked as though they were all going to have to crouch to walk inside.
All Woman and Springtime Page 12